They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
The Other Best Pictures: Foreign, Animated, Documentary
By J. Don Birnam
February 11, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The handicap of the technical races is here and here, and I looked at the shorts, here. Twitter and Instagram have additional content.
Best Animated Feature
The animated branch likes to reward true quality, and this year was no exception. While some were picking relative duds like Minions or The Good Dinosaur to make it in, the branch gave us five amazing movies, nominating Inside Out, Anomalisa, Shaun The Sheep, When Marnie Was Here, and Boy And the World.
This is the easiest call of the night. People who like Anomalisa will try to tell you that it can beat Inside Out, just like they tried to tell you that The Wind Rises could defeat Frozen. To be sure, Anomalisa will turn out to be more watched than the Japanese feature, but I assure you most Academy members saw Inside Out in theaters. Its touching portrayal of emotion and the important of sadness was one of my favorite movies of the year. Its original screenplay nomination and the 10 Annie Awards, moreover, pretty much guarantee its victory. No animated movie that has ever received a nomination outside the category has lost the animated feature Oscar. It’s a sign of support and prestige across the Academy.
Anomalisa is, in any case, a beautiful examination of emotion in a different way - from the perspective of an adult who is disenchanted with life and who sees and hears monotony in everything. This changes for a brief moment when he encounters a plainly ordinary woman who changes his perspective for a fleeting few hours, only to tragically fall into the same pattern of ennui that has taken over his life. With a reflective voice performance by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anomalisa is a movie, like all Kaufman movies, that stays with you long after you see it, and that begs to be rediscovered even despite its more esoteric sequences. It’s a worthy second place finisher if there ever was one. Shaun the Sheep is also a superbly entertaining movie, following the adventures of a group of sheep that accidentally send their farm master into town on a roving SUV, only to find he becomes famous and forgets them. The touchy story, combined with hijinks, laughs and adventure, make it another great movie.
And the two foreign entries are no slouches. Boy is a mostly silent, moving tale about a boy who gets lost exploring the world, and turns into a commentary about globalization, industrialization, and environmental issues. The Japanese Marnie, meanwhile, is a moving story about a girl who develops a strange fascination for a girl named Marnie - who may or may not be entirely a figment of her imagination. Both are touching and showcase different animation styles, but neither has a prayer.
Will win: Inside Out
Could win: Anomalisa
Best Documentary Feature
The Documentary field was unusually crowded this year, as witnessed by the fact that early favorites The Wolfpack and Iris did not even make the final bakeoff round. And, from that round, Michael Moore’s acclaimed Where to Invade Next, nor the revered Heart of a Dog could not find space in the final five. Instead, the nods went to Amy, The Look of Silence, Cartel Land, and the Netflix documentaries What Happened Miss Simone?, and Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom.
It’s hard to argue with any nominee, although the branch does seem prone to repeating itself - this lineup is almost a carbon copy of two years ago, where you had the music documentary (and eventual winner) 20 Feet From Stardom, face off against the first part of Joshua Oppenheimer’s exploration of the Indonesian massacres of the 1960s in The Act of Killing (part two is this year’s The Look of Silence), a look at current even world politics (that year, Egypt in The Square, this year, Ukraine in Winter on Fire), a look at wars, drugs, and violence (that year, Dirty Wars, this year, Cartel Land), and a cutesy, artsy movie to round it out (that year, Cutie and the Boxer, this year, What Happened, Miss Simone?).
So, logically, Amy should sail to an easy win here, despite its href="http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/column/index.cfm?columnID=18171">somewhat surprising loss to Cartel Land at the DGA. Not only does the pattern hold with two years ago, Amy is about a beloved, renowned figure, and is a very informative and overall well-crafted documentary. It is the one that members are most likely to see. Still, it is not anywhere near the best of the bunch. The Look of Silence is, like Act of Killing, a harrowing, haunting exploration of human suffering, human evil, and the consequences of genocide, complicity, and acquiescence. It follows an Indonesian optometrist whose brother was massacred, as he goes around giving eye tests to elderly people - all who turn out to have been involved in his brother’s murder in one way or another. The result is uncomfortable encounters, shocking revelations, and gruesome explanations. When coupled with Oppenheimer’s signature symbolistic elements, in this case, the bifocals, the blind father taken care of by the grumpy mother, you get what is in my view the best of the bunch.
