Oscar Submission Curio: "The Silent House"
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 6:26PM 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?
Reader Comments (13)
Oh Nathaniel! You do such a great coverage of foreign films!
This film is awful! Although I'd kinda love to watch Academy members' reactions to it.
I think they're banking on the novelty of a one shot horror film. It's a bad choice. If they like horror, they've seen the gimmick done before with much better production values. If they don't like horror, they won't vote for it.
It's indeed pretty bad, though I suppose for something that took like a weekend to shoot and that was made with no money it could be far worse. It's pretty evident when you see it that it's made up of several takes though.
I guess the other option was César Charlone's (Meirelles' cinematographer) biopic about the Uruguayan revolutioner Artigas (Viggo Mortensen was once supposed to star in it), and that one's even worse.
Love you Uruguay, just not your year. Our best submission ever was Whisky (2004) and that had no chance.
A remake in less than a year? That's kind of scary.
As horror film "The Silent House" (the original one,I haven't seen the remake) is awful,but the cinematography covers it all and makes it intresting to watch.
Javi -- yes, Whisky was really good. I saw it at TIFF. not Oscar's usual kind of film though. too dry... i swear my favorite punchline in it took like 5 minutes to happen within the shot :)
I hated this film. I think I originally wrote (when I saw it at a film festival over a year ago) that if the director had been there in person I would have tried to punch him in the face. There are some good scares scattered about (the scene with the dark room and the polaroid camera for instance), but the film has its silly moments (why does she run back to the house?) before hurtling towards an ending that is so (pardon my language) fucking insulting in every possible way. The director spits in the face of anyone who likes horror movies, basically. He's a... well, use your imagination.
However, the idea of the branch having to watch this (or the first 30 minutes, whatever the manditory length before being allowed to leave is) is humourous. Methinks Uruguay don't make too many films.
Uruguay has had pretty good movies lately. Before Whisky, there was 25 Watts, directed by the same team. Then, I absolutely LOVED Bad day to Go Fishing. They had that Silver Bear winner in Berlin, Gigante, a very delicate romantic tale. I love Uruguay, I've lived there for six months years ago to study Spanish. Beautiful country.
Actually, "The Silent House" beat three other films for the nomination....Arguably, the favorites were "Norberto" (starring Daniel Hendler who most people think of as Argentine, but who is actually from Uruguay) and "Artigas", and there was a fourth film in the running called "Reus".
I'm sad to hear the movie wasn't good, but I'm happy Uruguay always sends an unusual film to the competition (usually a comedy!).
Incidentally, I thought "Whisky" was kind of boring...I much preferred "Bad Day to Go Fishing" and the disorganized wackiness of "En La Puta Vida".
"The Silent House" has already premiered in Brazil and unfortunately, the film isl senseless. The beginning is captivating, great psychological horror, but the strory's conclusion is totally dull. The way it was filmed is really impressive, but definetily doesn't explain its existence.
FYI Thailand just submitted 'Kon Khon' for Oscar, which was beyond my understanding because it's a big flop and a bad-reviewed film. The only clear reason is that they want to choose something that look Thai because it's about Khon which is a typical Thai performance. It's more or less like doing an Oscar campaign for 'Wild Wild West' or something like that. But I shoud stop bad-mouthing since I haven't seen the film. No one I know saw it.
I give this film two thumbs down. Boring, safe, senseless.
And there are times when you feel it is not shot in one take whenever the camera zooms in on complete darkness for a good five seconds.
Not worthy of our time.