Cannes canned
And on that clanging note of stupidity I’ll leave you and this year’s Cannes film festival. It’s been a strange old do. At times a sprint, at others a plod, made all the more painful for wearing the wrong shoes. That’s Cannes for you: a festival of tack and glamour. And compelling, infuriating cinema. We’ll always be back. Thanks for reading.
Jacques chats, journo falls flat
And finally, here’s Jacques Audiard, director of this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Dheepan. The film tells the story of a former Tamil Tiger who flees Sri Lanka and pretends, with two strangers, to be a family in order to gain asylum in France.
Audiard speaks about the pleasure in winning the prize and the position of his film in the immigration debate, but his comments are trumped by the most astronomically dim question of the festival. A journalist asks actor Antonythasan Jesuthasan (himself a former child soldier forced to flee his home country) which was better: winning a war or winning the Palme d’Or? Strewth.
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Director László Nemes talks about his Grand Prix winner, Son of Saul. The drama, set in the Auschwitz, follows a Jewish man forced to work in the gas chambers who thinks he’s found the body of his son among the victims.
“I didn’t want to make a historical drama,” said Nemes. “I wanted to plunge the spectator into an experience.
“Europe is still haunted by the destruction of the European Jews. You can feel it in Hungary. It is not just viewed as a page of history. It’s important to talk to this generation: the one that has less and less access to survivors”.
The film’s star, Géza Röhrig, is no less outspoken about our responsibility to drag ourselves out of political apathy. He blamed our societal laziness on the distractions of celebrity and consumerism. Does that include Cannes? You bet it does.
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Vincent Lindon live and in effect in the press conference where he’s genuinely surprised that he’s won the best actor prize. “One of the Coens said my name and I didn’t realise it was me,” he says. “I thought people were looking at someone behind me.” He says he felt like a kid again. “When you have such a strong emotion it sends you into a childlike state,” he says.
He’s been talking for 15 minutes about the power of the emotion he felt following his win. But who are we to begrudge him a bit of self-indulgence in the aftermath of his proudest moment? The Guardian, that’s who. Hurry it up mate.
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Lotus go now please
View from the media room as the press conferences rumble on and on. Faced with long, long minutes of Maiwenn telling us about her shooting style, a bold journo clears a space up front and starts some gentle yoga. Wrap it up Cannes. We’re about ready to join her.
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On, on, on to Yorgos Lanthimos, who is up to answer questions about winning the Prix du Jury for The Lobster. Someone asks if he made this film to “prove that Greece is still the cradle of culture in Europe”? Yes, says Lanthimos. This film proves that Greece is the best and everyone else stinks. I think that’s right. That or he said he doesn’t go into film-making with that kind of agenda. It’s all starting to blur to be honest.
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Hou Hsiao-hsien, director of The Assassin, addresses the confused and confusing members of the press. He’s talking through a French translator, who’s being translated again into English. The questions are rattling bonkers to start with, so you can’t trust any quotes from this point on I’m afraid.
We’re told he’s talking about the universality of human experience and how that relates to the film. He’s not disappointed with not winning the Palme. “You know that only a certain number of films can get a prize,” he says. “If you believe in what you’re doing it really doesn’t matter if you get a prize or not.”
Being totally fine with not winning the Palme d’Or is, it seems, the truly universal experience.
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The testimony of Michel Franco and Tim Roth, writer-director and star of Chronic. Franco won the best screenplay award earlier this evening for his story of a late-life care nurse who starts to invest too much in his patients.
Yet more grace under fire as Roth talks about the pleasure in winning an award, any award, even if it’s not best actor. He says meeting Franco in Cannes (when Roth was heading the Un Certain Regard jury) led to them working together. “You should always use festivals to get work,” he says.
Meanwhile France’s PM has tweeted about Audiard’s Palme d’Or win.
Which, using my Year 9 French I can tell you translates as: “Jacques Audiard, Emmanuelle Bercot, Vincent Lindon et Agnès Varda: French cinema crayons its sore in Cannes eat Dan, he mooed”. What a strange response.
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Back in the press conference ...
