Tim here, with a report from the other major U.S. film festival of October. The Chicago International Film Festival is, with reason, regarded as minor compared to the likes of Toronto and New York – no major premieres, few celebrities, only a couple of the big upcoming awards players. The flipside is that’s it’s absolutely lousy with interesting little films that won’t ever get a significant North American release, so even if it’s rough for Oscar watching, it’s hard to complain as a Midwestern cinephile.
Having said that, let’s turn to Oscar watching. I had an opportunity to see several of the films on the 76-title deep list of submissions for the Foreign Language Film Oscar, and I’d like to share my thoughts on their respective chances at making it onto the ultimate list of nominees. Let’s go alphabetically by country.
ARGENTINA – The German Doctor
In which a German-Argentine woman and her family inadvertently give aid and comfort to one of the most notorious of all escaped Nazis.
My feelings (and review): The film keeps acting like it wants to break out and be more garish and horrifying than it ever quite manages to be, and it’s probably for the best that it doesn’t. The script probably isn’t as smart as it means to be, but the fact-based story is interesting and surprisingly tense.
Oscar prognosis: “Nazi” is a magic word for this category, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see this make the nine-film longlist. It’s a little domestic and tonally off-kilter for where the category tends to live, but the subject matter is spot-on, and the Academy tends to favor Argentina more than other South American countries.
HUNGARY – The Notebook
In which twin boys sent to live in the country during World War II teach themselves to become emotionless monsters to stave off pain and suffering.
My feelings: There’s honestly a little bit of misery for misery’s sake going on here. But it has a diffuse, fairy tale feeling that makes the story more unusual than it seems from a plot synopsis, or even the opening act, and Piroska Molnár is terrific as the boys’ beastly grandmother.
Oscar prognosis: Children surviving World War II + sleekly austere cinematography? That’s the very definition of what they love in this category. Definitely the likeliest of everything I’ve seen to make into the final five.
MEXICO – Heli
In which a working class family ends up on the wrong side of a drug cartel’s rather explicitly-demonstrated brutality.
My feelings: The best non-documentary film I saw at CIFF. The Cannes Best Director win is richly deserved; it’s a grim, unsparing piece of audience abuse, but it’s all focused in an incredibly clear way, to bring home the hellish reality of life in a corrupt, violence-filled Mexico.
Oscar prognosis: If Steven Spielberg’s Cannes jury could give it a major award, the sky feels like the limit, but this is a dark, dark movie. The violence isn’t as extreme as advertised, nor does it take up all that much screentime, but it lingers: this is a desperately unpleasant movie to watch. It has social righteousness on its mind, which helps, but I think this one ultimately just misses out on the bake-off list.
NETHERLANDS – Borgman
In which an inhuman being in the guise of a homeless man causes all sorts of nastiness in the lives of a detached rich family.
My feelings: I loved it, but this is exactly the kind of movie doomed to have a small core of passionate partisans and a large group of people turned off by its content, its deliberately confusing storytelling style, or its complete abandonment of coherence in the last 20 minutes.
Oscar prognosis: No chance. It’s too cryptic, too hard to puzzle out, and too misanthropic.
POLAND – Walesa: Man of Hope
In which a passionate loudmouth becomes one of the political leaders of the anti-Communist movement in 1970s Poland.
My feelings: A virtually flawless biopic, with an outstanding lead performance by Robert Wieckiewicz. Andrzej Wajda, the great icon of Polish cinema, blends the personal and the revolutionary together in one crisp-moving and thoroughly involving story that digs into the meat of its subject with an awful lot of candor for what could easily be a hagiography.
Oscar prognosis: Wajda’s name carries a lot of cachet, but this is a very politically-laden movie, and those politics are A) Polish, B) thirty and forty years old. It’s handsome and accomplished, but I don’t see how enough voters will have an “in” with this material.
TAIWAN – Soul
In which a young man who may be possessed by an evil spirit commits crimes, which his father then hides.
My feelings: A remarkable mixture of horror and domestic drama, both of them told from a distinctly East Asian perspective, makes it thoroughly unique, for one thing. It’s also beautifully shot and put together in an elliptical way that gives it a strange and appealing gracefulness.
Oscar prognosis: Artfully violent and mostly f’ed-up: if there’s a precedent, it’s Dogtooth in 2010, which everybody agrees was a complete aberration. Too arty for horror buffs and too genre for the more conservative art film lovers, I see it struggling to find a U.S. audience.