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Chalk this one up in the Most Curious Foreign Film Oscar Submission News column, should you have such a thing. Uruguay has submitted The Silent House for Oscar consideration. "Why that's just boring only regular news!" you say? Oh, but it's not skim-reader, it's not!
The Silent House is a horror movie, based on a famous "true" story from Uruguay in the 40s. A father and daughter settle into a cottage for the night where horrible murders once took place and... well, you know how things go down in haunted houses. Here's the teaser.
I've followed this category closely for ten years (this was the first website to make it a total cause/habit... now everyone notes each submission) and horror films are a total rarity, not just in terms of nominations but in terms of the annual 60+ film list, too. But the "my how unusual" feeling doesn't end there. The movie is also filmed in one continuous shot (always good for novelty factor) and there's already an American remake! The American remake starring Elizabeth Olsen (currently Oscar buzzing for Martha Marcy May Marlene) debuted at Sundance. So between May 2010 (when the original debuted at Cannes) and January 2011 (Sundance) it was remade.
Elizabeth Olsen in Silent House (2011)
Is the rapidity of cultural appropriation the true horror tale here?
Michael C reporting from the New York Film Festival.
In years to come there will no doubt be countless documentaries made attempting to make sense of the world changing events in the Middle East in the first half of 2011. Yet for all the context and analysis they bring to bear on the complexities of the Arab Spring I doubt any will have the immediacy of Stefano Savona’s Tahrir.
When the people of Egypy took to the streets, filling Tahrir Square, Savona grabbed his camera and marched out with them. When assembling his film he afforded himself no additional perspective. No talking heads. No title cards. No voiceover narration. If the protesters don’t have the information neither does the audience.
Without those crutches to lean on Savona goes in the opposite direction, building a picture of those days through collage - the musical repetition of chanting, the urgent, unsure spread of information, the confrontations with government enforcers. One such battle devolves horrifyingly into endless hours of rock throwing as protesters fashion makeshift helmets out of cardboard, scarves or whatever they can tie to their heads. The Egyptians we meet are a great antidote to the mainstream media’s usual representation of a sea of indistinguishable screaming foreigners. They debate the next course of action, speculate about events outside their control, and worry if it will all be worth it if in the end one tyrant is traded for another.
Those unfamiliar with the events in Egypt last February will be more than a bit lost, even a news junkie like myself longed for a little added perspective, but with Tahrir that is beside the point. When historians set about to reconstruct what it was like to be in that square at that time, Savona's film will be essential viewing.
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Previously... A Dangerous Method, The Loneliest Planet, Melancholia
Yesterday morning I had to pass up a chance to see Hungary's Foreign Film submission The Turin Horse which saddened me.Buthalf 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.
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):
Germany (6 nominations, 2 wins these past ten years)
France (5 nominations or 50% of the lineups)
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?)
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 6:26PM 
Elizabeth Olsen in Silent House (2011)