Todd Haynes is on the stand. He’s asked if Cate Blanchett should have got more recognition. Haynes points out that Mara has the quieter role “that holds the film together”.
He’s also gracious in the face of many, many questions about not winning the Palme d’Or. What a nice guy Todd Haynes is.
Meanwhile, Peter Bradshaw’s verdict on the jury’s decision is in and he is baffled.
“Cannes 2015 was a vintage year. But the prizes were corked,” he says. “Just as last year [Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep won], the jury gave its ultimate acclaim to a brilliant director who has accumulated an overwhelmingly deserving reputation but had actually given us something less than his very best work.”
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Attack of the snappers
The photographers are done shouting the winners into a pose that pleases them and have flooded into the press room. They are noisy and clumsy and don’t give a damn about it neither. A step-ladder goes crashing to the floor as they jostle for space at the computers. The mood in here suddenly got tense. Expect a blazing row any time soon. We were doing so well!
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Sienna hasn’t seen anything cover the Holocaust as well as Son of Saul. Jake loves the idea of three strangers coming together as a family in Dheepan. Guillermo praises the deft handling of assisted suicide in Chronic. There’s been rumblings among the grumpy ol’ press that this hasn’t been a very good year at Cannes. The jury aren’t having it.
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Bit of love from Xavier Dolan for Son of Saul: “We had a long moment of silent reflection after watching that one. We watched it at the beginning of the festival and it stayed with us.”
Joel says that the rule whereby Cannes only allows on prize per film makes the distribution of gongs “a bit of a chess game”. “There were many performances that we wanted to pay more attention to,” he says. Basically there aren’t enough prizes to award all the worthy talent in a one film, one prize world.
First too-specific-for-many question is in! “Why didn’t the Italian films (Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales and Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre) win any prizes?”. Zzzzzzzzzzz.
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The jury gets social
They’re taking questions from Twitter, God help us. But, in actual fact, the first one’s a goodie. @junktokyo asks if both Coens voted the same way and the answer is no. They’re not saying HOW they voted, but Ethan and Joel went their separate ways. We’re guessing Ethan went for Dheepan and Joel went for ... Inside Out, of course.
Question from the room: why didn’t The Assassin win? Was it too hard to understand? Nope, says Joel. It just looked like it had the best direction. “This isn’t a jury of film critics, this is a jury of artists,” he says.
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So there you have it: predictions are for fools and the Coens have made a mockery of us all. It’s almost as if the Cannes competition jury aren’t constantly checking our Twitter feeds to find out how they should vote. Weird.
But don’t just take that from us! Here’s plenty others outraged that the jury didn’t fall into line ...
The winners are currently filing out of the Palais to the photographers, where they’ll have to find something interesting to do with the funny box thingie and that weird scroll. Then - for the jury - it’s up the stairs, past us fevered keyboard abusers and into the press conference. We’ll be back in a tick or two to bring you all the goss on how the jury reached their decision / report what the jury says to the bloke who always asks them what they think of Bangladesh.
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WINNER! Palme d'Or: Jacques Audiard for Dheepan
Whoah. Errrr ... OK. The 2015 Palme d’Or goes to Dheepan, Jacques Audiard’s low-key study of Tamil Tiger refugees trying to build a new life in France. It stars Jesuthasan Antonythasan as a man who recruits a woman and a young girl to pretend to be his family in order to gain asylum.
Audiard is a Cannes regular, here with Rust and Bone and A Prophet, which won the Grand Prix in 2009.
Teeny bit of a shock for us, if we’re honest. Dheepan carries the director’s grit and determination, but it doesn’t have the power of Rust and Bone or the intricacy of A Prophet. Our own Andrew Pulver called it “dialled-down Audiard” in his review.
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WINNER! Grand prix: László Nemes for Son of Saul
Silver goes to Saul. The most daring film of the Competition line-up, Son of Saul is a gut-wrenching watch, set as it is in Auschwitz at the height of the Nazi’s extermination of the Jews. Nemes takes us into the gas chambers and past the mass graves. It’s scary, horrible and utterly compelling film-making. What could top it? Perhaps Paolo Sorrentino’s bouncy, opulent Youth has won the Palme d’Or? Perhaps Inside Out HAS won the Palme d’Or?!
