The 69th annual Festival du Cannes wraps up this weekend with reprise screenings of competition titles and the closing ceremony tomorrow evening at 7:15 PM (Cannes time so a handful of hours earlier here in NYC). Sean Penn's The Last Face starring Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron (pictured in all her androgynous chic, left, at the premiere), Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman (which takes its title from an in movie amateur production of Death of a Salesman), and Paul Verhoeven's Elle starring Isabelle Huppert were among the last titles to premiere. Don't expect The Last Face, which was met with hostility to show up in the prizes.
Here are the 21 competition titles loosely grouped by your hosts vague perceptions of how well received they were (you might group them differently as its my policy not to read full reviews from Cannes - which tend to be spoiler filled for films that are months away from release). George Miller's jury will name one of these the Palme D'Or winner, one the Jury Prize winner, and then we'll see who takes Director, Actress (we have a few ideas as to who might win), and Actor. Depending on how the jury plays it we might get a couple of other prizes, too...
So all that remains is for us to wonder which films Miller, Kiki Dunst, Mads Mikkelsen and the rest really took too, you know?
Very Well Received
• Graduation (Mungiu, Romania)
• Sieranevada (Puiu, Romania)
• Toni Erdmann (Ade, Germany)
Positive Reception but is there any "award this!" passion?
• Aquarius (Filho, Brazil)
• I, Daniel Blake (Loach, UK)
• The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, South Korea)
• Loving (Nichols, US)
• The Salesman (Farhadi, Iran)
• Paterson (Jarmusch, US)
• The Unknown Girl (The Dardenne Brothers, Belgium) ... but they always win something
Polarizing (?) but all you need is a few devout fans on the jury and being booed is more in-the-moment festival flavor than actual critical assessment
• American Honey (Arnold, UK)
• Elle (Verhoeven, France)
• Ma Loute (Dumont, France)
• Personal Shopper (Assayas, France)
• Staying Vertical (Guiraudie, France)
Muted Response
• Julieta (Almodóvar, Spain)
• Ma Rosa (Mendoza, The Phillipines)
Consensus Wasn't All That Friendly
• From the Land of the Moon (Garcia, France)
• It's Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan, Canada/France) - but keep in mind that he always wins something so who knows...
• The Last Face (Penn, US)
• The Neon Demon (Refn, Denmark/UK/France)
What to watch for in the prizes.
Jane Campion is the only female director to ever win the Palme D'Or (for The Piano in 1993) so all eyes should be on Maren Ade from Germany (Toni Erdmann) and Andrea Arnold (of Fish Tank fame) for American Honey to see if we finally have a second female auteur awarded. You should also start considering a lot of these titles in terms of possible Oscar submissions for their countries: Will Brazil submit Aquarius? How will Romania choose between its films (given that their festival exports are magically always well reviewed)? Will The Unknown Girl be the fifth Belgian submission from the Dardenne brothers and if so will Oscar ever nominate those two?
Nellie wins the Palm Dog
Other Juries
This year's Palm Dog (an unofficial jury award for the best dog in a movie) went to "Nellie" from Jim Jarmusch's Paterson. This is sadly a posthumous prize (the first ever for a Palm Dog) since Nellie passed away a couple of months ago. Can Adam Driver join her as a prize winner by taking Best Actor in the competition lineup?
The Cinefoundation jury (led by Naomi Kawase) announced their short film awards already.
1st Prize: Anna, Or Sinai (Israel, 24 minutes)
2nd Prize: In the Hills, Hamid Ahmadi (UK/Iran, 21 minutes)
3rd Prize: (tie) The Noise of Licking, Nadja Andrasev (Hungary, 9 minutes) *animated*
The Guilt, Probably, Michael Labarca (Venezuela, 14 minutes)
The Camera D'Or, the very coveted prize for new filmmakers, has its own jury since it pulls from several fields of titles - 23 films are eligible this year. The jury is led by director Catherine Corsini.