A Most Memorable Festival
A Word from the President
On the closing night of the 58th edition of the Festival de Cannes (11-22 May 2005), when president Gilles Jacob was asked to comment on the highlights of what was generally touted in the press and media as the most memorable festival in history, he promptly laid his cards on the table.
“This year’s Cannes will be remembered for breaking a lot of records: attendance, participation, guests, accreditations, you name it. Not all the facts and figures are in as yet, but we are fully aware of the emergence of a new style of international film festival.”
Pushed a bit further, he concluded: “This is the opposite of what André Malraux once said. We have shown that the industry of cinema is also an art.”
Asked about further expansion plans, Jacob countered with a shrug: “The idea is not to expand any more,” he said. “If we were to expand even more, then the facilities would be less easy to manage.”
He also appended this afterthought: “Furthermore, we have no plans to add new sections to those already in place.”
Asked what made this year’s festival memorable on a personal level, he waxed eloquent on “two beautiful moments.” The first was that Sunday afternoon in the Grand Théâtre Lumière – namely: “the séance des enfants, for young kings, 2000 kids, who received the magic of cinema during this screening.”
The other memorable moment for a festival president known for his commitment to film heritage, was “the final fireworks dedicated to Federico Fellini and Nino Rota – an absolute delight!”
Programme officiel
With 22 films competing for the Golden Palm, in addition to 14 entries running Out-of-Competition, plus 23 films in the backup Un Certain Regard section, there was less reason than ever before for the faithful to venture out of the Palais des Festivals to seek movie pleasure elsewhere on the Croisette. To make matters even more complicated, the Official Program was packed into ten screening days, leaving the last two days open for reruns of Un Certain Regard entries and Competition favorites. When artistic director Thierry Frémaux scheduled the three top winners for repeat screenings in the Grand Théâtre Lumière in the correct order of their award lineup on the day before they were so honored at the gala awards ceremonies – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s L’Enfant (The Child) (Golden Palm), Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers (Grand Prize), and Michael Haneke’s Caché (Hidden) (Best Director) – he simply followed the lead of critics on the voting charts.
One predominant trend was noted at this year’s Cannes festival. Thierry Frémaux clearly showed a preference for the works of veteran directors who had previously made a name for themselves at Cannes. Thus, instead of an emphasis on emerging talent from Asia and Latin America, as was the case last year, priority was given to such name directors as Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier (Manderlay), Gus van Sant (Last Days), Hou Hsiao Hsien (Three Times), Amos Gitai (Free Zone), David Cronenberg (A History of Violence), Wim Wenders (Don’t Come Knocking), and Atom Egoyan (Where the Truth Lies), plus Woody Allen (Match Point) and George Lucas (Star Wars – Episode III) in out-of-competition slots. As for the predominant theme in the Competition, it was about fathers seeking lost sons (Dardenne Brothers, Jarmusch, Wenders), or about people simply broken off from family ties (van Sant, Haneke, Gitai).
Palme d’Or Deux
The circle of double winners of the Palme d’Or widened when Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (awarded the Golden Palm in 1999 for Rosetta) joined Francis Ford Coppola (The Conversation, 1974, Apocalypse Now, 1979), Shohei Imamura (The Ballad of Narayama, 1983, The Eel, 1997), Emir Kusturica (When Father’s Away on Business, 1985, Underground, 1995), and Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror, 1988, Best Intentions, 1992) to become the fifth member of this rather exclusive club. On the other hand, the Belgian directors of L’Enfant (The Child) are hardly strangers to Cannes. Their La Promesse (The Promise), the story of a youth who rebels against an abusive father, was programmed in the Directors Fortnight at the 1996 Cannes festival, and from there it went on to win a bundle of awards at international festivals. In Rosetta an 18-year-old girl by fighting for any menial job she can get. In Le Fils (The Son), an official entry at the 2002 Cannes festival, a carpentry teacher in a trade school is confronted by the youth who had unintentionally killed his son. For his performance as a simple working-man wrestling with his own conscience, Olivier Gourmet was awarded Best Actor.
In L’Enfant the focus is on a young street-couple barely out of their teens who are the parents of a new-born baby – she happily, he just the opposite. When Bruno (Jérémie Renier), hits upon the idea of selling the baby to a mafia band, the decision crushes Sonia (Déborah Francois). The hyper-sensitive mother collapses on the spot, and is committed to a hospital. Bruno’s attempts to get the baby back lead to more calamities – until he finally awakens to the consequences of his actions. Asked where the idea for L’Enfant came from, the Dardennes responded: “From the streets. One day, we saw a young man wheeling a baby-buggy around the city, aimlessly, from corner to corner. From there we constructed a frame for the story.” A docu-drama about losers in the social system, L’Enfant raises as many questions as it hints of answers. But nonprofessional actors imbue this slice-of-life story with a cutting-edge intensity you don’t find in conventional social dramas.
