| Cannes Film Festival 2012 Jury President: Nanni Moretti Other Jurors: Hiam Abbass, Andrea Arnold, Emmanuelle Devos, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Diane Kruger, Ewan McGregor, Alexander Payne, Raoul Peck |
 |
| Palme d'Or: | Amour, France/Germany/Austria, dir. Michael Haneke |
| Grand Jury Prize: | Reality, Italy, dir. Matteo Garrone |
| Jury Prize: | The Angels' Share, UK, dir. Ken Loach |
| Best Director: | Post Tenebras Lux, Carlos Reygadas |
| Best Actress: | Beyond the Hills, Cristina Flutur & Cosmina Stratan |
| Best Actor: | The Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen |
| Best Screenplay: | Beyond the Hills, Cristian Mungiu |
| FIPRESCI/International Critics Prize: | In the Fog, Russia, dir. Sergei Loznitsa |
| Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: | The Hunt, Denmark, dir. Thomas Vinterberg |
| Caméra d'Or (first feature): | Beasts of the Southern Wild, USA, dir. Benh Zeitlin |
Competition Films I Have Seen:Ranked in order of preference
My Palme d'Or
Amour (Austria/Germany/France, dir. Michael Haneke) - Perfectly shot Book of the Dead, showcasing partners more bonded to each other than to their child. Impeccably acted and cut.
Holy Motors (France, dir. Leos Carax) - This shit is bananas, like Matthew Barney's lusty stab at Céline and Julie Go Boating. Melancholy undertow a surprise.
Paradise: Love (Austria, dir. Ulrich Seidl) - Pitiless camera, yes, but surprisingly rich in empathy and thought. Women keep teaching men how to be better liars.
In the Fog (Germany/Russia/Belarus, dir. Sergei Loznitsa) - Loznitsa steadily attains Sophoclean austerity, clarity, and power in sober drama of war's unwinnable moral quandaries.
Like Someone in Love (France/Japan/Iran, dir. Abbas Kiarostami) - Which kind of love? Shamed, seductive, fatherly, hourly, angry, humble—each elliptically reflects the others.
Moonrise Kingdom (USA, dir. Wes Anderson) - Imbues a bit more longing in Anderson's human gamepieces. Lighting lends all the dollhousery warmth and dimension.
Rust and Bone (France, dir. Jacques Audiard) - Audiard's gifts at rhythm and texture, stylistically and psychologically, pay richer dividends than script or theme.
Reality (Italy, dir. Matteo Garrone) - Arena nails lead role; wayward speculation is an apt theme for today's Europe. Still, second hour is one long comet tail.
Lawless (USA, dir. John Hillcoat) - Sturdy, novelistic. Strong on sonic and visual textures. LaBeouf, Clarke well-used. Pearce, love plots, coda much shakier.
Beyond the Hills (Romania, dir. Cristian Mungiu) - Diamantine visuals. Waves of tension. But shots, story beats over-repeat; ideas run at a low ebb.
The Paperboy (USA, dir. Lee Daniels) - Merrily vulgar, yet humid with odd sincerity. Actors push their envelopes; characters sabotage their self-interests.
Killing Them Softly (USA, dir. Andrew Dominik) - Political, stylistic rhetoric dialed way up. Turgid valleys, hypnotic peaks. Prosaic baseline. Solid ensemble.
On the Road (USA/Brazil, dir. Walter Salles) - Prismatically shot and cut, but never feels multifaceted. Charismatically cast, but never fires the imagination. Fine.
Cosmopolis (Canada, dir. David Cronenberg) - Script bulk-buys prose from DeLillo; laudable stab collapses from the outset. Itchy acting, ugly digital, blunt themes.
Sidebar Selections I Have Seen:Ranked in order of preference
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Un Certain Regard: USA, dir. Benh Zeitlin) - A Malick eye on a Morrison milieu. An ecstasy of apocalyptic time, molecules frizzing with bayou life.
