Oscar Submissions: Japan, Sweden and Germany's "Pina"

Three more films have been announced for this year's foreign film Oscar competition, and all are from countries with a fairly large degrees of success with Academy's foreign nominating committee. Though the Academy always has a veritably orgy of films to choose from (usually sixty-plus) for its five-wide profile boosting arguably hit-making honors, they do tend to prefer European pictures. They also tend to prefer Japanese films to other countries when it comes to Asian cinema. Will they choose any of these three pictures?

JAPAN (12 noms, 1 win, and 3 honorary awards before the foreign category existed)
Postcard, an anti-war film about a soldier (Etsushi Toyokawa) returning home from World War II to see his family devastated, comes from the 98 year old director Kaneto Shindo. He has already stated that this will be his last film. 

SWEDEN (14 noms, 3 wins)
Beyond is the directorial debut of the actress Pernilla August (More and more actresses are making the leap: see also Vera Farmiga and we're loving it. Why shouldn't they?) The actor-centric heavy drama stars Noomi Rapace as the adult survivor of alcoholic parents in the 1970s. Noomi's real life husband Ola Rapace co-stars. Beyond opened at last year's Venice Film Festival but didn't premiere in Sweden until December 2010, placing it safely within the eligibilty period for this year's submission.

Wim Wender working on his documentary homage "Pina"

GERMANY (18 nominations, 3 wins)
Pina is a high profile 3D documentary on the work of the influential German dance artist Pina Bausch who died two years ago -- it was not intended, originally, to be a posthumous film. Dancers convinced the acclaimed filmmaker Wim Wenders to continue with the project which is now an homage to Bausch featuring several of her most acclaimed pieces performed by dancers onstage and outdoors.

Honestly dance is a great use of 3D if you must use 3D at all. Unfortunately the dance movies that have used it previously have rarely understood that to get 3D to work its spatial relations magic and what that means to choreography (a lot), you need to actually not cut every second to a different camera angle so that the eyes can observe the physicality, distance, and depth. I haven't yet seen Pina (very soon I hope) but I'm assuming Wim Wenders understands this in a way, say, the makers of Glee the 3D Concert Movie would not. Just a hunch.

This is not the first time a filmmaker has been inspired by Pina or used that inspiration to really heartbreaking affect. Remember the way Pedro Almodóvar used Pina to set the stage for the ineffable emotional pull of Talk To Her?

My guess right now is that the documentary Pina may have enough acclaim and novelty interest to make the finals (at least). But documentaries have a tough road for Oscar acclaim in any category other than Documentary. To my knowledge no documentary -- and at least one is submitted each year in this category -- has ever been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. (Unless you count Waltz With Bashir which you could; it strikes me more as an uncategorizable hybrid film.)

Foreign Film Oscar Chart -NEW & SPARKLY!
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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 Oscar Track: Israel and Norway

Two more countries, neither of which have ever won the Foreign Film Prize in Hollywood, have announced their finalists lists.

We'll take Norway first since it's less popular with Oscar (5 nominations) and because I stand humbly before you to say I was wrong. My conjecture about what might be submitted -- other than the new Joachim Trier -- was quite wobbly. The three finalists are not the biggies from the Amanda awards but Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st (Oslo, 31. august) which we briefly discussed, Anne Sewitsky’s Happy, Happy (Sykt lykkelig) and Jens Lien’s Sons of Norway (Sønner av Norge). While Trier has the highest international profile, that doesn't always equate with submission choice. Happy Happy is a very frisky marital comedy (I ♥ the trailer) and Sons of Norway is a punk rock coming of age film that even features a cameo from Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten. Neither of the trailers are subtitled and both feature nudity but if you want to see them they're here: Happy Happy and Sons of Norway.

Award winning filmmaker Joseph CedarIsrael, which has been nominated nine times (and thrice consecutively in recent years), just announced the nominees for their Oscars, the Ophir Awards.  This is always the list they pull from for their Best Foreign Language Film submission so it's probably going to be the 13 times nominated (whew) frontrunner Joseph Cedar's Footnote which played at Cannes winning the Screenplay award but garnering somewhat mixed reviews. It's about feuding father and son professors at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Writer/director Joseph Cedar, who was actually born here in New York City, was previously nominated for the soldier drama Beaufort (2007). 

But if there's a dark horse submission it'll be one of these four: Yossi Madmoni's Restoration, Nadav Lapid's Policeman (Ha-Shoter) Marco Carmel's My Lovely Sister or Maya Kenig's Off White Lies... all of which are more difficult to find info on then the Norwegian films at this point.

