Sleep Deprivation, Hungarian Potatoes & Oscar Charts

Yesterday morning I had to pass up a chance to see Hungary's Foreign Film submission The Turin Horse which saddened me. But half an hour of footage of peasants boiling potatoes in black and white mixed with three hours of sleep (2011 Insomnia Plague right here!) would not be an ideal match. If I die from operating heavy machinery while sleep deprived (what if my computer falls on me?) please know that it was fun talking movies with you this past decade.

The Turin Horse -- not to be watched without sleep

OSCAR'S FOREIGN FILM RACE
But good news! This week I will be seeing Mexico's submission Miss Bala (more specifically I'm watching it as you read this), Iran's submission A Separation, Turkey's probable submission (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) and what I suspect will be Argentina's submission The Student which recently received the Academy's official "go ahead, then" despite some initial concerns about its eligibility (something due to the format it was shot in). In other words, it's on! I don't think anyone, even those who say they do, knows what will happen this year with either the executive committee or the nominating groups given how many high profile critical darlings and crowd-pleasing baity entries are already in the mix to split all types of aesthetics in the voting. And we still don't even know about 20 entries including three big deal Oscar countries: Spain (19 noms, 4 wins) update: it's Pa Negre (Black Bread) a Spanish Civil War Drama that won big at the Goyas, Italy (26 noms, 10 wins) and the Czech Republic (8 noms, 3 wins). 

Joshua Marston shot by Andreas Rentz in Berlin, 2011CONTROVERSY
In related news, the controversies we've already noted here are covered over at Deadline in more detail in addition to the new but totally expected story that Albanian's entry "The Forgiveness of Blood" might not be deemed Albanian enough what with Joshua Marston (from California) in the director's chair.

Given that Marston was already booted out of this category once (Maria Full of Grace) due to his citizenship despite his international spirit -- consider that he has yet to make an English language feature -- we are reminded again how frustrating the Academy rules are. You do have to have rules, mind, but there are always casualties when the letter of the law rather than the spirit rules.

Please to enjoy the ever-expanding charts and pass them on! Nobody gives you this category like The Film Experience. 

Trailer for the Swiss entry and the entire Cuban film (if you can speak Spanish) after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Mighty Submissions? Mexico's Got "Miss Bala" and China's Got Christian Bale

In the most mainstream-ready news yet for this year's Best Foreign Language Film competition, China has submitted Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War. The movie has changed titles at least three times now (literally) but yes, that's the very expensive Christian Bale film based on Geling Yan's historical novel The 13 Flowers of Nanjing which is about the Nanjing massacre when Japanese soldiers slaughtered Chinese civilians in 1937. Bale will play a priest who is helping to save Chinese citizens. I believe previous titles included The 13 Women of Nanjing and Nanjing Heroes. After a very long production the movie will supposedly be opening this December.

Zhang Yimou and Christian Bale on the set

Christian Bale in a still from the film that just can't pick a title!

Zhang Yimou is a superstar as auteurs go, having previously directed international hits and awards magnets like Ju Dou (Oscar nominee Foreign Film ), Raise the Red Lantern (Oscar nominee Foreign Film), To Live (Golden Globe Nominee Foreign Film), Shanghai Triad (Oscar nominee -cinematography),  Hero (Oscar nominee -China), The House of Flying Daggers (Oscar nominee -cinematography) and Curse of the Golden Flower (Oscar nominee in costume design). 

But with Bale in the lead (or prominent ensemble) role, one wonders how much of his new film is in English and whether that might not be a problem when the Oscar committee starts ruling about eligibility? Early reports suggested that 40% of the film would be in English though there's also dialogue in Mandarin, Japanese, and Chinese. Academy rules don't allow the majority of your dialogue to be in English in this category so we shall see. You know how finicky the Oscar committee can get about eligibility rulings. But one things for sure: this film won't have trouble winning attention with Yimou behind the camera and Bale in front of it. 

IN OTHER NEWS...

Runar Runnarson's debut feature VOLCANO will represent Iceland for the Oscars. It's the story of a retiree rediscovering his life. The film already has achieved a small degree of fame for an old age sex scene. Reviews are strong and it's said to be quite moving.

