The 24-7 hype of the film festival bewitches Cannes, but Roland Tec lingers past midnight to discover the town beneath the trappings

I am running—well, walking at a clip. I've just arrived at the train station in Cannes, where my friend John Tilley greets me breathlessly. John is a 25-year veteran of the festival, a film distributor with an even temperament rarely encountered in this business. Breathless for him is slightly animated for the rest of us. "If we hurry, we might just make it to the Palais in time to pick up your badge. Oh! And I have terrific news! You may have a room at the Molière!"

Might pick up my badge? May have a room? I haven't been here two minutes and I've already run smack into Le Festival de Cannes's preferred answer to any query: peut-être. As for my friend, I've never seen John move this quickly. At one point I drop my folder, spilling pages of research all over the sidewalk. In a flash, he's there and it's all back in my arms; not one of the hundreds of people around us skips a beat. The streets I'm ushered through are not what I'd imagined. Narrow and cluttered, they offer a variety of unfamiliar homegrown storefronts. I'm immediately charmed and, were it not for our pressing business, might have suggested a stop or two.

It is not until we emerge onto the Croisette, Cannes's glittering beachfront drive, that we encounter the likes of Gaultier and Louis Vuitton. Disregarding them, we approach the Palais, a building affectionately referred to by festival veterans as "the bunker," which is an apt nickname: Beneath the colorful banners, it really is no more than a concrete box. I am now visibly perspiring. "Remember," John teases, "never let them see you sweat."

Ah, the grande dame! Her reputation precedes her, so I am hardly surprised when the festival staff inform us that, as it is "five minutes after seventeen hour," the office is closed. I will have to return to pick up my badge tomorrow. She is, after all, the festival of festivals. She waits for no one. Louisette Fargette, head of the press office for much of the event's 59-year history, perhaps puts it best: "When people hear Cannes, they think film festival, and when they hear film festival, they think Cannes."

This of course was not always the case. And although the festival has grown to eclipse its home, there are 50 other weeks in the year. I've come to explore that border between festival and town, and to that end I'll be staying on to witness the closing activities, the mass exodus of cinephiles, and to see what, if anything, is left in their wake.

But right now John informs me that having missed one deadline, we ought to rush to make another. And so we zigzag along the Croisette, dodging the other 5,000 or so celebrants, toward the Hotel Molière, where we hope to catch longtime manager Michel before he leaves for the evening.

"How long would you like to stay?" Michel is regarding his reservation book, employing it as a prop in order to size me up without my noticing. I do my best not to.