Who will win the Palme at Cannes? [2023 edition]

Almodóvar’s 30-minute “Strange Way of Life” isn’t worth waiting an hour in the rain to see, but Ethan Hawke is the perfect vessel for a Wild West “Pain and Glory” — an American actor zoned in on this specific wavelength of conflicted rage and quiet longing. #Cannes2023

— Siddhant Adlakha (@SiddhantAdlakha) May 17, 2023

LOL, missed this until now: https://www.thewrap.com/cannes-film-festival-jury-deliberations-coppola-xavier-dolan/

2015: The famously outspoken (and occasionally bratty) Canadian director Xavier Dolan has been competing at Cannes since he was a teenager, so it’s natural that the festival asked him to serve on the jury two years ago. But Dolan was apparently not the most congenial panelist, getting on some of his fellow jurors’ nerves as he lobbied feverishly — and perhaps rudely — for his favorites and against the likes of Todd Haynes’ subdued love story “Carol.” At the jury press conference that followed the awards ceremony, Dolan said, “I somehow feel like a better person.” Sitting nearby, jury co-president Ethan Coen audibly muttered, “You’re not.”

Found linked in this: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/cannes-film-festival-controversies

But the tension between audience and jury was never higher than in 1999, when Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother was the unquestioned odds-on favorite to win the Palme. The crowd’s reaction to the David Cronenberg–led jury winners—which included awarding three prizes to Bruno Dumont’s L’Humanité—was so increasingly incensed that Roger Ebert deemed the ceremony “carnage.” When Almodóvar was awarded best director, the crowd gave a standing ovation. But the worst of the crowd’s ire was reserved for the downbeat Palme winner, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Rosetta, reportedly including booing its star Émilie Dequenne as she tearfully accepted her best-actress trophy. Cronenberg later said that it was not only a unanimous decision, but that he was told it was the fastest deliberation to the Palme in Cannes history; the Dardennes have become Cannes mainstays since, with many of their films earning a Cannes prize.

I do remember American critics in particular deciding pretty quickly that L'Humanité was the devil, and Owen G. angrily putting Rosetta at the top of his worst movies of the year list.

Rosetta is great!

I get wanting to give Almodovar that Palme, and it makes total sense. But beyond that and the actual winners, '99 ... just wasn't that great a competition year:

8½ Women by Peter Greenaway
All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre) by Pedro Almodóvar
Cradle Will Rock by Tim Robbins
The Emperor and the Assassin (Jing Ke ci Qin Wang) by Chen Kaige
Felicia's Journey by Atom Egoyan
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai by Jim Jarmusch
Humanité (L'humanité) by Bruno Dumont
Kadosh by Amos Gitai
Kikujiro (Kikujirô no natsu) by Takeshi Kitano
The Letter (La lettre) by Manoel de Oliveira
Limbo by John Sayles
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Tin seung yan gaan) by Nelson Yu Lik-wai
Moloch (Molokh) by Alexander Sokurov
The Nanny (La balia) by Marco Bellocchio
No One Writes to the Colonel (El coronel no tiene quien le escriba) by Arturo Ripstein
Our Happy Lives (Nos vies heureuses) by Jacques Maillot
Pola X by Leos Carax
Rosetta by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
The Straight Story by David Lynch
Tales of Kish (Ghessé hayé kish) by Abolfazl Jalili, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Nasser Taghvai
Time Regained (Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust) by Raúl Ruiz
Wonderland by Michael Winterbottom

Compare to 2000:

Bread and Roses by Ken Loach
Chunhyangdyun by Kwon-taek Im
Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages by Michael Haneke
Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier
Esther Kahn by Arnaud Desplechin
Estorvo by Ruy Guerra
Fast Food Fast Women by Amos Kollek
Gohatto by Nagisa Oshima
Guizi lai le by Jiang Wen
Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien by Dominik Moll
In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai
Kippur by Amos Gitai
Les destinées sentimentales by Olivier Assayas
Nurse Betty by Neil LaBute
O Brother, Where Art Thou? by Joel Coen
Svadba by Pavel Lungin
Sånger från andra våningen by Roy Andersson
Takhté siah by Samira Makhmalbaf
The Golden Bowl by James Ivory
The Yards by James Gray
Trolösa by Liv Ullmann
Yi Yi by Edward Yang
Yurîka by Shinji Aoyama

i love Kikujiro so much

but yeah 2000 is some year

Gonna be a tough red carpet act to follow:

✨ Montée des Marches de KAIBUTSU
(MONSTER) de KORE-EDA HIROKAZU
-
✨ Red Steps of KAIBUTSU
(MONSTER) by KORE-EDA HIROKAZU #Cannes2023 #Competition #OfficialSelection

With the team of STRANGE WAY OF LIFE by Pedro Almodóvar pic.twitter.com/METXRByXAJ

— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) May 17, 2023

uh McQueen made Shame, a worst film in 2011.