Last year's winning country Denmark has gone with SuperClasico

Then we have two countries that share the distinction of several nominations without a win yet.

Israel will present FOOTNOTE, the story of combative father and son Talmud professors which won the screenplay prize at Cannes. Israel is the most nominated losing country ever having been up to bat for 9 Oscars thus far.

Mexico (tied with Poland, just behind Israel, at 8 nominations without a win) will go with MISS BALA as most cinephiles suspected. I will be seeing the acclaimed beauty-queen in distress drama Tuesday for the New York Film Festival. Can't wait after all the good things I've heard. 

Here's the US trailer which I'm not watching so as to be surprised next week. The film opens in limited release next month after this final festival bow. 

Imagine that. At least TWO of the contenders are actually opening in the States before the following calendar year! It's so rare these days. And lately when that's happened it's been on December 31st. Boo! So give Mexico's Miss Bala and China's The Flowers of War points for braving a real release and not banking on the lottery ticket of a future Oscar nomination before hitting the big screen.

Useful Useless Statistics!
Countries that submit regularly that still wait on virgin nominations:
Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Portugal, The Philippines, Serbia, Slovenia, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela ...and current cinematic hotspots Romania and South Korea.

Oscar's favored countries *these past 10 years* (they tend to go in waves):

1. Germany (6 nominations, 2 wins these past ten years)
2. France (5 nominations or 50% of the lineups)
3. Canada (3 nominations, 1 win these past ten years)

Most favored country (in history) that has had a rough run with Oscar lately: Spain is the third most honored country in the Academy's entire history (19 nominations and 4 wins) but they've only been nominated once in the past ten years. Of course they won that year (The Sea Inside) and two of Spain's biggest stars also won acting Oscars recently (marrieds Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz ... so, uh, never mind. I take it back. Not a rough run! It's ITALY that's smarting. Just one nomination for the country with the most competitive wins and second most nominations ever these past ten years. What's going on Italy?)

CHART UPDATES (ONGOING) HERE including new films from Ireland, Albania, and Vietnam.

Oscar's Foreign Race Heats Up With Russian Controversy

Blow the horn. The nifty annual charts for Oscar's Foreign Language Film competition are up. With 25 films announced (26 if you count Iran's confusing "did they or didn't they?" issues with their internationally acclaimed marital drama A Separation) we're nearing the halfway mark of the list which usually tops out somewhere around 65 films.

Brazil, Bulgaria and Lithuania have announced

Current predictions are for fun speculation only since we don't even have half the official list. Let's not get too crazy in thinking we know how this plays out; this category often surprises both with submission choices and finalists. (Especially with their recent Executive Committee switcheroo powers. That must be how Dogtooth made it last year!)

Albania to Italy the most recent additions are Brazil's Rio slums crime drama Elite Squad 2, Bulgaria's Tilt which seems a little rock and roll / adolescent for Oscar (here's the trailer) and Colombia's The Colors of the Mountain.

Italy to Vietnam one new addition is a father/daughter drama from Lithuania called Back in Your Arms which takes place in the 60s but the backstory is very World War II. I want to see this ... I mean, it even has dance numbers!

RUSSIA has also announced...

When Nikita Mikhalov, the director and star of the very popular Russian Oscar winner Burnt by the Sun (1994) announced he was making the sequel some time ago I immediately predicted that a future nomination was sewn up. But beware of 'looks unbeatable on paper.' Burnt by The Sun 2: Citadel met with surprisingly rough reviews when it hit Cannes and was an expensive box office failure at home.

The controversy doesn't end there. Here's a quote from a recent Guardian article on this selection:

Vladimir Menshov, the chairman of the country's Oscars committee, has publicly called on Mikhalkov to withdraw his film. Apart from anything else, he said, there was something "inappropriate" about the veteran film-maker, who is a member of the committee, having put his own movie forward for consideration.

"This film, which came out in May, had an absolute critical drubbing ... it was never shown anywhere internationally," Menshov told Echo of Moscow radio on Tuesday. "And most importantly, it was a catastrophe at the box office."