Slowly Evolving Oscar Foreign Film Pages Are Here.

Take Three: Max von Sydow

Craig (from Dark Eye Socket) here with another Take Three. Today: Max von Sydow

Take One: Hour of the Wolf (1968)
It goes without saying, of course, that a von Sydow Take Three wouldn’t feel right unless one of them was an Ingmar Bergman film. All three could’ve been, but the aim is to err on the side of variety whenever possible. They made 11 films together: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Magician, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Shame and The Passion of Anna are all classics. But Hour of the Wolf, in which von Sydow plays a painter losing his grip on his sanity, doesn’t always get the high mention it deserves. It contains some of von Sydow’s best work in any film, for any director.

With his handsomely regal face, von Sydow boldly dominates the film. His sinisterly unhinged stillness and almost unreadable presence cement the notion that he’s a tormented artist uncertain of his place in the world. He's visited by people, possibly demons in human disguise, who embody his trauma, his shame. In a possibly imagined, probably symbolic, but definitely surreal dinner scene von Sydow’s deathly wan countenance crumples in extreme close-up. His mind seems to deteriorate due to the inane banter of the chattering souls surrounding him. (No one said Bergman’s personal parables were cheery.) Von Sydow masters depression and disgust like breathing and underplays his scenes like a covert pro. With complete skill von Sydow does as much as an actor can to attempt to place the viewer inside his character’s brain.

Take Two: The Exorcist (1973)
I don’t think it’s via Jeez himself, but, Christ!, the power of character acting compels me... to write about Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist for this Take.

Demonic Possession and Demonic Behavior after the jump

Click to read more ...

Something is Golden in the State of Denmark.

Hot off an Oscar win in February for In a Better World, Denmark has announced their follow up contender ...or at least their intention to announce it. The land of my ancestors has narrowed down the past year in Dansk film to three tre: SuperClásico, Martin Zandvliet's Dirch (A Funny Man) and Pernille Fischer Christensen's En familie (A Family). 

En Familie, which my Danish informant Thomas (tak!) predicts will be the selection is a drama about a wealthy family with a dying patriarch. Jesper Christensen stars. You might recognize him from the Daniel Craig Bond films (he plays Mr White) or from the popular Swedish flick Everlasting Moments. He's also in Melancholia this year though I don't know how large his role is there.

SuperClásico is a divorce comedy which actually takes place in Buenos Aires. No word yet on whether that naked bum on the poster is Argentinian or Dane in origin ;). It's from the director of Flame & Citron, a film that got a healthy festival run a few years back. Important Note: Paprika Steen headlines and you'll recall that she was the Film Bitch Silver Medalist right here in last year's "best" celebrations. It'll be nice to see her smile this time around!

Nathaniel's Favorite Danes: Paprika Steen (SuperClásico) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Dirch)

The final contestant, Dirch or A Funny Man is a biopic about a famous Danish comedian. It stars Nikolaj Lie Kaas who you may have seen in Lars von Trier's The Idiots or famous Scandinavian films like Reconstruction or Brothers (he originated the role that later housed Jake Gyllenhaal). He's only recently started to branch out into English language films (something many Scandinavian giants do albeit usually in minor supporting roles) so you might have also seen him in Angels & Demons or in Whistleblower, Rachel Weisz's Oscar bid, which recently opened here in the States. You might think that Dirch would be too homegrown specific for Oscar submission but you never know. There are always a few biopics in the 60+ wide submission list of people who are infinitely more famous in their home countries than abroad.

IN DARKNESS, Poland's Holocaust Themed Oscar EntryMore Best Foreign Film News
GREECE, which up until last year's Dogtooth, hadn't been nominated since 1977 (and has never won), will submit Attenberg, which you'll recall won the Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival last fall. 

POLAND, 8 nominations / zero wins, will submit Agnieska Holland's In Darkness which In Contention made the following funny about. 

Poland... appears to have intensively focus-grouped the Academy’s foreign-language branch and subsequently created their Oscar entry in a purpose-built lab: a true-life Holocaust drama about a Leopold Socha, a reformed petty criminal who heroically helped numerous Jewish refugees hide in the sewers of Nazi-occupied Lvov.

Holland was previously nominated for best screenplay for her arthouse hit Europa Europa in the early nineties, also a Holocaust drama.

What does all this mean? That I've got to start building the Oscar Foreign pages again. (My work is never done!) In case you missed it... here's the discussion about what Norway might submit.