The Cannes Film Festival closes on Saturday ending 11 hectic days of partying, deal making and star gazing on the French Riviera, but as far as the movies are concerned, the critics have been less than impressed. The final act will come with the jury's choice for the coveted "Palme d'Or". While being generally underwhelmed with the quality of the 21 films in competition this year, the press has honed in on a handful of frontrunners. In the leading pack are Canadian director David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" and Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke's "Cache".
Based on the "clapometer", or audience reactions at the press and official screenings, Germany's Wim Wenders and "Don't Come Knocking" could steal it at the last, shown as it was late on Thursday.
American Jim Jarmusch is a contender with his "Broken Flowers", starring Bill Murray, as are Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne with their gritty "L'Enfant".
Cronenberg's tale of a mid-American idyll torn apart by brutal violence and secrets reflects a dominant theme this year.
Cannes 2005 has been cast as the year of the "grands auteurs", or established directors who, in many cases, have been in competition before and, in some cases, won.
Cronenberg, Haneke and Wenders are all heavyweights, while at the other end of the spectrum Hollywood actor Tommy Lee Jones made his directorial feature debut with "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada".
The shift towards the high-end of the cinema spectrum was a marked departure from last year, when Michael Moore's Bush-bashing documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" took the Palme d'Or.
That is not to say that President George W. Bush and the US administration fully escaped the wrath of Cannes.
Even the sixth and final episode of the epic "Star Wars" series got in on the act, with what many in the audience interpreted as a reference to Bush's "with us or against us" approach to the war on terrorism.
"You are either with me, or you are my enemy," says Anakin Skywalker, soon to become the black-caped Darth Vader.
"Star Wars", which received its world premiere in Cannes on Sunday, was one of the highlights of the festival, although it was not showing in competition.
Some 28 years, and more than $3.5 billion in box office receipts later, the world will look back on the franchise as a turning point in cinema.
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