One of the biggest running jokes among our group at the Cannes Film Festival was Venice festival regular Jia Zhangke's in-competition debut "24 City." 

A combination documentary and fiction film, "24 City" chronicles the closing of an aeronautic factory in rural China. Once again, I had been duped by the Cannes program, which made the film sound as if it was a fictional story of a small Chinese community. That I could dig. But this combination business creates a disjoint from the viewer and the story: if this is a documentary but some pieces aren't real, how can you understand what truly happened and how people were really affected? 

The story is told by talking heads in front of a stationary camera, and though many critics praised it as a simple but effective personal story, the only positive thing I can say about the film is that it provided me with the opportunity to sneak a much-needed nap. Resting my head against that carpeted column in the back row of the Lumiere Theater, I silently and unconsciously thanked Zhangke for creating a film so boring and quiet that I was able to catch up on days of missed rest.