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A record of sorts at Cannes

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

CANNES MAY 26. <150>Giving away the prizes at the Cannes International Film Festival late last evening the jury startled just about everyone by saying that it liked just four movies out of the competing 20. And it created a record of sorts by giving three films two awards each!

Gus Van Sant's "Elephant", which takes a fictional look at high school massacres in America, won the top Golden Palm and an honour for Best Direction. Set in documentary style, Van Sant for most part of the work follows his actors — most of them real students — in an aimless, listless kind of way.

While the film by itself held little interest, with school killings of the Columbine kind having faded from one's memory, many critics were left wondering if this was some sort of a "political award", a tacit understanding between a French jury president, Patrice Chereau, and an all-American movie in the wake of the Paris-Washington tiff over Iraq.

Also, while it does make sense to give the best film a prize for direction as well, here in the case of "Elephant", there was little sense in patting Van Sant for his directorial abilities here. They were hardly tested. Also garlanded with two awards was Turkish helmer Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Distant", a mood study of two men, their alienation and loneliness.

It won the Grand Prize, the Festival's number two reward, and another for Best Actor, which was shared between Muzaffer Ozdemir and Emin Toprak, who was killed in a car accident just as he was planning to celebrate his honeymoon at Cannes.

The third movie with a double trophy was Deny Arcand's delightfully humorous Canadian work in French lingo, "The Barbarian Invasions". It was a breezy look at a dying man's family trying to make his last days exciting and cheerful. Arcand got the Best Screenplay award, and Marie-Josee Croze one for Best Actress in the role of a drug addict who provides invaluable service for the dying man.

The only other film cited by the jury (which included India's Aishwarya Rai) was Samira Makhmalbaf's "At Five In The Afternoon", a moving, powerful drama focussing on women in post-Taliban Afghanistan. It garnered the Jury Prize. The most conspicuous absentee was Lars Von Trier, whose widely-expected-to-clinch-the-top-Palm "Dogville" did not find favour with the jury. Last year, this Danish auteur had won a Golden Palm for his "Dancer in the Dark".

Also shut out was Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River", whose lead actor, Sean Penn, was marvellous as a reformed convict. Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool" and Naomi Kawase's "Shara" (Japanese) did not seem to have caught the eye of the jury.

While "Swimming Pool" is a gripping piece of cinema about a British writer who finds inspiration in a French countryside home, "Shara" was filmed in Nara (Japan's ancient capital) and narrates the experiences of a small family, by far the best of Kawase's work.

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