Another illustrious chunk of Cannes winners available to stream features yet another talented bunch. Of course there are many, many more great Cannes victors you can watch right now – let us know in the comments what you recommend, or perhaps what you might be looking for. In the meantime feast your eyes on 7 winners of the Prix d’interprétation féminine (Best Actress) at the Cannes Film Festival.
Certified Copy (2010) – Juliette Binoche
Abbas Kiarostami’s writing for Certified Copy is immaculate (again), crafting a scenario between two people and turning it on its head for the audience to bemuse over. Smart, free-flowing in its development and dialogue, the tension in the conversations is impossible not to enjoy.
So, I am lost for words for the most part when I watch Juliette Binoche, one of the greatest actresses in history goes without saying. But with Kiarostami’s extraordinary 2010 movie I was left wondering where she pulls out that kind of performance. Whatever it is putting her character on a knife-edge, the reality of her own weighted circumstances or the clandestine charade before us, Binoche inhabits the character and every last drop of her emotions. Which we’ll never tire of embracing.
Secrets and Lies (1996) – Brenda Blethyn
What a wreck Cynthia is, you might note while watching Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies. Bleak and uncompromising, yes of course, this film is, but Brenda Blethyn carries with her the open wounds and tired legs of single motherhood in council estate England. It’s a brittle and important backdrop to the story of a woman, a bag of nerves in fact, coming to terms with the discovery the daughter she gave away at birth is a young black woman.
We, the audience, partially feel the shock and social acclimatization that Cynthia seems to be going through, as she struggles to keep it together. This is engulfed later when breaking the news to her already emotional, crumbling family. Blethyn is manic, warmly real, and utterly brilliant in every scene. In simple terms, Secrets and Lies is an acting masterclass. As well as Best Actress, the film took the Palme d’Or and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
Melancholia (2011) – Kirsten Dunst
Lars von Trier has never quite sat right with me. I can see his excellence when it comes to filmmaking, he makes quite the impact, but his films on the whole have left me too cold to consider great. And his mouth often dents his appeal. His 2011 film Melancholia, however, is a master stroke, in writing, acting, directing, and to von Trier a somewhat personal journey.
His leading lady Kirsten Dunst is incredible here, saying every callous and impulsive line with such truth I believed her character Justine. Every movement on her face tells a story or a feeling, a longing to be away or alone, in a film which hosts her wedding but also the imminent end of the world.
At the Cannes Film Festival, it was just a shame that an actress of such high regard and class had to endure von Trier’s press conference ramble regarding his German heritage. One which quickly morphed into irresponsible remarks about Jews, Nazis, and an empathy towards Adolf Hitler. The festival officials labeled him “persona non grata”, that is to say he was thrown out of the festival. Thankfully, for the movie and the actress, Dunst deservedly was given the Best Actress prize.
YouTube — Chili — Rakuten TV
Possession (1981) – Isabelle Adjani
Awarded the Best Actress prize for both roles in competition at Cannes 1981. While Isabelle Adjani‘s turn in Quartet is all fine and dandy, it is the ridiculously ravenous performance in Andrzej Żuławski’s psychological mind-fuck Possession that bursts pretty much every acting muscle in the body. As Anna, a woman wanting a divorce, Adjani manages to transcend through spectacular melodrama, alarming sexual deviance, some truly disturbing behavior, impulsive self-harm, all compellingly contributing to one of cinema’s most memorable nervous breakdowns.
The enduring, unfathomable subway seizure is a bonkers, brilliant piece of acting all on its own. In a dual role, Adjani also plays Helen, the teacher, in an altogether more composed role, only emphasizing the magnitude of the French actress’ range. Adjani is chilling in her composure, and thrilling in her eruptions. One of my very favorite acting displays of any year without question.
BFI Player — Amazon — Microsoft Store
Le Passe (2013) – Bérénice Bejo
Without in any way intending to offend the beautiful Bérénice Bejo, she played it plain and simple in Asghar Farhadi’s near flawless Le Passé. So solid and sincere is her performance here, she is unrecognizable from the (also excellent) song-and-dance turn in the silent Oscar winner The Artist. Marie-Anne is not a particularly scary woman, but those men in her life (and her kids to a large extent) are walking on thin ice. She is weighed down by bitterness, perhaps some buried guilt, not to mention the tension built from her recent and current life choices.
You watch Le Passé, though, and want the pain to end for her. For all of them. Bejo is so authentic, such a grand presence in this grounded human story, you carry empathy for her, even in her coldest moments. This is not solely her film, in the acting stakes she is surrounded by some outstanding performers, but she is the cream of the crop.
La double vie de Véronique (1991) – Irène Jacob
Personally speaking, Irène Jacob‘s screen presence has more than once inspired my own creation on on-screen heroins in my screenwriting. In La double vie de Véronique she shows a range of performance (not unlike the brilliance on display in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors: Red), whether it be the child-like hope of her singing or exploring ways to see the world, or the heavy sadness that somehow overcomes her throughout.
She seems to be on the brink of joy or tears, we are not always sure which. And Jacob has the perfect face for such multi-emotional performance in a dual role. It is a tranquil, subtle piece of expressive, non-explosive acting. Kieślowski was renowned for bullying his own ability as a film-maker to convey exactly to the screen what was in his creative mind (not the only one to feel this way I suspect). With Jacob’s enchanting help here, and elsewhere, I can’t see what greater way he could have envisaged this.
The Piano Teacher (2001) – Isabelle Huppert
Where actresses are concerned in Cannes, there seldom is a limited range of women from which the voters have to make their decision on who is “best”. The diversity of films that tend to be in competition at the festival each year means they might often be spoilt for choice.
A certain French legend of an actress has won the Best Actress prize twice. As far as movies about the relationships between the music tutor and student are concerned, if Whiplash is still playing heavy on your mind, you really ought to go seek out Michael Haneke’s astoundingly brutal La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher).
A much harder slap in the face, I can tell you. Physically, mentally, sexually, Isabelle Huppert‘s Erika is humiliated and brutalized, and much of it self-inflicted. The performance is, and the movie itself, tough-going to watch at times, but never does it lose your attention. Huppert is worn-down and emotionally battered here, even from the opening scene. And she continues to deliver a raw and uncomfortably exceptional performance right through to the very end. Haneke would win the Palme d’Or for The White Ribbon years later – and guess who the Cannes jury president was?
Discover more from Filmotomy
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
