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.

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.

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.

NYFF Overflows with Fascinating Auteurs & Oscar Contenders

Gael Garcia Bernal gets licked at the New York Film FestivalSince I'm not doing Toronto this year (I hope to convince a few volunteers to do coverage for the site. If you're going and you're a reader/writer...) I plan to go full hog on the NYFF. I will also be enlisting at least one extra member of the Film Experience team to join me so that we have more for you. Below you'll find the final lineup culled from the official site but I've divvied it up for you into categories.  Please do let us know in the comments which films you're most interested in hearing about, or, if you're in NYC, which films you plan to see.

Buzzy Indies
Martha Marcy May Marlene, in which Elizabeth Olsen leaves a cult in time for her Oscar campaign, directed by Sean Durkin (USA)
A Separation, a tense family drama that keeps winning awards, directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)
Shame, directed by Steve McQueen, in which sister Carey Mulligan visits her sex addict brother Michael Fassbender. From the director of Hunger so therefore MUST-SEE... even if constant Michael Fassbender sex scenes weren't enough (UK)

Will Their Countries Submit Them For Oscar's 'Best Foreign Language Film'?
The Kid With A Bike, directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, is about an abandoned 11 year old. It won prizes at Cannes because it's a rule that all Dardenne Brothers films do, don'cha know. (Belgium) 
Le Havre, directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland)

Miss Bala in danger

Miss Bala, directed by Gerardo Naranjo, in which a beauty pageant contestant runs into trouble with a drug cartel. I'm curious about this one. (Mexico)
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan -- I've never really understood the cinephile adoration -- it's a crime drama about the search for a missing body(Turkey) 
The Student, directed by Santiago Mitre, a political thriller about a student who falls for a radical organizer (Argentina) 

Oscar Players... Maybe
The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, an homage to Old Hollywood (France)
Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski, an adaptation of the hit play (see previous posts) (France/Germany/Poland)
The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne, in which George Clooney has multiple crises (USA)
My Week With Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis, about a week in Marilyn's life during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl (see previous posts) (UK)

Auteur Mania... (I don't make a habit of missing films by these men)
A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg, about Freud (Viggo Mortensen), Jung (Michael Fassbender) and their crazy subject (Keira Knightley), (UK/Canada/Germany)
 Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier, in which Kirsten Dunst's wedding plans are plagued by the impending apocalypse. (see previous posts) (Denmark)
The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodóvar, in which the director finally reunites with Antonio Banderas for a gruesome tale of revenge involving a plastic surgeon. (previous posts) (Spain)

Miscellania
4:44: Last Day On Earth, directed by Abel Ferrara, bills itself as an "apocalypse trance film". Starring Willem Dafoe. (USA)
Corpo Celeste, directed by Alice Rohrwacher, is about a young girl struggling with religion. (Italy)
George Harrison: Living In The Material World, music documentary directed by Martin Scorsese (USA)
Goodbye First Love, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, tracks a first love over eight years (France/Germany)
Pina, directed by Wim Wenders, which is a 3D dance film and tribute to Pina Bausch (Germany/France/UK)
Play, directed by Ruben Östlund, which is a provocative movie about African immigrants taking advantage of Swedish peacefulness (Sweden)
Policeman, directed by Nadav Lapid, which includes wealthy anarchists and anti-terrorist police (Israel/France)
Sleeping Sickness, directed by Ulrich Köhler who won Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. It involved doctors combating an epidemic of, well, the title (Germany/France/Netherlands)
The Loneliest Planet, directed by Julia Loktev, is an English language drama about a couple falling apart. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal. Yay. (USA/Germany)
The Turin Horse, a meditation "on the interconnectedness of things", directed by Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky (Hungary/France/Germany/Switzerland/USA)
This Is Not A Film, directed by Jafar Panahi who is currently appealing his prison sentence in Iran, and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Iran)

Have at it in the comments!

Tennessee 100: Night of the Iguana

JA from MNPP here, continuing Tennessee Williams Centennial Week with a look at John Huston's 1963 film The Night of the Iguana. I chose Iguana because it's one of the few adaptations of Williams' work that I hadn't seen already, and because IMDb's summary made it sound torrid in the best Williams way. Defrocked priests and wanton teen girls and sapphic spinsters all flitting about a Mexican beach cut off from civilization? Yes please.

But truth be told, I found the film a little wanting, not wanton. Richard Burton's in full bluster, screaming and sloshing about as the drunken ex-man-of-the-cloth Shannon, Deborah Kerr barely registers as the sexless traveling painter he's too big a mess to end up with, and not a whole lot seems to gel.

 

I was fond of Grayson Hall as the lesbian intent upon Shannon's destruction (she was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek), and kind of loved Ava Gardner as Maxine, the owner of the motel where they all end up marooned who keeps a couple of cabana boys for herself...

... but then, she was speaking my language. Bette Davis played the role of Maxine in the original staging of the play for four months before, according to her, her co-stars undercut her and she left the production and was replaced by Shelley Winters. I can picture both of them doing exquisite work in the role, but I really did like Ava Gardner here. (And scanning through Gardner's filmography I realize this is the first time I've ever seen her in anything!)

Iguana was shot in the Fall of 1962, right at epicenter of the tabloid insanity over the affair between Burton and Elizabeth Taylor - they'd just worked (among other things) together on Cleopatra - and Taylor actually accompanied Burton on the shoot in Puerto Vallarta, which led to all kinds of scrutiny upon the set. From Wikipedia comes this fun fact:

"By March 1964, months before the film's release, gossip about the film's production became the subject of a public parody when Huston received an Writers' Guild of America award for advancing "the literature of the motion picture through the years"; at a dinner where the award was presented, Allan Sherman performed a song, to the tune of "Streets of Laredo", with lyrics that included "They were down there to film The Night of the Iguana / With a star-studded cast and a technical crew. / They did things at night midst the flora and fauna / That no self-respecting iguana would do."

As you can tell, the stories surrounding the production are more interesting to me than the movie itself now. Perhaps the mega-quake that was Burton-Taylor was too strong a distraction to gel together an entirely satisfying, coherent film. Still there's some gorgeous black-and-white photography to be had...

And it did walk away with an Oscar for Best Costume Design (B&W), beating Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Edith Head for A House is Not a Home, so in summation let's take a look at a couple of those. It's refreshing to see an example of a non-period film winning a prize for its costumes, isn't it?