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Taiwan wins consolation prize but no big awards at Cannes

By Yu Sen-lun
STAFF REPORTER, IN CANNES, WITH AGENCIES
Tuesday, May 22, 2001, Page 11

French actress Isabelle Huppert poses with her Best Actress Award for her role in The Piano Teacher, directed by Austrian Michael Haneke, Sunday, after the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival. PHOTO: AFP

The 54th Cannes Film Festival spread the wealth on Sunday night, giving awards to a wide variety of films and bestowing its greatest recognition, the Golden Palm, upon Italian director Nanni Moretti for his film The Son's Room.

Conspicuously absent from the major awards, however, were Taiwanese directors Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) and Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) and other Asian filmmakers.

Moretti carried away the prize for his emotional story of a family devastated by the sudden loss of a son. Criticized in the past for often marring his softly humorous films with narcissistic navel-gazing, Moretti, 48, this time turned out a restrained, sensitive movie.

"I'm very happy when I'm told that this film is very hard and very gentle at the same time," Moretti told a media conference after the prize ceremony.

He added that he had been at his home in Rome when he received a call last Friday to come to Cannes for the closing ceremony -- but he hadn't dared believe it was to receive the Golden Palm.

French actor Benoit Magimel speaks after receiving his Best Actor Award for his role in Austrian director Michael Haneke's film The Piano Teacher at the Cannes Film Festival awards ceremony, Sunday. PHOTO: REUTERS

"Often in Cannes, there is no relationship between the reaction by audiences and the jury's decision," Moretti said.

Moretti also took away the prestigious Fipresci Award for a feature film, making him a "double champion" at the festival.

One of the big winners of the evening was The Piano Teacher by Austrian director Michael Haneke, which was recognized with three awards -- Best Actress for Isabelle Hubert, Best Actor for Benoit Magimel and the Grand Jury Prize for Haneke himself.

American director David Lynch, co-winner of the Best Director Award with American director Joel Coen, waves after the awards ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival, Sunday. PHOTO: REUTERS

In the only award bestowed on Taiwan's entries at the festival, sound editor Tu Duu-chih (杜篤之) received the Technical Prize for his work on both Hou's Millennium Mambo (千禧曼波) and Tsai's What Time Is It There? (你那邊幾點?).

Jury members hoping to discover another success from Asia like Ang Lee's (李安) Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍), which ran out-of-competition last year, were disappointed, though Asian films were nevertheless the most sought-after works at the busy industry trade show that forms a large part of the festival.

Tu was praised by both Tsai and Hou as the best sound editor they have ever worked with. Tu has also worked with Edward Yang (楊德昌), who served on the jury at this year's festival and is thought to have pushed for Tu's recognition.

This is the second year in a row that Taiwanese film professionals have won the Technical Prize, with the award going to photographer Lee Ping-bin (李屏賓) for his work on Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's (王家衛) In the Mood For Love (花樣年華) last year.

The Best Director Award was shared by two American directors, David Lynch, for his film Mulholland Drive and Joel Coen, for the film The Man Who Wasn't There.

No Man's Land, a film about the absurdity of the Bosnian war by first-time director Danis Tanovic, was popular among audiences and won the festival's choice for Best Screenplay.

The night's big winner was The Piano Teacher, a story about a piano teacher named Erika in her mid-30s played by Isabelle Hupert, who lives in Vienna with a tyrannical elderly mother, suffering in a love-hate dependency in which there is no room for men. When one of her pupils, played by Benoit Magimel, decides to seduce her, Erika's distorted masochistic desire becomes destructive to her relationship and also her life.

"The fact that this film got three prizes is incredible," Haneke said after the ceremony. "I am very, very moved."

"I love the script, although it is terrifying, it also is very straightforward and understandable. It unravels the unspeakable part of human desire" Hupert said.

The top prize in a separate competition called Un Certain Regard went to first-time French director Yves Caumon for Boyhood Loves. This category includes films that did not make the main awards, but were deemed worthy of screening at the festival.

Boyhood Loves stars Mathieu Amalric as a man trying to reconnect with his neglected parents after his father takes ill.

This year's festival was not a huge hit among film critics or the spectators who gather outside the red-carpet arrivals area for a glimpse of the stars.

Critics generally found the lineup of movies unexciting compared to last year's event, which included Lars von Trier's divisive musical Dancer in the Dark, winner of the Golden Palm, and such acclaimed films as Yang's Yi Yi (一一), Liv Ullmann's Faithless and the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

And celebrity watchers complained that top stars were scarce this year. Those who did turn up included Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

For the closing-night film, spectators were treated to visits by Melanie Griffith, who was honored at Cannes with a lifetime achievement award, and her husband, Antonio Banderas; Milla Jovovich; and Nick Nolte, who is shooting Neil Jordan's film Double Down in France.

Nicole Kidman, the star of opening-night film Moulin Rouge, provided a festival highlight when she wandered off the red carpet at the movie's premiere to shake hands with fans.

Another highlight was the return of Francis Ford Coppola with Apocalypse Now Redux, a new version of his Vietnam epic that won the Golden Palm in 1979. Coppola added 53 minutes of footage cut from the original release, restoring some darkly funny moments and a dreamlike French plantation scene.

"Thirty years later, his masterpiece is there and growing," Ullmann said at the closing ceremony.

A number of films by senior filmmakers were popular among audiences and film critics, such as Manoel De Oliveira's Vou Para Casa, Jacques Rivette's Va Savoir and Jean-luc Godard's Eloge De L'Amour, though none of these won major awards.

Winners at the 54th Cannes Film Festival:
The Golden Palm: The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti (Italy)
Grand Jury Prize: The Piano Teacher by Michael Haneke (Austria)
Best Actress: French actress Isabelle Huppert for The Piano Teacher
Best Actor: French actor Benoit Magimel for The Piano Teacher
Best Director: shared by US directors David Lynch, for Mulholland Drive, and Joel Coen, for The Man Who Wasn't There
Best Screenplay: No Man's Land by Danis Tanovic (Bosnia)
Technical Prize: Taiwanese sound engineer Tu Duu-chih for two films, What Time is it There? (by director Tsai Ming-liang from Taiwan) and Millennium Mambo (by Hou Hsiao-hsien, also from Taiwan)
Golden Palm for Best Short Film: Bean Cake by David Greenspan (US)
Golden Camera for first-time director: Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner by Zacharias Kunuk (Canada)

The Fipresci Award, disclosed on Saturday, are selected by a panel of international critics who participate in 35 film festivals around the world. This prize, which is awarded in various categories of the Cannes festival, is regarded my many as of equal importance to the official jury prize.

The Fipresci Award for a Cannes official competition film went to Italian director Nanni Moretti for The Son's Room, for its portrayal a family's destruction following the death of a child.

The Fipresci Award for the Un Certain Regard portion of the festival went to Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi for Kairo, for its original view of the dangers presented by the virtual world of computers.

The Fipresci Award for Directors' Fortnight went to French director Sandrine Veysset's Martha Martha, for its powerful portral of the psychological degeneration of a young mother and its traumatic impact on her family.

The Fipresci Award for Semaine Internationale de la Critique went to French director Bertrand Bonello's Le Pornographie, for its sensitive portrayal of a delicate subject and for Jean-Pierre Leaud's performance.
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