Oscar Nominees 2014: Part 10 of 14

La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Italy (Don't Tell, Life Is Beautiful, The Starmaker, Mediteranneo, Open Doors, Cinema Paradiso, The Family, Three Brothers, To Forget Venice, Viva Italia!, A Special Day, Seven Beauties, Scent of a Woman, Amarcord, Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Girl with a Pistol, The Battle of Algiers, Marriage Italian Style, Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, 8 1/2, The Four Days of Naples, The Great War, Kapò, Big Deal on Madonna Street, Nights of Cabiria, La Strada, The Bicycle Thief, The Walls of Malapaga, Shoeshine)

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Cast: Toni Servillo, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Verdone, Galatea Ranzi, Pamela Villoresi, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Giovanna Vignola, Giusi Merli, Sonia Gessner, Luca Marinelli

I have written about this enough times, I suppose. It is the best movie of the year, and there is simply nothing like it. I have even seen it a second time. I had a chance to see the film in the local IMAX theatre and I jumped at the chance. It hit me just as hard the second time, and my friends and I talked about it for days afterward. You will notice that Italy's previous nominations include films by Fellini, Tornatore, De Sica, Pontecorvo, Risi, Monicelli, and Scola (but strangely not Antonioni, Bertolucci, or Bellocchio): Sorrentino is in good company. And if some of the Italian masters have been left off of this list, the film to which La Grande Bellezza has most often been compared is La Dolce Vita, which also missed out on a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination. In who's-going-to-win news, they just recently changed the rules for voting for the winner of this Oscar. Formerly, an Academy member had to see all five of the nominees in order to vote for the winner. This is no longer the case, which means that voting for the winner of Best Foreign Language film will follow the same type of group-think as the rest of the winners. This year, however, that means that the best film of the year in any language will win Best Foreign Language picture.

Will Win: Foreign Language Film

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #1 out of 81

The Broken Circle Breakdown

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Belgium (Bullhead, Everybody's Famous, Farinelli: il Castrato, Daens, The Music Teacher, Peace in the Fields)

Director: Felix Van Groeningen

Cast: Johan Heldenbergh, Veerle Baetens, Nell Cattrysse

This is Belgium's second recent nomination (their most recent was the totally awesome Bullhead – check it out). I haven't seen this picture yet, but Netflix assures me it will be out on DVD on the eleventh of March, a good nine days late for the Oscars. So I will see it then, I suppose. I can tell you that this is a melodrama about a relationship between a bluegrass musician – the film is filled with Bluegrass music, in English no less – and a tattoo artist. It is based on a play by Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels, and Van Groeningen's film was nominated for six European film awards where Veerle Baetens won Best Actress. The film was also nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the Césars. You can watch the trailer here.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Foreign Language Film

My Rating: Not ranked

Omar (عمر)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Palestine (Paradise Now)

Director: Hany Abu-Assad

Cast: Adam Bakri, Waleed Zuaiter, Leem Lubany, Baher Agbariya, Majd Bitar, Walid Abed Elsalam, David Gerson

Here's another one I haven't seen. This is Hany Abu-Assad's second nomination in this category, but the film looks, well to be honest, it doesn't look all that great. You can watch the trailer here. Omar played at Cannes in 2013 and will be released in the U.S. on the 21st. The poster features the back of Omar's head as he kisses his love-interest in the film, and above their heads are the words "An incredible love story". Apparently, they are assuming we won't watch the trailer so that we can know what the film is actually about. Actually, if you're feeling like you probably will see this film, take my advice and don't watch the trailer. It gives way too much away.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

L'Image Manquante (The Missing Picture)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Cambodia

Director: Rithy Panh

Cast: Randal Douc

This is Cambodia's first nomination ever, and it is very exciting for another reason, too. L'Image Manquante is a documentary about atrocities perpetuated by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and this is the first time in a very long time that a documentary has been nominated for Best Foreign Language film. This is a huge deal all around. I don't think the film can win, but this nomination does demonstrate the Academy's interest in cinema from all parts of the globe. This was never in doubt, really, but there has not been a film from the Asian mainland nominated in this category for over five years. The Academy has for the last twenty years consistently ignored submissions by India, South Korea, Vietnam, China, even Hong Kong. I am not saying this is instantly going to change, but this nomination is a step in the right direction. The film is slated for release stateside on March nineteenth. You can see the trailer here.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Jagten (The Hunt)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Denmark (A Royal Affair, In a Better World, After the Wedding, Waltzing Regitze, Pelle the Conqueror, Babette's Feast, Harry and the Butler, Paw, Qivitoq)

Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Annika Wedderkopp, Thomas Bo Larsen, Susse Wold, Anne Louise Hassing, Alexandra Rapaport, Lasse Fogelstrøm

Mads Mikkelsen has starred in three of the last four nominees for Denmark in this category. Apparently it is a winning combination. Obviously, Mikkelsen is a big star, and this goes a long way to making this film as good as it is and in it getting this nomination. In fact, though, the high quality of Jagten has as much to do with the legendary director of the first Dogme 95 film, Thomas Vinterberg, as it does with Mikkelsen. Jagten is a kind of Arthur Miller's The Crucible for the twenty-first century. It is a terrifying, nail-biting witchhunt, that drove me and my roommate absolutely nuts watching it. One wants to scream at the movie screen. This film gets its hooks into you and then drags you around for a little bit. This is excellent, unsparing filmmaking, and it is totally in line with Vinterberg's other work. Denmark has won this award recently, though – for Susanne Bier's 2010 In a Better World (a much-deserved win) – and it won't be taking home the trophy this year unless there is an enormous upset.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Foreign Language Film

My Rating: #19 out of 81

Three More Foreign Films

Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film this year, is a film made in the Palestinian Territories and is about (surprise, surprise) the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Not that it's not an important topic or anything; I certainly think it is a topic worth exploring, but it wasn't explored well with Munich and it wasn't explored well with Paradise Now. The Palestinian film is a better film in a lot of ways because it takes a single idea (i.e. suicide terrorism) and attacks the issue from as many sides as it can. (Munich tries to attack myriad more issues but fails to deal with any of them.) Paradise Now bit off only a little bit and is able to chew on it well. This is also the problem with the movie: it has nothing to add to what we know about either suicide terrorism or the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The main characters also become unrecognizable halfway through the film and the disconnect that this provided me with was insurmountable. The Palestinian men I met at the beginning of the film were totally different people from the suicide bombers who end the film; for me this makes the film incapable of emotional resonance. And with nothing new to add to the discussion and very little emotional weight, Paradise Now just didn't work for me.

Mikael Håfström's Evil was released in Sweden in 2003. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004 (a shock, really), and though most films with a nomination like that are basically guaranteed a U.S. release (art-house-type movie-goers will spend money to see the movie if it has a Foreign Language nomination), Evil wasn't released in the U.S. until four weeks ago. Last Friday it was finally released in Los Angeles. The movie is about violence and the evil (and good, but mostly evil) that violence can bring. It's a very interesting film if you just think about the violence in the picture. The characters are interesting, the hero is extremely easy to root for and very likable, but the plot is downright ludicrous. A very violent young teenager is sent away to a prep school where the students (not the teachers) keep order and discipline throughout the school. They do this through disproportionately violent means (i.e. making a student's head bleed for saying "ass" at the dinner table.) Our hero (the violent young man, whom we've come to like and trust) is thrust into this environment but simply refuses to be bullied. His life is then made a living Hell by the upperclassmen. Håfström's film would have been a lot better if it didn't ask us to believe in this school as a real place: I mean, if he created a mythical school where this violence could occur. His focus is, after all, the violence inherent in youth interaction, and so why spend so much time displaying the injustice of the adults in the situation—when the situation is clearly fictional? Ludicrous plot aside, I quite liked Evil. I loved the main character (and the actor, Andreas Wilson) and I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories... and violence. I find explorations of violence in cinema endlessly fascinating (Oldboy, A History of Violence, you get the idea.)

After watching Paradise Now, last night, I headed to the Laemmle's Playhouse to see the Dardenne Brothers' most recent, Palme-d'Or-winning film, L'Enfant, which is so damn good. It's not quite as good as The Son, in my opinion, but I think that mainly owes to my preferred interest in the subject matter of The Son over L'Enfant. L'Enfant follows the story of Bruno, a young petty thief and new father. His girlfriend Sonia has just given birth (mere days earlier) to their son Jimmy. After spending very little time with the boy, Bruno decides (without the mother's consent, naturally) to sell his child on the black market. This is easily done (Bruno knows the right kind of people), but Bruno hasn't considered the consequences of his actions at all. The title, The Child, we come to realize, refers not only to the little baby in Sonia's arms, but to his father as well. Bruno is an impetuous, unthinking, selfish young man, for whom the word "irresponsible" would be a gross understatement. The Dardennes (who are obviously master filmmakers) leave their camera focused unflinchingly on Bruno and explore his world with sensitivity and amazing emotional power. I highly recommend this film.