Former Palme d’Or winner Gus Van Sant returns to the main competition at Cannes this year with a film which bears some similarities with his 2003 prize-winner, Elephant. A similarly photogenic teen milieu is shot with fluid, graceful camerawork; a non-linear structure slots together like a puzzle to reveal the panicked mindset of a boy under a great deal of stress.

Adapted from the Portland, Oregon-set novel by Blake Nelson, the film tells of a horrific fatal accident from the point of view of the teenager who caused it and who is struggling to come to terms with his culpability and guilt. Alex (Gabe Nevins) at first comes across as an archetypal floppy monotonal adolescent. There’s a skateboard permanently grafted to his feet, and a vacant expression on his face. He peers through his fringe like some kind of shy woodland creature. But his shell-shocked demeanour conceals an inner turmoil with which he’s ill-equipped to cope. Alex was out of his depth even before he accidentally caused the death of a rail yard security man – a tentative presence loitering on the fringes of the hard core, outlaw skater community, he’s like the playground loner who wants to hang out with the big kids.

Like many of the cast members, Nevins is a non-professional actor – Van Sant apparently recruited much of his cast through MySpace. And while Nevins’ underplayed approach to the mute, miserable realisation of the mess his character is in is rather effective, some of the other non-professionals are less successful. Not all of the non-actors are unknown however. Alex’s father is played in a cameo appearance by professional skateboarder Jay ‘Smay’ Williamson, and his uncle is played by cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose appearance on screen caused a ripple of amusement in the Cannes audience.

Doyle’s main contribution to the film is from behind the camera, however. It’s a characteristically handsome piece of work, shot on both 35mm and, for the skating footage, on Super 8. There’s perhaps a little too much of that Doyle trademark from his Wong Kar Wai collaborations, the languid slow motion sequence, for example. But for the most part, Doyle contributes a lot to this atmospheric mood piece without, as can be the case with some of his recent projects, creatively dominating the film.

Van Sant’s soundtrack choices are beyond eclectic, veering chaotically from thrash metal to classical, country and western to orchestral jazz. It’s as if he chose them using his Ipod shuffle, but the sheer unpredictability brings an interesting dimension to the film. It’s a device which deliberately unbalances the audience.

It is worth mentioning that this is the first film in the festival which addresses the war in Iraq, albeit through an abortive attempt at a debate between one politically motivated teen with a rather more apathetic friend. It’s not going to appease the critics who wonder why cinema has been largely silent on a issue which has dominated the news for the last four years, but it’s a start.

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