Cannes Divides Top Award Directors From Japan, Iran Win Palme D’Or

Having gone in a brief span from the most anticipated to the most derided of events, the 50th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival tried to make amends by splitting the Palme d’Or between films by two greatly respected directors, Japan’s Shohei Imamura and Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami.

The 70-year-old Imamura, too tired to attend the ceremony Sunday night, had won the Palme once before, with “The Ballad of Narayama” in 1983. His current film, “The Eel,” tells its story, of a man attempting to start a new life after serving a prison term for murdering his wife, with the delicacy and skill of a master director.

The Kiarostami film, “The Taste of Cherry,” nearly didn’t make it to Cannes at all. Reports from Iran, which the director says are inaccurate, claimed it was nearly banned by the government because of Islamic fundamentalist objections to its subject matter: a man considering suicide.

An austere, rigorous but always involving film that unfolds mostly in real time, its protagonist attempts to persuade three different men to help him in his suicide attempt. The audience doesn’t find out if the man lives or dies and the director, claiming he himself doesn’t know, said in an interview that the point of the film is that “Life is, life exists, life goes on. That is the most important thing.”

The Grand Prize, the festival’s runner-up award, went to Canadian director Atom Egoyan. His “The Sweet Hereafter,” an emotionally devastating version of Russell Banks’ novel about a community decimated by a school bus accident, also won the International Critics’ Prize and the Ecumenical Prize.

The festival’s best director prize went to another critically admired director, Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-Wai, for his “Happy Together,” a film that married virtuoso razzle-dazzle visuals to a slender story of gay lovers in Buenos Aires.

English-speaking performers took both of the festival’s acting awards. Best actress went to Cathy Burke, who played an abused wife in “Nil by Mouth,” actor Gary Oldman’s grueling, autobiographical directorial debut.

Best actor went, to many people’s surprise, to Sean Penn, who played yet another inarticulate but good-hearted hooligan in Nick Cassavetes’ “She’s So Lovely.” The film also won the Technical Prize for cinematographer Thierry Arbogast (who also shot “The Fifth Element”).

The other English-language film to win an award was Ang Lee’s chilly version of the Rick Moody novel “The Ice Storm,” which went to James Schamus for best screenplay. There was also a Jury Prize given to the charming French film “Western” by Manuel Poirier.

The winner of the Camera d’Or, given to the best first film anywhere in the festival, turned out to be “Suzaku,” by Japan’s Naomi Kawase, a deliberate, almost hypnotic film, made with great beauty, about life in a remote corner of Japan.

The strongest English-language candidate was the elegantly funny “Love and Death on Long Island,” directed by Britain’s Richard Kwietniowski. Taken from a novel by Gilbert Adair, it provides the best role in memory for John Hurt, who plays a crabby British cult novelist who develops a mad crush on American mega-dreamboat Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestly), the star of “Hot Pants College II.”

Among the other Camera contenders was an excellent film from Norway, not previously known as a cinematic hotbed. Winning the Critics’ Week Prize was “Junk Mail,” directed by Pal Sletaune, a deft black comedy about a not-particularly-jolly postman and the woman on his route he becomes infatuated with.

What might be the best-written film in the festival was “My Son the Fanatic,” scripted by Hanif Kureishi (“My Beautiful Laundrette”) from one of his own short stories and directed by Udayan Prasad. Set in the north of England, the film features a memorable Om Puri as a cabdriver who gets attracted to a local prostitute (Rachel Griffiths) at the same time as his son comes under the sway of Islam.

A poignant examination of cross-cultural divides, “Fanatic” shows how engrossing a film can be when its characters are authentic and beautifully written.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE WINNERS ARE … The Cannes award winners: Palme d’Or: “The Taste of Cherry,” by Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, and “Unagi” (The Eel), by Shohei Imamura, Japan. 50th Anniversary Prize: Youssef Chahine, Egypt, director of “Al Massir” (The Destiny). Grand Prize: “The Sweet Hereafter,” by Atom Egoyan, Canada. Best Actress: Cathy Burke in “Nil By Mouth,” Britain. Best Actor: Sean Penn in “She’s So Lovely,” United States. Best Director: Wong Kar-Wai, “Happy Together,” Hong Kong. Best Screenplay: James Schamus, “The Ice Storm.” Jury Prize: “Western,” Manuel Poirier, France. Best Short Film: “Is it the Design or the Wrapper?” by Tessa Sheridan, Britain. Jury Prize for Short Film: “Leonie,” by Lieven Debrauwer, Belgium, and “Les Vacances,” by Emmanuelle Bercot, France.