Interview: Pablo Larraín on his recent triple - Jackie, Neruda, and The Club

Portman and Pablo at the premiere of JACKIE (2016)by Nathaniel R

Pablo Larraín, currently Chile's most celebrated director, first broke into the festival circuit via his second film, the violent and disturbing Tony Manero (2008). I found it so upsetting that I thought I'd never risk another one of his features. That resolve didn't last long. His international breakthrough No (2012), was a hit with audiences, critics, and the Oscars and surprisingly enjoyable too. But due to the always unpredictable release dates of movies, we didn't see his work again until 2016 and then there were three movies at once, the sex predator priest drama El Club, the playful writer on the lam whatsit Neruda, and of course the outstanding Oscar hopeful Jackie.

You might call this Pablo's Year but for the fact that he doesn't coddle the audience and his films are as likely to unsettle and challenge as they are to reward you with their significant pleasures like fascinating performances, strong themes, unexpected humor, and emotional acuity.

When we found an opportunity to talk I figured I'd jump into the deep end about the unsettling nature of so many of his features. Our interview follows...

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Interview: Lorenzo Vigas on his Prize Winning Drama "From Afar"

This year's Oscar race for foreign film has the usual number of World War II dramas, biopics, and historical epics but as far as we can tell it's only got one Latin American LGBT drama about a damaged old man's thorny relationship with a poor street hustler he picks up who keeps coming back thereafter for more cash and the more mysterious pull of companionship. That film, Desde Alla / From Afar, now available to screen on Netflix, began its breakthrough journey winning the Golden Lion at Venice in 2015 for first time narrative director Lorenzo Vigas. I talked to him about working with an Oscar winning screenwriter, that Venice honor, and his terrific young find, Luis Silva, who holds his own opposite one of the Latin America's finest actors, Alredo Castro. 

The interview is after the jump...

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NewFest: "Don't Call Me Son", "Esteros", and "Paris 05:59"

NewFest, New York's LGBT Festival, runs through Tuesday. Here's Chris on three of the festival's foreign selections...

Don't Call Me Son
Anna Muylaert continues to explore complex family dynamics in Don't Call Me Son, her follow-up to last year's Brazilian Oscar submission The Second Mother. Teenage Pierre (Naomi Nero) and his younger sister have their lives upended when their mother is jailed for stealing them at birth, thrusting them apart and into the homes of their birth parents. Further complicating the film's identity politics is Pierre's burgeoning gender dysphoria...

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Reviews: "Desierto" and "Under the Shadow"

by Nathaniel R

Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Gael García Bernal in "Desierto"

Two more Oscar submissions are now in limited release in the US: Mexico's Desierto and the UK's Tehran set film Under the Shadows. Both are what you might call horror films though one suspects only the latter would accept the label. 

Desierto
We'll go anywhere with Gael García Bernal, who has blessed us with a number of fine road trip / travel movies in his career like Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Motorcycle Diaries , and The Loneliest Planet. In short, he's the perfect choice as a protagonist if you want us to sign up for a gruelling journey...

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Foreign Film Race Pt 5: "Hey, I know that face!"

"Everything u ever wanted to know about the foreign film category"
Pt 1 All the trailers (A-I) | Pt 2 All the trailers (J-Y) 
Pt 3 Debuts | Pt 4 Female Directors 

Pt 5. Actors You Know & Possibly Love
Successful actors really rack up the frequent flyer miles. Some pick up a second or third or fourth language and actually use those languages in their careers. Others merely stick to films in their native tongue but are magnetic or lucky enough to become well known all over the world.

So after surveying the 85 movies that are hoping to be nominated for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, here are 12 actors you may already know (or at least recognize) who star in one or more of the submissions this time around... 

Gael García Bernal made his feature film debut in the Oscar nominated Amores Perros (2000) and Oscar just kept right on gazing at him. As did we. To date he has starred in three Best Foreign Language Film nominees (Amores Perros, The Crime of Father Amaro, and No) and three other Oscar nominated films (Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Motorcycle Diaries, and Babel). He could add two more Academy stamped titles to that very impressive list this year since he headlines both the Chilean submission (Neruda, reviewed) and the Mexican submission (Desierto, which just opened in US theaters).

Fionnula Flanagan has been working in Irish, British and US TV and film since the mid 1960s and has won an Emmy (for the 1970s miniseries Rich Man Poor Man) as well as a lifetime achievement prize at the Irish Film and Television Awards over the course of her long career. She won lots of new fans and a Saturn Award for her role as the spooky housekeeper in The Others (2001) and this year she co-stars in the interlocking stories of Little Secrets, the Brazilian Oscar submission.  

Ten more famiiar faces after the jump...

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