Best International Film Reviews: Final Flurry before the Shortlist

by Cláudio Alves

The Oscar shortlists are almost upon us, culling the 90-plus Best International Film submissions to a measly 15-wide field. Unfortunately, that means we're running out of time to consider those unfortunate titles unlikely to catch AMPAS' eye, no matter how deserving they may be. This includes productions perchance a bit too low-profile and others whose style skews too far from the Academy's sweet spot. Sometimes it's a matter of formalistic austerity. Sometimes, unresolved bleakness or genre stylings do the troubling trick. So, from an Iranian movie set to an Alpine tragedy, going through multiple wartime tragedies and the domestic sorrows of an Irish girl, let's indulge in a final flurry of capsule-sized reviews…

WORLD WAR III (Iran)

© Namava

The horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War have been so often filmed they have become their own sort of sordid subgenre. One could go as far as saying there's a whole cottage industry dedicated to these historical themes. Some of humanity's worst crimes are thus made into a narrative commodity, ready for use and abuse by artists and hacks alike, especially those seeking prestige, perchance a confirmation of their self-importance. All this to say that the set of such a production is a milieu ripe for cinematic exploration. Going into World War III, the story of an Iranian day laborer promoted from set builder to Hitler actor, one is bound to expect some sharp specificity from writer-director Houman Seyyedi.

Sadly, the Holocaust imagery mainly exists for shock value, and the movie within a movie could be about any similar historical tragedy. It's hard to overcome the stench of missed opportunity and mild exploitation, but World War III has plenty of redeeming elements. The open falsity of the scenery is a fascinating spectacle, for instance. Similarly, the convoluted moral tale gives the actors a slew of juicy roles to seek their teeth into. No one does a better job than leading man Mohsen Tanabandeh who readers might recognize from his supporting role in Farhadi's A Hero. Like in that film, he's superb, playing a radically different register that oscillates between dark comedy and agonizing despair before settling into cold fury as the picture's horrific ending reveals itself. B-

THE QUIET GIRL (Ireland)

© Super

Adapted from a Claire Keegan story, The Quiet Girl concerns a summer in the life of a neglected child. She's Cáit, an unassuming girl in 1981 rural Ireland who says very little, observing the world around her with forlorn eyes that barely ever glisten with any inkling of happiness. One among many children in a dysfunctional household, she's sent to spend the school-less months in the company of distant relatives while her mother recovers from yet another pregnancy. In a new home where secrets are meant to be left outside, we observe as Cáit leans into her foster parents' honest affection and concern. Director Colm Bairéad captures this respite from suffering with a gentle hand, reveling in the complicated process by which a young soul opens itself to love.

For all this flowery language, there's something starkly matter-of-fact about the narrative, the filmmakers unwilling to dilute the character's predicament even as they grasp at the poetry of everyday joys. Other critics have praised Kate McCullough's lensing, but it bears repeating how wonderful her work is. Finding beauty in desultory realities, the cinematography manages miracles. It even makes a clichéd slow-motion climax function like the emotional wallop to end all emotional wallops. B+

CINEMA SABAYA (Israel)

© Kino Lorber

Films about the power of cinema are a dime a dozen nowadays, but there's plenty to appreciate about the various approaches on display. Far from using childhood memories as a starting point, director Orit Fouks Rotem appeals to documentary technique and workshop structure, dramatizing a video class in which eight women share their experiences as they learn to express themselves through film. Spanning ten weeks of scheduled meetings, the purpose of the exercise is a search for mutual understanding, juxtaposing the experiences of Arab and Jewish women in modern-day Israel. Their values are systematically challenged through artistic communion, as inhuman generalizations gain human faces.