Near Misses
The American entries, Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers and Tommy Lee Jones’s The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, stood head-high over the competition entries and deserved a bit more than they got from the jury. Broken Flowers, awarded the Grand Jury Prize, features a deadpan Bill Murray as a retired Don Juan whose latest girlfriend (Julie Delpy) is about to leave him. Nudged from his indolence by a mysterious pink letter that informs him of the probable arrival of a “fatherless” 19-year.old son, the news leaves him wondering which of his old flames had sent the letter. But thanks to a persistent neighbor, who supplies him with a list of old girlfriends, he sets out on an odyssey across the country to meet the women in question: Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton. A hilarious comedy that still has you laughing as you leave the theater, Broken Flowers is as much Bill Murray’s film as it is Jim Jarmusch’s. “I didn’t have many lines,” said Murray at the press conference. “All I had to do was to react to the beatings I got from the women.”
As for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, for which Tommy Lee Jones was awarded Best Actor and Mexican novelist-scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) the award for Best Screenplay, the film confirmed Jones as a budding directorial talent as well. Jones plays a ranch foreman with a trigger temperament. His friendship with a Mexican wetback on the ranch – “Melquiades (Julio Cesar Cedillo) is one good Mexican” – prompts him to take revenge on a guilty border guard (Barry Pepper) who had killed the wetback by accident and then buried him on the spot. After the second burial in the town cemetery, Jones digs the body up again and sets out, with the killer in tow, on a journey of expiation across the border to a place that, in the end, exists only in the dead man’s imagination. Shot partially on the open desert range of Jones’s own ranch in West Texas, the film benefits from its magnificent cinematography (Chris Menges), in which the landscape plays in integrating role in this meandering tale of moral atonement.
Funny Video Games
“Victims interest me more than perpetrators,” said Michael Haneke on the making of La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) (2001). “Women are more interesting because they’re further down the line in the pecking order. Men bore me.” So why is the victim in Caché (Hidden) (France/Austria) a man? Dig a big further, however, and you discover in Hidden that the victim had once been a perpetrator himself. Georges (Daniel Auteuil), a noted literary guru on French television receives a mysterious videotape that could only come from a person who knows him like a book. As the story unfolds, and more tapes arrive, his wife (Juliette Binoche) is drawn into the riddle of a hidden secret in the man’s life. Disturbing dreams and flashbacks reveal that Georges in his childhood had committed a grievous offence against an orphaned Algerian boy who was living in the family house. That’s about as far as the psycho-thriller goes, for the rest is little more than a teasing psychogram of a man’s nagging conscience. Awarded Best Director at Cannes, backed up by FIPRESCI (International Critics) and Ecumenical Prizes, Hidden was also the favorite of French critics for the Palme d’Or in the daily voting chart of Le Film Francais.
Ever since his Funny Games drove viewers from their seats at the 1997 Cannes festival, Michael Haneke has found an artistic home in France. A weird tale about a pair of murderous psychopaths toying with their victims before killing them, Funny Games was followed a year later by the more accessible Code inconnu (Code Unknown), starring Juliette Binoche as the standard Haneke victim. On the surface a chronicle about the socially alienated and the psychologically disturbed peopling the streets and metros of Paris, Code Unknown offers a harsh portrait of urban ethics found in European capitals. He said in an interview that he wanted the audience to feel the coldness of the consumer society, the incapacity of social classes to intercommunicate, the fears emanating from xenophobia and prejudice, the Babylonian confusion of languages, and the media’s clichés about winners and the losers. That same aesthetic was followed in Hidden, only this time the ethical, moral, and psychological issues are transferred entirely to the mind of the viewer. For those cineastes looking for a hidden link between Caché and Haneke films of the past, then try Benny’s Video (1992). In that film, as well as in Hidden, the couple’s teenaged son is rarely seen without a trusty video gun in his hand.
Mythical America
No other director worked as hard as Wim Wenders to win the Palme d’Or. The same is true of Lars von Trier, save that the Danish director works just as hard to give the impression that he couldn’t care less. Both had won the Golden Palm before: Wenders for Paris, Texas (1984), Trier for Dancer in the Dark (2000). Both films had been set in a mythical America of their own creation. Wenders returned to Cannes this year with Don’t Come Knocking (Germany/France), a kind of update of Paris, Texas, according to press releases leading up to the festival. Wenders appeared on the front page of the Le Monde edition for and about the Cannes entries. The prestigious German weekly, Die Zeit, featured Wim’s own remembrances of his many visits to Cannes, particularly the night he played flipper (“to calm my nerves”) on a pin-ball machine in the Petit Carlton Bar on the night of the Paris, Texas premiere two decades ago. Even Sam Shepard was back, not just as screenwriter but this time as Howard Spence, the burnt-out Western star who gallops off the set in the middle of production. All to no avail. Don’t Come Knocking was passed over completely by the Cannes jury. With good reason: shot partially in Moab, Utah (John Ford country), partially in Butte, Montana (Dashiell Hammett country), it comes across as a backlot Western – a film of pretense and pretending, one without much depth or any visible purpose.
