One Category at a Time: Best Foreign Language Film

When the Academy changed its rules to allow the entire membership to vote on Best Foreign Language Film a few years ago, the process of predicting the winner has become somewhat streamlined. No more did pundits have to carefully assess each nominee for factors like subject matter and age appeal. All that needed to be rated was the film's critical hype and level of exposure, with reputation playing more than a trifling part. It's a bit of a shame, actually, because even though the winners from recent years have been a mostly respectable crop, nothing can top the now extinct satisfaction of pegging a surprise Best Foreign Language Film winner under the old system.

But this year we find ourselves in untested territory. How will the Academy respond to a roster from which the most critically revered imports of the year are missing? The Handmaiden wasn't even submitted by Korea and France's Elle failed to be saved by the branch's executive committee when deciding upon the nine semifinalists. These two subtitled phenoms were easily the most buzzed about in December, taking the bulk of regional critics prizes plus the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe respectively. Their absence creates a vacuum here.

So who wins?

Wadjda and The Past smarting after surprising omission from Foreign shortlist

It happens every year (even with the dubious executive committee) that a number of celebrated films from world cinema fail to make the Academy's shortlist of nine for Best Foreign Language film. It's a cruel but necessary process to cull the mammoth list of submissions (76 entries this year) down to a manageable number.

The Past, Asghar Farhadi's followup to his Oscar-winning A Separation, is one of the high-profile casualties this year I haven't yet seen it, but have actually heard mixed things about it. The snub that stings the most for me personally was Haifaa Al-Mansour's Wadjda from Saudi Arabia, which is just a wonderful movie. Plain and simple. I think if it had been nominated, it would have been in good position to win the whole thing, but now we'll never know.

Among the surviving nine, the ones I've so far seen include Belgium's The Broken Circle Breakdown, Hong Kong's The Grandmaster, and Denmark's The Hunt. All three certainly have their champions, but I wasn't all that taken with the former two. The Hunt, however, is quite good, and may well be the one to watch for the win (... if it gets nominated, of course -- you never can tell with this branch).

The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium)
An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
The Missing Picture (Cambodia)
The Hunt (Denmark)
Two Lives (Germany)
The Grandmaster (Hong Kong)
The Notebook (Hungary)
The Great Beauty (Italy)
Omar (Palestine)

Putting the season to bed on a few positives

Not everything that transpired this season was cause for moaning and groaning. If there were never a handful of redeeming moments that make me sincerely happy every year, I wouldn't keep following this Oscar circus so closely. Some of this season's highlights include:

-Christopher Plummer

There's nothing new about the Best Supporting Actor category being used to bestow a better-late-than-never career honour upon a respected veteran actor, but rarely is the coinciding performance of such high quality that it could have won the award on merit alone. Such was the case this year as Christopher Plummer, at 82 years young, became the oldest Oscar winner ever for his graceful, emotionally pure performance in Beginners. Given that it was such an under-seen, understated little gem of movie with no other nominations, for Plummer to do so well by it is a small, but very satisfying, miracle.

-Foreign Language curse broken

I wasn't very smart in my prediction for Best Foreign Language Film, where I skeptically laid back on the category's history of shafting the critical favourite in favour of typical Academy bait. But if ever there was a film to buck the trend, it was A Separation, legitimately the best foreign film of 2011, and of the many predictions I missed this year, its Oscar win was the one I was happiest to get wrong.

-Muppets have an Oscar!

Hard to believe in retrospect that "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie lost Best Original Song back in 1971, making it evident that the Academy might consider themselves to be just a little bit above those TV-based puppets. But even if it has to come with the asterisk of this year's dubious Best Original Song crop, it's still gratifying to see a Muppet film finally win an Oscar, and I personally was pleased to, for the first time, hear Jim Henson thanked in an Oscar speech.

