Venice: "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "A Simple Life"

[Editor's Note: Here's Manolis, a Greek reader who is covering Venice for The Film Experience. If you can read Greek, visit Cinema News for more of his festival coverage.]

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
The spy thriller was eagerly anticipated here in Venice and reaction was generally positive though some critics felt that something was missing. English is not my first language and with the heavy accents I did have a hard time following all of the twists of the intricate plot. But despite my difficult I was delighted that the film doesn’t underestimate your intelligence and demands your full attention throughout. The film's technical aspest are very impressive from sets to costumes to cinematography and Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) directs with stylish gusto, creating magnificent shots and frames. Though the spy movie genre doesn't generally promise the slow pacing that Alfredson chooses, it's an interesting approach. The performances follow this same tone, all of them toned down. The triumph of the ensemble cast is that you can feel that underneath the icy surface of the British mentality of the period, there is an array of emotions ready to explode. A simple gesture is, for these characters, far more important than a whole sentence. In fact, Gary Oldman only raises his voice once in the lead role of George Smiley in a wonderful monologue towards the end. Colin Firth and John Hurt are also very good as is Tom Hardy in a small but memorable role.  

The one thing I felt Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy lacked is a heart as it is a particularly cold experience. This not automatically a flaw for an intelligent espionage thriller but a small dose of warmth would have added to the whole a great deal considering that the film turns on loyalty, values and ideals. 

Andy Lau at the Venice premiere of A Simple LifeTAO JIE (A SIMPLE LIFE)
The second movie today was Tao Jie by Chinese filmmaker Ann Hui. The film takes place in Hong Kong and deals with the relationship between the thirtysomething Roger Lee (Andy Lau) and his elderly nanny Tao (Deannie Yip). The roles in this relationship are reversed when Tao gets seriously ill and can’t serve him anymore. It’s time for Roger Lee to rise to the occasion, learn to appreciate the things that he has taken granted and take care of this woman who was more than a mother to him all his life; she needs to know that someone will be there by her side in the last days.

A Simple Life has humor, pathos and sensitive performances and provides an interesting window for Westerners of the way the Chinese view their elders. The tender story has broad appeal but breaks no new ground and begins to drag towards the end.  Although comparisons to Yasujiro Ozu’s films would be unfair, they are inevitable and naturally not favorable for Hui’s film. 

Vote on the Euro Film Awards (Plus: Oscar Submits)

While I normally approve not of "people's choice" awards -- that's what box office is for -- I do find the European Film Awards a curious beast worth noting each year. They have variety by way of scattershot film culture, there being no unifying "Hollywood" to control them. This year their People's Choice Awards -- which you can vote on and enter for a chance to win a trip to the awards in Berlin -- offers up an odd collection of Camp Comedy (France's star-laden Potiche), Royalty Porn (The UK's Oscar winner The King's Speech), Meta History (Spain's Even The Rain), Message Movie (Denmark's Oscar Winner In a Better World), Neeson-y Thriller (the international Unknown), Fish Out of Water Comedy (Italy's Welcome to the South), Ensemble Drama (France's star-laden Little White Lies), and even Animated Family Film (Germany's Animals United).

And the Nominees Are...

Go and vote...
...as long as you're not planning to help The King's Speech win yet more statues. Cinema-Gods help us all.

Meanwhile the Oscar Foreign Film submissions continue...

NORWAY
Anne Sewitsky’s debut Happy, Happy (Sykt lykkelig) which we've previously discussed (I heart the trailer) will represent the land of the midnight sun in this year's Oscar race. Previous awards under its belt include the Sundance Festival's World Cinema Jury Prize Dramatic which, if you'll recall, is the same prize that the great Australian feature Animal Kingdom got its first big boost from in 2010. Joachim Trier's Oslo August 31st is the loser in this Oscar scenario but here's hoping that both films get stateside distribution. 

HUNGARY
Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse will represent daring Hungary in this year's Oscar race. Hungary nearly always competes for Most Atypical Submitted Film which is bad for their nominatability but great for proof of variety in that odd annual Oscar survey of what's happening in international cinema. This one will need a helping hand from that special committee that Oscar dreamt up to basically force critical darlings on to the nominated shortlist. The new system obviously paid off last year for Greece's Dogtooth. Cinema Underground tells it like so...

