Cannes 61 Grinds To A Close; Home Team Wins

Sunday evening at Cannes brought something of a surprise victory for the first home-grown film to take the top prize in 21 years, as French filmmaker Laurent Cantet's The Class (in French, Entre Les Murs) took the Palme d'Or, with the runner-up Grand Pirze, less surprisingly, going to the Mafia tale (in which the crooks are down-market Neapolitans) Gomorra, and Benicio Del Toro grabbing best actor for his part in Steven Soderbergh's otherwise indifferently received Che two-parter.

Jury president Sean Penn set the crowd up for the announcements by noting, "It is ironic that tonight's closing night film is 'What Just Happened?' because when we announce the prizes, many of you will say "What Just Happened"? And that's how it should be."

The Cantet film seemed almost to benefit from its late-in-the-fest, Saturday morning screening slot which produced a rapturous welcome from the hardy cineastes who had hung in for nearly two weeks through the presentations of other bruited contenders--the now commercially damaged Che, the predictably arcane Synecdoche, New York, James Gray's polarizing Two Lovers , well-regarded but not quite beloved Changeling, and the much-praised but ultimately somewhat familiar A Christmas Story (Un Conte de Noel). The latter two films got nods via two special prizes the jury awarded, to Catherine Deneuve in honor of her sterling work in Arnaud Desplechin's Conte and to Clint Eastwood for the the Angelina Jolie-led story of a mother trying to find her lost son in period Los Angeles.

Del Toro gave his director full credit:

I'd like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara," Del Toro said upon accepting the award. "I want to thank Cannes, I want to thank the Jury and I also want to thank and share this with director Steven Soderbergh who got up every day, forced me to do this. He was there pushing it and pushed all of us.

Penn's early admonition to festival goers to pay close heed to films with an eye to present (and grim) global realities was perhaps reflected on the best actress award to Sandra Corveloni of Walter Salles' and Daniela Thomas' Linha de Passe, a gritty tale of Brazilian kids at risk in a blown-out urban nightmare, and the Camera d'Or. for the best first directing effort to Englishman Steve McQueen's harsh tale of IRA hunger strikers, Hunger (one of several, icluding the warmly embraced A Christmas Story, that a zealous IFC Films acquired for North American distribution).

Somewhere in between earnest documentaries like Frederick Wiseman's High School (or prhaps this year's festival-friendly doc American Teen) and any number of films in which various posses don't do no homework, Class is in large part the creation of French hyphenate, Francois Begaudeau, whose autobiographical novel gave rise to the film, made from a screenplay he co-wrote, in which also plays himself in the lead role. As he is profiled iin the Hollywood Reporter, he also appears to be reasonably humble: "As soon as we decided that the students would play themselves, it became clear to him that I should play myself too, and I agreed... I'm a hard worker. I organize my time. It's not very complicated in fact. I look at it all as chance." Like Del Toro's win a unanimous decision by the jury, Class won despite strong competition from the animated, autobiographical MId East war saga, Waltz for Bashir. Penn, who after his bracing opening press conference was a model of eloquence and good comportment, explained the choice: "There's not a good answer for this question from me, because while I don't believe that I particularly argued for it, ultimately, I think it's a wonderful movie. I also believe that it is a film that is going to find its audience with or without us."

What Just Happened's producer Art Linson and director Barry Levinson, who seemed almost to be wandering like Hollywood ghosts through the sprawling (if locked-down) grounds of the Hotel Du Cap in Anne Thompson's report, still had hopes--as they spun their distribution saga--for a good deal to bring their DeNiro-starring film out back home.

The festival proved a timely international launching pad for Steven Spielberg's Indy 4, which grossed north of $151 million domestically and a potent $143 million internationally, numbers to compete with the king of previous Memorial Day blockbusters, last year's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" , whose Friday-through-Monday domestic total was just two million greater.

In the end, the annual festival that had promised its share of kudos and even trophies to the American selections failed to produce a critical triumph, but had a quietly energetic acquisitions round (the festival's rep admitted the film market had overall been "somewhat sober"). Cannes 61 ends up being more of a celebration of local product than the Yank love feast it might have been, and the U.S. contingent, some of whom rushed to get their films completed in order to debut here, is heading home with something of a lesson in humility.