Oscar 2010: Early Predictions – Best Foreign Language Film
Best Foreign Language Film
Baaria, Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy)
An autobiographical tale set in the director’s Sicilian hometown
Forever Enthralled, Chen Kaige (China)
Biopic chronicling the life of Mei Lanfang, China’s greatest opera star.
I Killed My Mother, Xavier Dolan (Canada)
A young gay man has some serious issues with his mother.
A Prophet, Jacques Audiard (France)
Prison drama in which a young hood learns what it takes to reach the top of that small (and nasty) world.
The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke (Germany)
As a prelude to both World War I and World War II, a German village unexpectedly becomes the setting of numerous acts of cruelty.
Quality (much like fairness) is in the brain of the judge. (Of course, if we’re lucky enough to have a judge who actually has a functioning brain.) In a way, that sort of sums up voting panels, committees, and individuals everywhere, including the perennially reviled Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ voters who select the five best foreign-language film nominees each year.
Sometimes, I must grudgingly admit, it’s all a matter of taste. So, the Cannes jury and world critics loved Cristi Puiu’s abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. In case foreign-language-film-voting Academy-ites loved it as well, they didn’t love it well enough. The shoo-in nominee fail to land a nod in early 2008.
Other surprises in recent years include the absence of both Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver and Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah among the nominated foreign films. (This year, Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces was bypassed by the Spanish Oscar committee; their submission is listed further down.)
You like potato, they like tomato, I like tiramisu? Well, that could be. That could also be the result of warped voting procedures; e.g., the fact that only a (small? tiny?) minority of Academy members end up watching even a sample of the sixty or so submitted films each year.
My point is: of all the top Oscar categories, this is by far the most unpredictable. I’m sure that those Academy voters even surprise themselves every now and then — I mean, Aki Kaurismäki’s way out there The Man Without Past? Susanne Bier’s unusual melodrama After the Wedding? How did those get in next to conventional fare like, say, Days of Glory, The Lives of Others, Nowhere in Africa, and The Crime of Father Amaro? (By the way, "conventional" doesn’t necessarily means "bad." It just means, well, "conventional," or if you prefer, "mainstream.")
Anyhow, the five films listed at the top of this article are Oscar 2010 possibilities — that’s it. Even Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon doesn’t have a guaranteed Oscar nomination because it may end up being too stark for a group of people who generally like their dramas either unabashedly sentimental or easily accessible — or even better, both. (No Haneke-directed film has ever been nominated for an Oscar — in any category.)
Among the other contenders of note — and of varying degrees of Oscarability — in the best foreign language film category are:
Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow (Peru), winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Ciro Guerra’s The Wind Journeys (above; Colombia), a well-received tale featuring an aging accordion player traveling with a young apprentice; and Oskar Jonasson’s Reykjavik-Rotterdam (Iceland), about a former smuggler who, out of economic necessity, may revert to his old ways. Jonasson’s thriller recently received quite a bit of publicity on this side of the Atlantic thanks to an announced remake to star Mark Wahlberg.
Also, Ruben Ostlund’s Golden Beetle nominee (that’s Sweden’s Oscars) Involuntary (above; Sweden), about summer fun gone sour; Joon-ho Bong’s Mother (Korea), in which a mother does everything in her power to save her son, who has been accused of a serious crime; and Corneliu Porumboiu’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner Police, Adjective (Romania), in which a sensible police officer refuses to arrest a young pot dealer.
Plus Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (above; Iran), winner of the Silver Bear for best director in Berlin; Havana Marking’s Sundance Award-winning documentary Afghan Star (United Kingdom), about how some people in Afghanistan will take all sorts of chances to appear on the television show Pop Idol; Fernando Trueba’s The Dancer and the Thief (Spain), a political-psychological drama set in Chile, in which two amnestied former inmates take surprising paths once they’re out of prison, partly thanks to the influence of a mute ballerina; and Yonfan’s Prince of Tears (Hong Kong), the story of two mainland Chinese sisters recently arrived in Taiwan who have their lives turned upside down after their parents are accused of being spies.