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WINNER! Best director: Hou Hsiao-hsien for The Assassin
Ecstatic reaction from the press room as the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien takes the directing prize. His first film in eight years, it tells the story of a young female contract killer who is forced to clean up the mess of a job gone sour. Beguiling and enigmatic, if a bit of a slow watch, The Assassin was the favourite of many Brit critics at this year’s festival.
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WINNER! Best actor: Vincent Lindon for La Loi du Marche
Michelle Rodriguez takes the mic and purrs the most outrageous “Bonnnnjouuuuurrrrr” at the gathered luvvies. Does that count as a musical performance? If so, her second song will sound all the sweeter to fans of Son of Saul, the devastating film about a father navigating the inner-workings of Auschwitz. It now looks the favourite for this year’s Palme.
Lindon wins his prize for his role in La Loi du Marche (The Measure of a Man). He plays a man struggling to keep his family afloat after losing his factory job. It’s a grave performance from Lindon, lots of weight and heft, but the film is too loaded to fly. Nowhere near as clever as the Dardennes Two Days, One Night, which covered similar ground.
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WINNER! Prix du jury: Yorgos Lanthimos for The Lobster
Cannes “third prize” goes to Yorgos Lanthimos’s weird, wild tale of love and loneliness, The Lobster. British bookies had this one as favourite to win the Palme for a good part of the festival, but the favourites come and favourites fall tonight.
WINNER! Best actress: shared by Rooney Mara for Carol and Emmanuelle Bercot for Mon Roi
Lovely, cheeky Tahir Rahim pops up to torpedo Carol’s chances of winning the Palme d’Or. Rooney Mara’s win (shared with Emmanuelle Bercot, who stars in Maïwenn’s Mon Roi), means Todd Haynes’s Patricia Highsmith adaptation is out of the running for the top prize. Bercot’s on stage in tears, jury member Xavier Dolan too. Those who predicted Carol would win - like ummmm ... us - might be joining them soon.
Emmanuelle Bercot talks for an ice age about a film most people thought was a clanging dud, then up comes Haynes, who seems delighted for Mara. No sign of any hint of upset over what many might call a snub.
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WINNER! Prix du scénario: Michel Franco for Chronic
Best screenplay goes to Chronic writer-director Michel Franco. That knocks Tim Roth out of the running for best actor (Cannes gives one prize per film), which is a surprise. Roth’s turn as a palliative nurse with a (too) intense dedication to his patients was thought by many to be his best performance in years, perhaps his best ever. Peter Bradshaw called him “excellent” in his review of the film. “He radiates in repose a sadness and a swallowed pain,” he said.
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Variety show me the way out of here
It transpires that the closing ceremony, normally so civilised in its brevity, is this year to be stretched into a hellish variety show with musical acts, comedy turns and clip reels. Lambert sings Happy Birthday to John C Reilly (50 today!) before the jury arrive and are serenaded in turn by a bloke who did some songs for the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis. Joel and Ethan look as delighted as you’d expect.
Who knows how long we could be here now? Perhaps - after the initial song and dance - they’ll keep it tight? Perhaps Inside Out will win the Palme d’Or after all?
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WINNER! Camera d’Or: La Tierra y la Sombra
John’s here for an even greater purpose than swinging out as it happens. He’s here to tell writer-director Cesar Acevedo he’s won the Camera d’Or, a prize given to any debut film in the competition, Director’s Fortnight or Critic’s Week strands. Acevedo’s film, La Tierra y la Sombra (Land and Shade), tells the story of an elderly Colombian farmer who returns home to be with his terminally ill son in the last days of his life.
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WINNER! Best short film - Waves '98
The Lebanese short film, Waves ‘98, takes the Palme d’Or du court métrage. Waves’98 is about a high schooler living in the suburbs of Beirut during the ... HOLD ON A BLOODY MINUTE. JOHN C REILLY IS SINGING JUST A GIGOLO FOR SOME REASON.
