The winners of this year’s Cannes Film Festival have been announced and it’s good news for Kirsten Dunst and Terrence Malick, the director of Palme d’Or winner Tree of Life..  I’ve seen the Tree of Life trailer about a thousand times at the Plano Angelika and to be honest, I haven’t been very enthused about it.  On the one hand, Terrence Malick is a legendary director and the film looks visually quite stunning.  On the other hand, the trailer also features a kid with a heavy country accent (and I’m not hating here, I’ve got quite a twang myself) going “Mother, Father, always you fight within me,” and when I hear dialogue like that, I’m just kinda like, “Uh-oh.”  The trailer itself features a lot of quite interesting and tense family scenes mixed in with a lot of scenes that seem rather New Agey.  I’d go into my feelings about new agey films but I don’t want to upset our readers in Vermont.

Kirsten Dunst (who may be on the verge of a comeback of sorts and good for her) won for a film directed by Lars Von Trier and I wonder if the award was, in any way, meant to protest Von Trier being previously declared a “non-person” at Cannes because of a press conference where he may or may not (I haven’t been following the story closely enough to take a side) have said he was a Nazi.  (While I can’t say whether or not Von Trier is a Nazi, I can say that I loved Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, and Zentropa and I hated Dogville and I’m scared to see AntiChrist.)

Anyway, here’s the winners:

• Palme d’Or: The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
• Grand Prix(a tie): Le Gaumin au Velo (Dardennes brothers) & Once Upon a Time in Anataolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
• Best Director: Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive)
• Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
• Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)
• Prix du Jury: Polisse (Maïwenn)
• Prix du scènario / Best Screenplay: Hearat Shulayim (Joseph Cedar)
• Camera d’Or (Best First Film): Las Acacias (Pablo Giorgelli)
• Un Certain Regard : Prix Spécial du Jury / Special Jury Prize : Elena (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
• Best Short Film: Cross Country

Just a heads up, Arleigh — next year, I’m going to get down on my knees and crawl all the way over to California just so I can beg you to send me to Cannes. 🙂