Tim here. Now that the Chicago Film Festival is all over, I can offer the rest of my thoughts on the official submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar that I was able to catch.
CZECH REPUBLIC: FAIR PLAY
A political drama about sports, or a sports drama about politics? Why not be both, says this film about a teenage track star in 1980s Czechoslovakia, who gets bullied into taking steroids by the government forces that want to show off a whole population of physically gorgeous super-athletes at the 1984 Olympics. The battle being waged over ownership of one’s body and health in a dictatorship is an interesting one, and well presented; lead actress Judit Bárdos is a bit shapeless and superficial in portraying the internal tensions of this conflict, but the film around her has been constructed with enough merciless geometry and clinical coolness that it’s surprisingly able to survive a flat central performance.
Oscar prospects: Eastern European reminiscences about the late Communist period feel like they’re some kind of Oscarbait, but not that many have actually shown up in this category. This is, to be sure, a solid example of the form, and the human interest hook is rock solid. By no means do I expect to see it on the nine-film shortlist, but it’s not going to be a “wait, how did THAT get there?” moment if it manages to do so.
Angry Finnish teens, Georgian corn farming, and Uruguayan Nazi hunters after the jump
FINLAND: CONCRETE NIGHT
Something like a film noir riff on The 400 Blows with a weirdly prurient obsession with homoeroticism, but not, like gay homoeroticsm, and absolutely gorgeous high-contrast black-and-white visuals. There's a 14-year-old who absolutely idolizes his criminal older brother, bound soon for prison, and he takes all the worst lessons from his amoral mentor, turning them to dark and hateful, self-negating purposes. It's unfortunate and ironic that the beautiful cinematography that's the film's best element is also its most obvious flaw: instead of soaking in the rancidity of urban blight, the film makes poverty look like a Calvin Klein ad. Nothing about the story or characters is unique enough to make this stand out from every other "male role model is wicked" fable in the 115-year history of narrative cinema.
Oscar prospects: Crime dramas are common enough in this category, but I don't know that this one distinguishes itself enough to overcome its lack of capital-I Importance. If it were French or Italian, I'd say it would have a decent shot, but I think it takes something more unique to get Finland back at the table for its second nomination.
GEORGIA: CORN ISLAND
An old man and his granddaughter stake a claim on a seasonally-recurring patch of dirt in a river between opposing military forces. Here they grow corn to store for the winter. A wounded soldier shows up, looking for sanctuary, and threatens to destabilize the situation by raising the first stirrings of sexual ardor in the girl's pubescent soul. It's austere as all hell, with almost no dialogue to speak of and long, observational sequences of the old man building his temporary dwelling on the short-lived island, punctuated frequently by staring reaction shots of him and his granddaughter. God bless it for committing to an aesthetic, but that comes at the price of being so arid in its I Am An Art Film posturing that it's unintentionally comic. And boo to a hectic ending that cares nothing for narrative logic, as long as it can make sure that something tragic happens to send us on our way.
Oscar prospects: Nil. I concede that I seem to be unusually hostile towards it compared to all the other reviews I've seen, but there's no way to argue that its spare, difficult way of telling its story is anywhere near the Academy's wheelhouse.
URUGUAY: MR. KAPLAN
60 years after fleeing Poland in 1937, elderly Jewish-Uruguayan Jacobo Kaplan decides to spice up the fading years of his life by hunting for fugitive Nazis. It is the kind of film that, if we want to be enormously positive and generous, we might choose to describe as “genial”; if we are, on the other hand, a bit on the cynical side (we have been watching too many damn movies at a film festival, say), we might view it as generic sitcom tosh the purposefully treats its subject matter and its protagonist with a beatifically condescending tone, happily congratulating itself for telling such a friendly, likable story in such a friendly, likable way. The (middle-aged and older) sell-out crowd at an afternoon CIFF showing thoroughly enjoyed it, but it’s too mercenary and calculating to feel good about it.
Oscar prospects: Warmly comic old men! Elliptical hints about the Holocaust! Touristy cinematography! If this were the 1990s, I'd call this a shoo-in, but the Academy has prefered slightly less obviously pandering Oscarbait lately. Uruguay has also had a rough history with the Oscars, and I think it takes something really special to get them back here.