Visitors to the Cannes film festival have come to expect taboos to be broken and cinematic forms to be twisted into new shapes. A typical winner might be a three-hour Turkish adaptation of Chekhov, a Thai journey through reincarnation, or (clutch those pearls) an explicit French romance between two women. The 68th edition of the festival ended on May 24th with many calling it an off-year, but it still had films that could impress, and even shock, with their force and originality. The Palme d'Or went to Jacques Audiard's "Dheepan", a relatively conventional drama about a Tamil fighter from Sri Lanka who starts life anew in a French housing project. The win seemed to reflect France's concerns over its immigrant population as much as any dramatic achievement. For true e'clatit was necessary to look to "Son of Saul", a piece of high art imagining a low point of humanity, which won the Grand Prix-essentially the second prize. This debut feature directed by Laszlo Nemes, a Hungarian, depicts a seemingly unapproachable subject-the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp-with extraordinary formal invention and moral complexity.
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