by Nathaniel R
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS
The world's most famous film festival wrapped today in the South of France after 10 days of celebrity glamour, arthouse flexing, and critical divisions. As with last year a big thank you to our Italian friend and contributor Elisa Giudici for her on-the-ground coverage. She reviewed all of the films that were given prizes! The links for the new films go to Elisa's reviews. Links on older films will take you to past coverage from various writers.
Vincent Lindon's jury didn't seem to come to clear unanimous agreements since there were two different ties. Of the 21 competition features 10 won prizes...
PALME D'OR Ruben Östlund's Triangle of Sadness. This satire of the über-wealthy, models and influencers, on a cruise ship, marks the second Palme for the Swedish director. The first was The Square (2017) which went on to six wins at the European Film Awards as well as an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. The latter won't happen this time since Triangle of Sadness is in the English language with a multi-national cast that includes actors from America (Woody Harrelson) the UK (Harris Dickinson), South Africa (Charibi Dean Kriek) and Scandinavian countries.
No director has won the Palme three times but Östlund joins an elite group of nine that have won it twice: Francis Ford Coppola, The Dardenne brothers, Shoei Imamura, Ken Loach, Michael Haneke, Emir Kusturica, and fellow Scandinavian Bille August. Östlund is only 48 but August, Kusturica, and Coppola were all even younger when they accomplished this incredible feat! (Coppola holds the all time youngest to win twice record. He was just 40 when he won the second time for Apocalypse Now. His first was for The Conversation)
STARS AT NOON
THE GRAND PRIX (TIE) This prize, essentially "second place", went to both Lukas Dhont's warmly received adolescent drama Close from Belgium and the poorly reviewed Claire Denis' film Stars at Noon, which like Triangle of Sadness, is in English instead of the director's native tongue. (We have to keep track of these things for our International Feature Film coverage, don'cha know.) Regarding the Stars at Noon selection... Cannes jury choices are often a reminder that film industry players have different tastes than film critics as well as (naturally) personal connections to other filmmakers. Vincent Lindon, the jury president this year, has co-starred in three Claire Denis films (Friday Night, Bastards, and this year's other Denis picture Fire).
JURY PRIZE (TIE) Jerzy Skolimowski's EO, a buzzy Polish drama about a donkey, and The Eight Mountains from the Belgian filmmakers behind the Oscar nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown.
It'll be interesting to see what Belgium submits to the Oscars this year since they already have two viable well-reviewed and awarded options from filmmakers they've previously submitted via Close and The Eight Mountains. On the other hand The Eight Mountains is an Italian co-production with Italian stars so perhaps Italy will consider it?
DECISION TO LEAVE
DIRECTOR Park Chan-wook took this prize for his ecstatically-reviewed thriller Decision to Leave which has drawn multiple comparisons to Hitchcock. South Korea has a thriving film industry and they often surprise with their choice of Oscar submission (hint: it's not always a happy surprise) so we'll see but we're crossing our fingers that the buzz continues for this picture. Park Chan-wook has such a rich filmography now including The Handmaiden and Thirst (our two favourite Park pictures at TFE).
Decision to Leave was Elisa's favourite of the competition titles and she wasn't alone. It topped the Screen Daily critics poll by a large margin with James Gray's Armageddon Time (which the jury didn't honor) eking out a distant second place finish.
SCREENPLAY Tarik Saleh for Boy From Heaven, a political drama about a student at a religious univerity.
ACTRESS Zar Amir Ebrahimi for Ali Abassi's Holy Spider. Elisa really admired that serial killer picture but because we'd mostly heard about it through Elisa, we were shocked to see the New York Times categorize it as "widely disliked" Hmmm. Abassi previously directed the terrific genre hybrid procedural drama Border which was Oscar submitted in International Feature and Oscar-nominated for its Makeup work.
These two films take place in Egypt and Iran, but don't expect them to be Oscar-submitted by those countries. Their directors Tarik Saleh (whose father was Egyptian) and Ali Abassi (born in Iran) are both Swedish filmmakers.
ACTOR Song Kang-ho, South Korea's most ubiquitous movie star, won for his work as the titular character in Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's first Korean-language drama Broker.
SPECIAL 75TH ANNIVERSARY PRIZE Because Cannes jurors have ALWAYS found a way to honor the Dardenne brothers, as if it's a hard rule no matter the film, year, or makeup of the jury, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they did so again creating a one-off award to give Jean-Pierre (who is 71) and Luc Dardenne (who is 68) something for their latest Tori and Lokita. Their films have previously won the Palme d'Or (TWICE with Rosetta and The Child), Best Director (Young Ahmed), The Grand Prix (The Kid With the Bike), Screenplay (Lorna's Silence), Best Actress (Rosetta), and Best Actor (The Son) so they have to be the most honored directors (or close to it) in the entire 75 year history of the festival. They aren't even all that old (in director terms) so we expect the prizes will continue to flow their direction... at least at this A list party in the south of France.
The 10 Main Competition films that didn't win any prizes (though a few of them were extremely well reviewed) were: Armageddon Time, Brother and Sister, Crimes of the Future, Forever Young, Leila's Brothers, Mother and Son, Nostalgia, R.M.N, Showing Up, and Tchaivosky's Wife.
JURIES WHICH CHOOSE FROM MULTIPLE SECTIONS OF THE FESTIVAL
Caméra d'Or (Best first film prize) War Pony (US) directors Riley Keough and Gina Gammell. This is set on a reservation in North Dakota
Caméra d'Or Special Distinction Plan 75 (Japan) director Hayakawa Chie
Palm Dog "Brit" who plays the silver poodle "Beast" in War Pony
Queer Palm Joyland (Pakistan) director Saim Sadiq. This title which played in the Un Certain Regard section is about the youngest son of a Muslim family who falls for a trans woman who directs an erotic dance troupe. It's very frustrating that the Queer Palm is still not an official Cannes-acknowledged award after all these years since most festivals have long since embraced LGBTQ specific that were once "unofficial" prizes.
UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY
Prix Un Certain Regard The Worst Ones (France) directors Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret
Jury Prize Joyland (Pakistan) director Saim Sadiq
Director Alexandru Belc for Metronom (Romania)
Performance [TIE] Vicky Krieps for Corsage (Austria) and Adam Bessa for Harka (Tunisia)
Screenplay Maha Haj for Mediterranean Fever (Palestine)
Coup de Coeur Award Rodeo (France) director Lola Quivoron
We'll update the Oscar charts very soon to reflect all the buzz from Cannes from various pictures, from the main competition to the sidebars.