Yes, I know that Cannes is reckoned a citadel of capital-C cinemah, and yes I know that it’s famous for premiering art movies from all over the world. So it may sound a bit odd when I tell you that one of the best films showing here—maybe even the best—is a Hollywood action movie that’s opening tomorrow in the U.S.

But I’m just back from this morning screening of Mad Max: Fury Road by the veteran Australian director George Miller, and I can only say that it’s one of the purest pieces of filmmaking virtuosity you’ll see anywhere. Set in a post-apocalyptic world run by thuggish armies, it stars Tom Hardy and a superb Charlize Theron as two tough-but-honorable renegades trying to escape along with a group of young women who’ve been held as slaves. That’s the whole plot, which is basically an excuse for long chase-and-battle sequences in trucks, cars, tanks, and motorbikes across inhospitable landscapes tinged gold or blue. This buzzsaw of action scenes is so dazzlingly original that it makes your Dark Knight, Avengers, and Spider Man showdowns look trite, dull, and unimaginative. (Unlike them, Miller made this stuff up rather than taking it from comic books.)

Normally, when this kind of populist crowd-pleaser plays at Cannes—like Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Jones—it’s showered with boos from an audience that thinks of it as the embodiment of evil. Here, viewers not only applauded at the end, but even during the movie each time a bravura sequence came to an end. One famous critic even declared it “the best movie ever made.” Even if you don’t normally like action pictures, Mad Max will astound you. It’s a shame it’s not in competition. I can almost imagine the jury—headed by the Coen Brothers, who know good directing—giving it the Palme d’Or. But only almost. This is Cannes, after all.

And it is the enduring genius of Cannes that it is always the same—crowds thronging the Croisette to get a glimpse of the stars, enormous billboards plugging movies you’ll never hear of again, TV cameras pushing into your face after screenings to get your reaction—yet it somehow manages to make every year feel different. One small way is with the official satchel they give everyone who’s part of the festival. Its omnipresence makes it one of the year’s trademarks—sometimes unhappily so, when the design is some shiny white plastic that looks like go-go boots from the sixties. The 2015 version is a real keeper. It looks like a classic child’s schoolbag but in bright blue—as if it had been designed by Wes Anderson. Civilians can see or even buy it here.