Thai film scoops top Cannes prize

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A surreal movie from Thailand about the reveries of a dying man was the surprise victor of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, delivering a welcome boost to the troubled nation.
As Oscar winners Javier Bardem and Juliette Bino-che took the main acting honours, little-known arthouse director Apichatpong Weeras-ethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives edged out bookmakers’ favourites, including the latest by Britain’s Mike Leigh and France’s Xavier Beauvois.
“I’d like to send a message home: the prize is for you,” Apichatpong said in a message to his fellow Thais as he received the Palme from US filmmaker Tim Burton.
Apichatpong has been an outspoken critic of government censorship rules but his film steered cleared of politics, telling the tale of a man suffering from acute kidney failure who decides to spend his last days in the jungle where he meets the spirits of the dead. Among the surprises, his son appe-ars as a giant monkey and an old-world princess has watery sex with a talking catfish. “This is like another world for me... this is surreal,” the director said, thanking “the spirits and ghosts in Thailand” that watched over the film which he said took three and a half years to make. Thailand’s culture minister Teera Slukpetch said the award was “brilliant” news as the kingdom emerged from the worst civil unrest in recent history.
Uncle Boonmee is only the sixth Asian offering to win the top prize at Cannes in seven decades of the festival, and the first for more than 10 years. Beauvois’ movie Of Gods and Men was the runner-up while Leigh’s family drama Another Year came away empty-handed. But while the best movie award went to Asia, the acting awards went to some of Europe’s biggest stars.
Bardem, who plays a good-hearted terminally-ill hustler in Biutiful by Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, shared the best actor award with Italy’s Elio Germano, star of gritty social drama Our Life.
Binoche was named best actress for her role as an unhappy art dealer in Certified Copy. South Korean director Lee Chang-Dong’s Poetry was named best screenplay while Frenchman Mathieu Amalric won the best director prize for On Tour. Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun took the jury prize.