Tale of approaching death triumphs at Cannes
Austrian director Michael Haneke yesterday became only the second man to win the Palme d’or in Cannes for back-to-back films.
Amour, an exquisite, agonising depiction of an old man coping with his wife’s approaching death, was the bestreviewed film of the French festival and the narrow favourite for the most prestigious prize in arthouse cinema.
Its victory enabled the festival to salute two of the touchstone actors of French cinema.
Emmanuelle Riva, the anonymous ‘‘She’’ in Hiroshima, Mon Amour in 1959, and Jean-louis Trintignant, the ‘‘homme’’ of Un Homme et Une Femme in 1966, were helped on stage to watch Haneke lift the award.
Set almost exclusively in their characters’ Parisian apartment – the husband has promised his wife he will not send her to hospital or a home – the film presents an unflinching look at an experience most people can relate to directly but which is rarely depicted in cinema.
Haneke, 70, who won in 2009 with The White Ribbon, thanked his wife and said the film was ‘‘an illustration of the promise we have made to each other if either one of us finds ourselves in the situation depicted in the film’’.
The jury that handed Haneke the prize was chaired by the Italian actor-director Nanni Moretti and included the fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier (wearing a skirt) and two Britons: actor Ewan Mcgregor and director Andrea Arnold.
The Grand Prix, a sort of silver medal, went to Matteo Garrone for Reality, a story of a Neapolitan fishmonger trying to win a part on the Italian version of Big Brother. Garrone won the same award for his last film, Gomorrah, in 2008.
British director Ken Loach won the bronze medal Jury Prize for his whisky heist comedy The Angels’ Share, his record 11th film in competition.
The Danish former Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen won Best Actor for his scalding performance as an innocent man accused of child abuse in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt.
The big surprise was Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, the craziest and most loudly cheered film in Cannes, failed to pick up anything.