Yes - the star of The Lobster and Tale of Tales - has decided to top of his Cannes fortnight with a spot of scat-singing. He swings and he sways. He rocks and he bops. He sells the hell out of it, but the crowd aren’t buying. Widespread bafflement is all he gets for his efforts. Poor John.
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He’s not talking about Thursday, sandwiches or the colour red
We're off!
The closing ceremony has started. It’s an awards show, so - of course - there’s a ropey performance to start us off. This involves a bevy of ballet dancers prancing around in front of the screensaver from Windows 7.
Polite applause for all of that before our host, Lambert Wilson, strides on stage. And here’s where liveblogging this ceremony goes a teeny bit wonky. Lambert is doing his monologue in French. I don’t speak French. Well, maybe a little bit. As long he talks about Thursday, sandwiches and the colour red I’ll be fine.
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Quick update on the mood in the press room. Like the jury, we’re pretty congenial so far. The head-flopped-on-laptop count is in single figures. Those who stand in front of the giant screen showing the proceedings get a harsh HISSSSSS, rather than the cacophony of multi-lingual profanity we normally hear. People are even having a little seat-bop to the EDM playing over the clip reel. Perhaps, perhaps it can stay this way throughout the evening? Perhaps Inside Out will win the Palme d’Or after all?
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Kicking off any minute now
A gendarmerie gathers behind Mr + as he delivers more chit-chat to camera. He doesn’t realise that soon they will gang rush him, grab him and throw him in the slammer for crimes against credulity. Goodbye our Canal+ sunshine. The 68th Cannes film festival awards ceremony is about to begin.
A song of ice and ire
Glaciologist Claude Lorius arrives. He’s the subject of Luc Jacquet’s documentary The Ice and The Sky. Jacquet, who also directed March of the Penguins, makes a powerful argument for all of us to take responsibility over climate change.
Canal+ attempt to talk to Lorius about the serious issues in the film, but the music is too noisy and the message gets drowned out. “Am I supposed to do this interview with the music so loud?,” he asks, somewhat justifiably. Yes, because Mr + demands it. “There are 24 steps to the Palais,” he burbles. “And the carpet is 60 metres. How many penguins do you think you could fit on it?” Lorius, poor bloke, looks appalled.
Mr + pulls it back a bit with some information on the film, which explores Lorius’s work on ice cores and the effect of the changing ambient temperature at the polar caps. It’s a beautiful documentary he tells us, with the glaciologists proving endearing company. “There’s a lot of warmth generated by these teams,” says our host. Poor choice of words +.
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Sienna Miller is having a bop up the steps to the Palais. “Welcome Sienna PALMER!,” beams Mr Sunshine. Poor old Sienna cannot get a break. Meanwhile, Xavier Dolan is wearing a brooch. “A butterfly,” says +. “A butterfly, or a dragonfly. Or a bird”. Or perhaps, a Sienna Palmer?
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The jury of misfit toys
The jury have arrived, with Joel and Ethan Coen shuffling up the shag. Canal+ grabs Joel, who describes the atmosphere during the jury’s deliberations as congenial. Guillermo del Toro says they formed a family, as does Jake Gyllenhaal, who has been “very nice all week”, according to Mr +.
The jury is such a crazy mix of class, kook and calamity this year, who knows which way this oddball family will flip? Guillermo del Toro could weigh in in favour of Matteo Garrone’s loopy fairy tale portmanteau Tale of Tales. Jake Gyllenhaal could give his buddy Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario a push. Sienna Miller could declare her undying love for Mon Roi. Never, ever underestimate Sienna Miller.
One thing’s for sure-ish: the Coens like smart, knowing cinema with a good sense of history and not too much aimless quirk. Not much of that about this year. The Lobster perhaps? Or Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth maybe? Crazier things have happened.
Let’s look to the rest of the press to see what they fancy ...
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Red carpet watch
Here come the stars, trickling up the red carpet and trying desperately to avoid the small, bubbly man from Canal+ who likes asking them things like “Is it nice to be here?” and “What’s been your favourite red carpet of the festival so far?”. The stars stare into this smiling abyss of showbiz journalism and say “Yes” and “I can’t remember them at all”.
