Staff Writer
The 76th Cannes Film Festival’s renowned top prize was awarded to a twisting courtroom drama set in the French Alps on Saturday, and Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” won it.
Only the third film directed by a woman to win the Palme d’Or was “Anatomy of a Fall,” which features Sandra Hüller as a writer attempting to establish her innocence in her husband’s death. Julia Ducournau, one of the two former winners, was on the jury this year.
Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” a terrifying Martin Amis adaption about a German family residing adjacent to Auschwitz, won Cannes’ Grand Prix, the festival’s second honor.
The Swedish director Ruben stlund, who has won the Palme Award twice, presided over the panel that made the decisions. Ruben stlund received the award last year for “Triangle of Sadness.” The Pixar animation “Elemental,” the festival’s closing night feature, was shown before the ceremony.
“Fallen Leaves,” a sardonic love story about a romance that blossoms in a loveless workaday environment where news from the war in Ukraine frequently play on the radio, won the jury prize. It was directed by Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki.
In Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” Koji Yakusho, a seasoned Japanese actor, plays a thoughtful middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans bathrooms. The movie by Wenders is a serene, everyday character study.
Best actress went to Turkish actor Merve Dizdar for Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses.”
Ceylan’s expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays as a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.
“The character I portray in the film is someone who is fighting for her life and she’s overcome a lot of difficulties. Under normal circumstances, I would have had to work hard on this character,” said Dizdar.
“I understand what it’s like to be a woman in this area of the country,” she continued. “I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.”
Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng took best director for “Pot-au-Feu,” a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet château.
Quentin Tarantino, who received the top prize at Cannes for his picture “Pulp Fiction,” was present to pay tribute to Roger Corman. In his admiration of Corman, Tarantino said that the director gave him and many other moviegoers “unadulterated cinema pleasure.”
The independent film maverick Corman declared, “My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess, and fun.” “I feel like this is what Cannes is all about.”
The ceremony on Saturday brought to an end a Cannes edition that had not been short in star power, spectacle, or controversy. Out of competition emerged the premieres with the highest wattage.
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” a vast portrayal of American exploitation starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone, is Martin Scorsese’s epic about the Osage murders.