-Smooth recovery from the Ratner fiasco

Brett Ratner's media fuax-pas back in November seriously threatened to become the major talking of the season, but the Academy's swift resolution (bringing on Brian Grazer as replacement producer and Billy Crystal as host) ensured that the whole messy affair soon became nothing more than a distant memory. The show they subsequently put on may not be the most special in Oscar history, but it was exactly what I'd have expected and wanted from that creative team, and not once did the proceedings feel like they were lingering in the shadow of the previous scandal. Sometimes a dose of familiar shtick really is the best remedy.

That's just about all there is left to say about this past Oscar season as far as I'm concerned. At some point in the coming months I'll start compiling some early predictions for next year. Speaking of early predictions, how well did I do predicting this year's nominees from a year back? I correctly anticipated 3/5 Best Adapted Screenplay nominees, 3/5 Best Art Direction nominees, 3/5 Best Sound Mixing nominees, 5/9 Best Picture nominees, 4/5 Best Cinematography nominees, and (if you count predicting Viola Davis in Supporting) all five Best Actress nominees! Looking forward to trying to improve that for next year!

Ta, for now.

One Category at a Time: Foreign Language Film

It's usually best to approach Best Foreign Language Film with a fair bit of distance. In most categories it pays to go with your gut, but in this one it almost always pays to try and second-guess the Academy's softened tastes. The widely believed reasoning behind this paradox is that only a small cross-section of the membership – those with the luxury and inclination to attend the official screening of the nominees – may vote on the winner. This group typically skews older, and never bodes well for edgier critical favourites.

One Category at a Time: Original Screenplay

I'm having a really tough time deciding how to feel about the slate of Best Original Screenplay nominees this year. On the one hand, there's nothing more gratifying than to see the two legitimately best screenplays of the year mentioned alongside each other. On the other hand, there's nothing more irritating than to see two uninspired screenplays squeeze out underrated gems like 50/50 and Young Adult in the one category where they could have earned some recognition. And then there's the Best Picture winner's token nomination for Writing. No strong feelings either which way about that one.

My Awards nominations: Director and Picture

I have a 4/5 overlap between Best Picture and Best Director this year, so I'm lumping them into one big post with the four also-rans that round out my Top Ten of 2011:

Best Picture AND Best Director:

Drive, directed by NICOLAS WINDING REFN:

An art house character study wrapped in a violent crime drama and advertised as a high-speed action movie, Drive offers us startling insight into the irrepressibility of one's true nature more than it offers us chases and fisticuffs. In more cinematic terms, one might describe it as Unforgiven set in modern Los Angeles, at least in how it pertains to the central character's noble attempt but tragic failure to smother his violent propensities. Refn directs his picture with intriguing flare, sometimes opting for odd aesthetic choices, but on the whole, it really works.

A Separation, directed by ASGHAR FARHADI:

An exceptional domestic drama about the failure of human relationships, and not just marital ones (as the title implies), one can't help but notice that the film's painful truths are universal ones, delving deep into human conscience and exposing the dangerous inconsistencies between our personal moral codes, and our responsibilities to model ethics for our children. Farhadi's aesthetic technique is economical but very polished. Every character is superbly played with authentic dimensionality. It's a testament to how well Farhadi wrote and directed his characters.

The Tree of Life, directed by TERRENCE MALICK:

Arguably the elusive master's most thought-provoking – and certainly his most artistically ambitious – effort to date; a flawed, painterly masterpiece that explores in broad, bold strokes mankind's search for God and the fluid relation between Nature and Grace. Malick blurs the venn diagram overlap between his looming themes with scenes that suggest the gracefulness of Nature and the naturalness of Grace. He creates a rich stream of consciousness, laced with internal monologue by our three principles that all seem to be asking “where are you?”.

