9/14/17 The Class, nominated Best Foreign Language Film, 2008
The Class reminded me of an American book I read not too long ago called The Way It Spozed to Be by James Herndon, a former teacher, and in fact, The Class was based on the semi-autobiographical book by Francois Begaudeau, who also starred in the movie. The movie is set in a middle school in a Paris arrondissement which is made up of a large immigrant community. This brings its own set of challenges, from different cultural backgrounds, 'rivalries' between different home countries (Morocco, Mali, etc.), parents who may not understand the school requirements or expectations. I wanted to like the movie, but there were parts that just seemed shrill to me, and I found myself not caring, and I wanted to care about someone. There was a young girl at the end, and I thought, she would have been a good focal point, but it came too late; she walked up to the teacher after he went through the class to ask what they had learned over the school year, and she said she didn't feel like she learned as much as the other students. There was something in her disappointment and shame that made me want to know more about her. I did not particularly like the teacher either, again, that doesn't help. I think it was interesting, maybe bold, not to cast professional actors (if they were there, they were supporting cast and not noticeable), because it definitely added to the sense of chaos, but, I don't know, it just didn't click with me.
9/23/17 Revanche, nominated Best Foreign Language Film, 2008
Out of all the films here, this was probably my favorite: it actually had a story that I didn't need to follow on Wikipedia, characters that were interesting and that I cared about and it was not black or white/right or wrong. Revanche is set in Vienna and the Austrian countryside, and it starts with Tamara and Alex, who are lovers, but also co-workers in a Vienna brothel (Tamara is a prostitute and Alex is handyman, driver, protection). They have a dream of getting away, but they have no money; Alex decides to rob a bank, and he wants to leave Tamara at home, but she insists on going with him. That doesn't end well. The other storyline involves Susanne and Robert, a couple that live out in the countryside, near Alex's grandfather Hausner; Robert is a police officer who happens to be in the area when Alex robs the bank. The two men are forever intertwined, especially when Alex goes to his grandfather's farm to hide out. Alex resents Susanne's attention towards his grandfather, and orders her to stay away; that doesn't go according to plan either. Revanche is French for retaliation, and Alex spends a lot of time thinking about retaliating against the man who killed Tamara. Will he or won't he? He certainly has the opportunity. I liked the twists and turns that the movie took; nothing went quite as you might think, and even though Alex is not the most likeable character, I did care about him and Tamara, and I was interested in what happened to him, as well as the other characters. The winner from 2008 was Departures, a movie that I liked a lot and heartily recommend.
9/23/17 Ajami, nominated Best Foreign Language Film, 2009
This entry from Israel has me scratching my head a day later; did I like it, was it good, would I recommend it? I honestly do not know. The story is actually five stories and five different perspectives, told in a non-linear order, focusing on a two families in Jaffa, Israel. The occasional narrator is Nasri, a young Arab Israeli who likes to draw, and loves and looks up to his older brother, Omar. The movie opens with Nasri's young neighbor being shot by a Bedouin gang after being mistaken for Omar. We learn that there is a feud between the gang and Nasri's uncle, which has been extended to Nasri and his family. The feud is mediated by a local leader, Abu Elias, and the leader of the Bedouin's. Different members of the community come in and out of the other chapters of the film, including Malek, a young Palestinian who works illegally in Jaffa for Abu Elias, trying to save money for his mother's cancer treatment; Binj, the cook in Abu Elias's restaurant, who is fun-loving, drug-smoking and a friend to Malek, Omar and others; Dando is an Israeli police officer who is caught up in trying to find his brother who is in the Israeli army, but has gone missing. The characters are interesting: Malek is a likeable kid, Nasri could have been used better for his perspective, Omar is likeable if not a little frustrating, like most twenty year old boys. The narrative is what was frustrating; I was fine with the narrative being non-sequential and bits of the story being unraveled slowly, but I think there was chance lost to really get into the lives of the characters, especially because there aren't a lot of movies that show this perspective.
9/22/17 Un Prophete, nominated Best Foreign Language Film, 2009
I may be imagining it, but it seemed that the theme for the Foreign Language nominees was about retaliation and retribution in some way. Malik is a young Algerian who has spent his young life in correctional institutions and now in prison. He is among Corsicans and Muslims, two groups who do not like or trust one another (I was not sure exactly where the movie was set, but I'm pretty sure it was France). He is taken in by the leader of the Corsicans, Luciani, at first as an assassin (reluctantly on Malik's part), then a low level errand boy/house boy who is regularly disrespected by Luciani and his men as a dirty Arab. Malik doesn't like being treated like this, but he keeps a lot of his thoughts to himself, secretly learning Corsican, so he can understand what Luciani and his men discuss when they're not speaking French. Eventually, Malik becomes Luciani's most trusted 'employee', especially when Malik gets a special work release and he can carry on Luciani's business outside. Luciani realizes too late that Malik is not the scared kid who needed his protection a few years earlier, and the tide turns. It is a prison movie, but I think the character of Malik makes it a little different. The Oscar winner for this year was The Secret in Their Eyes from Argentina.
9/24/17 Hors la Loi, nominated Best Foreign Language Film, 2010
I was interested in the story of Hors la Loi, which followed a family of three brothers, born and raised in Algeria who lost their family land to French colonials, to the 1945 Setif massacre (with which I was unfamiliar), participation of Algerian forces in World War II with the Allies, to the fight for independence. The Setif massacre is early on in the movie, and it took me by surprise with its ferocity and seemingly indiscriminate killing of civilians. The three brothers, Messaoud,, Abdelkader and Said find themselves in the middle of the story, and they represent different points of view: Messaoud is the oldest, and was a soldier during the war; Abdelkader is the middle son, and a political intellectual, caught up in the Setif massacre and sent to prison in France; Said is the youngest son, trying to take care of his mother and reunite his family in France. The movie covers territory unfamiliar to most Americans, and I think the topic is interesting, but something about the movie didn't quite grab me like I thought it would. In a Better World won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but I also thought Incendies was a powerful film.
9/19/17 Footnote, nominated Best Foreign Language Film, 2011
Netflix describes Footnote, Israel's nominee for 2011's Best Foreign Film, as a 'witty' drama; I beg to disagree. Like most of the movies in this particular blog entry, this movie left me not caring, but thinking the writer/director missed an opportunity for an engaging movie. I would imagine that not many movie goers would find Talmudic research a particularly hot topic for a film, especially the philological aspects. However, parent-child rivalry is very relatable, and it can be funny and poignant. Unfortunately, I think Footnote got lost in the weeds somewhere along the way. I didn't care about either of the main characters, Eliezer, the father who has toiled away in relative obscurity, but he has annoyed most of his colleagues and rivals over the years; and his son, Uriel, described in Wikipedia as a 'charismatic' academic (I think they used that word wrong, because he was as charismatic as a loaf of wet bread), who is in the same field as his father, but well-liked and respected, and he has recently put up for the prestigious Israel Prize. The problem begins when Eliezer is called and congratulated for the award and it turns out that there was a mistake of bureaucratic proportions, because it was meant for Uriel. We learn there is a lot of jealousy and resentment from Eliezer towards Uriel, and I didn't think it was entirely clear why there was such bitterness (or I could have dozed off, I suppose). A Separation was the winner for 2011.
