How I gatecrashed The Great Gatsby

SERIAL gatecrasher and amateur filmmaker describes how he talked his way into The Great Gatsby premiere and after party.

AMATEUR Sydney filmmaker Garnet Mae is a serial gatecrasher.

He's talked his way into parties in London, New York, and, of course Sydney.

But his latest, and perhaps biggest gatecrashing moment came this week at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Here, the quirky director tells how he and a mate managed to wrangle their way into The Great Gatsby premiere and after party, rubbing shoulders with the biggest names in the business.

"AS an Australian watching the second global premiere of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby at the opening night of the Cannes film festival, I was harbouring mixed feelings of fear and excitement.

Baz's last spectacular spectacular, Australia, far from lived up to the expectation of its nation stealing title.

I'd read the US reviews, some positive, most damning and had appreciated that it had done well at the box office.

Getting into the premiere was no small feat as tickets were the hottest item at this year’s festival.

Yes I’m boasting but I’d consider myself a seasoned professional at blagging into parties in Cannes. My producer, Peter Furst, and I tried our luck on the red carpet with fake VIP passes we'd dodgily mocked-up in Australia.

They got us through the first line of security, but the second dug their heals in and refused to let us walk the red carpet as two vintage cars decked out with flappers and gents in 20's regalia flew past.

It was pelting with rain.

Ever persistent, we tried a back door and ended up in a carpark.

We eventually made it to a side entrance, and with sweat on our brows we flashed our fake passes and miraculously waltzed into the magic of the Palais des Festivals.

The opening ceremony was about to begin and the Gatsby cast were taking their seats.

The divine Audrey Tautou introduced the president of this year’s jury, a little known film maker from the US named Steven Spielberg.

The rest of his jury took their seats and we had the pleasure of watching possibly the greatest show reel of all time.

The clip started with a scene from E.T, jumped to a shot of a giant shark appearing to mount a boat, flirted through cinema dreams from Schindler's List and  Raiders of the Lost Ark to Saving Private Ryan and Jurassic Park. There’s no one better than Spielberg.

We don our 3D glasses and settle in to appreciate the latest incarnation of F.Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby.

The first 20 minutes were nothing short of magnificent.

Luhrmann's strokes of colour, design, camera movement, style and fun had me warped into a 3D wonderland in a way that I had not experienced since the game changing, Avatar.

Tobey Maguire is perfectly cast as the narrator, Nick Carraway, and Joel Edgerton is equally brilliant as the dastardly Tom Buchanan.

Edgerton, as an Aussie that has not quite made the Hollywood A-list yet, he holds his own among the gems and delivers some mighty blows as the film's villain.

After a further 20 minutes, we are finally introduced to Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby himself. He is perfectly cast. DiCaprio’s opening smile is oh-so charming, he clutches us gently and doesn't let go, seducing with his charm, wealth and attention.

Unfortunately the film takes a turn for the mediocre in the mid section and is just plain boring by the end.

I actually slept through the last five minutes.

While the film's excessively long duration of two hours and 20 min is partly to blame, so too could my 48 hour flight to Cannes from Sydney via China.

Luhrmann’s Gatsby is definitely worth seeing for the opening sequences alone.

The over the top art direction and the beautiful costumes are ‘eyegasmic’. The cast is faultless. Carey Mulligan is to die for and Isla Fisher is unrecognisable in her brilliant portrayal of Buchanan's harlot, Myrtle Wilson.

After several minutes of standing ovation, Furst and I walk out of the premiere following a couple of well-to-do yanks down a back flight of stairs and into a waiting limousine.

Turns out the Americans are none other than Vincent Maguire, Tobey's dad and his best friend, Ryan.

The limo drops us at the opening night gala dinner and after some initial rejection by the wonderfully engaging security, they finally let Maguire Snr. and his mate walk in.

When I am blocked by security, Ryan turns and confirms that I am with him, "thanks buddy, I owe ya one!"

The dinner is a splendid sit down affair prepared by one of France's premiere chefs.

Unfortunately there were no spare seats for Furst and I but we make do and mingle about.

It is a filmmakers paradise and I can’t hide my grin.

One table seats the Gatsby players, another houses Spielberg, Nicole Kidman, Christoph Waltz and the rest of the jury.

Furst and I cirlce the room wide eyed and eager.

We humbly say hello to Sacha Baron Cohen, Tautou and Edgerton.

Dessert was several species of chocolate topped with a flaming spirit. Apparently the red wine was a particularly good vintage.

We bum a seat at a table housing some French filmmakers and a charming eccentric Italian director named Giuseppe.

Furst swigs some wine, I down some more chocolate and we are ready for a short limo ride to the official after party, the one we had pretty much flown to Cannes to attend.

Again, we didn't have passes, but it was raining and the security appreciated that we’d come in one of the festival’s official limo’s so we again waltzed straight in.

It was fun, but it certainly wasn’t what we were expecting. There were no inflatable zebras and only a handful of flappers.

The real action took place in a VIP section, which I managed to talk my way into.

“Do you feel more or less like Gatsby after having played him?" I question DiCaprio.

"What are you, a journalist?" he enquires, "That's a fairly thought out question."

"No, I'm a filmmaker from Australia and a sometime actor and whenever I play a role, part of the character stays with me."

"Nah" he answers, "I don't feel anything like him, he's a hollowed out skeleton of a man."

He suggests he was more Gatsby in his younger days. I congratulate Maguire and ogle at the brood of dashingly good looking and well dressed female admirers, hovering like vultures nearby DiCaprio.

I hit the dance floor, teach a couple of interns my recently acquired Charleston skills and shake Luhrmann's hand.

"I'm not always a fan, but for parts of the film tonight, you had me believing that you were a true master of the game."

His response: "All I can do is give it my best."

And indeed he did."