But what will win the Palme?

A few articles have come out about how this year’s fest might turn out. Also check out this BBC article about which Palme d’Or winners come from which countries. Listening to Kenneth Turan on NPR this morning, he made the good point that, unlike the Oscars, the jury at Cannes is different every year.¬† That makes second guessing them difficult. Nonetheless, here are a few folks ready to go there.

Jay Hoberman at VoiceFilms thinks, ultimately, Biutiful could win it (and SHOULD win it, I think, with Another Year right up there).

The press favorite is clearly Mike Leigh’s middling ensemble piece Another Year. A pair of French movies, Bertrand Tavernier’s period piece The Princess of Montpensier and Xavier Beauvois’s anti-intolerance docudrama Of Gods and Men, have also been widely praised. Old festival hands expect Juliette Binoche to be named best actress for her role in Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy–although her presence on the festival poster might be a problem, in which case the award could go Lesley Manville, the most voluble performer in Another Year. Having suffered through Biutiful, Javier Bardem would seem to have a lock on Best Actor; it’s my guess that, with something for everyone, this overwrought multi-culti mystical melodrama, shot in Spain by yet-to-be-laureled Alejandro Gonz√°lez I√±√°rritu, is the likely winner, with consolation prizes for former winners Leigh and Kiarostami and honorable mention to a serious Asian film like Poetry or even Uncle Boonmee–who’s lived through this before.

I really can’t even begin to guess which film might win. I was intrigued to see that the USA has had the most Palme d’or winners in their history. That probably won’t be the case this year, but one never knows. My bet is either Biutiful or Another Year.