Pretty soon they’ll be free of this chatty goon and able to take their seat in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. Soon the awards ceremony will begin, but first, they must sit and listen to the soul-crushing jazz lite that precedes every film. Boo bee boo bee boo, goes the jazz. Boo bee doo bee doo. “ARGHHHHHHH!”, think the stars. “ARGH! ARGH! ARGH!”.
Who’s here then? And what does that mean?
Todd Haynes is here. That means Carol could be a Palme d’Or winner!
Jacques Audiard is back. That means Dheepan could be a Palme d’Or winner!
And so are Michel Franco and László Nemes! Which means Chronic and Son of Saul could win too.
Tim Roth is here and says it’s “cool”. He’s awfully good in Chronic, in which he plays a terminal care nurse looking after the sick and dying. Could be in with a shout for best actor.
John C Reilly is here! And he’s still wearing his natty white fedora. That means his head must be extremely smelly.
Colin Farrell is here. He doesn’t give an interview, ducking past the Canal+ sunshine to head straight for his seat. The Lobster star could have been a bit more generous. A little less ... ahem ... shellfish.
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Gongs already gotten
A quick look at the awards that have already been doled out at the festival this week. Rams, Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson’s story about two estranged brothers bonding over livestock, won the Un Certain Regard prize, while top honours from the Critics Week strand were scooped up by Paulina (a gifted lawyer gives it all up to work in a deprived area of Argentina) and La Tierra Y la Sombra, about an elderly Colombian farmer returning to look after his terminally ill son.
Son of Saul was selected as the pick of the competition films by Fipresci (the International Federation of Film Critics), while the organisers of Directors fortnight, which isn’t a competitive strand, but - confusingly - still likes to call some films better than others, plumped for My Golden Days (Mathieu Amalric ponders lost loves), Mustang (five orphans are kept hostage by their tyrannical gran) and Embrace of the Serpent (about the first contact with natives in Colombian Amazon).
Lastly, the biggie: the Palme Dog. The award, set up by a bunch of pun-happy Brits, celebrates the best canine performance at Cannes (“The British are weird,” remarked one French journo). Taking a bow (wow) this year: Lucky the Maltipoo (half Maltese, half miniature poodle), who won for wearing nice jumpers and barking a bit in Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights.
The end begins
Bonjour, ça va and bienvenue to the Palme d’Or announcement liveblog, direct from a media room packed with panicky press at the Cannes film festival. Over the last two weeks we’ve chugged through hours of films (and a gallon of rosé) in pursuit of a new masterpiece. Today we’ll find out which of the 19 films in competition the Coen brothers and their jury have decided is worthy of the status.
The frontrunner, according to the bookies, is Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, a weird-as-billy-oh comedy about a single man who must meet a partner within 45 days or be turned into a lobster. We reckon they’ve got Brit bias (Rachel Weisz and a podged-up Colin Farrell star) and haven’t given the foreign contenders enough credit, which really takes the bisque-it.
A better bet might be Carol. Todd Haynes’s adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel, about a lesbian love affair in 1950s New York, has really got tongues wagging. Critics have fallen for Cate Blanchett’s sexy, matronly performance in the lead, while Rooney Mara is getting props for playing the ingénue.
Coming up behind with stealthy panache is The Assassin, the first film in eight years by Taiwanese master Hou Hsaio-hsien. It’s an enigmatic drama about a young female assassin’s attempt to restore order after a kill gone wrong. “Enigmatic” means critics were baffled by it, but suspect it’s quite good.
Finally our outlier is Son of Saul, first-time director László Nemes’s harrowing thriller about a Jewish man, working as a Sonderkommando, the prisoners forced to keep Auschwitz running. Nemes takes you inside the camp, right into the gas chambers and to the lip of the mass graves. It’s a full-on assault, with Nemes timing his punches perfectly. Brutal, vital stuff.
Before the Palme d’Or we’ll also be finding out who’s won the prizes for best director, best actor and best actress (a reminder that - as of three years ago - each film can only win one prize). Check out Peter Bradshaw’s predictions and our recent Guardian film show special to find out what we think will win.
