The run-up to the OSCARS 2023

[Chris Knipp]

2023 Best Foreign Oscar Shortlist

The following are my comments plus condensations of the info provided by Screen Daily today ("Screen’s guide to the 2023 international feature Oscar shortlist"):

All Quiet On The Western Front (Germany)
Dir. Edward Berger
A German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's 1928 pacifist WWI novel famously done in Hollywood long ago. , published in 1928. : Lewis Milestone's version won the best picture Oscar in 1930. Berger (Patrick Melrose) makes a German-language film from the German book for this Netflix film. In his first film role Felix Kammerer is the lead as a teenage volunteer who joyfully dashes to the front only to spend the rest of his short life brutally fighting over a few meters of land (sounds like a great antiwar film, Bernhard Wicki's 1959 THE BRIDGE). A brutal approach provides "a stylish, almost grotesquely beautiful film about one of the ugliest times in modern history." (Which was?) Sept. German release, US release in Oct, later out on Netflix (got it much viewed). A Golden Globe Best Picture, foreign language, nom. in the best motion picture, foreign language, category. BAFTA nom. It's impressive - and grueling. It's not a remake, neither is it really faithful to the novel's structure. For an assessment of the film's pros and cons see Fred Kaplan in Slate, "How Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front Deviates From the Book — and WWI History."


Argentina,1985 (Argentina)
Dir. Santiago Mitre
Ricardo Darin starred in THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES – a foreign language film Oscar winner in 2010 – and reaches new international audiences here as Julio Strassera, the quietly determined chief prosecutor in the historic 1985 trial of Argentina’s military government. He even has a clear ‘Oscar moment’ – a 10-minute speech closing his prosecution case that is both chilling and rousing. The film made its world premiere in competition at Venice Film Festival where it won the critics’ prize. ARGENTINA also screened at San Sebastian, winning the audience award. It has won the Golden Globe best foreign film award. Argentinian films have won the best foreign Oscar twice: in 1985 for Luis Puenzo’s THE OFFICIAL STORY and in 2009 for Juan José Campanella’s THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES. Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Amazon Studios).

Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (Mexico)
Dir. Alejandro G Inarittu
Now edited down from the original three-hour epic that premiered at Venice to decidedly mixed reviews, Inarittu’s very personal opus is centred around an expatriate Mexican filmmaker (Daniel Giminez Cacho) who returns to his native country to accept a prestigious award. Tour-de-force lensing by Darius Khondji helps draw lines through the main character’s reveries in this expensive Spanish-language production from Netflix. Inarittu has won five Oscars to date: twice for best director (The Revenant, 2016; Birdman, 2015), twice for best film (The Revenant, 2016; Birdman, 2015), and writing (Birdman, 2015). It is the third time he has made the international feature film shortlist, after Biutiful in 2010 and Amores Perros in 2000.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix).

The Blue Caftan (Morocco)
Dir. Maryam Touzani
This sounded interesting when it premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard, and won the Fipresci.
"A superbly acted, emotionally resonant melodrama that centers on a woman (Lubna Azabal) and her closeted homosexual husband (Saleh Bakri) who run a caftan shop in the Moroccan city of Sale" (a suburb of Rabat). Touzani’s second submission to the Oscars following ADAM (2019) and she also collaborated on the screenplay for last year's CASABLANCA BEATS (Nabil Ayouche) (which I may have listed as this year). Multiple awards. "Morocco came close to a nomination in 2011 when Roschdy Zem’s Omar Killed Me made the shortlist." But hey, Roschdy Zem was born in French and is a French actor.