Antiviral (Un Certain Regard: Canada, dir. Brandon Cronenberg) - Scenario smacks of Papa but aesthetic does not. Tensely mixed and lensed. Accrues layers, scares, and wit as it unfolds.
Children of Sarajevo (Un Certain Regard: Bosnia-Herzegovina, dir. Aida Begić) - One small step for Dardenne-style cinema, one potent leap in evoking Balkan women's complex social positioning
Mekong Hotel (Out of Competition: Thailand, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul) - Clearly minor, but Joe has a lovely feel for laconic bonhomie, even in the face of disaster. Or of cannibal ghosts.
The Repentant (Directors' Fortnight: Algeria/France, dir. Merzak Allouache) - Remorseful terrorist learns that good intentions don't open many paths in spare, slightly thin French-Algerian drama
Room 237 (Directors' Fortnight: USA, dir. Rodney Ascher) - Director puts nothing on the line—no context, no point of view—in serving unstructured slaw of very selective "readings."
Competition Films I'm Curious to See:
Ranked in order of interest; more on this year's lineup here (opens in a new window)
Post Tenebras Lux, Mexico, dir. Carlos Reygadas
After the Battle, Egypt, dir. Yousry Nasrallah
In Another Country, South Korea, dir. Hong Sang-soo
The Hunt, Denmark, dir. Thomas Vinterberg
The Angels' Share, UK, dir. Ken Loach
Mud, USA, dir. Jeff Nichols
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, France, dir. Alain Resnais
The Taste of Money, South Korea, dir. Im Sang-soo
Sidebar Films I'm Curious to See:
Listed alphabetically; more on this year's lineup here (opens in a new window)
| Un Certain Regard: |
7 Days in Havana, Misc., dir. Laurent Cantet, Benicio Del Toro, et al. 11:25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate, Japan, dir. Kôji Wakamatsu After Lucía, Mexico, dir. Michel Franco Gimme the Loot, USA, dir. Adam Leon God's Horses, Morocco, dir. Nabil Ayouch Laurence Anyways, Canada, dir. Xavier Dolan Miss Lovely, India, dir. Ashim Ahluwalia Our Children, Belgium, dir. Joachim Lafosse La playa DC, Colombia, dir. Juan Andrés Arango Student, Kazakhstan, dir. Darezhan Omirbayev Three Worlds, France, dir. Catherine Corsini |
| Directors' Fortnight: |
Camille Rewinds, France, dir. Noémie Lvovsky Ernest & Celestine, Belgium, dirs. Benjamin Renner, Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar Gangs of Wasseypur, India, dir. Anurag Kashyap Night Across the Street, France/Chile, dir. Raul Ruíz No, Chile, dir. Pablo Larraín Rengaine (Hold Back), France, dir. Rachid Djaïdani Sightseers, UK, dir. Ben Wheatley La Sirga, Colombia, dir. William Vega The We and the I, USA, dir. Michel Gondry |
| Critics' Week: |
Aquí y allá, Mexico, dir. Antonio Mendez Esparza Beyond the Walls, Belgium/Canada/France, dir. David Lambert Broken, UK, dir. Rufus Norris God's Neighbors, Israel, dir. Meny Yaesh In a Rush, France, dir. Louis-Do de Lencquesaing Sofia's Last Ambulance, Bulgaria/Germany/Croatia, dir. Ilian Metev The Wild Ones, Argentina, dir. Alejandro Fadel |
| Out of Competition: |
For Love's Sake, Japan, dir. Takashi Miike Hemingway & Gellhorn, USA, dir. Philip Kaufman The Invisibles, France, dir. Sébastien Lifshitz Me and You, Italy, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci The Sapphires, Australia, dir. Wayne Blair Thérèse Desqueyroux, France, dir. Claude Miller |
| Trackbacks: | Permalink | Cannes Page | 2012 | Home | Blog |