(MENAFN- Arab Times) The debate around the world about what to do with growing waves of desperate migrants will be spurred by a Cannes Film Festival triumph for a movie that looks at the plight of a refugee hero. "Dheepan", a French movie about a Sri Lankan former soldier's struggles in a Paris ghetto in the grip of narco-gangs, didn't set out to tackle that wider thorny issue.
But the fact that the film's win comes as refugee boats set off across Asian waters and the Mediterranean - the same sea lapping at glittering Cannes and its super-yachts - inevitably means it will figure in that context.
"It's important to reflect on the situation," the movie's director, Jacques Audiard, admitted to reporters insistently raising the question.
But he stressed, "I started writing the screenplay four or five years ago and the situation wasn't as critical as it is now".
Nevertheless, "if it helps the situation, then so much the better".
The movie won't begin its release in cinemas for another three months. Its Cannes win will no doubt take it to countries that might otherwise have not seen it.
Some of those countries are ones grappling with the problem of immigrants.
Europe is experiencing a huge surge, particularly from Syrians fleeing the vicious four-year-old war in their country. States bordering Syria - Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon - are already saturated with refugees.
Thousands of Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya leaving Myanmar are also posing a challenge for Asian nations, especially after a Thai crackdown early this month on human trafficking threw the illicit trade into chaos.
"Dheepan" keeps its action centred on its central character, a former Tamil Tiger fighter who escaped the mayhem of his war-ravaged homeland and teamed up with two strangers, a woman and a girl, to pretend to be a family to win refugee status in France.
The actor, Anthonythasan Jesuthasan, brought authenticity to the role, having actually been a teen fighter for the Tamil Tigers who escaped to Thailand, made his way to France in 1993 and eventually got political asylum.
The character, he said, is "50 percent" himself. Presumably the part of the movie where he uses his battle skills to explosively confront the Paris drug gangs is the other, fictional half.
Some of the other awards handed out at Cannes by a jury headed by the Coen brothers and including Jake Gyllenhaal nodded to different perplexing real-world issues.
Powerful
A Hungarian movie taking viewers inside Auschwitz, "Son of Saul", picked up the runner-up Grand Prize for its narrow but powerful look at the Holocaust.
And the best actor trophy went to Vincent Lindon, the star of another French movie, "The Measure of a Man", which presents a jobless man struggling to maintain his dignity.
Joel Coen, sitting next to his brother Ethan in a post-awards press conference, said of the jury duty: "Any experience as intense as this changes your life and your perspective."
Gyllenhaal explained the appeal "Dheepan" held for him.
"We watch three strangers, forced to travel to a foreign land, essentially learn to love each other, which is something I've never really seen done in the way it is in that film," he said.
The third-placed movie was "The Lobster", a Greek-directed dark comedy set in southern Ireland and starring Colin Farrell that imagined a society in which single people must find a mate or be transformed into animals.
The best actress award was something of an upset, confounding critics who had thought Australian star Cate Blanchett was untouchable for her turn in an American period lesbian drama, "Carol".
Instead Blanchett's co-star, Rooney Mara, and an actress in a French relationship drama called "Mon Roi", Emmanuelle Bercot, ended up sharing the trophy.
"It's an anti-climactic finish to a festival that was middling to begin with."
Ethan Coen, who along with his brother Joel served as co-president of the jury, defended the jury's choices, especially the Palme d'Or winner. "Everybody had an enthusiasm for it, to some degree or another we all thought it was a very beautiful movie," he told a press conference.
Actor and jury member Jake Gyllenhaal got a laugh when he interjected: "It's a good prize."
Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-Hsien won best director for "Nie Yianniang" (The Assassin) and Mexican director Michel Franco got best screenplay for "Chronic".
But three Italian entries among 19 films competing for the Palme d'Or went home empty-handed, as did Blanchett whose performance as a wealthy woman who falls in love with a shopgirl in the lesbian romance "Carol" won high critical praise.
Instead, Rooney Mara, who plays the shopgirl in director Todd Haynes's film shared the best actress award with France's Emmanuelle Bercot, who stared in director Maiwenn's "Mon Roi" (My King).
Among the Italian films, Nanni Moretti's "Mia Madre" (My Mother), about a woman director whose life spins out of control while her mother is dying, had been tipped as a possible winner.
Portrayal
France's Vincent Lindon, who took the best actor prize for his portrayal in StÈphane BrizÈ's film "La Loi du MarchÈ" (The Measure of a Man) of a floorwalker in a supermarket that has a secret plan to get rid of employees to boost the bottom line, was unapologetic about France's strong showing.
"It's not because it's in Cannes that we can't receive prizes as other people and this year maybe they wanted to celebrate French cinema," Lindon said.
"I'm very moved. Winning a prize from the Coen brothers is something that is exceptional," Audiard, who has won two smaller Cannes awards in the past, told the closing ceremony. "I'm thinking of my father."
Scott Roxborough, a critic for the trade publication The Hollywood Reporter, said Audiard had been in the running for a Cannes award for a long time.
"I don't think it's his best film but it's a hot topic " It honours the director and sends a political message at the same time," Roxborough said. Canadian actor-director Xavier Dolan, the youngest jury member at just 26, went further in saying: "I somehow feel like a better person."
"Never have I discussed movies with such depth, generosity and emotion, and with such intelligent company," he said.
Spanish actress Rossy de Palma said she loved the experience.
"I was making love to cinema all day!" she said.
"I knew it before but I really realised how difficult it is to make a good movie, and now I appreciate it much more," she added.
One of the jury's most surprising decisions was to reward Rooney Mara for her turn in lesbian love story "Carol" when many critics had predicted victory for her co-star Cate Blanchett. Mara shared the award with French actress Emmanuelle Bercot for the film "Mon Roi".
"We didn't split the award further because it wasn't allowed by the rules," said Ethan Coen.
Dolan said the jury had noted a general lack of strong female roles in the selection of 19 entries.
"We did realise there were very few leading ladies and that makes the job a little more tricky," he said.
The jury, which also included actresses Sienna Miller and Sophie Marceau, as well as fantasy director Guillermo del Toro and singer Rokia Traore, gave the runner-up Grand Prize to visceral Holocaust drama "Son of Saul".
"I had a deeply emotional response to 'Son of Saul'. I was really in that world. It shook me very deeply," said Miller.
Del Toro, known for "Hellboy" and "Pan's Labyrinth", paid tribute to Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, who won best director for slow-burning minimalist drama "The Assassin".
"You recognise the mastery and the clarity and the achievement - the clarity of his voice, the precision of his filmmaking," said Del Toro.
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