Cartel Land is an interesting and very daring exploration of the drug wars and drug violence issue - following civilian militia leaders in Mexico and the United States, at times into dangerous gun battle - as they fight wars their governments will not. The movie loses its focus in its third act, as neither figure turns out to be particularly sympathetic and it is not necessarily clear how or why. This was one of those well-intentioned projects that simply soured as the stories of the protagonists soured. The bravery of the film is notable, but it will not win.
The same can be said of Winter on Fire: it’s an interesting procedural movie, but feels a lot like a dry newscast and less like something with a purpose. Meanwhile, What Happened, Miss Simone? is arguably the better music biopic version of Amy - it focuses on the life of Nina Simone, her journey through civil rights activism, and her paranoias and downfalls. The movie is much more seamless than the choppy and brutally edited Amy, and somehow provides a more touching picture of the subject.
Still, Amy Winehouse is of recent vintage and was beloved. I have a hard time predicting anything else here.
Will win: Amy
Could win: Cartel Land
Best Foreign Language Film
Like the Documentary Branch, the foreign language nominating committees can produce headscratchers. As I explained last year, mini-scandals regarding snubs in this race resulted in changes to the rules that now permit a nominating body to add three movies to the six selected by the branch for a total of nine into the shortlist bakeoff. The entire branch then selects the final five after forced screenings, but the entire Academy is allowed to vote for the winner (as in all categories, now).
For all the controversy over #OscarsSoWhite, a pet peeve of mine has always been that European films are overwhelmingly favored here (not surprising given the Academy’s demographics). One of my favorite movies of the year, Ixcanul, Guatemala’s first ever entry into the race, did not make the short list. Neither did Brazil’s moving The Second Mother or Argentina’s thrilling The Clan. Asian films also do not do very well here, with the much revered Taiwanese entry The Assassin also conspicuously absent from the list of nine finalists.
Instead, it was seven European movies along with Jordan’s Theeb and Colombia’s Embrace of the Serpent. Those two made the final five, along with Hungary’s Son of Saul, France’s Mustang and Denmark’s A War. Hungary’s movie, at times even considered a potential Best Picture nominee, will easily win that country its first Oscar. It’s by far the highest profile of the bunch and has no real challenger.
Still, I wonder if it’s the most deserving. My biggest problem with the movie, a close-up, tense follow of a Jewish prisoner losing his sanity in Auschwitz as he is tasked with cleaning up after other incinerated prisoners, is that it tries too hard to not be a “typical Holocaust movie” and ends up being exactly that. Is there such a thing as a non-typical one of those at this point? The acting is intense, and the sequences are bone-chilling - the violence and action occur mostly off-camera and can be heard but not always seen - and even refreshing in their point of view. But unlike most others, I did not find the particular subject matter that compellingly different than many other entrants into this genre.
France’s Mustang, by contrast, is a methodic and subtle examination of teenage life in the face of repression. It follows five sisters who live in very conservative Turkey, are not permitted to leave the house, and are expected to enter into arranged marriages. Trouble arises as the five, all beautiful in their youthful ways, are a magnet for boys. Tragedy, friendship, and loyalty ensue as the sisters accept or embrace their fates in different ways. If anything has a chance to steal it from Saul, it is this well-reviewed, touching film.
A War, the Danish nominee, is another interesting movie, if not necessarily the one with the most original premise. Do the ends justify the means? Is punishment appropriate for a soldier who wantonly ordered the bombing of a barracks, which turned out to have dozens of civilians, in order to save his fellow soldiers? Should that soldier, or his buddies, lie to ensure that he isn’t punished? The movie offers no easy answers to any of these difficult questions, and perfectly sets up an almost in equipoise balance of the equities by depicting the difficulties that the soldier’s wife and children go through in his absence. In the end, the movie is, somewhat predictably, about the tragedy and injustice, the pointlessness of war. It stands little chance of winning, however.
And while I have not yet gotten around to seeing Embrace of the Serpent, I have much admiration for Jordan’s Theeb, which is a fictional story about a young Bedouin boy living in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, and how his interactions with British soldiers affect and alter his life. It is inventive, touching, and ultimately important to understanding what is going on still today in that part of the world. Still, Jordan will have to be content with landing its first ever nomination, but not winning.
Will win: Son of Saul
Could win: N/A