Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the coveted Palme d’Or, at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival awards ceremony on May 23, 2010.
The weirdly poetic movie traces the last days of a man dying of kidney failure, who is visited by the ghost of his late wife and long-lost son who has become in ape.
Director Tim Burton, no stranger to surreal movies and president of this year's Cannes jury, announced Weerasethakul as the Palme d’Or winner. In his acceptance speech, Weerasethakul said, “I would like to kiss the jury,” before complementing Mr. Burton on his hairstyle.
The Thai director previously won the Cannes third-place Jury Prize in 2004 for Tropical Malady.
Juliette Binoche, Javier Bardem Earn Acting Honors
Juliette Binoche, whose picture appeared on this year's Cannes poster, won Best Actress for her role as a gallery owner in Tuscany in Abbas Kiarostami’s love story Certified Copy.
Spaniard Javier Bardem, who already has a Best Supporting Actor Oscar on his mantelpiece for No Country for Old Men, won the Best Actor award for his betrayal of a man facing the specter of death, in Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s tragedy-riddled Biutiful.
Bardem shared the award with Italian actor Elio Germano, who also plays a father in La Nostra Vita (Our Life).
“I feel very honored, very surprised because when you act in any character you don't think your work is going to be liked by anyone. You're very insecure and you think ‘Oh my God, this on a big screen is gonna really look bad.’ But they give you an award,” Bardem said at a press conference.
Cannes Grand Prize and Jury Prize Winners
French director Xavier Beauvois won the second-place Grand Prize for Of Gods and Men, a drama based on the true story of seven French monks beheaded in Algeria in 1996.
The Jury Prize went to Canadian Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s film A Screaming Man, yet another portrait of a struggling father, this time in Chad, who puts his own welfare before that of his son as the country wrestles with civil war.
Mathieu Amalric, who directed and stars in Tournée (On Tour) as the manager of a burlesque dance troupe, took home the directing award.
Director Ken Loach’s Route Irish, which was added to the Cannes Competition lineup at the last minute, failed to garner any awards. Neither did Mike Leigh’s Another Year, despite receiving some of the film festival’s strongest reviews.
Un Certain Regard Won by South Korean Hahaha
A number of awards had already been announced earlier in the week. These included Un Certain Regard, a relatively new prize created in 1998 to recognize young talent. This was won by Hong Sans-soo for Hahaha, beating out contenders like the well-received Blue Valentine, starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as a couple in a failing marriage.
Critics were generally unmoved by the programming at this year’s festival, with hot-ticket (although out-of-competition) movies like Robin Hood and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps premiering to lukewarm receptions.
The big winners from Cannes 2009, Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon) and Un Prophète (A Prophet) went on to earn Academy Award nominations, but whether any of this year’s winners will have the same kind of success on the other side of the Atlantic remains to be seen.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
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