Cannes Consensus Palm d'Or Goes To The Square
With all prizes announced and red carpet being rolled back at Film Festival de Cannes, there's an ocean of cheer and disappointment that always follow. Was the Jury led by the director and producer Pedro Almodóvar the most objective or The Square by Ruben Östlund worth of the Palme d’Or?
Probably you have to watch for yourselves to make your own judgement. Meanwhile, here are some observations made in the global media:
Peter Bardshaw, The Guardian: "The Square is the one film that they [Jury] could all agree that they liked, and I further suspect it was a unanimous second choice with everyone disagreeing on the top dog."
Peter Debruge, Variety: "The choice came as something of a surprise, if only because the masterful, 142-minute film has divided audiences so far, and jury prizes rely on consensus."
Pedro Almodóvar, "It’s contemporary, it’s about the dictatorship of being politically correct."
However, not the Palm d'Or has been the greatest surprise. It is the Jury Prize that went to Loveless by Andrey Zvyagintsev and is considered the third place in the Festival. The director of the Oscar winner Leviathan has been expected to win the Palm d'Or by many of the critics present at screenings. According to Peter Bardshaw, it was "a film with the clarity and consistency of a diamond... Zvyagintsev brilliantly shines a light on what he sees as the condition of modern Russia, with its materialism and aspirational heartlessness – and indeed lovelessness."
The list of other prize-winners and potential adds-on to your movie list:
Grand Prix: “BPM (Beats Per Minute)” (Robin Campillo)
70th Anniversary Award: Nicole Kidman
Director: Sofia Coppola, “The Beguiled”
Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, “You Were Never Really Here”
Actress: Diane Kruger, “In the Fade”
Screenplay: “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou) and “You Were Never Really Here” (Lynne Ramsay)
Camera d’Or: “Jeune femme” (Montparnasse-Bienvenüe) (Léonor Serraille)
Short Films Palme d’Or: “Xiao Cheng Er Yue” (Qiu Yang)