Curiously, the Brazilian committee has submitted another violent urban tale for the Oscars — Sérgio Rezende’s Time of Fear (above) — despite the fact that neither of their previous submissions in that genre (City of God, Last Stop 174) landed a nomination. (City of God was nominated in several categories the following year thanks to Harvey Weinstein’s Oscar Vote Nabbing Machine.)
In fact, chances are that those Academy members who vote in the foreign film category will much rather watch (and vote for) Leon Dai’s Golden Horse nominee No Puedo Vivir sin Ti (Taiwan), the tale of a poor dockworker who fights Taiwan’s bureaucracy so as to keep custody of his child.
But then again, I could be wrong. After all, Time of Fear focuses on a mom trying to rescue her imprisoned son at a time of social and political chaos in São Paulo.
Subscribe / Syndicate
11 Comments
Tags: 2010 Oscar, 2010 Oscar Predictions, A Prophet, About Elly, Academy Awards, Chen Kaige, Film Awards, Foreign Language Film Category, Forever Enthralled, Giuseppe Tornatore, I Killed My Mother, Involuntary, Jacques Audiard, Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon, The Wind Journeys, Time of Fear, Xavier Dolan
Comments
11 Responses to “Oscar 2010: Early Predictions – Best Foreign Language Film”
Leave a Reply
NOTE:
All comments are moderated and may take some time before they are posted. Different views and opinions are welcome, but courtesy is imperative. Rude/crass/bigoted comments and/or remarks, and name-calling of any sort will be immediately deleted.
Also, please be aware that Alt Film Guide has no contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog and no information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
The real race will be between Haneke’s White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet.
What about the second World War-drama “Max Manus”, the norwegian contribution. Any opinions on that??
Well, it’s a World War II drama, so it’s *definitely* a possibility. Thanks for pointing that one out to me.
I think, India’s entry ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ may prove to be a dark horse. The theme has an international appeal. The story talks about the birth of Indian film industry(which is one of the biggest in the world today) and how it had a modest start and one very simple man’s struggle to make it happen. And yet the movie is scripted in an altogether different note i.e. comedy!! Wow what a film and cinema!
So nobody thinks Argentina’s “The secret in their eyes” has a shot?
i think Harishchandrachi Factory has good chances …it a universally appealing movie…i saw it last week in screening …. i must tell is really a good movie
Harishchandrachi Factory watch it if u get to see it
Forever Enthralled (China) was superb.
I just can say that “El secreto de sus ojos (The secret in their eyes)” is one of the best pictures I ever see, is one of that movies that, when you leave the theater, remains in a corner of your mind and you can’t avoid that the scenes (and feelings, and questions) comes again and again to your head…
Obviously I would like that El Secreto… wins an Oscar, because I’m from Argentina and my heart is with it, but… the more I desire is that all people can view it because is really a jewel.
And, at least for all those who say “that movie is the better” or “that must win”: You can’t compare one movie whith another one that you haven’t saw!! Please go to theater and see all the candidates before write your opinion or vote!!
As yet I could not see all candidates, then I can’t make my list. I just can express my deepest desire with this movie.
# Lio on January 8th, 2010
So nobody thinks Argentina’s “The secret in their eyes” has a shot?
Wow… accurate predictions, thay didn’t even name Ajami and The secret in their eyes… two finalists out of five… pathetic.
Actually, there’s nothing “pathetic” about the predictions.
It’s clearly explained in the text that the foreign language film category is extremely hard to predict: most of those movies are little known in the United States and only a small group of people select the five nominees.
Favorites such as “Volver” have been snubbed in the past.
Anyhow, we *were* predicting a nomination for “The Secret of Her Eyes.” Not in October, but once the nine semi-finalists were announced several weeks ago. “Ajami” is in there as well:
http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/oscar-predictions-best-foreign-language-film-910/