We Need to Talk About Kevin,
directed by LYNNE RAMSAY:

Ramsay uses vivid cinematic techniques to immerse us in the guilt, anguish, and confusion of a woman whose son holds an inexplicable personal vendetta against her. She directs the hell out of this thing, and what she's ended up with is a disturbing work of art that gets under your skin and stays there against your will. Her evocation of Eva's frazzled memory is a stellar editing showcase. Lady MacBeth herself wouldn't have had such a hard time absolving herself of the guilt that stalks Eva's mind.

Best Picture:

Midnight in Paris

This beguiling psychological love affair that draws us to an epiphany about the root of nostalgia and our human dissatisfaction is Woody Allen's freshest, most imaginative premise since The Purple Rose of Cairo. Owen Wilson aptly plays an extension of the onscreen persona Allen spent years performing himself; the precocious, stammering sentimentalist prone to self-analyzing his own neuroses. The supporting cast that animates his possibly hallucinated alternate Paris is wonderful as well. The midnight sequences are beautifully shot with warm, textured lighting by Darius Khondji and Johanne Debas, before jolting us back into Gil's painful present with the hard, bright light of day.

Best Director: DANFUNG DENNIS

Danfung Dennis employs a smart chronological structure that toggles back and forth between the "Hell" of Afghanistan and the "Back Again" of America, although by the end of the film it's suspected that home may have become Nathan's true hell. He endeavours to dissect and present his subject's state of mind by drawing direct connections between his wartime experiences and his home-front struggles. In keeping with the spirit of true documentarianism, Dennis never indulges in talking head interviews of voice-over narration.

Just missed: 
The Adventures of Tintin
If your thirst for adventure is unquenchable, Steven Spielberg's rollicking popcorn pic should be enough to slake your thirst. Freed up by Weta's ground-breaking performance-capture system to play with the camera in ways he never has before, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is easily the funnest movie he's put out in nearly a decade; An Indiana Jones for the next generation.

Beginners
This gentle little drama about the generation-spanning challenge of finding happiness succeeds in great part due to its three central performances from Ewan MacGregor, Christopher Plummer, and Melanie Laurent. Mike Mills' script and direction are beautifully restrained, employing a melancholy sense of humour when needed to lighten his film's understated but deep-running sadness.

The Ides of March
The hypocritical game of politics is what's put front and centre for us to see; irredeemably cynical (maybe too much so) in its depiction of a profession in which one's career cannot survive without compromising, or even completely abandoning, one's principles. Whether you agree or not with this grim assessment, it makes for a terrific yarn.

Moneyball
This slow-burner of a sports movie (more of an anti-sports movie, actually) appreciates tremendously with time. It's more about ambition and paradigm shifting than it is about baseball, told not through the eyes of the athletes, but of the man putting the team together in hopes that his life and career will mean something. Splendidly written and performed.

My Awards nominations: Foreign Film

As it is with the documentaries, my opportunities to take in gripping world cinema are forever limitted by their timid release startegies. I consider myself lucky to be able to see the ones that I do, and even luckier if they happen to be good. So if these change at all before (or even after) I announec my winners, it's because I've been forced to play catch-up with foreign titles only just breaking into my local theatres. For the time being, are the five best Foreign Films I've seen this year:

Bullhead (Michael Roskam):

Thanks especially to a brooding lead performance from a bulked-up Matthias Schoenaerts, this starkly shot, slow-boiling crime drama keeps the viewer's attention firmly locked on its tragic central figure without allowing the numerous less robust subplots to become distracting. Tough, but elegant, film making.

Miss Bala (Gereardo Naranjo):

Naranjo perpetually keeps us as confused and uncertain as our frightened heroine is regarding the complicated politics of the drug dealers and their constantly shifting allegiances. We're never sure what chain of events will occur next. We only know that it'll be violent. He relishes in long takes that all look terrific.

Pina (Wim Wenders):

If you're a fan of dance, then you'll be excited and invigorated by Wim Wenders' unique 3D ode to the late Pina Bausch, renowned interpretive dancer and choreographer. You've never seen dance done quite like this on film. Gene Kelly himself would be impressed!

