Michael Haneka's "The White Ribbon"

Michael Haneka's surprising Palm d'Or win for his "The White Ribbon" may not be undeserved though Jacques Audiard's brutal prison story, "A Prophet," and Jane Campion's bitter sweet love affair between English Romantic poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne were critically acclaimed and widely tipped to win the top honours at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival that closed on Sunday.

Haneka, who has given us gut-wrenching 'Funny Games" and "The Pianist," was in top form with his black and white parable on the rise of Nazism in a German village on the eve of World War I. Meticulously constructed, the story of intrigue and malice placed on a bed of sinister undertones and evil deeds sows the seed that later flowers into sheer monstrosity.

A little too long at two-and-a-half hours, "The White Ribbon" analyses the brutality that exists in the community – between autocratic adults and problem children and between the weak and the strong themselves. Helped by crisp and startling images shot by Christian Berger, Haneke weaves his rich tapestry of unequal relationships that indicate how 20th century Germany was to be shaped. Unfolding over two years, 1913-1914 in a cripplingly conservative Protestant village, "The White Ribbon," uses verbal abuse, flogging and other forms of violence to give us an indication of what will happen in the Germany of the next 30 years.

Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet" is largely set within a prison and details the life of a 19-year-old North African Muslim convict, who learns the ropes of the trade under a feared Corsican kingpin. One of his first tasks is to murder a fellow prisoner by slashing his jugular with a blade. Audiard gives an extremely realistic of view of France's notorious jail life as he does of organised crime that appears to originate from within the four walls of such enclosed spaces. Often, the movie paints a dark and depressing picture that is almost cynical, the sadism adding to discomfort. But its pulls the punches real hard and lays down a canvas that tells what it is to lead a dog-eat-dog existence. And the narrative does not flinch.

Brillante Mendoza from the Philippines walked away with the Best Director's Prize for "Kinatay," which literally means "Butchered," and true to this, it is a story of kidnap, rape and murder. Mendoza has no qualms about showing how a prostitute is raped and dismembered into pieces in a film that is nerve-shattering and repelling to the core.

The Cannes jury, headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert and which included India's Sharmila Tagore, merrily went along honouring one violent movie after another. Park Chan-wook blood-curdling vampire adventure, "Thirst" shared the Jury Prize with the British entry, "Fish Tank" , about a 15-year-old girl's dysfunctional life that takes a bizarre turn after a sexual encounter with her mother's much older lover.

The enfant terrible of Chinese cinema, Lou Ye, won the Best Screenplay Award for his tale of marital discord and homosexual jealousy in "Spring Fever." Banned by Beijing from making films for six years after his 2006 controversial "Summer Palace" , Lou made "Spring Fever" secretly in Nanjing and also got it selected for the Festival's top Competition slot.

Christoph Waltz got the Best Actor Award for his ruthless, sarcastic, comic, but brilliant portrayal of Nazi Colonel Landa in Quentin Tarantino's World War II saga, "Inglorious Basterds." Indeed, Waltz outshone Brad Pitt in the movie with his great one liners. An Austrian sop star, Waltz would perhaps be best remembered as the 'the Jew hunter" , a nickname he carries in the work.

Charlotte Gainsbourg was adjudged the Best Actress for her role in Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist." As a mother grieving the loss of her toddler son in an accident, she and her husband retire to a cabin in a forest where she perpetrates the most heinous of crimes on her partner and herself that includes genital mutilation, a scene that got the audiences shrieking in disgust and won Cannes an infamous label. One critic said that this was the lowest point in the history of the Festival, and could be compared with the sinking of the Titanic. Von Trier himself was jeered at, but he remained stoic calling himself as the best director in the world.