Lars von Trier’s Mandalay (Denmark/Sweden/Netherlands/UK), the second episode of his heralded American trilogy, is supposedly set on a Southern plantation, named Mandalay, in 1933. Filmed again on that black-lacquered floor in an abandoned Swedish machine factory, painted with the names of streets and buildings to identify locations, it’s the same set he used for Dogville (Cannes, 2003). As for its thematic focus, let’s just say that there is evil lurking behind the facade of this American community in Alabama, the same as came to the surface in his Rocky Mountain tale set in the mythical town Dogville. Here, the slave trade in the cotton fields hasn’t changed much in the 70 years since Abe Lincoln proclaimed their emancipation – in fact, the slaves seem to like it this way. Shot with a shaky digital camera (apparently an auteur aesthetic), Mandalay picks up where Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard, instead of Nicole Kidman) left off in Dogville – who is left on her own again by her gangster father (Willem Dafoe, instead of James Caan) and tries in her own timid but determined way to right the wrongs perpetrated on a blind humanity in an otherwise unjust world. In the end, of course, she loses. As for the third part of the trilogy, we may have to wait a couple years. Lars von Trier announced at Cannes that he wants to take time to shoot another kind of movie.
Tone Poems
Several entries at Cannes defy description. Gus van Sant’s Last Days (USA) comes across as the end piece in a HBO trilogy of “tone poems” about the distortions in modern American culture. Shortly to be programmed at the Museum of Modern Art, the trilogy began with Gerry (2002), about two youths wandering aimlessly in the desert. It was followed by Elephant (Cannes, Palme d’Or, 2003), about the Columbine high school massacre. And now it is topped by a film that deals with the tragic death of Kurt Cobain, the recording star who died from an overdose.
According to a statement by Hou Hsaio Hsien, his Three Times (Taiwan) is a “chant of love” set in three periods of time – 1911, 1966, 2005 – in a trilogy of similar stories starring the same actors (Shu Qi and Chang Chen). The 1911 episode, the center-piece of the film, is presented as a would-be silent movie with the dialogue rendered in inter-titles. The idea is to pay homage to the bliss of memories and those unforgettable moments now lost forever.
Amos Gitai’s Free Zone (Israel/France/Spain/Belgium) is a journey that three women of different cultures and background take in a van from Jerusalem to the so-called “Free Zone” in Jordan. Nothing much happens in the story, save that the trip is being made to pick up a bundle of money owed to Hanna (Hanna Laszlo, an Israeli, by her husband’s partner (“the American”). Along the way, Hanna is joined by Rebecca (Nathalie Portman), an American with a Jewish father but minus the required Jewish mother to be a true Israeli, has just broken off her engagement with her boyfriend and simply wants to get out of the country. And Leila (Carmen Maura), a Palestinian, joins the circle to explain why the money has simply disappeared. Hanna Laszlo, given most of the dialogue in this talking-head drama of politics and survival in a time and place beyond the reach of most in the audience, was awarded Best Actress at Cannes.
