Cannes Diary #11 - Jury of One: Final Films & Awards Predictions

by Elisa Giudici

LEILA'S BROTHERS - one of the last to screen and a definite awards contender

It’s 3 AM as I type. I just finished packing my luggage while drinking my last cup of tea, trying to fight exhaustion. In my final day I saw three films which were curiously all about mothers and sisters. I'll try to collect my sleepy thoughts about those films, my predictions about who could win, and my second overall Cannes in loco after the jump. Let’s dive in...

UN BEAU MATIN (ONE FINE MORNING) by Mia Hansen-Løve
DIRECTORS FORTNIGHT

Hansen-Løve sure knows how to create character studies of complex female protagonists. (Disclaimer: I tend to appreciate her cinema without being fully emotionally invested in her stories). After the somewhat messy Bergman Island, she is back with one of the strongest movies of her career featuring a gorgeous lead performance from Léa Seydoux. The french movie star should set her femme fatale roles on the backburner and find more down-to-earth and full-of-heart characters like this one to play.

Seydoux plays Sandra, a single mother who “has forgotten how to have sex”. Five years after she is widowed, she finds herself in a liaison with a married man named Clement (Melvil Poupaud), who was a close friend of her dead husband. The love affair brings her a new positive energy in an emotional moment; Her beloved father's acute mind is fading away day after day. Un beau matin is poetic cinema without sacrificing a realistic portrayal of the life of an adult woman. A passage about the book collection of Sandra’s father is especially moving. "The colors of the book spines together are the portrait of my father: nowadays I find more of him in his book collection than in himself”. This movie is full of small pieces of reality like this about how scary it can be for an adult to face the mortality of a parent -- that growing awareness that we will all eventually grow old, too.

UN PETIT FRÈRE (English title MOTHER AND SON) by Léonor Serraille (France)
COMPETITION FILM

 Another portrayal of motherhood, but a completely different type of woman. Un Petit Frére starts in 1989 when a migrant woman named Rose (Annabelle Lengronne) arrives in France with two of her four sons . Her community wants her to marry a guy named Julius Caesar as soon as possible. She, on the other hand, is content with her life as is: mothering two kids, working as a maid, and occasionally enjoying love affairs with builders she meets on the roof of the hotel where she works. Un Petit Frère is divided into three chapters, each devoted to one of the members of this small family. The French title suggests that the real protagonist is the youngest son, yet the English title is more accurate. With its three chapters it covers two generations of a family and three decades of continuously changing mother-son dynamics. The stubborn mother's emotional growth from a rebellious independent woman into the kind of wife she never wanted to be is the most compelling part of a good movie about family bonds and how the perception of immigrants has changed during the last 30 years in France.

LEILA’S BROTHER by Saeed Roustayi (Iran)
COMPETITION FILM

Is Saeed Roustayi the heir of Asgar Farhadi? He puts his characters through relentless drama, as they continuously have to face their shortcomings and mistakes in a style similar to that Iranian masters. The female protagonist of the movie is Leila (Taraneh Alidoosti, an intelligent woman whose life was, is, and will continue to be shaped by the softness of her four brothers and the way their parents raised them. Let's just say no parenting awards will be handed out!  Leila’s Brothers is a talky two and half hour long drama in which bad timing, worse advice, and pure misfortune beset a single Iranian family with a final blow from a Trump tweet. How Saeed Roustayi describes being poor as a life sentence is staggering to witness. This is a very well-written, strongly directed family drama with an amazing ensemble. The Palme d'Or is a possibility.

OKAY... FINAL FESTIVAL THOUGHTS

Last year I returned home in total love with no less than 5 movies. This time there are only a couple of titles I feel the urge to see again as soon as possible. On the plus side the quality was more consistent so there were fewer lows -- only two movies were complete duds.  What I suspected during the press conference in which the competition lineup was announced has proven true: the main competition which was full of old masters and former winners lacked the “surprise effect” and the energy of fresh blood. For example both Corsage and Un Beau Matin (reviewed above) should absolutely have been in the main competition (which would have raised the female director numbers, too)

I'm sure I missed some real hits from sidebar sections since I focused on Competition titles (seeing all but Kelly Reichart's Showing Up). Among the films I missed the three that everyone was speaking highly of which were Hlynur Pálmason's 19th century Icelandic drama Godland,  Emily Atef's French relationship drama Plus que jamais, and last but not least Scottish director Charlotte Wells' debut Aftersun starring Paul Mescal which was consistently named 'best of the fest' by people I spoke with. Aftersun is the only one of those three with US distribution thus far (A24)

My final film count is 29 movies seen in 12 days. So, who will win and who should? I am terrible at predictions, but for the sake of having fun and embarrassing myself...

CANNES WIN PREDICTIONS

PALME D'OR Considering who is on the jury, I strongly suspect movies including moral commentaries or social themes, or a political angle will be preferred over “simply” masterful work.  I think the likeliest winner is Saeed Roustayi’s Leila’s Brothers (reviewed above). My alternate prediction is Holy Spider. Other outside possibilities for the Palme: RMN, Eo and Boy from Heaven.

GRAND PRIX  Östlund's Triangle of Sadness or Albert Serra's Pacification both feel like possibilities for prizes though I wasn't personally crazy for either

JURY PRIZE  Maybe Lukas Dhont with Close? I loved this one. It's such a little yet perfect movie.

DIRECTOR Jerzy Skolimowski for EO, Cristian Mungiu for RMN, or Park Chan-wook for Decision to Leave?

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

SCREENPLAY - I think Ruben Östlund could win this for Triangle of Sadness (if the film doesn't win a larger prize). Or maybe they'll go a little French and female with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's memoirish Forever Young.

ACTOR - I'm going to predict this goes Italian. Either Pierfrancesco Favino (Nostalgia) who is as beloved in Italy as Toni Servillo though he's had less international attention, OR the combo of Luca Marinelli and  Alessandro Borghi for The Eight Mountains

ACTRESS - Tang Wei (Decision to Leave) who is phenomenal but there were a lot of female leads within the 21 competition titles, so who knows.

JURY OF ONE (Personal awards)

DECISION TO LEAVE

My Winner: Park Chan-Wook's Decision to Leave. I managed to see it a second time on an amazing IMax screen in Cineum. I can confirm it is a masterful piece of art. That said I am quite shocked to see it considered a major contender for the Palme d’Or because I think the jury is likelier to choose a movie with a strong political message. It could still win either Actress or Director, but I won’t be surprised if it's snubbed altogether. 

Best single scene: The 17-minute-long continuous shot of the town council in Cristian Mungiu's RMN. (Runners up:Pacifiction's  waves riding scene, Decision to Leave's hiking scene, The donkey watches wild horses running free in EO.

Horniest: Claire Denis' Stars at Noon

Most Memorable Endings: Holy Spider, Decision to Leave, Corsage, Pacification, and Leila’s Bothers

I hope you enjoyed the coverage! Nathaniel will share the actual winners soon.

Comments

[Edwin]

It’s wild seeing such divergent predictions being made. Depending on whom you ask, it seems like the Palme d’Or is down to two films or as many as six. I’ve seen Close declared a heavy frontrunner by some and merely a dark horse by others, so who really knows?

I do want to say that despite the very mixed reception, I wouldn’t be totally shocked if Cronenberg won the Best Director prize. His film was arguably the most buzzed about heading into the festival, and he’s never won an “official” prize at Cannes despite being a constant presence there for decades (the Special Jury Prize he got for Crash apparently doesn’t count as one of the official categories).