A Separation (Asghar Farhadi):

An exceptional domestic drama about the failure of human relationships, and not just marital ones as the title implies. It's more about the problems affecting all people in Iran than just the characters in the story, told with an polished aesthetic technique that captures the best of every performance, and there are a lot of them.

La Soga (Josh Crook, Manny Perez):
Originally a TIFF premiere in 2009, Josh Crook's gritty Dominican crime saga got a miniscule release in 2011 and more or less fell into obscurity. But it's a swell thriller all the same, with a caustic undertone about the ills of a society in which innocent children are schooled by a society built on crime, like piglets being raised for the slaughter.

My Awards nominations: Original Screenplay

On the heels of the WGA's announcement, here are my five best Original Screenplays of 2011:

50/50 (Will Reiser):
That the story of a young man diagnosed with cancer could be treated as a comedy is something of a small feat. That the humour never strays into morbid territory is more impressive still. One of the most emotionally compelling aspects Reiser's screenplay is how it devotes balanced attention to Adam's family and friends.

Beginners (Mike Mills):
This gentle little drama about the generation-spanning challenge of finding happiness succeeds in great part due to Mills' thoughtful screenplay. It's beautifully restrained, employing a melancholy sense of humour when needed to lighten his film's understated but deep-running sadness.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin):
Durkin is clearly a talent to watch. His screenplay is an artful psychological study that unobtrusively guides the audience to their own understanding of what is dream and what is reality, what is paranoia and what is justified fear. The story does meander a bit, but it feels real that way.

Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen):
Playing both cynic and sentimentalist, Allen presents us with a humourous and perplexing psychological love affair that draws us to an epiphany about the root of nostalgia and our human dissatisfaction. It is his freshest, most imaginative premise since The Purple Rose of Cairo.

A Separation (Asghar Farhadi):
A complex, layered story whose painful truths are universal ones. It delves deep into human conscience and exposes the dangerous inconsistencies between our personal moral codes, our responsibilities to model ethics for our children, and the emotional consequences of neglecting those responsibilities.

Just missed: The Artist, Rampart, The Tree of Life, Young Adult

Review - A Separation

A Separation, Asghar Farhadi's exceptional domestic drama about the failure of human relationships, and not just marital ones (as the title implies), is among the year's best films.

Simin files for divorce when her husband Nader refuses to move away from Iran. She doesn't want their daughter growing up there, but he insists on staying to care for his Alzheimer-afflicted father. The divorce is denied, but Simin leaves Nader anyway, prompting Nader to hire a woman to look after his father during the day. The new day keeper, Razieh, works for Nader while keeping it a secret from her short-tempered husband Houjat, but an accusation of thievery sets in motion a series of events that suddenly slam both of these damaged marriages into a heated family court case.

LA Film Critics annoint The Descendants

It's been a busy day for critics awards, starting off with the Boston Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Online handing out their year-end accolades, and capping off with the renowned LA Film Critics Association. But while the BSFC and NYFCO were trend-following, handing top honours to current Oscar frontrunner The Artist, the LAFCA was going their own way, shutting out the crowd-pleasing silent film entirely in favour of some more offbeat choices.

Ultimately, however, it was Alexander Payne's overrated The Descendants coming out on top, but I absolutely dig the support shown for The Tree of Life, with Terrence Malick winning his first directing prize of the season, while Emmanuel Lubezki remains undefeated on the year for cinematography awards. In addition, I love that they gave Best Screenplay to Asghar Farhadi's brilliant Iranian drama A Separation, for which I will post a brief review sometime this week.

By the way, someone should tell these critics groups that they aren't doing Jessica Chastain any favours by giving her these blanket awards that encompass her entire 2011 filmography. They need to get behind ONE performance in order to help her to a nomination

Best Picture
The Descendants

Runner-up: The Tree of Life

Best Director
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

(Runner-up: Martin Scorsese, Hugo)