Somber festival hails a unique vision
Source: Agencies |
May 25, 2010, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Mediterranean sun shone for most of the Cannes Film Festival, but the mood at the world's premier cinema showcase was somber, with the lineup dominated by movies about death and loss.
The top prize, the Palme d'Or, went to a film about the last days of a man suffering kidney failure who is tended to by the ghost of his dead wife.
"Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is short on plot but full of sumptuous and sometimes surreal images.
Jury president Tim Burton said on Sunday as the festival wrapped up that it was the film's unique vision that won over the nine-member jury, which also included Kate Beckinsale and Shekhar Kapur.
"I felt it was a beautiful, strange dream you don't see very often," Burton said. "It's the type of cinema I don't usually see and again, that's what this festival is all about. You always want to be surprised by films and it did that for most of us."
Loss was also at the heart of the 12-day-long festival's runner-up. French director Xavier Beauvois' "Of Gods and Men" tells the true story of seven French monks beheaded in Algeria during the country's brutal civil war in the 1990s.
The movie focuses not on the monks' gruesome fate but on their deliberations over whether to leave Algeria or to embrace martyrdom.
The best actor prize was shared by Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and Italian actor Elio Germano for their roles as fathers dealing with death.
In Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Biutiful," Bardem plays a man struggling to prepare his children's future after he's diagnosed with cancer, while Germano plays a widower with three young boys in Daniele Luchetti's "Our Lives."
A family rebuilding after tragedy was also the subject of the festival's closing film, French director Julie Bertuccelli's "The Tree," about a young girl convinced the spirit of her dead father lives on in a fig tree.
Gore was also a hallmark of this year's festival.
"Outrage," Takeshi Kitano's Yakuza gangster revenge flick, is a bloodbath. The body-count is off the charts in "The Exodus," the World War II-set sequel of the 1994 Russian drama "Burnt by the Sun." And Ukrainian offering "My Joy" is a seemingly endless sequence of acts of gratuitous violence.
Still, some cheerier fare lightened the mood. "On Tour" chronicles the misadventures of a troupe of American strippers in France.
Actor-director Mathieu Amalric brought a bevy of curvaceous ladies onstage to collect his best director prize.
The festival's sole US film in competition, "Fair Game," Doug Liman's story about the Bush administration's outing of Valerie Plame and starring Naomi Watts as the covert CIA operative, came away without a prize.
Two former Palme d'Or winners, British directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, also left empty-handed. Loach's "Route Irish" centers on a former military contractor in Iraq investigating the death of his best friend.
Leigh's "Another Year," about middle-aged friends grappling with loneliness, garnered mostly positive reviews. The film's Lesley Manville had been a top contender for best-actress prize.
That award went to Juliette Binoche for Abbas Kiarostami's "Certified Copy."
The top prize, the Palme d'Or, went to a film about the last days of a man suffering kidney failure who is tended to by the ghost of his dead wife.
"Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is short on plot but full of sumptuous and sometimes surreal images.
Jury president Tim Burton said on Sunday as the festival wrapped up that it was the film's unique vision that won over the nine-member jury, which also included Kate Beckinsale and Shekhar Kapur.
"I felt it was a beautiful, strange dream you don't see very often," Burton said. "It's the type of cinema I don't usually see and again, that's what this festival is all about. You always want to be surprised by films and it did that for most of us."
Loss was also at the heart of the 12-day-long festival's runner-up. French director Xavier Beauvois' "Of Gods and Men" tells the true story of seven French monks beheaded in Algeria during the country's brutal civil war in the 1990s.
The movie focuses not on the monks' gruesome fate but on their deliberations over whether to leave Algeria or to embrace martyrdom.
The best actor prize was shared by Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and Italian actor Elio Germano for their roles as fathers dealing with death.
In Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Biutiful," Bardem plays a man struggling to prepare his children's future after he's diagnosed with cancer, while Germano plays a widower with three young boys in Daniele Luchetti's "Our Lives."
A family rebuilding after tragedy was also the subject of the festival's closing film, French director Julie Bertuccelli's "The Tree," about a young girl convinced the spirit of her dead father lives on in a fig tree.
Gore was also a hallmark of this year's festival.
"Outrage," Takeshi Kitano's Yakuza gangster revenge flick, is a bloodbath. The body-count is off the charts in "The Exodus," the World War II-set sequel of the 1994 Russian drama "Burnt by the Sun." And Ukrainian offering "My Joy" is a seemingly endless sequence of acts of gratuitous violence.
Still, some cheerier fare lightened the mood. "On Tour" chronicles the misadventures of a troupe of American strippers in France.
Actor-director Mathieu Amalric brought a bevy of curvaceous ladies onstage to collect his best director prize.
The festival's sole US film in competition, "Fair Game," Doug Liman's story about the Bush administration's outing of Valerie Plame and starring Naomi Watts as the covert CIA operative, came away without a prize.
Two former Palme d'Or winners, British directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, also left empty-handed. Loach's "Route Irish" centers on a former military contractor in Iraq investigating the death of his best friend.
Leigh's "Another Year," about middle-aged friends grappling with loneliness, garnered mostly positive reviews. The film's Lesley Manville had been a top contender for best-actress prize.
That award went to Juliette Binoche for Abbas Kiarostami's "Certified Copy."
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
