Cannes 2023: French Film ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Takes Home the Cannes Palme D’or

The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to an end on May 27 with the festival awarding the top Palme d’Or to the French writer-director Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall.

The movie runs like a Hitchcockian thriller about a woman (essayed by Sandra Huller), who is accused of murdering her husband. Following a long standing ovation, Triet said, “It is the most intimate movie I’ve ever written.”. She also spoke about French President Macron’s controversial pension reform for raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030.

“This protest has been denied and repressed in shocking ways, and this increasingly unabashed pattern of domineering power breaks out in many areas. Obviously socially, that’s where it’s most shocking, but you can also see it in every other sphere of society, and cinema is no exception. The commodification of culture that the neoliberal government defends, is breaking the French cultural exception,” she said, as reported by Screen Daily.

Triet is the third woman helmer to have won the Palme after Julia Ducournau’s Titane in 2021 and Jane Campion for The Piano. She shared the most prestigious prize with Farewell My Concubine, and the year was 1993.

Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest won the runner-up Grand Prix. It is a terrifying Holocaust drama about a commandant and his family who live next to a concentration camp absolutely callous about the deathly sounds that rise from there. It is Glazer’s first work in a decade and based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, who died just shortly after the film’s Cannes premiere. Glazer honoured Amis in his speech, saying: “I am so grateful that we got to show the movie to him.”

The jury prize went to Aki Kurismaki’s bittersweet romance Fallen Leaves, after the film topped Screen’s jury grid earlier in the day. It was the prolific Finnish filmmaker’s seventh title in Cannes, and fifth in Comp­etition.

Tran An Hung was adjudged best director for The Pot-Au-Feu following his 1993 Caméra d’Or win for the Scent of Green Papaya. The love story set in the world of gastronomy stars Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel.

Japan’s Yuji Sakamoto won the best screenplay award for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster.

Turkey’s Merve Dizdar clinched the best actress prize for Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses. It follows a teacher doing a mandatory stint at a small village in Eastern Anatolia. Dizdar said in her acceptance speech that she was dedicating her prize “to all women who overcome challenges to exist in this world and to hold hope.”

The best actor trophy went to Koji Yakusho for Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days. It is a gripping tale about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo who after work explores the beauty all around him.

This year’s jury was chaired by last year’s Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund, and also included Maryam Touzani, Denis Ménochet, Rungano Nyoni, Brie Larson, Paul Dano, Atiq Rahimi, Damián Szifron and Julia Ducournau.

Jane Fonda, who also stepped on to the stage, averred that when she first came to Cannes in 1963 “there were no women directors even competing at that time and it never occurred to us that there was something wrong with that, so we’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go.” Referring to the seven women directors this year, she added it was “ historic” but someday it would appear normal.

The awards ceremony was followed by Pixar’s Elemental, helmed by Peter Sohn.