Burnt by the Sun (1994), Oscar WinnerOn the other hand if an entire committe is making the decision, why shouldn't one mamber who is a working filmmaker be able to submit their films as long as they don't have deciding power? It'll be interesting to see if Oscar's love for the original transfers. It did provide a memorable moment on the telecast with the director and his adorable daughter Nadezhda (both stars of the film). Or will the Academy give this sequel the cold shoulder that it's receiving elsewhere. 

Have you ever seen Burnt by the Sun?

Are you glad to see the charts back?  

 

TIFF Finale Pt. 1: "Silver Cliff" and People's Choice Winner "Where Do We Go Now?"

Paolo here back with...wait, there are more movies after the awards were announced? Yes, but before we get to that, I was unfortunately reminded by Amir that I saw Love and Bruises. It's a movie about a Chinese woman in Paris named Hua who studies the women's rights movements but hangs around with rapists outside of campus. One of these, Mathieu (Tahar Rahim, who needs to work with better directors), is the jealous possessive type but lets her alone with his skeezy best friend. Cheery stuff.

Silver Cliff

Aarim Ainouz' SILVER CLIFF begins with Djalma (Otto Jr.), a beefy guy who isn't having fun despite swimming on a beach in Rio de Janeiro and making love to his wife Violetta (Alessandra Negrini). He flies to a smaller city and dumps her over the phone. Arriving at the airport too late, she roams around the city, from hotels to beaches, playing his voice message and suspicious of its tone. She meets a father (City of God's Thiago Martins) and daughter with their own back story.

Rio is a city where Brazilians can get willingly lost and here we follow the abandoned halves of broken marriages in Silver Cliff. Though the majority of the film concentrates on Violetta, her scenes neither written nor performed compellingly, Ainouz's choice to begin and end with the male characters is a puzzler.

The People's Choice Winner...

Where Do We Go Now?

After the screening of Nadine Labaki's WHERE DO WE GO NOW? (Lebanon's Oscar Submission), I overheard a festivalgoer telling his friends that 'someone's probably blogging that this is the worst People's Choice Winner ever.' I might be one of those bloggers misconstrued as writing that.

The film's chief merit is its female perspective on Lebanese sectarian conflict. In the spirit of "Lysistrata," a group of village women try to stop men from gunned conflict through pranks. (Some audiences might see this approach as too idealistic since it's difficult for any group who hate each other and unite and pull off miracles.) The director also stars as Amale (Labaki) whose character arc takes her from merely vulnerable and beautiful to someone who can publicly question notions of masculinity and God. But why did the idealistic women have to hire those big city Ukranian exotic dancers? By exploiting them for the men's use these women are taking steps back as they try to move forward. Where Do We Go Now? would have been more effective with less of its irreverent comic tone and musical numbers which only work half the time. The film could still reach the same denouement without trying so hard for its laughs.

TIFF Award Winners

The list as they came in [thanks to The Lost Boy]

BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE Edwin Boyd, directed by Nathan Morlando (Paolo's review, Amir's review)
BEST CANADIAN FEATURE Monsieur Lazhar, directed by Philippe Falardeau
BEST CANADIAN SHORT FILM Doubles With Slight Pepper by Ian Harnarine
PEOPLE'S CHOICE MIDNIGHT MADNESS The Raid, directed by Gareth Huw Evans
PEOPLE'S CHOICE DOCUMENTARY The Island President by Jon Shenk
INTERNATIONAL CRITICS SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS The First Man, directed by Gianni Amelio
INTERNATIONAL CRITICS DISCOVERY SECTION Avalon directed by Axel Petersen 

And the biggie, the PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD, which often signifies Oscar attention in either Best Picture or Foreign Film categories is WHERE DO WE GO NOW? the musical from Lebanon which is from the director of Caramel. It was recently submitted for Oscar consideration for Best Foreign Language Film.

UPDATE: Here's the international trailer.

It's officially one to watch now, a very likely nominee if past awards are indication. Runners up in this category were Iran's very buzzy marital drama A Separation and Ken Scott's Starbuck.