A bit too neat for it to be authentic – tackling hot topic issues with unproductive bluntness – the film also falters in its formal ingenuity or lack thereof. Nevertheless, it makes up for these fragilities with an ensemble cast to die for. Though it's hard to single out just one of the individual actresses, Joanna Said gets the most significant arc, breaking through the barriers of metafiction with a shattering characterization. When the amateur theatrics go too far, real traumas manifesting across the cast, Said articulates quiet sorrows with equal parts elegance and poignancy. B- 

FARHA (Jordan)

© NetflixWhatever progressive ideals the Israeli submission might promote, they are seriously hindered, if not outright undercut, by the country's efforts to boycott another of this year's Oscar submissions. Though it's merely dramatizing a known historical episode, Darin J. Sallam's Farha hits a nerve for some people who'd rather the world forget about certain truths. In the film, we glimpse the 1948 Nakba through the eyes of a teen girl trapped in a pantry by a father desperate to save his child. The Nakba was the Palestinian catastrophe by which the nation was effectively destroyed, millions killed and displaced in an ethnic cleansing that directly led to the region's contemporary tensions. Its horrors are unimaginable in scope, and Farha doesn't come close to showing the extent of the atrocity.

Part of those limitations stems from its claustrophobic scenario, trapping us with the protagonist as her world crumbles outside, obscured apart from whatever she can hear, the glimpses she catches from what's happening outside. As if to counteract the visual rigidity of its second half, the film's first act indulges in pastoral imagery, gorgeous costume design, and period detail painting the picture of a lively culture on the precipice of doom. To grasp the idyll of peace before war explodes only makes its destruction hit harder. Still, Farha could have gone farther. As it stands, the drama feels like only a tiny thread within a vast tapestry, out of the frame and in need of further exploration. B

DARKLING (Serbia)

© Eurimages

Another tale of war seen through the prism of a young girl's subjectivity, Darkling sets its horror-tinged story in the region of Metohija, between Kosovo and Albania, during the bloody aftermath of the Kosovar war. Though no specters ever materialize, the place is a ghost town, emptying gradually as if in a slow-motion exodus. Only Milica's family remains unmovable, her grandfather obsessed with the idea that his sons will one day return. In essence, he's trapped the girl and her mother in a Beckettian waiting game with no end in sight, forcing them to stay in a quickly-depopulating area where even Mother Nature seems possessed by ill intent. That's apparent from minute one, as the film opens in a pit of darkness, the noise of raging animals suggesting a bedlam so immense it must surely be the end of all things.

Between the apocalyptic start and a stormy conclusion, slight departures outside the house denude Darkling of some of its claustrophobic powers. Not that director Dusan Milic ever lets up on the nightmarish possibilities of the real-life letter from which the film is inspired – a message from a girl like Milica to the United Nations. Even when shooting something as innocuous as the placid forest, details of framing and sound design paint a swath of thick dread over the picture. B-

A PIECE OF SKY (Switzerland)

© New Europe Film Sales

When compared to the permanence of ancient landscapes, human lives feel fleeting to the point of terror. Regard the great mountains and consider all the people that have come and gone while they remain there, steadfast even as humanity strives to consume everything in its path. Contrasting the longevity of what is lifeless to the messy malleability of our ephemeral existence has been a strategy of many artists across history. Such is the case of director Michael Koch, whose A Piece of Sky takes no time to establish its motifs. The first shot is a static composition, a boulder resting in its centuries-old place as the Alpine landscape enjoys a blanket of fog passing by. Though the rhythm is slow and deliberate, there's a jarring quality to the transition from that solemn image to the laborious efforts of a man exposing naked flesh to the elements.

Flushed and sweaty, his body is like a landscape unto itself, exuding strength but immensely fragile compared to the surrounding rocks. He is Marco, a lowlander working as a farmhand in a remote Swiss village high up in the Alps. A sparse story will unfold around this man, his whirlwind romance with a local woman making him part of a community that doesn't entirely trust him and never will. When tragedy strikes, lives fall apart like a house of cards, one incident sprouting like a tree of ever-growing misery. There's a simplicity here that makes it all feel like some ancient folktale, a piece of cruel wisdom passed from generation to generation. However, a collection of accomplished performances from a non-professional cast grounds each sadness in the now. It's visceral and disturbing, rigorously shot, and not without a playful side. When appealing to a non-Greek chorus, Koch finds the absurdity beneath the bleakness. B

And now, it's time for some list-making and alternative punditry. First up, here's how my 15-film shortlist would look like after watching 36 submissions: 

