Jornal da Mostra
Nº 338 > 28ª Mostra > 23/05/2005
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Cannes 2005 - The golden palm is awarded once again to the Dardenne brothers; Jim Jarmusch, Hanna Laslo, Tommy Lee Jones, Michael Haneke, Guillermo Arriaga, and Wang Xiaoshuai are the other prize-winners; the caméra d'or for best first-timer was shared by
The film calendar has been enriched now, at the end of the 58th Cannes Film Festival with prizes awarded to names that are followed closely by film-lovers the world over. The Golden Palm went once more to Belgium and to the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for "L'Enfant", a dry, realistic film on youth and delinquency - drama far from the ideals of happiness and good order.The jury presided over by film maker Emir Kusturica, himself twice a Golden Palm winner, awarded the prize for Best Director to "Cachê", an equally unsettling film by Austrian Michael Haneke. "Cachê" was also awarded the International Critics prize. The Golden Palm was presented on the stage of the Grande Théátre Lumière, on Saturday, May 21, by Americans Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, winners of the Oscar for their performance in Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby". These awards are closely associated, but at a distance. Many films gain renown after Cannes, before the indications for an Oscar the following year.
The focus on Hollywood actors and actresses and other international personalities, has cast some doubt on the prestige of Cannes with a disclosure by a local newspaper Nice Matin.
According to Nice Matin, there is an extremely costly index of prices - up to 150 thousand euros for a single appearance in Cannes. And this maximum was said to have been the fee charged by model Paris Hilton.On the subject of films once more, the Grand Prix from the jury went to Jim Jarmusch for his beautiful travel diary "Broken Flowers", where minimalist actor Bill Murray repeats the show in Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation". Also an American road-movie, brimming with excitement in a search for paternity that has never been assumed, with script, dialogs, and performance by Sam Shepard, "Don't Come Knocking", by Wim Wenders, was one of the films unfairly overlooked in awarding prizes.
"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada", by Tommy Lee Jones, another American production, with French partner Luc Besson, was awarded two important prizes on the Cannes 2005 listing: Best Script (by Mexican Guillermo Arriaga) and Best Actor (Tommy Lee Jones himself).
Israeli comedian Anna Laslo, who is together with Natalie Portman (also in Episode III of "Star Wars"), was selected as Best Actress. Hanna Laslo is the cheerful driver of a tourism taxi between Israel and Jordan in the excellent new film by Amos Gitai, implacable film maker where political disasters perpetrated by the State of Israel against Palestine and the neighboring Arab countries are concerned.The last Prix du Jury went to a Chinese film "Shanghai Dreams", by Wang Xiaoshuai, a sad film about the sixties and the Chinese Cultural Revolution with families sent by force to cities up-country in order to be 'politically re-educated'. The suffering was greatest for youngsters obliged to adhere to rigid education so as not to further complicate matters for a fragile situation in their country. Xiaoshuai also directed a most beautiful film on youngsters in China, "Bicicletas de Pequim/Beijing Bicycles".More youth, with its longings and wayward routes in the Camera d'Or award for the best first-time director, awarded to "Me and You and Everyone we Know", by American Miranda July.The Caméra d'Or prize was presided over by Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami and, by decision of all the jury, the prize was shared out with one of the most unsettling films in the entire festival - "Terra Abandonada/ Sulanga Enu Pinisa", by Vimukhi Jayasundara, from Sri Lanka. The section Un Certain Regard, also a stimulus to parallel competition, awarded the prize for best film to Rumanian Cristi Puiu for "A Morte do Senhor Lazarescu/ Moartea Domnului Lazarescu/ The Death of Mister Lazarescu". Equally disturbing, we follow along with the pilgrimage of a terminally ill patient from hospital to hospital in search of some compassion among the exhausted medical doctors on duty at dawn.
The Brazilian film "Cinema, Aspirina, e Urubus/ Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures", by Marcelo Gomes, was awarded the prize for National Education, by the French Ministry of Education. Of the Cinéfondation selection, instituted for students of cinema, first prize went, also, to a Brazilian, Antonio Campos, with "Buy It Now", about a teenager that auctions off her virginity on the internet. Antonio Campos, also of U.S. nationality, is studying cinema at the NYU Tisch School of Arts.
For further information:
www.festival-cannes.org
