lifestyle TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2016

Awards

(From left) French director and member of the Jury Arnaud Desplechin, Hungarian director and member of the Jury Laszlo Nemes, French actress/singer and member of the Jury Vanessa Paradis, Iranian producer and member of the Jury Katayoon Shahabi, Italian actress / director and member of the Jury Valeria Golino, Australian director and President of the Jury George Miller, US actress and member of the Jury Kirsten Dunst, Canadian actor and member of the Jury Donald Sutherland and Danish actor and member of the Jury Mads Mikkelsen pose as they arrive for the closing ceremony of the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. From ‘I, Daniel Blake’ to ‘American Honey’ to ‘Toni Erdmann,’ the best films at Cannes were Bulletins from a new world

ovies channel the world, even when they’re not try- years ago-and embeds that crackling tale in the maw of mid- ing to. At a festival like Cannes, the films that win dle-class economic erosion. In these two movies, the despera- Mawards and the ones that are most celebrated, which tion is right up front. To watch them is to touch a nerve of top- aren’t necessarily the award winners-have almost always had a ical anxiety. heartbeat of relevance. They’re movies that speak to us because they matter, and they matter because they express Spirit and style what’s going on around them. Yet at Cannes this year, that But two of the other festival highlights tap into this theme reality was only heightened by a gathering awareness-of a with a sidelong resonance that sneaks up on you. “Toni theme that cuts across movies, directors, cultures, nations. Erdmann,” Maren Ade’s two-hour-and-42-minute-long Accepting the Palme d’Or for “I, Daniel Blake,” director Ken German comedy about an oil-company consultant, Ines Loach observed, “We must say that another world is possible, (Sandra Huller), who is trying to come to grips with her sham- and necessary.” He was speaking of the issue that runs like a bling, annoying, prankish semi-wreck of a father, is one of the current through “I, Daniel Blake,” and that makes it such a first movies you have ever seen about the one percent that’s trenchant and moving film: not just the bureaucratic perils of really about the one percent, the intricacies of their spirit and the British welfare system, but the fraying social safety net in style. It shows us the new breed of suits who are operating in the world at large-the loss of security, jobs, the whole promise a world far above the rest of us, so that almost nothing they of a room with a view. do seems real, whether it’s cutting deals or cutting the jobs What once might have seemed a “leftist” or even “Marxist” that grow out of them. vision has become, for people across the globe, and for movie Ines, beneath her tailored pantsuits and PowerPoint man- audiences everywhere, the new normal. The rich are concen- ners, actually appears to be a loving person, but she has made trating their wealth; the sense of stability for almost everyone herself over into the high-level version of a human computer else is slowly eroding. It’s a brave, scary, threatening new chip. She earns a lot of money, but that means that she can world. And the best films at Cannes this year were about never speak truth to power. She’s on call to power, 24/7. Enter pulling back the curtain on what that looks like. “I, Daniel her dad, Winfried (Peter Simonischek), who’s the grizzled, Blake” does it with scalding passion, which is why this may eccentric German-goofball version of one of those insuffer- finally be the movie to give Loach, at 79, his Mike Leigh able aging boomers who thinks that the world has been get- British director Ken Loach (center) poses with (from left) British screenwriter Paul crossover moment. Another Cannes highlight, “Hell or High ting worse ever since he started getting older. He shows up in Laverty, cinematographer Robbie Ryan and British producer Rebecca O’Brien after he Water,” tells the story of two bank-robbing brothers in West Bucharest, where Ines lives and works (one of the film’s was awarded the Palme d’Or for the film ‘I, Daniel Blake’ during a photocall at 69th Texas-it looks like a gun-totin’ wild-boy pop-genre exercise, themes is that the new money culture is an international club Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. — AP/AFP photos and might have been nothing more had it been made 10 too expansive to have borders), and he tracks her to parties

British director Ken Loach celebrates on stage after being Director Ken Loach, center, actor Mel Gibson, left, and President of the Jury George Miller Director Xavier Dolan, center, is awarded the Grand Prix award for the film ‘It’s only the awarded with the Palme d’Or for the film ‘I, Daniel Blake’. react after Roach is awarded the Palme d’or for the film ‘I, Daniel Blake’. end of the world’.

Director Olivier Assayas poses for photographers after Iranian actor Shahab Hosseini (left) poses after he was Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (left) poses with Filipina actress Jaclyn Jose poses after she was awarded receiving the Best Director award for the film ‘Personal awarded with the Best Actor prize, with Iranian director Romanian actress Maria Dragus after he was awarded with the Best Actress prize. Shopper’. Asghar Farhadi who was awarded with the Best with the Best Director prize for the film ‘Graduation Screenplay prize for the film ‘The Salesman (Forushande)’. (Bacalaureate)’.