CANNES, France – A controversial Danish film, Lars von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark,” last night took the 53rd Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme D’Or, at a star-studded ceremony carried off with typical French élan.
The film’s star, Icelandic singer Bjork – who was the best thing about the movie – won best actress for her terrific film debut as a Czech immigrant in rural America in the early 1960s.
Although previous winners of the Palme D’Or have included “Pulp Fiction” (’94), “sex lies, and videotape” (’89) and “Apocalypse Now” (’79), many of the recent winners have failed to make much of an impact in the U.S.
“Dancer in the Dark,” which has been the front-runner in Cannes for the last few days, could follow suit for two reasons: It is a depressing and often ludicrous story, and it’s shot through with the unthinking anti-American stereotypes so common in Europe.
Von Trier’s musical melodrama has sharply divided critics here. French critics and audiences loved it, but the majority of American critics were unimpressed.
Some felt that though he set his film in the United States, the reclusive director, who refuses to fly and has never been to the U.S., showed a lack of knowledge about the country and its legal system.
In accepting the award from his star, French icon Catherine Deneuve, von Trier alluded to the much-publicized tensions he’d had with Bjork on the set.
“Though I know she doesn’t believe me, if you meet her, tell her I love her very much,” he said.
Bjork, charming in a characteristically eccentric ensemble of green stockings and a blue and pink frock, curtsied twice during the standing ovation that greeted the announcement of her best actress award.
The Grand Prize was awarded to “Devils on the Doorstep,” the story of a Chinese villager facing his fears of death during the Japanese occupation in World War II, by Chinese director Jiang Wen.
James Caan, here for his movie “The Yards,” presented the Grand Prize with French star Nathalie Baye. “I want to express my deepest gratitude to whoever named the world’s most important film gathering after me,” Caan said, to polite laughter.
Iran, whose cinema has flowered in the last few years, emerged as a big winner of the evening with three prizes.
Two Iranian directors shared the Golden Camera award for a first film – Hassan Yektapanah for “Djomeh” and Bahman Ghobadi for “The Time for Drunken Horses.”
And Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf’s “Blackboards” shared the Jury Prize with Swedish director Roy Andersson’s “Songs from the Second Floor.”
Makhmalbaf, 20, provided the ceremony’s only political moment – and it was a moving one. She dedicated her film “to the new generation of hope in my homeland and the heroic effort of the new generation in its struggle for democracy and a better life.”
The best actor award went to Tony Leung for the Hong Kong film “In the Mood for Love,” and a special acting award was given to the entire cast of “The Wedding,” a joyous Russian film directed by Pavel Lounguine.
Director John Waters, in Cannes with his film “Cecil B. DeMented,” presented Edward Yang with the best director award for “Yi Yi,” a Taiwanese film about a businessman’s mid-life malaise.
In the only American award, Charlize Theron and her “The Yards” co-star Joaquin Phoenix gave best screenplay to “Nurse Betty,” a black comedy directed by Neil LaBute and written by John C. Richards and James Flamberg, about a coffee shop waitress obsessed with a soap opera.
