Cannes ends in a shocker: ‘Dheepan’ wins Palme d’Or

CANNES: A French thriller spotlighting the plight of traumatized refugees building new lives, “Dheepan,” captured the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or top
prize on Sunday.

As countries around the world grapple with an influx of people fleeing crises, a jury led by American filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen chose the gritty picture about Sri Lankan asylum-seekers by acclaimed French director Jacques Audiard from a field of 19 international contenders.
“To receive a prize from the Coen brothers is something pretty exceptional,” Audiard said after a victory that surprised many critics at cinema’s top showcase.
The harrowing Holocaust drama “Son of Saul” by Hungarian newcomer Laszlo Nemes, offering unflinching depictions of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, claimed the Grand Prize, runner-up for best picture.
“This continent is still haunted by this subject,” Nemes said.
“The Lobster,” a surreal black comedy about modern love by Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz bagged the third-place Jury Prize.
The best director honor went to Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-Hsien for the lush, slow-burn martial arts film “The Assassin.”
In one of the night’s biggest upsets, the nine-member panel handed the best-actress trophy to two winners.
Rooney Mara, paired in “Carol” with more hotly tipped co-star Cate Blanchett, split the prize with France’s Emmanuelle Bercot, in a doomed romance, “Mon Roi” (My King). Mara did not attend the ceremony, leaving her director, Todd Haynes, to pick up her trophy.
Bercot, who had a film she directed, “Standing Tall,” open the Cannes fest, said: “I am thrilled to share this with another actress because it’s a bit too big for me to carry alone.”
In a big night for the host country, France’s Vincent Lindon won best actor for his moving turn as a job-seeker standing up for his dignity in “The Measure of a Man.”
Mexican director Michel Franco clinched best screenplay for “Chronic” starring British actor Tim Roth as a nurse caring for dying patients.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls hailed the homegrown winners in a tweet: “French cinema shines tonight in Cannes and out into the world.” President Francois Hollande’s office hailed “Dheepan” for “dealing with virtuosity with the painful subject of Tamils looking to build a future in Europe.”
Critic Peter Bradshaw of London’s The Guardian expressed disappointment at the choice of “Dheepan,” saying it was more of a lifetime achievement award for Audiard, who is a Cannes favorite.
The “brilliant director... had actually given us something less than his very best work,” Bradshaw said.
Joel Coen indicated that the jury had been divided.