British director says ‘shocking’ US poverty drove Cannes entry

CANNES, France (AFP) -- British filmmaker Andrea Arnold said Sunday the “shocking” poverty she saw travelling across America drove her to make her Cannes contender, and appreciate the relatively intact state of her own country’s social safety net.

“American Honey” stars maverick Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf and a cast of amateurs playing disadvantaged youths who shuttle from town to town selling magazine subscriptions in a country that has long abandoned print media for digital.

Arnold, 55, a former actress, won an Oscar for best short film in 2005 for “Wasp” and the jury prize at Cannes in 2009 for “Fish Tank” about a troubled teenager who has an affair with her mother’s boyfriend (Michael Fassbender).

For her latest film, a road movie and love story that drew a mixed reception, she criss-crossed the United States to find fresh faces for her cast.

“I got to see an awful lot as I was travelling and I got quite upset about some of the towns I went to, some of the poverty I saw,” Arnold told reporters.

“It seemed really different to me than in the U.K. because when people (in the U.S.) don’t have money, they can’t get health care -- things like going to the dentist. Those kind of things really shocked me.”

In “American Honey,” the “mag-crew” becomes a kind of stand-in family for its members, many of whom are fleeing homes wracked by sexual abuse and drug addiction.

They stay in cheap hotels and pass marijuana joints around in their van, watching prairie landscapes and strip malls race past the windows while Rihanna and hip-hop blast from the speakers.

  - ‘Their version of American dream’ -

  LaBeouf plays the team’s charismatic recruiter, who tells his new sales “agents” that they need to learn to become the people their potential buyers want them to be.

“On some level the ‘magcrew’ on the bus selling is a small, potted version of the American Dream,” said Arnold, one of 21 filmmakers vying for the Palme d’Or top prize in Cannes.

“They’re trying to make their version of the American Dream, they’re trying to make a living for themselves and they’re working hard at selling themselves which is what capitalism is all about really.”

LaBeouf, 29, said he had spent time with young travelling sales crews in the Pacific Northwest to prepare for the role but that the huge disparity of wealth in the U.S. had come as no surprise to him.

“This is not new information to me, so it’s not like I discovered that. In Bakersfield, where my father lived for a stint, the only thing there is a prison. So everybody works at the prison,” he said.

“I’m part of that underclass. That’s where I come from, so I know about it.”

LaBeouf, who made his Cannes debut in 2008 with “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, is notorious for his volatile temper and bizarre stunts in the spotlight.

But he was on his best behavior in Cannes, gamely dancing to rap on the red carpet with the boisterous cast, blissed-out by their first time at the world’s top film festival.

LaBeouf’s love interest in the film is played by much-praised newcomer Sasha Lane, an 18-year-old Texan who Arnold plucked from obscurity on the beach during spring break.

“I knew that she was someone important and that she would take care of me and that this wasn’t going to be a porn scam,” Lane said, drawing a big laugh from Arnold.