Cannes Film Fest 2007–4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days,” Cristian Mungiu’s stark drama about a woman’s experiences getting an abortion in the waning days of Romania’s communist era, won the Palme d’Or at the 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Screened on the festival’s first full day, “4 Months” is one of the few Cannes films in history to have led in critics’ polls and come out on top on awards night. IFC bought the picture during the festival for U.S. release.
But while few would dispute that the most important prize went to the right film, the remainder of the awards bore all the earmarks of compromise, give-and-take on a jury at odds with itself.
The Grand Prix, the prestigious runner-up award, was given to Naomi Kawase’s “The Mourning Forest,” an ultra-arty, arid and slow French-Japanese co-production that had viewers and critics streaming for the exits early and was supported only by few partisans on the fest circuit.
Then there was a specially created award, the 60th anniversary prize, for Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park,” a well crafted but narrowly conceived drama (also French-financed) of a teenager skateboarder in denial about having accidentally caused a man’s death. It is a small film and Van Sant only recently won the Palme d’Or, for “Elephant,.” It was deemed one of most accomplished American film in the competition this year, alongside with “No Country for Old Men,” from the Coen Brothers, and David Fincher’s “Zodiac.”
The Sunday night festivities were presided over by the actress Diane Kruger (“Troy”) and broadcast live on French TV.
Julian Schnabel took best director honors for his French-spoken-and-financed drama “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which was acquired by Miramax after its fest debut. Schnabel overstayed his welcome in the spotlight at least three times over, shaking the hand of every jury member, making his cast stand up and rambling on as he thanked everyone he could think of.
Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin received screenplay honors for “The Edge of Heaven,” a femme-centered drama about the ironies of fate with multi-cultural and political dimensions.
Jeon Do-yeon, one of South Korea’s best-regarded younger thespian, copped the best actress prize for her performance as a mother whose young son is kidnapped and murdered in Lee Chang-dong’s “Secret Sunshine,” the one award other than the Palme d’Or widely accepted.
By contrast, the best actor award unexpectedly went to Konstantin Lavronenko for his turn as a tormented husband and father in the Russian drama “The Banishment.” Director Andrei Zvyagintsev accepted the prize for his absent thesp.
Furthering the sense of awards distributed all over the map was the jury prize tie between two films that could scarcely be more diverse, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s animated account of Satrapi’s journey from girlhood in pre-revolutionary Iran to Western womanhood, the French-U.S. production “Persepolis,” and Carlos Reygadas’ “Silent Light,” an austere, visually striking study of adultery within a Mennonite community in Mexico.
The director has already stated that he intends to cut about 20 minutes from his film, officially a Mexican-French-Dutch coprod.
Along with the two American thrillers, the other generally well-received film ignored by the jury was Russian vet Alexander Sokurov’s “Alexandra,” about an elderly woman who visits her soldier grandson in Chechnya.
At the brief jury press conference afterward, jury prexy Stephen Frears slithered through questions about internal jury dissension via puckish humor. Asked about their decision-making process, the British helmer retorted, “People are very mutinous up here. They wouldn’t do what I told them, so I didn’t try to.”
Quizzed about why they bypassed giving a prize to the widely acclaimed Javier Bardem on “No Country for Old Men,” Frears deadpanned, “He’s terrible, absolutely dreadful,” but then said, “He’s a wonderful actor. Why did we not give it to Javier He owes me 500 pounds.”
Fellow juror Michel Piccoli admitted, “There was no unanimity. It’s impossible, ridiculous. To the contrary !” Sarah Polley, one of four actresses on the jury (she also just directed her first film), allowed that, “I’ve never seen so many people listen to each other so closely.”
As to the special 60th anni award, Toni Collette insisted that, “We wanted to give the prize to someone whose body of work was rather incredible. We all felt very strongly about Gus Van Sant.”
Other members of the jury were thesps Maggie Cheung and Maria de Medeiros, directors Abderrahmane Sissako and Marco Bellocchio and writer Orhan Pamuk.
