By Hindustan Times
On a rain-drenched Sunday evening on the Cannes Film Festival, Italian master Nanni Moretti’s jury gave the highest Palm d’Or to Michael Haneke’s Love, a sweetly tragic tale of an elderly couple in France.
Austrian director Haneke had won the Palm in 2009 for The White Ribbon, a depressing tale set in a remote pre-World War I German village, where signs of the approaching catastrophe are clearly visible locally and its inmates. Haneke’s earlier Funny Games, also at Cannes, was a revolting psychological thriller.
AmourIn fact, Love is the helmer’s most tender of movies, though the climax is both heart-rending and shocking. Love also marks the primary time a filmmaker has won back to back Palms so quickly.
Love, incidentally, was also the favorite among Cannes critics, who had given the movie the top collection of stars, and it seemed in a very long time that the jury and journalists were at the same wave length.
Unexpectedly, the Grand Prize went to Matteo Garrone’s Reality (from Italy in regards to the current obsession with achieving celebrity status), and the most productive Director Award to Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas for After Darkness, Illumination (a disappointing work).
The Jury Prize was given to British master Ken Loach’s The Angel’s Share, an attractive piece of cinema a few young father whose new-born son proves a turning point in his lifetime of petty crime.
Mads Mikkelsen won the most productive actor trophy for enjoying a schoolteacher falsely accused of molesting his friend’s little girl in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt.
The Best Actresses (sharing the prize) were Cosmina Stratan and Christina Flutor in Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills, set in a remote monastery where probably the most girls ties to attract her ally clear of the life in black robes.
Mungiu also won the most efficient Screenplay Award.
(Gautaman Bhaskaran is covering the Cannes Film Festival for Hindustantimes.com)
