British filmmaker Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d’Or at the 69th Cannes Film Festival. This is the second win for the 79-year-old director, whose The Wind That Shakes The Barley had won the Palme d’Or in 2006. I, Daniel Blake revolves around bureaucratic red tapism and the British government’s malfunctioning health system. In a timely critique of Britain’s political austerity measures, the film portrays a 59-year old carpenter’s struggle to get his disability allowance, and meets a single mother in a similar predicament.
The Palme d’Honneur went to veteran actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. His first Cannes outing was 58 years ago, as a 14-year-old boy in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.
Young Canadian director Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only The End Of The World, which was flayed by critics at the Cannes, won the Grand Prix award at the festival. The film, described as a “perfectly hellish shouting match” by some critics, stars Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, and Léa Seydoux, and is based on a play by Jean-Luc Lagarce. It narrates the story of a man who returns home after a long exile, only to tell his family that he is about to die.
Andrea Arnold’s British-American road drama American Honey walked away with the Jury Prize. The director had won the same award before for Fish Tank and Red Road. The story follows a young woman who leaves behind an abusive home to sell magazines from a van, driving across the Midwest with other youth.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and Franch auteur Olivier Assayas shared the Best Director award for Graduation and Personal Shopper respectively. Interestingly, Personal Shopper was booed at the Cannes screening, and bashed by critics. The story revolves around a personal shopper for celebrities, who can communicate with ghosts.
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Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman won the awards for Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Shahab Hosseini). The film explores what happens when a traumatic disruption occurs in the life of a happily married middle-class couple in Tehran.
Philippine’s Jaclyn Jose won the Best Actress for her role in Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’Rosa. In the film, Jose’s character, a sweet-shop owner in the slums who also sells illegal drugs, spends most of her screen time in jail. This is the first time that a Filipino actress has won an award at Cannes.
Director Houda Benyamina won the Camera d’Or for her debut film Divines. The film is about two young women living in a rough Parisian neighbourhood, and their slow fall into a life of crime.
Feature Image Courtesy: Still from Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only The End Of The World.
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