John Wayne and U2 in 3-D, the Iranian revolution in 2-D and Catherine Deneuve in the flesh. Does a week at the movies get any more Appearing at the Cannes premiere of Ga l Morel's "Apres Lui," the performance as a mother confronting the loss of her son. A day later, all ears were turned to another Deneuve vehicle, "Persepolis," an animated film in which she gives voice to a mother coping with separation from her daughter, played by Deneuve's real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni.

tale with a fizzy, self-revelatory wit that confirms what we always suspected: The hopes, urges and pop musical tastes of teenage girls are basically the same the world over. Much as I admired Satrapi's verve and creativity, however, I couldn't get entirely with the program of her visually monochromatic, not to say montonous, film, which all too often felt like an illustrated "Contemporary Iranian History for Dummies." The noncompetition "Apres Lui" was much more of a bourgeois entertainment, but I appreciated its more limited attention span.

Deneuve plays a book dealer who, after her son is killed in an auto accident, transfers the burden of her Rampling, and the transcendent star of "Belle de Jour" and "Repulsion" charges Oresteia. Deneuve may have taken on a bit of matronly weight, but when she lets her hair down for a sensuous and disturbing final close-up, the good-old bad "Apres Lui" shared terrain with the competition entry "The Edge of Heaven," '70s European bombshell triumphs in matriarchal guise. Hanna Schygulla behind, in this case her late daughter's Turkish girlfriend.

crosscurrents between his two cultures, as embodied by his Germany-to-Turkey-trotting male protagonist (Tuncel Kurtiz, giving a pensive performance). Fans of his break-out film, "Head On," may find the more forgiving tone of Akin's new film a little disconcerting. But as "The Edge of Heaven" reminds us, forgiveness can be one of the toughest, and thus most meaningful, of human transactions.

Amid this abundance of complex, interfamilial emotion and bravura European acting, I found it something of a relief to purge the system with a John Wayne picture. I've always been fond of "Hondo," a modest 1953 oater directed by John Farrow, but never thought it to be in the same ranks as "The Searchers" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." But then I never saw it in 3-D, with rifle butts For sheer glamour, the screening of "Hondo" may have been slightly eclipsed by the big U2 concert ushering in the new rock concert film, "U2-3D.

" But the this gloriously restored print, which creates an intoxicating spatial between the star and a young Geraldine Page, making a fetching film debut.