MY LATE colleague Michael Dwyer, a Cannes addict of the highest order, might have greatly enjoyed this year’s festival. This paper’s erstwhile film correspondent would, of course, have savoured the fact that, after offering up a bit of a stinker last year, the authorities located an impressive array of first-rate films for the 2011 edition.
The overall tone was, perhaps, a bit on the grim side: child abuse in Michael and Poliss; mass murder in We Need to Talk About Kevin; the actual end of the world in Melancholia. But, with Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist, a charming pastiche of silent cinema, the festival pulled a lively, romantic crowd-pleaser out of thin air. The picture wasn't even admitted to the competition until the week before kick-off.
Still, when the closing ceremony arrived, The Tree of Life, a film that alternates passages of dazzling brilliance with stretches of frustrating torpor, proved too massive to resist and powered its way to the Palme d'Or.
What would, however, have particularly pleased Michael was the spectacle of Lars Von Trier making a Grade-A, bone-headed, jackboot-in-gob prat of himself. The story started slowly. Journalists gathered at the Wednesday press conference with the hope – not to say expectation – that Von Trier, long a bête noir in the Dwyer household, would say something deliciously stupid.
So it proved.
The series of jokes about being “a Nazi” and understanding Hitler were, it must be said, rather more outrageous than usual, but the hacks, long used to Von Trier’s naughty-boy act, felt that following an uncharacteristic apology, the story would quickly wither into vapours.
The festival had other ideas.
The board of directors' decision to declare Mr Von Trier persona non gratamay have been made with the best of intentions, but its effect was akin to handing the director a megaphone and gesturing towards a 50-foot-high pulpit.
Before long, now installed in Nice, he was telling anyone who’d listen that the French had acted as they did because they felt guilty about their own treatment of the Jews during the second World War.
It would be going too far to say that the Cannes authorities turned him into a martyr (indeed, given the historical context, such a construction would be in very bad taste). Nonetheless, it was to be expected that such a publicity-hungry beast would delight in having a new award – Le Prix de Persona Non Grata – created especially for him. Expect that Latin phrase to be included on Von Trier’s updated coat of arms.
Lord knows how big the story would have become if this year's films had not been up to scratch. Two weeks ago, when Cannes ground into action, one sensed a nervousness in the air. This is a tricky time for the cinematic art. Out there in the commercial sector, worldwide figures are down. With no Avatarto hoover up the dough, studios have begun to wonder if their arsenal of sequels and remakes is powerful enough to drive punters back into the cinema.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tidesturned up at Cannes to remind those deep in art-house territory who pays the bills.
But what goes on in the main Cannes competition matters for the entire industry. If one part of the body cinema suffers from an infection, then it will rapidly spread throughout the whole frame.
Following last year's annus horribilis – the worst Cannes in 15 years according to many pundits – even hardened veterans were seen shuffling nervously at the press screening for Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin,among the first films shown to the press. If, following that triumph, we had been told that Kevin would win no prizes, then we would have deduced that either the jury, headed by Robert De Niro, was insane or that this was going to be a good year. In failing to grant Ramsay's picture even a token gong, the jury did, perhaps, reveal a tiny trace of lunacy.
But there can be little doubt that Cannes 2011 confirmed the rude health of serious cinema.
We should not have been surprised that veterans such as the Dardenne brothers and Pedro Almodóvar – with The Kid with a Bikeand The Skin I Live In, respectively – delivered films worthy of their reputations. But who would have thought that an existential LA thriller such as Nicolas Winding Refn's Drivewould be good enough to grab the best director's prize? Nobody knew much of Markus Schleinzer before the festival began. His chilling film, Michael,the story of a paedophile and his desperate captive, broke new ground in all sorts of shadowy glades.
At the end of it all, even those producers who, busy chewing through the greenbacks, never actually make it to any movies, were admitting that things were looking up. The good people at Varietymagazine, whose logo towers over the entrance to the Grand Hotel, have described activity in the film market as "a feeding frenzy".
It looked that way.
Threading my way through the Grand Hotel's forest of white sofas – a vast exterior living room separating the building from La Croisette – I encountered a large man poking a smaller man in the chest with a rolled up copy of Screen International.
“I don’t care about them! I don’t care about them! I don’t care about them!” he repeated until mention of the malevolent “them” finally ebbed. “You are in business with us.”
Sod art. Let’s buy product.
The Clarke d'Or
Best Film
We Need to Talk About Kevinby Lynne Ramsay. Grim energy brought to unsettling themes
Runner Up
Le Havreby Aki Kaurismaki. Quirky in a good way.
Second Runner Up
Driveby Nicolas Winding Refn. Monosyllabic crime fun
Best Actor
Michael Fuith in Michael. Deadened and empty as a paedophile
Best Actress
Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin.How much wired frustration can any woman convey? Plenty, as it happens
Most underrated film
Footnoteby Joseph Cedar. Yes, it won the best screenplay award. But an amazing number of people hated this sharp Israeli comedy.
Worst film
House of Toleranceand Sleeping Beauty. It's a tie between two films that revelled in particularly grisly depictions of queasy sexuality. Eugh!
Best 20-minute stretch
The birth of the world in T he Tree of Life.An astonishing tour de force to compare with anything in 2001: A Space Odyssey.Then it all becomes a bit domestic
Best cat
Aww! The poor hungry white moggie in Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. Hey, dogs get their own gong with the Palm Dog (this year awarded to Uggy from The Artist).
Eternal bridesmaid tiara
Pedro Almodóvar for the fine The Skin I Live In. Wear it with pride, old man. For the 400th time, the great Spaniard failed to win the Palme d'Or.
Most annoying cinemagoer
The jerk who actually cheered every time the Cannes logo came up at the start of the film. Get over it, son.
Most annoying hanger on
The twit who drove up and down the Croisette in a Bugatti Veyron. It’s the most expensive car in the world, apparently. Does that mean you have the smallest . . . Oh never mind.
