Cannes 2009 Awards: Michael Haneke's 'White Ribbon' Takes The Top Prize, The Palme d'Or

The jurors led by Isabelle Huppert at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival are giving out awards as we speak.

Wow, despite getting sort of mixed reviews, at least from what we saw, with many called it “dour” and more finger-wagging, Michael Haneke’s austere pre-WWI punishment drama, “The White Ribbon” won the coveted top prize, the Palme d’Or. Unfortunately, it played the day we left Cannes and our other correspondents were shut out of screenings as well. Here’s the list of winners.

Special Lifetime Achievement Prize – Alain Resnais (who had the film “Les Herbes Folles”in competition)

Best Actor – Christoph Waltz for “Inglourious Basterds”

Best Actress – Charlotte Gainsbourg for “Antichrist”

Director – Brillante Mendoza for “Kinatay”

Scenario (Best Screenplay) – “Spring Fever” (Lou Ye)

Jury Prize – tie, “Thirst” (Park Chan-Wook) / “Fish Tank” (Andrea Arnold)

Camera d’Or – “Samson and Delilah” (Warwick Thornton)

Short Film – “Arena”

Grand Prix (second prize)- “Un Prophete” (Jacques Audiard)

The Palme d’Or – “White Ribbon” (Michael Haneke)

Cannes seems to love Haneke’s blistering, misanthropic cinema, the Austrian filmmaker has had a whopping nine of his ten features with five of them in direct competition at Cannes before this year. But this was his first Palme award. Previously he had won Best Director for “Cache” in 2005 and the Grand Prix for “The Piano Teacher” in 2001 which actually starred jury head, Isabelle Huppert, so someone is probably going to cry bias foul at some point, but it will do little good at this point. This is very fortuitous for Sony Pictures Classics who bought “The White Ribbon,” just as the festival was beginning, but then again, that’s very relative for U.S. audiences who generally don’t care. Last year, the excellent French schoolroom drama, “The Class” (“Entre les Murs”) by Laurent Cantet won the Palme, but took in a $3.7 million piddle Stateside. Internationally though the film did better accumulating $23 million.

One hopes the dark, almost-horror tone of Haneke will draw in larger and more curious audiences (i.e. some geeks will actually pay money to see this too, though likely not in droves).

Jacques Audiard’s “Un Prophete” appeared to be the front runner for the main prize all week, but instead he was awarded the Grand Prix, second prize honor. Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” which was considered a strong contender as well took no awards.