by Nathaniel R
Spain, which is Oscar's third favourite country (statistically speaking) in the Best International Feature Film race, will announce their submission on October 5th. In the meantime they have released the names of the three films that they are considering. It's Pedro Almodóvar's melodrama Parallel Mothers versus Fernando León de Aranoa's comedy The Good Boss versus Marcel Barrena's adventure film Mediterráneo. All three of the films are slated for October release in Spain so we don't yet know how the "home team" will react to them. Still this trio of possibilities is interesting for a few fun triva reasons...
Javier Bardem is "The Good Boss"
You may recall that Fernando León de Aranoa got the submission in 2002 for the Javier Bardem led drama Mondays in the Sun, his only time competing for the Oscars. But this decision infamously blocked Almodóvar's Talk to Her its Best Foreign Language Film Oscar statue (we all know that the latter would have easily won in its year). Now the two filmmakers are in competition again. What's more Javier Bardem is Fernando's star again for a film that's up against the Almodóvar. Though Bardem is a global star and married to Pedro's favourite actress curiously he himself has only worked with the auteur twice, once in small role in High Heels (1991) and once in a lead role in Live Flesh (1998) which co-starred his future wife though they didn't share any scenes (Penélope Cruz was only in the film's prologue).
Almodóvar is inarguably Spain's most successful filmmaker globally but they don't submit him every time he makes a film. Parallel Mothers (which both Elisa and I reviewed at Venice) might seem like the frontrunner but it's also political and critical of Spain so it will surely have at least some vocal detractors back home. Almodovar currently holds the record of most submissions for a director from Spain (7 of his previous 21 pictures were sent by Spain) though the director Jose Luis Garci had more Oscar success in this regard achieving 4 nominated and 1 winning film in this category (to Pedro's 3/1) from his 6 submissions. Jose Luis Garci won the category for 1982's Volver a Empezar and Almodóvar won for 1999's All About My Mother.
The cast of "Mediterráneo"
Marcel Barrena is a fairly new filmmaker so he has never been submitted (this is only his second narrative feature) but curiously Mediterraneo is already the name of an Oscar-winner in this particular category (Italy's 1991 submission).
Which film do you think it will be?