Honoré’s ‘The Beloved’ To Close Cannes 2011? If Not, Then Who?

The film festival world was shocked and awed by a bit of leaked information announcing that Cannes’ Closing Night film this year would not, in fact, be a crappy, skippable piece of hackery, like it usually is (The Tree, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, What Just Happened? – the list goes on). No, as a matter of fact, it could very well be Christophe Honoré’s The Beloved (Les biens-aimés), a film we thought was a shoo-in for the Main Competition, but was conspicuously absent on the April 14 announcement day. Twitter and new sites the internet over spread word that this Jacques Demy homage was indeed the closing film, only to sheepishly retract the announcement by lunchtime. Did Cannes let the news slip, and then send out an emergency plea for everyone to withhold it? Or rather, is the Honoré film going to be one of the rumoured unannounced late Competition arrivals, with crossed wires causing a mix-up?

Update: Honoré’s The Beloved is confirmed as an out of competition selection.

We already know that the announcement schedule is out of wack, as the Cannes Classics slate was delayed from last Friday, only finally surfacing yesterday. We presume that all of this mystery will be laid to rest by the weekend, but in the meantime, we’ll go ahead and speculate on a few other potential Closing Night films, assuming that today’s leak is incorrect. There are plenty of notable auteurs that we were expecting in the Official Selection that we’d love to be the Closing Nighter, but we’ll go along with history in trying to predict the decision on this slot. Here are some guesses as to what may close the curtain on Cannes 2011:

Kung Fu Panda 2 (Jennifer Yuh) – This may be the most obvious choice, for a few reasons. It is opening in North American on May 26, the first Friday after Cannes ends. This is the default release day for many a Blockbuster Cannes entry, such as The Tree of Life, Robin Hood, Up, and Shrek 2. Also, we can’t ignore that mystery press release on April 14 that included KFP2 as an Out of Competition screening, only to be quickly rectified and erased. Awfully suspicious! This would also be well in-line with Cannes’ recent history of premiering a studio animation film at some point in the festival.

Chicken with Plums (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud) – This follow-up to Persepolis isn’t an animation, but it was inspired one (a comic), and these Cannes alumni would provide a French, and star-driven (Amalric, Rossellini), closing to the festival. This is perhaps a stretch, though, considering that this was highly believed to be In Competition, but The Beloved has blown that door right off, so, why not?

Café de flore (Jean-Marc Vallée) – It’d been on our radar for a Cannes screening, and perhaps it will be here? It’s another long shot guess, but the quaint vibes I get from this project seem perfectly fitted to this kind of unveiling. Not to mention that Vallée’s previous film The Young Victoria was the Closing Night film for TIFF 2009. Depending on your perspective, it’s either too repetitive to imagine back-to-back films from one filmmaker closing two major festivals, or, it’s a match made in heaven.

Then again, it’s probably going to be the Honoré film, as has by now become old news. And you know what, that’s probably about the best decision we could hope for.