Not since Alexander Sokurov’s The Second Circle have I watched a movie that felt so much more like physical endurance than an active intellectual and emotional experience... The Turin Horse is a punishing film.  The people in it are ugly and often cruel.  Their lives are repetitive and arduous.  There is little plot, little action, little change of scenery, but there are plenty of long, long takes in which no words are spoken.   

And that's from a somewhat positive review.

Oscar Foreign Film Pages

Foreign Film Oscar: South Korea's "Front Line"

Oscar's foreign film submission announcements will be flying at us for the next month and you can keep track of the whole list at my foreign oscar predictions pages. A short time ago I told you that South Korea had narrowed down their Oscar submissions. That news was shortlived as the competition is over and they've gone with the battlefield drama The Front Line. [Thanks to faithful TFE reader Jin for the info.]

Here's the warry trailer.

Excuse me but I barely see any actressing! I mean other than Kim Ok-bin. Shouldn't there be a rule against films light on actressing in South Korean cinema? They have so many good ones and their one representative film for AMPAS is practically bereft of them? sigh.

To make up for their sudden xy departure, here's a recent photoshoot starring Kim Ok-bin, who you'll recall was a Film Bitch nominee right here in 2009 for Thirst.

I feel much better already...

Three other selections were announced last week...

ROMANIA
Romania, like South Korea, doesn't have any Oscar nominations to show for years of cinephile enthusiasm. The Academy generally can take some time to catch up so if a country wants to get Oscar play their international cinema heat can't be shortlived. Their entry this year is Marian Crisan debut feature Morgen, a hit at the Locarno festival, which is about an unlikely friendship between a security guard and an illegal Kurdish immigrant.

MOROCCO 
Actor Roschdy Zem's second feature as a director Omar Killed Me stars Sami Bouajila, who international arthouse audiences might remember best from the gay comedy The Adventures of Félix or from major roles in two different Algerian Oscar nominees Days of Glory and Outside the Law (both of which happened to co-star Zem). Bouajila pops up in English language films once in awhile too (The Siege, London River). The previous Oscar heat doesn't stop there: Director Rachid Bouchareb, who directed both of the recent Algerian nominees starring these two, helped with the screenplay adaptation of this biopic about an innocent prisoner. The Hollywood Reporter calls it "intense and superbly acted."

VENEZUELA
Alejandro Bellame Palacios’s The Rumble of the Stones is about a mother attempting to rebuild her family's lives after a natural disaster. There are many hardships along the way but apparently it's an optimistic picture; one fan on Facebook called it a "true tribute to the nobility of Venezuelan women."

Not yet announced but getting there...

MEXICO
It's not official yet but you shouldn't be surprised if Mexico goes with festival sensation Miss Bala for their Oscar film which we've mentioned a few times. Awards Daily likes the trailer but I'm not watching it since I'm seeing the film in a couple of weeks and want to be surprised. I'm pretty wild for the poster. It's provocative ... and I mean story-wise though I'm sure breasts never hurt in selling a movie. The movie is getting a U.S. release in the fall courtesy of Fox International.

Mexico currently has these 11 features under consideration. Thanks to Armando for sending in the list. The films are

• Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)
• 180˚(Fernando Kalife)
• Dias de Gracia (Everardo Valerio Gout Grautoff)
• El Baile de San Juan (Francisco Athie) 
• Flores en el desierto (José Alvarez)
• La Mitad del Mundo (Jaime Ruiz Ibáñez)
• Bala Mordida (Diego Muñoz Vega)
• Siete Instantes (Diana Cardoso)
• Somos lo que Hay (Jorge Michael Grau)
• Una Pared Para Cecilia (Hugo Rodríguez)
• Viaje Redondo (Gerardo Tort)

If I'm not mistaken, none of these filmmakers have ever been put forward by Mexico before so with no "favorite son" precedent it could be anyone's ball game ...were it not for the obvious critical enthusiasm for Miss Bala that is. The other film that has something of an international profile is the disturbingly grotesque Somos lo Que Hay which opened in the US as We Are What We Are. For all its horror dread potency, I can't see Oscar touching that one.

