A well-received list of awards with a few usual drawbacks despite a very hasty ceremony, a sumptuous vintage and stars galore, this 76e Cannes Film Festival was a resounding success. After the pandemic vintages of the last few years – in 2020, it had been completely abolished – and the increased competition from platforms, the temple of cinema was shining brightly. The seventh art, so tossed about everywhere, needed a few reasons to hope and found them on this chic and cinephile Croisette, something to dream about. Even the polemics fell quickly by doing Pschitt !
When on Saturday evening, the Frenchwoman Justine Triet won the Palme d’Or with her brilliant Anatomy of a fall, film of trial and couple crisis, no one booed. It was a royal piece. Third woman to claim this honor here, after New Zealand’s Jane Campion in 1993 (The piano lesson) and the French Julia Ducournau in 2021 (Titanium), the ladies’ troika rushes towards the breakthrough of all the glass ceilings.
Still, the words of the winner, who took advantage of her glorious platform to attack, among other things, “the commodification of a neoliberal government that would break the cultural exception”, made people jump in high places. Declaring herself flabbergasted, the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak cried injustice on Sunday. She sharply recalled to what extent the French model allows a unique diversity in the world. Which is not wrong. France finances and co-finances so many fragile films at home and abroad, that it takes on the fierce musketeer attacking the barbarian.
Many feared a frayed prize list, so many strong heads on the jury of Swede Ruben Östlund could have been torn. But nothing appeared. The vast majority of the leading runners were awarded. Whose icy and unsettling The Zone of Interest by Benjamin Glauzer, an original look at the Holocaust shedding light on the banal life of the director of the Auschwitz camp and his wife.
It is no coincidence that the two great works at the top of the charts were headlined by the German Sandra Hüller. She will have made them throb accordingly. However, the prize for female interpretation escaped him, because internal regulations prohibit the multiplication of laurels for the same film. But no one was fooled. We witnessed the coronation of its incandescent star.
Familiar filmmakers
No need to look for newcomers to the festival list. All the award-winning films came from filmmakers already familiar with the competition, men or women. Experience did not say its last word in Cannes.
When the Japanese Koji Yakusho won the best actor award for his mute and sublime role in Perfect Days of Wim Wenders filmed in Tokyo, the approval of the room was like a palpable wave. What an unequaled performance, almost without words, all in looks, in depth!
Same respect after the announcement of the jury prize awarded to the Finn Aki Kaurismäki for the grace of his Dead leaves. It was so fine, so referenced, its homage to the great Charlot. No one protested either when the very subtle Monster by Kore-Eda received the screenplay prize, or when Merve Dizdar won the best actress prize for her burning role in dry herbs by the great Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
There are always reasons to complain in France, mind you. The director’s prize crowning the Frenchman of Vietnamese origin Tran Anh Hung for the classic period production The passion of Dodin Bouffant made several French critics howl, who had greeted the film with a brick and a beacon. However, Binoche and Magimel shone there as champions of fine cuisine. A beautiful light and an overall breath carried this work which did not reinvent cinema but honored it. Nothing to scream scandal. And France was highly awarded this year. What to shout Cocorico!
So yes, this award was excellent. The jury was careful not to read the reviews, but our choices often coincided with theirs for real reasons of quality. Of course, the Palme d’or must crown for a few years a strong work but likely to attract the vast audience. The goal is to make the golden letters of the festival shine on the planet. This is detrimental to intimate films, whose project managers see this coveted prize disappear in this way. Enough to encourage them to adopt more dynamic codes in their cinema, abandoning the less marked fields, just to be able to climb the highest step of Cannes. There is danger in delay.
But all in all, beyond its commercial considerations, its glitter and its name dropping, the major French event remains the guardian of the cinematographic flagship. Hollywood, which for some years looked up to him, re-adopted him dare-dare. And works started here, like Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese or the last IndianaJoneshave done more for the fame of Cannes than the good films that its jury has consecrated.
As for the cause of women, with two palmées d’or this year, including one for the styling short film 27 by the Hungarian Flora Anna Buda, she advances here year after year. The Festival is changing in measured steps, but it is its constancy that gives it its sacred status.
Odile Tremblay is the guest of the Cannes Film Festival.