NYFF: "The Student" and "A Separation"

In an effort to not fall behind on NYFF coverage, here's a double feature from Argentina (possible Oscar submission) and Iran (Oscar submission!) .

THE STUDENT
Have you ever longed to learn every detail of the chaotic, multi-partied, backroom deal heavy politics of Argentina through the metaphorical microcosm of elections at a Buenos Aires university? If you answered "yes" than Santiago Mitre's The Student is the movie for you! If you answered "huh, what?" than I should quickly add that I'm not entirely sure that that's what The Student is on about. The movie's continual barrage of name-and acronym heavy information, both in dialogue and in dry omniscient narration, and its crowded character map of continually changing alliances and sudden betrayals suggests to me that politically aware Argentinians would understand and revel in its deeper implications more clearly than I possibly could.

As it is I was, like the titular character Roque (Esteban Lamothe), initially only fascinated by this vivid new world opening up all around me without ever quite understanding it. One terrific shot in the movie looks at the back of Roque's head, more specifically his ear, as he drinks up a ton of dizzying new knowledge, with more focus and determination than he ever uses while snorting up a line of coke or screwing his latest conquest. Unlike Roque however, who reveals hidden political aptitude that dwarfs but doesn't quite mask his obvious limitations, the lessons never stuck. Part of The Student's point is how quickly the various rugs will always be pulled out from under you in the dirty game of politics, but the ever shifting landscape eventually frustrates with its perpetual loop of climaxes that become anti-climactic, given that they merely reset the crowded board of players rather than ending the game. The Student's 124 running time becomes an endurance test, a Sisyphian lecture for a quiz that will never come.  B- (C+?)

A SEPARATION
Our next film, which is nearly the exact same length, achieves quite the opposite effect, growing more fascinating with each new scene and abundant detail. Asghar Farhadi's A Separation initially appears to be a well made but standard marital drama, as Naader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) spar in front of a judge over custody of their child Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). Simin wants to move to America where her daughter will have more opportunity (though the family seems well off in Iran) and Naader, almost too-willing to let his wife go, is unwilling to part with his daughter. His mind is elsewhere, perpetually worrying about his ailing father who has Alzheimers.

Naader has issues with Razieh (Sareh Bayat), his cleaning woman

The separation, though semi-amicable (no one is losing their temper), sets off a chain of unfortunate events. Through an economically conveyed but richly textured series of plot points, Naader has an altercation with the hired help (a poor couple, also with a troubled marriage) who are supposed to clean house and care for his father in Simin's absence. Soon everyone is in court again albeit for entirely different reasons. What starts as a well acted and sensitively filmed portrait of an unraveling family quickly expands into a vivid exciting portrait of families on precarious emotional ledges. In what can only be described as an embarrassment of riches, A Separation does all of this while also handily becoming the most exciting courtroom procedural movie in many a year. All the hard facts become soft and twistable when filtered through multiple emotional upheavals, religious beliefs, well meaning lies and day-to-day domestic issues.

Simin (Leila Hatami) and Naader (Peyman Moaadi)American audiences accustomed to casually and wrongly assuming a monolithic Middle East culture will find the movie eye-opening and instantly relatable; the tension between economic classes, as well as the secular and religious will feel all too familiar. Best of all, though, A Separation side-steps the easy and common cinematic path of demonizing or idealizing any of its warring characters. Every time you've come to a conclusion about a character or come close to hating or blaming them, writer/director Farhadi (of About Elly fame) opens a new door or window into their soul and circumstances. This prismatically sympathetic and insightful film is one of the best of the year. A 

FWIW: Sony Pictures Classics will release A Separation in US theaters on the dread date of 12/30/11 making it technically eligible for every Oscar category.

Previously on NYFF
Carnage raises its voice at Nathaniel but doesn't quite scream at him.
Miss Bala wins the "must-see crown" from judge Michael.
Tahrir drops Michael right down in the titular Square.
A Dangerous Method excites Kurt... not in that way, perv!
The Loneliest Planet brushes against Nathaniel's skin.
Melancholia shows Michael the end of von Trier's world. 

NYFF: "Miss Bala" Blood, Guns, and Tiaras

Serious Film's Michael C pleased to report he's viewed his first, but hopefully not last, knockout, must-see movie of the New York Film Festival.

According to director Gerardo Naranjo, some critics have accused his drug war thriller Miss Bala of glamorizing the life of cartel gang members. I didn’t get a chance to ask a question at the Q & A, but if I had it might have been, “What planet are these critics on, and how do they get movies way out there?” Miss Bala is the answer for every person wearing a Scarface t-shirt. It glamorizes the business of drugs about as much as Requiem for a Dream glamorizes the use of them. 

Miss Bala is a thriller that manages to generate incredible suspense despite upending genre conventions at every turn. It is the tale of Laura, an aspiring beauty queen, who through incredibly bad luck finds herself sucked into the Hell that is Mexico’s drug wars. Naranjo sticks to the point of view of his naïve, overwhelmed protagonist throughout. It’s a reversal of the Hitchcock method of suspense through letting the audience know as much as possible since at any moment Laura has little idea what the motives of her captors are and what role she is plays in their schemes. Unlike 99% of thrillers the audience isn't trying along with Laura to outwit her tormentors, but rather to scrape enough information together to survive.

Utilizing riveting, hold-your-breath long takes that recall fellow countryman Alfonso Cuaron, Naranjo work behind the camera is a breakthrough to make film lovers sit up and take notice. Bala deserves comparison with 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days for its depiction of societal ills through straightforward gut punch realism without political sermonizing or a trace of movie-movie bullshit. It’s a harrowing experience, but also a compulsively watchable one. 

Naranjo is aided by Stephanie Sigman, who delivers a performance of beautiful vulnerability and well-modulated desperation as Laura. Often the director does well to simply rest the camera on her face and watch as her expressive doe eyes absorb the seemingly endless string of horrors.

Miss Bala is Mexico’s submission for the foreign language Oscar... which is gutsy on their part since I've seen movies about the Vietnam War that depict a safer, more stable country. Oscar's foreign language branch, like its doc branch, is prone to wild, inexplicable omissions, so I won’t make any predictions, but I will say this: I would be shocked if five better, more powerful films are in contention this year.

Oscar Submission Curio: "The Silent House"

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?

THE OSCAR FOREIGN FILM CHARTS

NYFF: "Tahrir" You Are There

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. 

✩

Previously... A Dangerous Method, The Loneliest Planet, Melancholia

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.

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