Thai Filmmaker Wins Palme d’Or at Cannes

On Sunday evening the 63rd Cannes Film Festival came to a shocking, exhilarating close with the Palme d’Or going to “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” from the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Surely the only Palme winner to feature sex between a princess and a thrashing catfish, “Boonmee” is a fantastical tale about a dying man whose past lives — and ghostly relatives — enraptured some critics while turning others off. The speculation that it might appeal to the jury president, Tim Burton, along with some of his more discerning fellow jury members, proved true.

On accepting the award Mr. Weerasethakul (Khun Joe) said in English that “this is like another world for me,” and noted that “Uncle Boonmee” is the first Thai film to win the Palme. “I would really like to kiss all of you,” he said to the jury, telling Mr. Burton that he liked his hairstyle. Mr. Weerasethakul thanked “all the spirits and ghosts in Thailand,” who made it “possible for me to be here.”

The Grand Prix, effectively second place, went to Xavier Beauvois’s “Of Gods and Men,” a quiet, touching French drama, loosely based on actual events, about Cistercian monks imperiled by Muslim fundamentalists as civil war begins sweeping across Algeria in the 1990s. The Jury Prize went to “A Screaming Man,” another film set against civil war, this one directed by the Chadian-born director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun.

The prize for best director, presented by Kirsten Dunst (who was here with her own film, which played out of the official selection), went to the French actor Mathieu Amalric, who looked a touch surprised to be called onstage. He won for “Tournée” (“On Tour”), about a promoter taking an American neo-burlesque troupe around France. Mr. Amalric invited his bodacious, gorgeously gaudy stars to join him onstage.

Best screenplay went to the South Korean Lee Chang-dong for “Poetry,” a beautifully directed, emotionally wrenching drama about a grandmother who discovers that her only grandson has been party to a horrific crime. Mr. Lee, speaking in English, acknowledged his powerhouse female star, Yun Jung-hee, who gave one of the most memorable performances of the festival.

The best actress prize, however, seemed destined for Juliette Binoche, the star of Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy.” This is Mr. Kiarostami’s first though probably not last film made outside Iran. “What a joy, what a joy, what a joy to work with you, Abbas,” Ms. Binoche said, on accepting her award. Shortly thereafter Ms. Binoche held up a sign with the name Jafar Panahi spelled out in capital letters. Mr. Panahi, a Cannes veteran, had been invited to serve on the competition jury, but is in an Iranian jail for his political views. Ms. Binoche said that she hoped he would be at Cannes next year. Her sign remained on the podium, facing the cameras, for much of the rest of the ceremony.

Yet even as it feeds the art houses along with the red-carpet monster (or tries to), Cannes continues to make room for films that fall outside the commercial mainstream. The greatest proof of this is unequivocally “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” the single most adventurous film in the competition. It opens with a mysterious and lovely scene of a buffalo shaking loose its tether and roaming deep into the forest, an image that might be from one of Uncle Boonmee’s past lives. It is also a metaphor for how to watch Mr. Weerasethakul’s films: You need to shake loose all your preconceived ideas about how and why movies make meaning and just plunge in.