Lovers Rock was the first thing I've seen by him that made me think he's capable of more than competence

"6 tickets for Bros, please" pic.twitter.com/WnMXnOMYeE

— C.J. Prince (@cj_prin) May 17, 2023

When Will We Be Infamous

Kore-eda's Monster sounds like a pretty great movie overall; it is told from the points of view of a mother, a son, and a teacher. But there seems to be some dissent about it. Jessica Kiang apparently didn't like the ending and didn't think it was as 'Rashomon-like' as many reviewers suggested, and Nanako Tsukidate as far as I can tell gave it a zero on the ICS grid.

"The children appear to have a hidden capacity for spite, violence and self-harm, which creates a miasma of fear in the lives of the adults, while the schoolteachers are trying to cover up a situation that could damage their professional reputations. The parent involved is trying to do the opposite: to uncover and get at some extraordinary and scary truth."

Here we go!

What's the ranking here? Assumed it was 1-5 stars but is it 1-3?

— David (@DKeith0904) May 18, 2023

Lol, I meant this one

For the first time, Screen's famous Cannes jury grid will now be updating live - follow it here: https://t.co/mkvagnohrj pic.twitter.com/Cr8WK2fdCX

— Screen International (@Screendaily) May 18, 2023

I do remember American critics in particular deciding pretty quickly that L'Humanité was the devil

I read a critic who refused to name best actor winner Emmanuel Schotté in his write-up on the film, because his performance was not acting.

It's only day 2 and Wang Bing's Youth (Spring) easily grabs the lead - top of the leaderboard with an average of 3.5 on our 2023 Cannes Critics’ Panel. While only 8 of our 20 critics fit the 3+ hour docu in their sched, more grades will likely cement https://t.co/Z0EFrzFWYZ pic.twitter.com/z6YryiRD7e

— IONCINEMA (@ioncinema) May 19, 2023

The two best films I’ve ever seen in Cannes both star Sandra Hüller.

— David Jenkins (@daveyjenkins) May 19, 2023

Zone of Interest is getting very high praise

Zone of Interest: Jonathan Glazer’s new film is a profound and disturbing masterpiece which made me feel physically ill. @cinevue

— John Bleasdale (@drjonty) May 19, 2023

Glazer's path has been interesting af, I do wanna see this

https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-zone-of-interest-review-jonathan-glazer-1234865296/

According to @GuyLodge's metric that if Glazer's THE ZONE OF INTEREST is good, it means this is a good Cannes, it's a very, very, very good Cannes.

Also a bone-chillingly creepy one.

— Jessica Kiang (@jessicakiang) May 19, 2023

About Dry Grasses has gotten a pretty good reaction as well

Also, the more masterpieces there are, the more likely they’re gonna give it to Ken Loach again

:) I hope not

I guess Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters is a work of docufiction, where actors portray real people in a historical moment. It sounds interesting

Would love to hear Thierry Fremaux’s response to this:

The only way an #autistic person can have a half decent festival experience at #CannesFilmFestival is if you’re a VIP who can afford to take taxis everywhere and stay at one of the fancy hotels by the Croisette.

The industry’s mindset will make you feel that if you’re not…

— Irene Silvera (@irene_silvera) May 20, 2023

Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon has gotten great reviews, but at 3 1/2 hours I’m wondering if it is really compelling or if it is an eat-your-vegetables kind of movie. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt and am looking forward to it. It has Lily Gladstone

The Wang Bing Youth (Spring), which is Jeunesse on the list above, is the same length. It sounds repetitive, claustrophobic and oppressive, with occasional reprieves, but also kind of amazing

abut kids working in cramped conditions in small clothes factories in China, popping out 100-or-more baby garments per day - showing all of the sweat and toil, infighting, spats and make-ups and camaraderie in extremely dingy grungy spaces

Wait, did you watch it?

no, just listened to the Film Comment podcast that described it in detail

I skipped over their discussion of Monster. Like with Close I want to experience it for myself. (I still haven't seen Close)

in May December, “Moore co-stars as Gracie Atherton, a 60-year-old southern belle with a sun-bright smile and a brittle coating of frost. More than two decades ago she fell in love with Joe Yoo, a 13-year-old schoolboy, sparking a nationwide scandal that people remember to this day.”

