CANNES, France — The Cannes Film Festival awarded its coveted Palme d’Or award to Ruben Ostlund’s Swedish comedy “The Square” on Sunday, while Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the best director award.

“Oh my god! OK,” the Swedish filmmaker exclaimed after he bounded onto the stage to collect the prestigious Palme, in a rare and somewhat surprising win for a comedy.

In “The Square,” Claes Bang plays a museum director whose manicured life begins to unravel after a series of events that upset his, and the museum’s, calm equilibrium. The movie’s title comes from an art installation that Bang’s character is prepping, which invites anyone who enters a small square to be kind and generous.

The film’s satire and exploration of moral dilemmas culminated in one of the festival’s most eye-catching scenes. A muscled, grunting man pretending to be a gorilla upsets a black-tie dinner for the museum, sniffing attendees and dragging a woman by the hair.

The president of the Cannes jury, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, praised the film for exploring the “dictatorship” of political correctness and those trapped by it.

“They live in a kind of hell because of that,” Almodovar said.

Advertisement

“It’s clever. It’s witty. It’s funny. It deals with questions so important,” said French actress and filmmaker Agnes Jaoui, a member of the jury that also included Americans Will Smith and Jessica Chastain.

Most odds makers didn’t have “The Square” as a favorite to win the prestigious Palme d’Or, the top prize awarded at Cannes.

Coppola won best director for “The Beguiled,” her remake of Don Siegel’s 1971 Civil War drama about a Union soldier hiding out in a Southern girls’ school. Hailed as Coppola’s most feminist work yet, the remade thriller told from a more female point of view stars Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst, with Colin Farrell playing the wounded soldier.

Coppola was one of three female filmmakers out of 19 in competition for the Palme this year.

Diane Kruger was named best actress and Joaquin Phoenix best actor as the festival celebrated its 70th anniversary.

Kruger was honored for her performance in Fatih Akin’s “In the Fade.” She played a German woman whose son and Turkish husband are killed in a bomb attack. The film alludes to a series of actual killings that shook Germany six years ago, when it came to light that police had spent more time investigating the possible mob connections of migrant victims than the tell-tale signs of the far-right plot eventually uncovered.

“I cannot accept this award without thinking about anyone who has ever been affected by an act of terrorism and who is trying to pick up the pieces and go on living after having lost everything,” the actress said. “Please know that you are not forgotten.”

Phoenix was recognized for his role in Lynne Ramsay’s thriller “You Were Never Really Here.”


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.