Finally, there was Carlos Reygadas’s intriguing though disturbing Batalla en el cielo (Battle in Heaven) (Mexico), a poetic film of such extremes of visual and verbal vulgarity that it is saved from the label of outright pornography only by the aesthetics of daring cinematic creativity. Reygadas’s first feature, Japòn (Mexico/Spain), a Directors Fortnight entry at 2002 Cannes festival, received a special mention in the Camera d’Or competition, thus confirming him as a director to watch. In Battle in Heaven he attacks such institutions as the church, the military, and the state in a tale of sex and violence. Marcos (Marcos Hernandez), a simple man who chauffeurs a general and obeys every wish of his promiscuous daughter, kidnaps a neighbor’s child for ransom and is then is troubled when the child accidentally dies. In his fumbling search to clear his conscience, he confesses his crime to Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), the general’s daughter, whose sexual appetites he has been satisfying upon request. It leads to a crime greater than the first. This ongoing “battle in heaven” is played out against a background of worship on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
PRIZES AND AWARDS
Official Competition
Palme d’Or: L’Enfant (The Child) (Belgium), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Grand Prix: Broken Flowers (USA), Jim Jarmusch
Best Director: Michael Haneke, Caché (Hidden) (France/Austria/Germany/Italy)
Best Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (USA), dir Tommy Lee Jones
Best Actress: Hanna Laszlo, Free Zone (Israel), dir Amos Gitai
Best Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (USA), dir Tommy Lee Jones
Jury Prize: Shanghai Dreams (China), Wang Xiaoshuai
Short Film Awards
Palme d’Or: Podorozhini (Wayfarers) (Ukraine), Igor Strembitskyy
Jury Prize: Clara (Australia), Van Sowerwine (animation)
Caméra d’Or (ex aequo)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (USA), Miranda July (Critics Week)
Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) (Sri Lanka/France), Vimukthi Jayasundara (Un Certain Regard)
Cinéfondation Awards
First Prize: Buy It Now (USA), Antonio Campos
Second Prize: (ex aequo)
Vdvoyom (A Deux) (France), Nikolay Khomeriki
Bikur Holim (Visiting Hours) (Israel), Maya Dreifuss
Third Prize: (ex aequo)
La plaine (The Field) (France), Roland Edzard
Be Quiet (USA), Sameh Zoabi
OTHER AWARDS
Prix Vulcain (Technical Award)
Leslie Shatz, for sound design on Last Days (USA), dir Gus van Sant
Robert Rodriquez, for visual treatment on Sin City (USA), dir Robert Rodriquez
International Critics (FIPRESCI) Awards:
Competition: Caché (Hidden) (France/Austria/Germany/Italy), Michael Haneke
Un Certain Regard: Sangre (Mexico), Amat Escalante
Directors Fortnight: Ju-meok-i-woon-da (Crying Fist) (South Korea), Ryoo Seung-wan
Ecumenical Award
Caché (Hidden) (France/Austria/Germany/Italy), Michael Haneke
Special Mention
Delwende (Get Up and Walk) (Burkino Faso/France/Switzerland), S. Pierre Yameogo
UN CERTAIN REGARD AWARDS
Prix Un Certain Regard:
Moartea Domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) (Romania), Cristi Puiu
Prix de l’Intimité
Le Filmeur (Filmman) (France), Alain Cavalier
Pris de l’Espoir
Delwende (Get Up and Walk) (Burkino Faso/France/Switzerland), S. Pierre Yameogo
DIRECTORS FORTNIGHT AWARDS
Carosse d’Or (Award of Honor by Film Directors Society)
Ousmane Sembene
3ème Label Europa Cinéma (Award to European film for distribution in Europe)
La Moustache (France), Emmanuel Carrère
Prix Art & Essai CICAE (Arthouse Award)
Sisters In Law (UK), Kim Longinotto, Florence Ayisi
3ème Prix Regards Jeunes
Alice (Portugal), Marco Martins
Mention spéciale des Cinémas de Recherche
Odette (Portugal), João Pedro Rodrigues
Prix SACD du court métrage
Du soleil en hiver (France), Samuel Collardey
Prix Gras Savoye
À bras le corps (France), Katell Quillévéré
CRITICS’ WEEK AWARDS
Grand Prix & Caméra d’Or
Me and You and Everyone We Know (USA), Miranda July
Prix SACD (ex aequo)
Unmei Janai Hito (A Stranger of Mine) (Japon), Uchida Kenji
La Petite Jérusalem (Little Jerusalem) (France), Karin Albou
ACID Award
Mang Zhong (Grain in Ear) (China/South Korea), Zhang Lu
Canal + Award for Best Short Film
Jona / Tomberry (Netherlands), Rosto
Kodak Discovery Award for Best Short Film
Respire (Taiwan), Wi Ding Ho
TV5 (Very) Young Critic Award for Best Short Film
Respire (Taiwan), Wi Ding Ho
TV5 (Very) Young Critic Award for Best Feature Film (ex aequo)
Unmei Janai Hito (A Stranger of Mine) (Japan), Ushida Kenji
Me and You and Everyone We Know (USA), Miranda July
TV5 Award for Best French Critic
Ombline Ley, Laura Jude, Mathieu Bossy of Lycée Bristol de Cannes for Critique of Mang Zhong (Grain in Ear) (China/South Korea), dir Zhang Lu
TV5 Award for Best German Critic
Alexander Koch, Mira Möll et Anjana Siwert of Friedrich-Magnus Gesamtschule Laubach for their critique of Unmei Janai Hito (A Stranger of Mine) (Japan), dir Ushida Kenji
OTHER PRIZES
Prize Regards Jeunes for Best Feature Film
Me and You and Everyone We Know (USA), Miranda July
Petit Rail d’Or for Best Short Film
Imago (France/Belgium), Cédric Babouche
Rail d’Or for Best Feature Film
Unmei Janai Hito (A Stranger of Mine) (Japan), Ushida Kenji
End
