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Summary Love is in the air at the Cannes Festival, as the jury sits down Sunday to choose its prizewinners.
Theres love in the face of death in Michael Hanekes Amour, love in conflict with faith in Christian Mungius Beyond the Hills and love against the odds in Jacques Audiards Rust and Bone three favorites to take the top prize, the Palme dOr.The jury, which is led by Italian director Nanni Moretti and includes actors Ewan McGregor and Diane Kruger, director Alexander Payne and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, will announce the prize winners at a ceremony later.For filmmakers, it means a frustrating wait. Directors and actors getting prizes are tipped off that they should show up to the ceremony, but are not told what they have won.We knew we would have an award, we didnt know what, which one, said Laurent Cantet, who won the top prize in 2008 for The Class.You wait and wait and wait. At the end there is only one left but the Palme dOr.This year, critics and bookmakers put Haneke out in front with the tightly controlled but deeply felt Amour. The Austrian director won the Palme three years ago for The White Ribbon.Three other previous winners are in the competition Romanias Mungiu, Britains Ken Loach, with whisky-tasting comedy The Angels Share, and Irans Abbas Kiarostami with the Tokyo-set Like Someone in Love.The 65th Cannes Film Festival has seen plenty of glamour, with the likes of Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart appearing both on-screen and on the red carpet.But in the movies, weighty themes dominated as the French Riviera froth was subdued by several days of unseasonable rain and cold.Other contenders in whats considered a strong lineup of 22 films if one lacking in surprises include Thomas Vinterbergs Danish witch hunt drama The Hunt and Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsas bleak wartime drama In the Fog.The nine jurors will pick the recipients of the Palme dOr, the second-place Grand Prize and the third-place Jury Prize, as well as male and female acting winners.The jury could choose to reward Hollywood royalty. Pitt plays a cynical mob enforcer in Andrew Dominiks Killing Them Softly one of a handful of Cannes films examining the soul of America and Kidman is unrecognizable as a Southern femme fatale in Lee Daniels The Paperboy.Other powerful performances include Marion Cotillards tragedy-struck killer-whale trainer in Rust and Bone, Mads Mikkelsens hunted Dane in The Hunt, newcomer Paul Brannigans scrappy Glasgow lad in The Angels Share and Denis Lavant, as a performer who takes on a host of bizarre personas in Holy Motors.Theres strong sentiment in favor of Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuel Riva two French film legends, both in their 80s as an elderly couple facing death in Amour.If past festivals have proved anything, its that predictions are impossible.This years wild card is French filmmaker Leos Caraxs Holy Motors, a film so strange and unpredictable it prompted one journalist to ask the director: is there a French word for bonkers?It was greeted at its press screening with whoops and wild cheers, as well as scattered boos.The wild reception shows how unpredictable and disorienting Cannes can be.Director Daniels said he was astonished to learn films routinely get booed at Cannes. There was a smattering of boos at the The Paperboy press screening and a 16-minute standing ovation at the gala premiere that evening.Im still confused by it all, the director said but, he said, its an exciting confusion.Its terribly humbling to be here, and terrifying at the same time, because you want to deliver.
