US actor Brad Pitt (L) and US film director Quentin Tarantino pose during a photocall for the film “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” at the 72nd edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 22, 2019. (Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP) (Photo credit should read VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)

Think about how long seven minutes is: You could complete one Kayla Itsines exercise sequence. You could boil an egg. You could reply to seven lingering texts. Yes, it is a considerable amount of time. If you were in Cannes this week, however, and watched Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, you would have stood, clapping rapturously, for seven minutes.

Let’s be clear here: A seven-minute standing ovation for anything is a really long time. But by Cannes Film Festival standards, this ain’t nothing. In Cannes, it’s truly as short as we realised Brad Pitt actually is this week (5 foot 11).

To the rest of us, the applause lasted so long the film’s stars Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t really know what to do for at least three of those seven minutes, as seen in this video:

Also, whoever took this video got so close to the actors, it’s awkward – and bizarre.

Looking to history, you’ll see the longest standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival happened in 2006 after the film Pan’s Labyrinth showed. Audiences clapped for an incomprehensible 22 minutes. In 2004, Michael Moore’s political documentary Farenheit 9/11’s applause lasted for 20 minutes while the 2012 film Mud starring Matthew McConaughey comes in third place with cheers lasting 18 minutes. Even Tarantino’s World War II drama, Inglourious Basterds, won a healthy 11-minute standing ovation in 2009.

It makes Rocketman’s five-minute standing ovation earlier this week look terrible.

But are standing ovations at the world’s most reputable festival a true measure of how good a film us? Or are they played out on purpose? It’s just all getting too long.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood releases in Australian cinemas on August 15.