Kruger, Phoenix win at Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival awarded its coveted Palme d'Or to Ruben Ostlund's Swedish comedy The Square on Sunday, while Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the Best Director award.
In The Square, Claes Bang plays a museum director whose manicured life begins to unravel after a series of events that upset his, and the museum's, calm equilibrium. The movie's title comes from an art installation that Bang's character is prepping.
The president of the Cannes jury, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, praised the film for exploring the "dictatorship" of political correctness and those trapped by it.
Coppola won best director for The Beguiled, her remake of Don Siegel's 1971 Civil War drama about a Union soldier hiding out in a Southern girls' school. Hailed as Coppola's most feminist work yet, the remade thriller told from a more female point of view stars Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst, with Colin Farrell playing the wounded soldier.
Coppola was one of three female filmmakers out of 19 in competition for the Palme this year. The first—and until now, only—female winner of the Best Director prize was Soviet director Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva in 1961.
Diane Kruger was named Best Actress and Joaquin Phoenix Best Actor as the festival celebrated its 70th anniversary.
Kruger was honored for her performance in Fatih Akin's In the Fade. She played a German woman whose son and Turkish husband are killed in a bomb attack. The film alludes to a series of actual killings that shook Germany six years ago, when it came to light that police had spent more time investigating the possible mob connections of migrant victims than the telltale signs of the far-right plot eventually uncovered.
"I cannot accept this award without thinking about anyone who has ever been affected by an act of terrorism and who is trying to pick up the pieces and go on living after having lost everything," the actress said. "Please know that you are not forgotten."
Phoenix was recognized for his role in Lynne Ramsay's thriller You Were Never Really Here, in which he played a tormented war veteran trying to save a teenage girl from a sex trafficking ring.
The actor wore sneakers on stage as he collected the prize. He said his leather shoes had been flown ahead of him. He apologized for his appearance, saying the prize was "totally unexpected."
The French AIDS drama 120 Beats Per Minute won the Grand Prize from the jury. The award recognizes a strong film that missed out on the Palme d'Or.
The jury also presented a special prize to Nicole Kidman to celebrate the festival's 70th anniversary.
Kidman wasn't at the French Rivera ceremony, but sent a video message from Nashville, saying she was "absolutely devastated" to miss the show.
Jury member Will Smith made the best of the situation, pretending to be Kidman.
He fake-cried and said in halting French, "merci beaucoup madames et monsieurs."