• CORSAGE (Austria)    
• UTAMA (Bolivia)
• MARS ONE (Brazil)
• THE KINGS OF THE WORLD (Colombia)
• HOLY SPIDER (Denmark)
• GIRL PICTURE (Finland)
• LAST FILM SHOW (India)
• THE QUIET GIRL (Ireland)
• MEMORY BOX (Lebanon)
• JOYLAND (Pakistan)
• EAMI (Paraguay)
• EO (Poland)
• DECISION TO LEAVE (South Korea)
• ALCARRÀS (Spain)
• THE BOX (Venezuela)

However, there are still many major titles I still need to watch. They include Algeria's Our Brothers, Cambodia's Return to Seoul, France's Saint Omer, Mexico's Bardo, the Philippines' On the Job: The Missing 8, and Sweden's Boy from Heaven, among others. One imagines some of those will eventually make it into my top 15.

Still, that above is a list of wishes. When it comes to predictions, here's how I believe things will work out:  

• ARGENTINA, 1985 (Argentina)
• CLOSE (Belgium)
• MARS ONE (Brazil)
• HOLY SPIDER (Denmark)
• SAINT OMER (France)
• ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Germany)
• LAST FILM SHOW (India)
• BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLES OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS (Mexico)
• THE BLUE CAFTAN (Morocco)
• JOYLAND (Pakistan)
• EO (Poland)
• DECISION TO LEAVE (South Korea)
• ALCARRÀS (Spain)
• CAIRO CONSPIRACY/BOY FROM HEAVEN (Sweden)
• KLONDIKE (Ukraine) 

Other strong candidates include Algeria's Our Brothers, Austria's Corsage, Cambodia's Return to Seoul, Canada's Eternal Spring, Finland's Girl Picture, Iran's World War III, Ireland's The Quiet Girl, and Italy's Nostalgia. Still, surprises often happen at this phase in the race, so be prepared for some unexpected titles within the shortlist. 

What about you, dear reader? What are your predictions and preferences regarding the Best International Film top 15?

Comments

[Kris]

I've seen 43 so far and here are my wish- and prediction lists:

My wish 15

Argentina - Argentina 1985
Austria - Corsage
Bolivia - Utama
Cambodia - Return to Seoul
Denmark - Holy spider
Estonia - Kalev
Finland - The girl picture
Germany - All quiet on the western front
Iran - World war III
Ireland - The quiet girl
Pakistan - Joyland
Poland - EO
South Korea - Decision to leave
Taiwan - Goddamned Asura
Thailand - One for the road

My prediction list:

Argentina - Argentina 1985
Austria - Corsage
Belgium - Close
Bolivia - Utama
Denmark - Holy spider
Finland - Girl picture
France - Saint Omer
Germany - All quiet on the western front
Ireland - The quiet girl
Pakistan - Joyland
Poland - EO
South Korea - Decision to leave
Spain - Alcarras
Sweden - Cairo conspiracy/known also as Boy from heaven
Ukraine - Klondike

Feel like I'm risking with leaving Mexico, Columbia, Cambodia, Czech Republic, India, New Zealand, Morocco and Norway out, Mexico, because I did not like (except the cinematography - but that is not enough). Feel like risking leaving also Austria, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine, but I did not dare :)

I don't understand your love for Mars One, Memory box or Eami. These were not nearly good enough for me to get anywhere close to 15... but let's see :)

[NATHANIEL R]

ten i'm rooting for for various reasons (there's always more than 15 worthy films!)
Australia - You Won't Be Alone
Austria - Corsage
Belgium - Close
Denmark - Holy spider
Finland - Girl Picture
Germany - All quiet on the western front
Morocco - Blue Caftan
Pakistan - Joyland
Poland - EO
South Korea - Decision to leave

my 15 predictions
Algeria - Our Brothers
Argentina - Argentina 1985
Austria - Corsage
Belgium - Close
Cambodia - return to seoul
Denmark - Holy spider
France - Saint Omer
Germany - All quiet on the western front
Ireland - The quiet girl
Mexico - Bardo
Pakistan - Joyland
Poland - EO
South Korea - Decision to leave
Sweden - Cairo conspiracy
Ukraine - Klondike

[Juan Carlos Ojano]

Oh gosh, Cláudio. Our countries are never gonna get nominated at the Oscars, eh?