Posted: Sun., May 28, 2006, 2:45pm PT
Loach 'Shakes' up Palme d'Or
'Flanders' takes Grand Prix
By TODD MCCARTHY
Ken Loach's 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' won the Plame d'Or at the 59th Cannes Film Festival.
CANNES -- Honoring one of its favorite veteran auteurs rather than one of the numerous young turks on the scene, the Cannes Film Festival awarded the Palme d'Or for 2006 to British director Ken Loach for "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," an incisive look at strife in Ireland circa 1920.
The jury for the 59th Cannes fest, headed by Wong Kar-wai, struck a relatively safe and conventional note in its distribution of prizes, veering off only with the bounty of acting awards to two ensembles, male and female, and in giving two nods to "Volver" while leaving its director, Pedro Almodovar, with a screenplay prize for the melodrama but still without a Palme d'Or of his own.
War, in fact, was the dominant subject among several of the winners, including Bruno Dumont's "Flanders," which copped the Grand Prix, and Rachid Bouchareb's "Indigenes" (Days of Glory), which won the male acting prize for its five leads, as well as the Loach.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu took home the best director prize for "Babel," his study of miscommunication and generational angst filmed in three countries.
Jury prize was given to British first-time director Andrea Arnold for her intense Scottish-set drama, "Red Road."
Perhaps Almodovar can take consolation in the fact that Loach has been a frequent bridesmaid at Cannes the English vet was in the competition for the eighth time this year and has received assorted awards for "Looks and Smiles," "Hidden Agenda" and "Raining Stones." Wong made a point of stating that the Palme d'Or was the first award the jury voted on and that the choice was unanimous.
Ever the political animal, Loach noted in his acceptance speech, which he delivered in both English and French, that the film was designed to make the British confront their colonial history, and concluded that, "If we tell the truth about the past, maybe we can tell the truth about the present."
A total of 11 thesps were honored in the acting categories. The femme ensemble from "Volver" consisted of Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo and Chus Lampreave. The actors playing North African soldiers in the French Army during World War II were Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila and Bernard Blancan. Latter group carried on onstage at the Lumiere for quite a while, breaking into one of the film's army songs at the end, to a rousing reception.
The films honored were among the more mainstream and accessible films in the competition, with the exception of Dumont's "Flanders," which returns to something close to the style of the director's previous Cannes-honored "L'humanite" as it links some blunt male-female sexuality in France to shocking violence on an unnamed Middle Eastern battlefront.
The Palme d'Or for short films went to "Sniffer" from Norway, directed by Bobbie Peers; Pablo Augero's "First Snow," directed by by Pablo Augero, from France-Argentina, and a special mention was made of Florence Miailhe's "Conte de quartier," from France-Canada.
The top Un Certain Regard prize was won by Wang Chao's contempo Chinese drama "Luxury Car." Special jury prize for the Official Selection sidebar went to Aussie helmer Rolf De Heer's Aboriginal tale "Ten Canoes," while acting prizes in the section were given to Dorotheea Petre for the Romanian-French coming-of-age drama "How I Spent the End of the World" and to Don Angel Tavira for the Mexican drama 'The Violin." The president of the jury's prize, presumably representing the choice of jury topper Monte Hellman, was Patrick Grandperret's "Murderers."
The Camera d'Or, given to a first feature from across all sections of Cannes (there were many this year), was snared by Romanian helmer Corneliu Porumboiu's droll political comedy "12:08 East of Bucharest," which unspooled in the Directors Fortnight.
At the jury press conference following the ceremony, Helena Bonham Carter made the most telling remark, stating, "You'd think, two films a day, what a pleasure. But there's been lots of violence, lots of brutality, and we've had to enter very bleak landscapes, and it's taken a real toll on all of us. The Loach, which was one of five films about war -- I can't explain our mass reaction. I think we were just profoundly moved."
Palestinian director Elia Suleiman echoed these comments by saying, "What is very interesting about the films in competition is that a lot of them are engaged with issues of the world today. We live in a very troubled global atmosphere. There was no specific attention to what a film was about, but how it told the story."
Striking a different note, Wong couldn't help but point out the obvious, that this was "the most hot-looking jury I've ever seen," what with the beauty of Monica Bellucci, Zhang Ziyi and Bonham Carter balanced by the cool of Samuel L. Jackson and the friskiness of Tim Roth, whose overt chumminess with Bellucci during the red carpet entrances had viewers in stitches. Bellucci's husband, Vincent Cassel, hosted the ceremony. Other jurors were Patrice Leconte and Lucrecia Martel.
(Additional reporting by Justin Chang)
And the winners are...
INTL.COMPETITION JURY AWARDS
PALME D'OR
"The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (dir. Ken Loach, Ireland-U.K.-Germany-Italy-Spain).
GRAND PRIX
"Flanders" (Bruno Dumont, France).
SCREENPLAY
Pedro Almodovar ("Volver," Spain).
DIRECTOR
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Babel," U.S.).
ACTOR
"the brotherhood of actors of 'Days of Glory'" -- Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila, Bernard Blancan (Rachid Bouchareb, France-Morocco-Algeria-Belgium).
ACTRESS
"the family of actresses of 'Volver'" -- Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave.
JURY PRIZE
"Red Road" (Andrea Arnold, U.K.-Denmark).
SHORT FILM JURY AWARDS
PALME D'OR
"Sniffer" (Bobbie Peers, Norway).
JURY PRIZE
"First Snow" (Pablo Aguero, France-Argentina).
SPECIAL MENTION
"Conte de quartier" (Florence Miailhe, France-Canada).
UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY AWARDS
GRAND PRIX
"Luxury Car" (Wang Chao, China-France).
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
"Ten Canoes" (Rolf de Heer, Australia).
ACTRESS
Dorotheea Petre ("How I Spent the End of the World," Romania-France).
ACTOR
Don Angel Tavira ("The Violin," Mexico).
JURY PRESIDENT'S AWARD
"Murderers" (Patrick Grandperret, France)
CAMERA D'OR JURY AWARD
"12:08 East of Bucharest" (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania).
CINEFONDATION JURY AWARDS
FIRST PRIZE
"Ge & Zeta" (Gustavo Riet, Argentina).
SECOND PRIZE
"Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker" (Stefan Mueller, Germany).
THIRD PRIZE (ex aequo)
"Mother" (Sian Heder, U.S.), "The Virus" (Agnes Kocsis, Hungary).
OTHER JURY AWARDS
Fipresci (intl. critics' assn.) Awards
Competition -- "Climates" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey-France)
Un Certain Regard -- "Paraguayan Hammock" (Paz Encina, France-Argentina-Netherlands[/B] -- Paraguay-Spain)
Directors' Fortnight -- "Bug" (William Friedkin, U.S.).
Commission Superieure Technique de l'Image et du Son Award
Stephen Mirrione (editor, "Babel," U.S.).
I love Pedro almodovars movies and from what I've read about Volver it seems to be an interesting story. Can't wait to see that movie! 
Nah, I love the director too!
I think his name is 