Highly prized Camera d’Or for best first feature in the entire festival, regardless of category, went to “Jellyfish,” a seriocomic Israeli ensembler shown in the Critics Week written and directed by the husband-and-wife team of Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen.
A special mention was made of Anton Corbijn’s “Control,” the black-and-white biopic of suicidal Joy Division topper Ian Curtis that was one of the few pics to stir any excitement in this year’s Directors Fortnight.
The Un Certain Regard jury bestowed its Grand Prix on another Romanian drama, “California Dreamin'” (Endless), directed by Cristian Nemescu, who died during post-production. Special jury prize went to Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s French entry “Actresses,” while the “Coup de Coeur” award was given to Eran Kolirin’s “The Band’s Visit,” which further helped make it a strong year for Israel.
Short film jury singled out Elisa Miller’s “Watching It Rain” from Mexico for the Palme d’Or and gave special mentions to Mark Albiston’s “Run” from New Zealand and Anthony Chen’s “Grandma” from Singapore.
The Critics Week jury gave its Grand Prix to Lucia Puenzo’s “XXY,” a Argentine-Spanish-French coprod, while the Cinefondation Jury first prize was snared by Gonzalo Tobal’s “Now Everybody Seems to be Happy,” also from Argentina.
Ecumenical award was snapped up by “The Edge of Heaven,” while the international critics awards from Fipresci went to “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days” (competition), “The Band’s Visit” (Un Certain Regard) and French thesp Sandrine Bonnaire’s feature “Her Name Is Sabine” (Directors Fortnight).
WINNERS OF THE 60th CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY
Palme dOr: “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days,” Cristian Mungiu, (Romania)
Grand Prix : “The Mourning Forest,” Naomi Kawase, (France-Japan)
60th Anniversary Prize : Gus Van Sant (“Paranoid Park,” France-U.S.)
Screenplay: Fatih Akin (“The Edge of Heaven,” Germany-Turkey)
Director: Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” France)
Actor: Konstantin Lavronenko (“The Banishment,” Russia)
Actress: Jeon Do-yeon (“Secret Sunshine,” South Korea)
Jury Prize (shared) “Persepolis” (Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud, France-U.S.) “Silent Light” (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico-France-Netherlands)
SHORT FILM JURY
Palme dOr: “Watching It Rain” (Elisa Miller, Mexico)
Special Mentions: “Run” (Mark Albiston, New Zealand) “Grandma” (Anthony Chen, Singapore)
UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY
Grand Prix : “California Dreamin (Endless) (Cristian Nemescu, Romania)
Special Jury Prize: “Actresses” (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France)
Coup de Coeur Award: “The Bands Visit” (Eran Kolirin, Israel-U.S.-France)
CAMERA DOR JURY
Camera dOr: “Jellyfish” (Etgar Keret, Shira Geffen, Israel-France)
Special Mention: “Control” (Anton Corbijn, U.K.-Australia-Japan)
CINEFONDATION JURY
First Prize: “Now Everybody Seems to be Happy” (Gonzalo Tobal, Argentina)
Second Prize: “Way Out” (Chen Tao, China)
Third Prize: (shared) “A Reunion” (Hong Sung-hoon, South Korea) “Minus” (Pavle Vuckovic, Serbia)
CRITICS WEEK JURIES
Grand Prix: “XXY” (Lucia Puenzo, Argentina-Spain-France)
SACD Prize: “Jellyfish.”
ACID/CCAS Support Award: “XXY.”
OFAJ/TV5Monde (Very)Young Critic Award: “Jellyfish.”
Canal Plus Award for Best Short Film: “Madame Tutli-Putli” (Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski, Canada)
Kodak Discovery Award for Best Short Film: “Um ramo” (Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra, Brazil)
OTHER JURIES
Ecumenical Award: “The Edge of Heaven.”
Fipresci Awards (intl. critics assn.) “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days” (Competition) “The Bands Visit” (Un Certain Regard) “Her Name Is Sabine” (Directors Fortnight)