That’s enough to get me interested

The Tunisian film Four Daughters sounds interesting, with the two older daughters who became radicalized by Isis played by actors (along with the mother), but with the two younger daughters played by the actual in-real-life subjects of the story

This grid appears to have all of the outliers RE: the new Glazer

Justine Triet’s ‘Anatomy Of A Fall’ joins ‘May December’ at top of Screen’s Cannes jury grid https://t.co/oSuugFKDRW pic.twitter.com/DTxLn3Wd1a

— Screen International (@Screendaily) May 22, 2023

Interesting. Here is the Intl Cinephile Society critics' grid:

Day 5 of #Cannes2023 is done. We're almost halfway folks! https://t.co/XYEFp6yt7o pic.twitter.com/765ZWXF88i

— IntlCinephileSociety (@ICSfilm) May 21, 2023

That always feels like the more reliable one tbh

In Ehrlich’s negative review of Club Zero he’s right that “no other narrative director is more skeptical of — or even hostile towards — the social institutions into which people entrust their faith”

Lourdes (2009) is about a young disabled woman with multiple sclerosis who is very skeptical about religion. She is living in a care facility and wants to go to Lourdes just for the change of scene and to be fussed over. She encounters many Catholic true believers who don’t understand her, but she in the end inexplicably is the one who is healed.

Amour Fou (2014) is an incredibly morose (but occasionally comedic) film that alternates between showing boring discussions of arcane tax law and a toxic relationship between two people obessessed with death. It is about the real life poet Heinrich Von Kleist who died by suicide after shooting his girlfriend Henriette Vogel in 1811.

Little Joe (2019), which won the Cannes best actress award for Emily Beecham, is another really memorable film, about a horticultural lab which is portrayed in a very stylized and futuristic way, where a plant is developed that releases a powerful antidepressant, with the plant eventually assuming control. Ben Wishaw also stars

Ehrlich says “It’s one thing for Hausner to question religion, which has been responsible for all manner of sins over the centuries, but antidepressants — and now educators — feel like cynical targets for a filmmaker desperate to undermine anything that might help people better prepare themselves for the difficulties of a godless world. I want to have faith that I’m misreading Hausner’s intentions, and possibly not for the first time, but I’m getting pretty exhausted by the lack of faith she seems to have in everyone else.”

I don’t think the conclusions to which the critics are reaching about her films are ones that she wants us to make. Her films are much stranger than that.

That said, this doesn’t sound like it will be winning anything

Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero lands like a little drop of poison in Cannes competition. Chill, satisfying parable of 21stC magical thinking with Mia Wasikowska perfectly cast as the tale’s fanatical pied piper. Liked this a lot #Cannes2023

— Xan Brooks (@XanBrooks) May 22, 2023

wow

I've admired every Hausner film I've seen.

‘Fallen Leaves’ snatches top spot on Screen’s #Cannes2023 jury grid; ‘Club Zero’ struggles https://t.co/S56QFy37BM pic.twitter.com/mVmbNRPoCA

— Screen International (@Screendaily) May 23, 2023

Apart from a sniffy review from Variety all the reviews for ‘Asteroid City’ I’ve seen rave about.

Neil Young’s odds keep changing. Here is his current top 10.

https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/cannes-2023/

9/2 Jonathan Glazer THE ZONE OF INTEREST (106m) Fri 19

9/2 Marco Bellocchio RAPITO aka KIDNAPPED (125m) Tue 23

7/1 Alice Rohrwacher LA CHIMERA (130m) Fri 26

8/1 Aki Kaurismäki FALLEN LEAVES (83m) Mon 22

8/1 Jessica Hausner CLUB ZERO (110m) Mon 22

8/1 Todd Haynes MAY DECEMBER (113m) Sat 20

9/1 Kaouther Ben Hania FOUR DAUGHTERS (107m) Fri 19
12/1 Trần Anh Hùng THE POT-AU-FEU (145m) Wed 24

12/1 Nuri Bilge Ceylan ABOUT DRY GRASSES (197m) Fri 19

16/1 Wang Bing YOUTH (SPRING) (212m) Thu 18

I don’t think he has registered the negative reaction to Club Zero yet, and I’m curious about his sudden elevation of the Bellocchio

broker by kore-eda was trash

No, c'mon, it wasn't trash, but it was his first meh film in years.

He has a formal command on which he can rely whereas, say, Paul Schrader, whose most recent film I like a lot, can obviously make garbage when his ear for dialogue and his wham-bam visual sense fail him.

Seems odd to not have Anatomy of a Fall at least in the top 10, much less top 3

it is now tied for number 10 on that list

I just can't abide any new story now about Trump though, especially from a European perspective.

Unless it is very next level, which it won't be, The Apprentice sounds awful, and if it wins anything I will be upset. Enough with the mythologizing

We absolutely consider Ali Abbasi to be Danish, but he was born and raised in Iran, and still holds an Iranian passport, so if you want, you can consider it a Middle Eastern / Persian perspective, I guess.

Just watched "La Chimera". At the moment just savoring the echoes of early Bertolucci as well as Pasolini - off the top of my head - and what landscape and history mean in terms of a nation's sense of self. A strange and sometimes joyful film but the melancholy hangs heavy. Something to think about over the coming days. Rohrwacher is a filmmaker who really fascinates me.