Cannes’ 2018 Closing Ceremony was the perfect microcosm of the festival itself: it embraced some much-needed social change and somehow was still the usual old boys’ club. The fest’s highest honor, the Palme D’Or, did not, as many suggested it should, go to Nadine Labaki’s “Capernaum.” Instead, the honor went to “Shoplifters,” from Hirokazu Kore-Eda. Despite the inspiring, women-driven protests and the historic gender equality pledge at Cannes this year, Jane Campion is still the only woman director to win the Palme D’Or, and it’s been 25 years since that victory.
Labaki did win the Jury Prize — generally speaking, Cannes’ third prize award — for “Capernaum.” The film is a fable-like tale about a young boy who sues his parents for bringing him into a world full of suffering. The other female Cannes winners at the Closing Ceremony were “Happy As Lazzaro’s” Alice Rohrwacher, who received the Best Screenplay award (in a tie with “3 Faces'” Nader Saeivar) and Samal Yeslyamova, who was named Best Actress for her turn in “My Little One.” “Happy As Lazzaro” explores the friendship that develops when a nobleman asks a peasant to help him stage his own kidnapping, and “My Little One” is a portrait of a new mother who, living in poverty, must give up her baby.
Also, in a separate ceremony, Zsòfia Szilàgyi’s Critics’ Week film “One Day” won the International Critics’ Prize, an honor that recognizes a filmmaker’s achievement in a first or second film. “One Day” sees a mother and wife processing devastating news — her husband is having an affair with her friend — while going about her day-to-day routine.
Debriefing the Jury’s awards decisions, prez Cate Blanchett mentioned she and her fellow Jury members would “love to see more female directorial voices represented” at Cannes. “I feel that there’s a very strong drive within the organization of the Cannes Film Festival to make sure that they explore, with their ‘curious’ hat on, female perspectives. There perhaps weren’t quite as many female-driven narratives as I’d have liked. But there were certainly some powerhouse performances — we awarded one, and there were several more we could have chosen from.”
Blanchett explained, “The Palme D’Or, it has to be something where all the elements come together, where the acting is extraordinary, where the direction is extraordinary, where the mise en scène is profound and deep, the cinematography … where all those elements of seamlessly interwoven. And it was hard, because there were several films we felt were like that. And it was a very difficult decision. But, in the end, I think we were completely bowled over by [‘Shoplifters’].”
The lack of a female Palme D’Or win is disappointing, but it’s hard to feel too demoralized about Cannes 2018 after hearing Asia Argento’s Closing Ceremony speech. Argento, presenting the Best Actress award with Jury member Ava DuVernay, powerfully recalled her rape by Harvey Weinstein at Cannes in 1997. Argento called on the festival and the film industry to face their own complicity in Weinstein’s actions, and described her hopes for a world in which “[Weinstein] will never be welcomed here ever again.” She said, “He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him and covered up for his crimes.”
Argento then used her platform to emphasize how much progress has yet to be made. “Even tonight, sitting among you, there are those who still have to be held accountable for their conduct against women,” she observed. “You know who you are, but most importantly, we know who you are.”
Discours très fort et très applaudi de l'actrice d'Asia Argento en ce début de Cérémonie de Clôture avant l'annonce du prix d'interprétation féminine.
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It’s an emotional, call-to-action of a speech. Hopefully Cannes will take her words to heart in the years to come.
