The controversial director Lars von Trier last night won the Palm d’Or in Cannes in the most flamboyant circumstances, insulting the head of the festival and assuring his leading lady – whom he called a ”mad woman” only a fortnight ago – that he ”loved her very much”.
Bjork, the Icelandic pop star whom he accused of eating her costume in a fit of rage on set, also won Best Actress for her portrayal of a blind woman who goes to the gallows for a crime she did not commit.
The bizarre musical, which climaxes with Bjork singing from the scaffold, had divided critics right down the middle, with Variety, the film industry bible, branding it ”artistically bankrupt in every sense”.
Von Trier, 44 – who previously insulted Roman Polanski and, on winning a minor prize in the past, kicked his scroll into the audience – immediately took on Cannes chief, Gilles Jacob.
”He is a very nice man. I don’t know if he knows much about film, but he is a nice man,” he said.
Then, in an attempt to heal the rift with Bjork, he said: ”Thank you very much Bjork. I know she doesn’t believe it, but if you ever meet her tell her I love her very much.”
The pair had walked up the famous red steps before the ceremony in a show of unity reminiscent of Charles and Diana at their most glacial. Bjork, wearing a pink and black liquorice allsorts dress with a large gold penguin dangling from her neck, looked deeply uncomfortable while Von Trier sweated a few feet away.
The other big shocks of the ceremony were the three prizes that went to Iranian film makers.
After all the celebrity trivialities the Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf – the youngest ever in the main competition at Cannes – made an impassioned and, what could be for her, a dangerous speech to remind us that there was a real world outside.
Her voice quivering and her head wrapped in a black scarf, she said: ”This is hope in my homeland. I accept this prize to honour the heroic efforts of the young generation who struggle for democracy and the promise of a better future in Iran.”
Makhmalbaf, who shared the jury prize with Swedish veteran Roy Anderrson for her film The Blackboards, has never before been so open in her call for change in her homeland.
The other major winners were Wong Kar-Wai’s I’m In The Mood For Love which won both best actor for Hong Kong star Tony Leung and the Grand Prix for artistic direction. Another surprise was the Grand Prix for the Chinese war epic Guizi Lai Le which some critics have condemned as dull and boring until its shocking final 20 minutes.
It was not a good night for Hollywood, with only Neil LaBute’s comedy, Nurse Betty, winning Best Screen Play. Veteran James Caan told the night’s best joke to a completely silenced auditorium: ”Whoever named Cannes, the world’s top film festival after me, thank you very much I am very grateful.”
Away from last night’s awards, a British film about a miner’s son who dreams of being a ballet dancer became the expected audience hit of the festival.
Dancer is a tearjerker about a motherless boy from a Durham pit village who defies his father’s wishes that he become a boxer only to win him back when he is accepted by the Royal Ballet.
Audiences sobbed and cheered when it was shown at the close the Director’s Fortnight section of the festival. Although it was beaten to the main prize by Girlfight, an American film about women’s boxing, last night it emerged as favourite for the audience award. Last year’s winner was East Is East, the low-budget British comedy which became a box office sensation.
Dancer, written by Lee Hall, the award-winning playwright of Spoonface Steinberg fame, and starring Julie Walters as a razor-tongued ballet mistress, is a comedy of gender and class. That its debut director, Stephen Daldry, should have chosen to make such an obviously commercial crowd-pleaser caught many critics unawares.
Like East Is East, several British critics have been sniffy about how Dancer shamelessly milks every northern film cliche from Kes to Brassed Off for sentimental effect, but others could not get enough of it. – The Guardian
Festival prizewinners
Palm d’Or Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier
Grand Prix Guizi Lai Le by Jiang Wen (China)
Best Actress Bjork for Dancer in the Dark
Best Actor Tony Leung for In The Mood for Love
Best Director Edward Yang for Yi Yi (Taiwan)
Best Script Nurse Betty
Jury Prize The Blackboards by Samira Makhmalbaf and
Songs from the Second Floor by Roy Andersson
Best Short Film Anino by Raymond Red
Special Mention the cast of La Noce (The Wedding)