Best of Cannes 2021: Critics poll

At the end of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, some pundits expressed surprise that “Titanium,” the adventurous body-horror riff on genre-fluidity from filmmaker Julia Ducournau, won the Palme d’Or on entries. more traditional in Competition. However, many critics who have covered the festival this year wouldn’t want it any other way. “Titanium” topped IndieWire’s annual review of the festival’s best films, with 31 critics from around the world participating, and Ducournau also topped the category for best director.

The result marked the second time in a row that the winner of our reviewer survey has synchronized with the Palme d’Or result, after ‘Parasite’ in 2019. (The 2020 edition of the festival has been canceled due to pandemic.) Both films were historic. wins: “Parasite” was the first Korean film to win the Palme – but not this survey – and “Titanium” is only the second film directed by a woman to win the award after Jane Campion became the first for ” The Piano “.

Ducournau’s film stars groundbreaking actress Agathe Rouselle as an erotic dancer with a sexual attraction to cars, who goes on the run after a massacre and claims to be the long lost son of a lone firefighter (Vincent Lindon) . IndieWire’s David Ehrlich gave the film an “A-” rating and called it “the work of a demented visionary in full control of her wild mind”. In an interview with IndieWire, Ducournau said she made the film in part to show that “femininity is so much more flexible and fuzzy than what people think it is.”

The film is only the second for the French director, who first made an impact in Cannes with her first film “Raw”, which premiered at Critics’ Week. The festival’s official regulations prohibit the jury from awarding additional prizes to the Palme d’Or winner. So, while Ducournau won the award for best director in our survey, the jury awarded it to Leos Carax for “Annette”.

The jury awarded “The Worst Person in the World” the award for Best Actress for Another Escape, Renate Reinsve. The latest entry in director Joaquim Trier’s “Oslo Trilogy” stars Reinsve as a woman struggling to find her place in life as she drifts through a pair of unhappy romances. Trier co-wrote the screenplay with his longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, who also directed the Cannes premiere “Les Innocents”, which was featured in the Un Certain Regard section.

Notably, “Titanium” and “The Worst Person in the World” share the same US distributor who released “Parasite” – Neon – although the company picked up that latter film after the festival began. It was recently added to the Toronto International Film Festival’s lineup this fall, as it remains to be seen where “Titanium” will surface next.

With critics voting in the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay categories, there were multiple finalists and more than one tie. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria”, which follows Tilda Swinton through Colombia as she tries to figure out the source of a mysterious sound, landed second for Best Picture, while Ryusuke’s Haruki Murakami adaptation Hamaguchi “Drive My Car” finished third with Joanna Hogg’s meta-drama “The Souvenir Part II”. Weerasethakul also took second place for best director, while Wes Anderson came third for his anthology “The French Dispatch”.

The scenario category saw a tie at three for second place: “Berman Island”, “Drive My Car” by Mia Hansen-Love, and “A Hero” by Iranian author Asghar Farhadi.

See the full results below. To learn more about IndieWire’s Cannes coverage, go here.

Best film
1. “Titanium,” Julia Ducournau
2. “Memory”, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(tie) 3. “Drive my car”, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
(tie) 3. “Remembrance Part II, The”, Joanna Hogg

Best scenario
1. “The worst person in the world”
(tie) 2. “Bergman Island”
(tie) 2. “Drive my car”
(tie) 2. “A hero”
3. “The Remembrance Part II”

Best Directed Film
1. “Titanium,” Julia Ducournau
2. “Memory”, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
3. “The French Dispatch”, Wes Anderson

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