Global Box Office: Monks, Assassins, Maids & Trophy Wives

To speak in gross generalities the last weekend in August is Hollywood's last chance to nab easy-to-please summertime dollars before the films get more "depressing" (read: statue-hungry) and people get back to careerism/schooling in September. But with Hurricane Irene shutting down NYC's unshutdownable mass transit and keeping people locked up in their homes (or other people's homes) this weekend all over the Northeast the box office will probably be way down. The Help will try to fend off three wide release newcomers seeking different audiences be that the horror crowd (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark),  the action-hungry (Colombiana), or comedy seekers (Our Idiot Brother reviewed). We probably won't be discussing box office tomorrow -- especially if we get a power outtage tonight! -- so let's talk about a related topic today.

Let's talk about movies that box office reports elsewhere never talk about: non-English language movies. Which are the highest grossers worldwide? The figures are drawn from various box office mojo charts as of Friday 08/26. I'm assuming that India doesn't release figures since Bollywood is a huge industry and you'd think they'd factor into the first chart more than they do if they did.

UPDATE: After compiling the list I discovered through the comments -- thanks Kin -- that the "Yearly Worldwide" chart that was my primary source of information contradicts the "Overseas Total Yearly Box Office" chart to quite an insanely large degree (what gives box office mojo?). Some titles are totally absent from either list though that makes no literal sense as "overseas" by any definition is part of "worldwide". NEW UPDATED LIST AND APOLOGIES AFTER THE JUMP.

Click to read more ...

Foreign Oscar Tracking: South Korea

Korean cinema has really been a hotspot this past decade, what with Kim Ki-Duk (Time, 3-Iron, Spring Summer...), Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Mother, Memories of Murder), Park Chan-wook (Thirst, Oldboy... the upcoming Stoker) and Lee Chang-dong (Poetry, Oasis, Peppermint Candy) winning over critics and Asian film fans quite regularly. South Korea's steady stream of great performances by actresses isn't hurting their rep either... especially not with The Film Experience ;) Just the other day I was skimming over The Housemaid again and, gah, actressy heaven. All four female players were totally working those roles.

The Front Line, Sunny, and Poonsang

So we're curious as to what they'll submit this year.  The Korean Film Commission has narrowed it down to six titles so one of these will be your Oscar contender:

• Poonsan (Juhn Jai-hong) is a romantic drama about a South Korean messenger and his pick-up from North Korea that he's to smuggle across the border. 
• The Yellow Sea (Na Hong-Jin) is about a gambling addict taxi driver who takes an assassination job to pay off his debts. Trouble follows, naturally.
• The Front Line (Jang Hoon) The director used to be an assistant director to the great Kim Ki-Duk. Apparently there is now friction between the two of them in regards to the goings on of the Korean film industry. This is a big budgeted war drama taking place in 1951. 
• Sunny (Kang Hyeong-cheol), is the year's biggest hit in Korea. And -- actress alert! -- it's about a group of girlfriends from school who reunite 25 years later to reminisce. 
• The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo) is a black and white picture about a man wandering around Seoul, running into friends and ex girlfriends and the like. It played at Cannes.
• Hanji (or Scooping Up the Moonlight) (Im Kwon-taek) a government employee is assigned to revive the Hanji paper industry and he falls in love with it. Kwon-taek has been submitted once before with Chunhyang (2000)

It's tough to say what the Film Council will go for as there are a wide variety of factors in play from homefield success, through international auteur reps, to which films might appeal to AMPAS's sensibility. But the sad truth is that, whatever they choose, it's an uphill battle. Oscar has yet to nominate a Korean film... despite recent submissions as hugely acclaimed and well loved as Oasis (2002), Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring (2003), Secret Sunshine (2007) and Mother (2009).

Have you caught up with recent Korean successes like Mother, Poetry (my review), The Host or The Housemaid? 

Oscar Pages for Foreign Film Submission Lists