Cannes 2005: Million dollar baby
After last year's sensational award to Michael Moore, the Cannes jury has now gone for a much more classic euro-arthouse choice. This might be less of a headline-grabber, but it provided a highly satisfying ending to a festival which - if not vintage exactly - showcased a clutch of really first-rate films.
By giving the Palme d'Or to The Child, they have honoured a profoundly moving and engaging realist picture by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian brothers who have now conquered Cannes twice. The first time was in 1999 with their film Rosetta. The Child is the story of Bruno (Jérémie Renier), a 20-year-old petty thief in a dismal Belgian town. His 18-year-old girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François), has just had their baby, whom she dotes on. But Bruno isn't so sure.
On the proceeds of Bruno's larcenous adventures, the couple are able to splash out. But the money's soon gone and they have to spend the night in a homeless hostel, where they are separated into men's and women's wings, as if in a Victorian workhouse. Bruno becomes tempted by what one of his fences tells him: that there is big money to be made in selling children into the adoption black-markets, and one afternoon he offers to relieve the unsuspecting Sonia of the baby and take him for an innocuous "walk" where he will meet a certain contact.
It is a terrifying and emotionally harrowing story, given depth by two superb performances. The film pays a lot more than lip-service to an idea that has become modish at Cannes this year: moral redemption. In other movies, that idea was nothing more than a style accessory, but in The Child it has a commanding ethical force, and the festival did itself a favour by paying the highest tribute to a film that has a compelling and unapologetic moral seriousness.
The only other real contender for the Palme d'Or, in my book, was another French-language film: Michael Haneke's blood-freezing stalker nightmare Hidden, which won the best director award. It played like a mixture of the classic Japanese horror The Ring and Haneke's own Benny's Video. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche play a well-off media couple in Paris who are terrorised by a mysterious stalker who sends "surveillance" videos of the street outside their fancy apartment, and other intimate scenes from their private life, the filming of which appears to be a total physical impossibility.
The videos awaken Auteuil's long-suppressed memories of childhood cruelty to an Algerian boy, and he is convinced that this is the answer. But is it a real stalker or a metaphysical avenger? Is the pitiless stalker's intrusion somehow the same thing as Haneke's own pitiless gaze? The mystery is maintained up until the very end, and, as with so many of Haneke's films, the resulting disquiet lingers in the bloodstream like malaria.
The most enjoyable film in the festival was rewarded with the Grand Prix - traditionally, the silver medal of Cannes - and this was Jim Jarmusch's lovely, gentle film Broken Flowers, about a middle-aged rich guy, played by Bill Murray, who goes on a trip down memory lane to track down his old lovers, played by Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton. It looks a lot like Alexander Payne's About Schmidt, and Bill Murray gives a performance very similar to his hilarious, heart-tugging appearance in Lost in Translation. But this is a beautifully warm and generous picture none the less.
Many thought that Murray should have got the best actor prize for this, but it went to Tommy Lee Jones, who was making his directorial debut with a neo-Peckinpah western, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which also won the best screenplay award for Guillermo Arriaga. Lee Jones was warmly received at Cannes for this effort, as was the Israeli entertainer Hanna Laslo, who won best actress for her performance in Amos Gitai's ensemble road movie Free Zone.
I personally think the best female actor at Cannes by a mile was Bryce Dallas Howard in Lars Von Trier's latest anti-American squib, Manderlay, which got zero prizes. As in M Night Shyamalan's The Village - which Manderlay faintly resembles - Howard rose above a middling movie to give a remarkable performance. It can't be long before prizes and Academy awards are showered on her.
As for Britain, well, we can take some pride in the fact that Film Four co-produced the quirky American ensemble movie Me and You and Everyone You Know, which won the Camera d'Or prize for a first feature.
Not a stunningly adventurous or groundbreaking list of winners, perhaps. But undoubtedly quality was recognised and justice was served. I look forward to all these films - particularly The Child, Hidden and Broken Flowers - making their UK appearance with the Cannes seal of approval.