War and Violence Key Themes at 2006 Cannes Film Festival

Of all the world's film festivals, the one that takes place at Cannes, France, every spring is the most prestigious and generates the most buzz. In the 2006 edition, held May 17-28, movies dealing with war or conflict ruled the field. The top prize, the Palme d'Or, or Golden Palm, went to The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a British film about the Irish revolution in the early 20th century. The so-called Grand Prix, or runner-up award, went to Flanders, a French film about young farmers from the country's Flanders region serving in a war in the Middle East.

Jury Explains

The festival's nine-person jury for feature films was headed by Wong Kar-wai, a Hong Kong director celebrated for his romantic films. Wong said the decision on the winner was unanimous, made in just one round of voting. The jurors, he noted, were inclined toward movies that exemplified "compassion, hope, bonding, and solidarity." One panel member, Palestinian director Elia Suleiman, said that the jurors discussed mostly how the films "told a story" and were interested in "innovative elements of cinema." But he also noted the prevalence of topical themes: "I think what is very interesting about the films in this competition is that a lot of them are actually engaged with the issues of the world today. And I don't think it's by accident. We are living in a troubled, global atmosphere." Another jury member, British actress Helena Bonham Carter, noted that many of the films the panel considered had "a lot of violence, a lot of brutality." "We've had to enter very bleak landscapes, intently bleak landscapes," she said.

In addition to Suleiman, Bonham Carter, and Wong (the first Chinese jury leader in the festival's history), the 2006 panel included Italian actress Monica Bellucci, American actor Samuel L. Jackson, French director Patrice Leconte, Argentine director Lucrecia Martel, British actor Tim Roth, and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.

Top Feature Films

The Wind That Shakes the Barley was judged the best in a field of 20 movies selected for the competition. The Palme d'Or was the first for its director, socially minded filmmaker Ken Loach, who had been in the running for the honor at seven previous Cannes festivals. Two of Loach's films received the Jury Prize, the third-place award: Hidden Agenda in 1990 and Raining Stones in 1993. A violence-ridden work that shows civil conflict tearing a family apart, The Wind That Shakes the Barley focuses on the Irish side of the revolution in the early 1920s. The film drew a number of positive reviews, although some British critics reacted negatively to its depiction of British ruthlessness. According to the Irish Examiner, an Irish daily national newspaper, some observers voiced concern "that it merely serves to open up old wounds" on the issue of Northern Ireland, where the peace process remained a work in progress. Jury member Bonham Carter said the movie "hit us all profoundly." She saw in it "a tremendous humanity. I can't explain our mass reaction but we were all profoundly moved." When he accepted the Palme d'Or, Loach sought to draw a parallel between the British role in Ireland and the U.S-led invasion of Iraq: "Maybe if we tell the truth about the past, maybe we tell the truth about the present," he remarked.

Parallels with the Iraq War and perhaps also Afghanistan could also be discerned in Flanders, although director Bruno Dumont said the movie did not carry any explicit message about current events. The Grand Prix-winning film explored the effects of a brutal war on conscripts fighting an Arab-speaking enemy in a Middle Eastern country. Dumont left the country unidentified and the reason for the war unexplained.

Other Prizes

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's Volver (Return) had been favored by many critics to take the top prize. The film involves a mother who comes back to her hometown after her death to deal with loose ends. Almodóvar called Volver a "comic drama," describing it as "a movie about the culture of death in my native region, La Mancha." The movie won the award for best screenplay, and the best actress honor was bestowed upon the whole female cast, which included Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura.

The best actor award also went to an entire ensemble: the French Arab male cast of Indigènes (Days of Glory). The movie, directed by France's Rachid Bouchareb, deals with Algerians and Moroccans who fought for France in World War II.

The unusual decision to award the two acting awards to ensembles was explained by jury head Wong: "It's really an exceptional year for actors and we see, like Volver, it is like what the title suggests; it is Almodóvar's style revisited, with his actresses from his first film to his latest and it is a collective work. It's like a family and the film is about family, so we wanted to highlight that spirit. And the same applies to the Days of Glory. It's about these guys, five persons fighting this war, not only about war and racism and inequalities. Their performance is complementary. There's not only one person; it's like a team. It's not by coincidence or that we want to create a symmetry, because we took the result of these films and they tell us that we should do that."

Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu won the direction award for Babel, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Encompassing three stories and shot on three continents and in four languages, Babel examines cultural and other barriers to understanding between people. The Jury Prize was awarded to British director Andrea Arnold's debut feature, Red Road, about a woman security-camera operator in Glasgow.

Out of Competition

Much of the glitz and star power traditionally associated with Cannes is generated by films that are shown "out of competition"--that is, they are not in the running for an award. Thus, the May 17 opening of the festival saw the world premiere of the Hollywood blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. Like the book by Dan Brown, the movie has generated plenty of attention and controversy; at Cannes, many thought the film was tame rather than controversial or offensive, and the overall critical reaction was lukewarm leaning to negative. Another blockbuster that debuted at the festival was X-Men: The Last Stand, the third installment of the X-Men saga. Also screened at Cannes was An Inconvenient Truth, a new high-profile documentary on global warming featuring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

Other Websites

British Council, The Wind that Shakes the Barley,
http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilm...3123mOl42D2E58

Cannes - A Festival Virgin's Guide, www.cannesguide.com

Festival de Cannes, www.festival-cannes.fr

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/..._Film_Festival

Volver, http://www.clubcultura.com/clubcine/...lverlapelicula