Palme d’Or
Prediction – Antichrist (von Trier)
Winner – The White Ribbon (Haneke)
The original favorite reigns. The hype and foresight of this makes its victory boring, but I’m still excited to see it.
Grand Prix
Prediction – Wild Grass (Resnais)
Winner – A Prophet (Audiard)
The Audiard sounds like by-the-numbers blah-ness, a safely, well-made movie. Guess I’ll have to see it, now.
Jury Prize
Prediction – The White Ribbon (Haneke)
Winner – Fish Tank (Arnold)
Winner – Thirst (Park)
I have my own reservations about what I’m expecting from Fish Tank, but Chan-wook Park has no business winning an award in this, or any major festival. Tarantino inexplicably placed Old Boy higher than Tropical Malady in 2004, and again his film is winning an award that many other films surely deserved more. Fanboys rejoice.
Best Director The Time That Remains (Suleiman)
Winner – Kinatay (Mendoza)
Shocker, I’m mixed about Serbis, but this one did catch my eye, and despite mixed reviews, was deemed the first ‘interesting’ film in the festival when it screened. Looking forward to it.
Best Screenplay
Prediction – Face (Tsai)
Winner – Spring Fever (Lou)
Bigger shocker. I thought nobody liked this.
Best Actor
Prediction – Tahar Rahim (The Prophet)
Winner – Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Okay.
Best Actress
Prediction – Katie Jarvis (Fish Tank)
Winner – Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist)
If Antichrist had to win something other than the palm, I’m glad they honored Gainsbourg, who, from the sounds of it, gives the quintessential von Trier performance.
Camera d’Or
Prediction – Huacho (Almendras)
Winner – Samson and Delilah (Thornton)
I should have guessed this one.
Un Certain Regard Prize
Prediction – Dogtooth (Lanthimos)
Winner – Dogtooth (Lanthimos)
This sounds awesome. The Un Certain Regard section seems to follow the press’s critical consensus more than the main competition does, hopefully that works out better than Hunger.
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize
Prediction – Police, Adjective (Porumboiu)
Winner – Police, Adjective (Porumboiu)
I love 12:08, and I’m thrilled that this has been well-received. Can’t wait for it.
Lifetime Achievement – Alain Renais
Seems like a cop out award. If I were approaching 90 and made a film that everyone seemed to love I’d much rather that film get honored than a useless lifetime tribute that could have happened whether Wild Grass was great or shit.
2010 Palme d’Or prediction – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul)
Here’s to all of these films playing in Toronto this September.
I would think Park Chan-wook would be absolutely deserving of awards if his films played at genre festivals. But, at Cannes, definitely not.
I suppose there’s a place for everyone. I’ve been feeling bitter toward Park lately, more than usual, after I rewatched Old Boy and hated the life out of it, and then remembered that it placed higher than Tropical Malady at Cannes by a biased, Tarantino-led jury. How fitting that he was promoting vengeance, the very subject of his latest film. I think that revenge is too safe of a subject to make three consecutive films dedicated to it. And if you are going to make a revenge film, do something interesting with it like Revanche, which at least acknowledges that revenge in film can be embraced by people over the age of 30 (not to mention the ton of other films that qualify this, of course). Add to all of this that Thirst got mixed-to-rancid reviews, most citing the exact things that I can’t stand about him, and then some. How predictable that he would choose to make a vampire film after tackling revenge, targeting the same age bracket.
I’m going to reserve my feelings toward Thirst until I see it. Keep in mind though that 2004 was a really lousy year for Cannes’ Official Selection and its jury (even though Tilda Swinton was one of them). Honestly, Fahrenheit 9/11 was one of the better films in competition that year (behind only Tropical Malady, La niña santa and Clean, though I haven’t seen Nobody Knows yet). But you’re right – the hierarchy was off-kilter. Maggie Cheung was the only person who deserved their award, if you consider TM ranking below where it should have.
So… jury has a lot to do with where the prizes fall. Thirst probably received better notices than two of this year’s other big winners, Kinatay and Spring Fever, but it’s hard for me to call anyone out on being totally wrong when I haven’t seen one film that was in the running yet.
“2010 Palme d’Or prediction – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul)”
Holy shit. I rule.