Cairo Conspiracy (Sweden)
Dir. Tarik Saleh
Saleh’s Cairo-set political thriller aka as-Sabi min al-Jenna, the boy from heaven, about a youth embroiled in elaborate manipulations by the Egyptian government to control who becomes the director of Al-Azhar University, which is almost like being Pope. It won Best Screenplay at Cannes, hence its inclusion here; but reviews make it sound a bit lackluster. Saleh got a big prize at Sundance for his 2017 NILE HILTON INCIDENT. This sounds like somewhat a reworking. Note that this is NOT an Egyptian film. The direcotr lives in Sweden and makes his films set in Cairo in Jordan or other venues. This is Sweden's submission, as was Ostlund's THE SQUARE in 2018, but they have not wond ince FANNY AND ALEXANDER in 1984.

Close (Belgium)
Dir. Lukas Dhont
Dhont's 2017 Camera d'Or winner GIRL (which I reviewed from Paris) was about a trans person. The Flemish director has a delicate touch with teens or sub-teens and gender issues. GIRL didn't make the Oscar shortlist. CLOSE, Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2022, concerns two 13-year-old boys whose beautiful, affectionate friendship is ruined when somebody says, "Are you a couple?" and one of them (in homosexual panic presumably) flees, which is devastating for the other boy. Numerous awards already.

Corsage (Austria)
Dir. Marie Kreutzer
I have reviewed this. It's striking, with a powerful fuck-you lead performance, great staging and costumes, but it's not going to win an Oscar - too chilly. It is given strong momentum though by the lead of the ever-rising Vicky Krieps (whom I have yet to warm to). Set in the 1870s. Krieps is Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and this is a submission from Austria. "Austria has twice won the international feature prize — Michael Haneke’s AMOUR in 2013 and Stefan Ruzowitzky’s THE COUNTERFEITERS in 2008 — and has received a further two nominations. Krieps won Best Actress in the European Film Awards. Bafta nom.

Decision To Leave (South Korea)
Dir. Park Chan-wook
South Korea didn’t select Park’s The Handmaiden as its Oscar submission in 2017, but the acclaimed film was eligible at the Baftas a year later – and won for film not in the English language. Decision To Leave, which premiered at Cannes this year, winning best director, tells the story of a detective (Park Hae-il) developing an unprofessional attachment to a woman (Tang Wei) suspected of being involved in the death of her husband. Tang was nominated for the Bafta rising star award in 2008. It is also nominated for a Golden Globe in the best motion picture, foreign language, category, and as a film of the year by the London Critics’ Circle. Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Mubi).

EO (Poland)
Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski
Featuring Isabelle Huppert among its ensemble cast, EO follows the life of a donkey from a Polish circus to an Italian slaughterhouse and is a contemporary adaptation of Robert Bresson’s 1966 cult classic Au Hasard Balthazar. Premiering in Competition at Cannes, the drama picked up the jury prize, sharing it with Eight Mountains, and the soundtrack award. Earlier this month, EO was named best international feature at The New York Film Critics Circle. Poland has won the Oscar once, in 2015 with Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida, and has been nominated a further 11 times out of 57 submissions. A painter and director, Skolimowski’s credits also include 2010’s Essential Killing and 2015’s 11 Minutes.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (BFI).

Holy Spider (Denmark)
Dir. Ali Abbasi
Premiering in Competition at Cannes, Holy Spider is based on the real-life story of an Iranian serial killer at the turn of the century. Tehran-born, Copenhagen-based Abbasi (Borderland) shot Holy Spider in Jordan, recreating Iran’s holy city of Mashhad where a family man preys on what the local police refer to as ‘dirty whores’, strangling women with his bare hands. Playing a female journalist who has to first fight the morality police before she can even try to bring his crimes to light, Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the best actress prize at Cannes. Denmark has been on something of a hot streak at the Oscars in recent years: its 2022 submission Flee secured a nomination following Thomas Vinterberg’s win with Another Round. Altogether Denmark has had four wins and a further 10 nominations.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Mubi).

