CANNES, FRANCE — "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," a small Romanian film that was one of the first shown at the Festival de Cannes, outlasted its better-financed, better-known rivals and won the Palme d'Or at a ceremony Sunday night at the Palais des Festivals.
The victory for this beautifully realistic, faultlessly made film about the agonies of getting an abortion in Communist Romania circa 1987 was a popular choice in what was considered one of the strongest competition fields in years. Following the strength of previous Romanian films "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" and "12:08 East of Bucharest" and with the victory of "Nesfarsit" ("California Dreamin' ") in this year's Un Certain Regard section, the triumph for "4 Months," which also took the FIPRESCI or international critics' prize, underlined the emergence of Romanian cinema as a world force.
"This is good news for small filmmakers from small countries," said dazed writer-director Cristian Mungiu. "You don't need a big budget and big stars to make a story that moves audiences."
Though the Coen brothers' much-admired "No Country for Old Men" came away empty-handed, as did James Gray's "We Own the Night," awards for American directors were not lacking.
Artist-filmmaker Julian Schnabel won the best directing prize for a feature he made in French, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," taken from a celebrated book written by Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man whose mind was intact inside a completely paralyzed body. "In my wildest dreams I never thought I'd be here," the director said, wearing his sunglasses on stage. "Basically I'm just a movie fan."
Winner of the specially created 60th anniversary prize was Gus Van Sant, for "Paranoid Park," the latest in his series of earnest examinations of the interior life of teenage boys, an award jury president Stephen Frears made a point of saying was also "for his career."
This edition of Cannes was also a good one for Asian filmmakers. Japanese director Naomi Kawase won the Grand Prize for "The Mourning Forest," and, in a considerably more popular award, Korean performer Jeon Do-yeon took the best actress prize for her tour de force starring role as a widow who faces startling difficulties in making a life for herself in "Secret Sunshine." The best actor prize went to Konstantin Lavronenko of "The Banishment," the overly long new film by Russia's Andrey Zvyagintsev, who also made the Lavronenko-starring "The Return."
