Malick epic wins top Cannes award

THE Tree of Life, an epic and ambitious coming-of-age film that took years for enigmatic US director Terrence Malick to bring to the screen, won top honours last night at the Cannes festival.

Kirsten Dunst took best actress for her role in Lars von Trier’s apocalyptic psychodrama Melancholia, while France’s Jean Dujardin claimed best actor as the leading man in Michel Hazanavicius’s silent movie The Artist.

Malick, 67, notoriously publicity shy, was not present to accept one of the most coveted prizes in cinema, leaving one of his co-producers, Bill Pohlad, to speak on his behalf.