Joyland (Pakistan)
Dir. Saim Sadiq
Sadiq’s debut feature world premiered at Cannes in Un Certain Regard as the festival’s first ever Pakistani film, and went on to win the jury prize and the Queer Palm. Having been submitted as the country’s international Oscar contender, the film then suddenly faced a ban in its home nation for being “un-*Islamic” and “containing objectionable material” – only for the ban to overturned at the last minute. Joyland follows a young man from a patriarchal family who secretly joins an exotic dance theatre as a background performer and falls for a trans actress, while his wife is expecting their first child. Pakistan has submitted 10 entries to the Oscars in recent years with no nominations as of yet. Its last entry was in 2020 with Sarmad Khoosat’s Circus Of Life.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Studio Soho).

Last Film Show (India)
Dir. Pan Nalin
The country’s 55th Oscar submission is a semi-autobiographical fable by Nalin that is set in 1990s Gujarat. It centres on a young boy who falls in love with film at his local cinema and forms a close friendship with the projectionist. Last Film Show premiered at Tribeca in 2021 where it was nominated for a narrative audience award and has also screened at Beijing and Los Angeles film festivals. India has scooped up three nominations previously - Mehboob Khan’s Mother India in 1957 (its first submission); Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! in 1988; and Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan in 2001.

The Quiet Girl (Ireland)
Dir. Colm Bairéad
Irish director-producer duo – and husband-and-wife –Bairéad and Cleona Ni Chrualaoi’s feature debut The Quiet Girl first struck a chord at Berlin, where it clinched the grand prize in the Generation Kplus strand. A lengthy festival run followed, including Dublin, Taipei, Helsinki and Busan. The drama is based on Claire Keegan’s novella Foster, about a neglected young girl’s life-changing summer. It is the first Irish-language film to win best film at the Irish Film and Television Academy awards, the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time around the world, and the first to gross more than €1m ($1.02m) at the UK-Ireland box office. DoP Kate McCullough’s work on the film won her the cinematographer prize at this year’s European Film Awards.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Curzon).

Return To Seoul (Cambodia)
Dir. Davy Chou
Screen Daily says it's inspired by the French-born/Cambodian director's "own life," but he himself has said it's inspired by the experiences of a friend of his. It makes a strong impression with its piece-of-work main character whose unbridled behavior trumps the story of a Korean adopteee returning to the country she never knew, having been removed to be raised in France as a baby. The interest for us is that she is French, not American - but that also might make it feel distant for Academy voters. There have been films dealing with this issue before but this may be, despite its drawbacks, the most artistic I've seen.

Saint Omer (France)
Dir. Alice Diop
This seems like a big one since it has already been widely seen and reviewed here. And one can even add that Alice Diop appeared in a central role in one of Claire Denis's most loved films, 35 SHOTS OF RUM, and made the important documentary NOUS (US), which has been widely seen and commented on in the anglophone world, though it concerns France, it has a wide applicability to the issue of inclusion and otherness. Silver Lion at Venice. Still I don't think it is likely to win the Oscar due to its indirectness and the repulsive topic of a woman on trial for killing her own child. Screen Daily points out France has had "a 30-year barren streak," no Best Foreign Oscar in all that time. Kayije Kagama stars as an academic captivated by the trial of a woman (Guslagie Mlanda) who admits to killing her own child.

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What happened to Panah Panahi's hilarious, brilliant and sad HIT THE ROAD, Farhadi's thoughtful, morally aware A HERO, Trier's scintillating THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, Giannoli's colorful LOST ILLUSIONS, Audiard's healthily sexy PARIS 13TH DISTRICT, Audrey Diwan's important, very timely THE HAPPENING, Ostend's wild, funny TRIANGLE OF SADNESS?

Filmleaf has had no coverage yet of ALL QUIET, ARGENTINA, BARDO, BLUE CAFTAN, CAIRO CONSPIRACY[, CLOSE and HOLY SPIDER. Looks like maybe the first two here, which are historical, may have the best chance now. And we have some catching up to do - even though half these titles I avoided previously due to unfavorable or off-putting reviews.