I’ve been following the events at this year’s Cannes film festival diligently for the last 12-ish days, and the news of how many great films, controversy and surprise has come out of France this year has been staggering.
But the biggest news of all was announced today when Terrence Malick’s highly anticipated family drama/sci-fi “The Tree of Life” was awarded the festival’s top prize, the Palme D’Or, by a jury led by Robert De Niro.
Malick, who previously won the Best Director award for “Days of Heaven,” is a notorious recluse and did not attend the festival, allowing his producers and star Brad Pitt to speak in his place. This marks the first time an American film has won the Palme since 2004 with Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” and the first time an English language film has won since 2006 with Ken Loach’s “The Wind that Shakes the Barley.”
As for other American winners, Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress for her film “Melancholia.” In the film, she plays a woman about to get married as another planet is set on a collision course with the Earth. This is a real surprise following the outrage over the comments of the film’s director, Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier. Von Trier made some distasteful jokes in which he declared himself a Nazi and claimed he sympathized with Hitler. He also made derogatory comments about Jewish and fellow Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (“In A Better World”) and said, “Israel is a pain in the ass.” Following everything he said (and Dunst’s real performance was not losing it during the press conference as she sat next to him), Cannes declared Von Trier a “persona non grata” and banned him from the festival.
Dunst beat out the much buzzed about performance by Oscar winner Tilda Swinton in the British drama “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” about the grieving of a mother after her son goes on a killing spree in his high school.
There was massive acclaim for the victory of comedian Jean Dujardin in the Best Actor category. Dujardin’s film “The Artist” was very hyped at this year’s festival despite being out of competition. This is for the reason that the film is actually shot in black and white and is silent. The film takes place in the ’20s and follows a silent film star struggling to make it into a business with talkies. This is the movie’s first step on its road to the Oscars, where buyer Harvey Weinstein is confident it will perform brilliantly.
The second place Grand Jury prize was in fact split between two films this year. The first was by Cannes favorites the Dardenne brothers and their film “The Kid With a Bike” and Turkish Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s drama “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.” Third place went to female director Maiwenn’s “Polisse” about a journalist covering a police beat.
The Best Director prize went to Nicolas Winding Refn of “Drive.” The film is a noir set in Los Angeles starring Ryan Gosling as a stunt driver being chased by hit men. And the Best Screenplay award went to the Israeli film “Footnote,” about a rival father and son both competing for a scholarly prize.
And these were just the winners. There was a big fuss over Julia Leigh’s “Sleeping Beauty,” which some loved and others heralded as perverse. I wrote in my Cannes preview that the film starred Emily Browning of “Sucker Punch,” and some critics have claimed that this film is actually not too different from Zack Snyder’s blockbuster. Gus Van Sant’s out of competition film “Restless” was compared to “Blue Valentine” in terms of quality and concept. Pedro Almodovar’s revenge drama “The Skin I Live In” starring Antonio Banderas as a plastic surgeon turned some heads. Takashi Miike’s samurai saga “Ichimei” was the first 3-D film in competition. And the opening film of the ceremony “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen’s new film, received some of his best reviews of the last decade and is set to open in the U.S. later this month.