Contest of the mighty

India’s shy at Oscars may have met with early disappointment with Geetu Mohandas’s Liar’s Dice failing to make the grade. However, this year’s Foreign Language Film Category line-up of nine left in the fray, from 83 films originally considered, make for an interesting medley of creative and compelling oeuvres.

Comprising Georgian film Corn Island by Giorgi Ovashvili, Argentina’s Wild Tales by Damian Szifron, Poland’s Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski, Russian Leviathan by Andrey Zvyagintsev, Mauritania’s Timbuktu by Abderrahmane Sissako, Netherlands’s The Accused (Lucia de B) by Paula van der Oest, Sweden’s Force Majeure (Turist) by Ruben Ostlund, Estonian Tangerines by Zaza Urushadze, and Venezuelan The Liberator by Alberto Arvelo, are enterprising tours de force.

Sunday Herald gives the lowdown on which of these may net the statue:

Emotional chord

Corn Island, set on a nondescript island surrounded by Inguri river, spotlighting on an aged sturdy, and kindly peasant and his winsome granddaughter, is my pick.

A cinematic haiku in motion, it’s a visual masterpiece with minimalist dialogue, majestic in sweep, playing out the political, psychological and personal drama against the lush verdant landscape. The film evocatively etches the symbiotic relationship the peasant and his pubescent granddaughter blissfully enjoy, as they go about erecting a roof over their head and prepare to harvest the corn crop, when their lives are thrown asunder due to unforeseen developments.

Pawlikowski’s Ida is an austerely done black and white political tale about a novitiate nun’s sojourn tracing back her Jewish roots before her indoctrination into the order. Set in the 60s, this monochromatic roadie is awe-inspiring. 

The Liberator by Alberto Arvelo is a sumptuously-mounted historical drama of epic proportions set in 19th century South America, and is a faithful rendering of revolutionary Simon Bolivar’s exploits in the liberation struggle of Venezuelan people. Shot along vast, verdant jungles and mountains, the film, cinematographically captivating, is a worthy contender as well.

Political commentary

Timbuktu by Abderrahmane Sissako  is a superbly filmed, humane and empathetic socio-political treatise set in the early days of jihadist takeover of Mali. Despite its larger social comment, the film, a searing study of religious jingoism and trauma of a family which pays dearly for a slight by their son, is appealing, but a shade lesser than the other three.

Similarly, Wild Tales by Szifran, with its glorious tableau of black comic tales of violence and vengeance, is an absurdist, witty, stylised drama and turns out to be a surprise inclusion.

Likewise, Ruben A Stlund’s Force Majeure (Turist), a fascinating psycho-analytical character study of human foibles when a chance avalanche during a skiing holiday turns into tug of war between the disappointed wife and the hapless husband, as their agonised and anguished children watch terrified, is a surprise and an interesting inclusion, though not outstanding.

The Accused (Lucia de B) by Paula van der Oest is a proverbial medico-social thriller. The film concerns a nurse falsely accused of killing several babies and elderly under her care, based on a real life incident, and injustice meted out to the protagonist Lucia, before she is finally absolved of the accusations, turns out to be a routine fare.

Finally, Tangerines by Zaza Urushadze, which spotlights on the ethnic civil war between Abkhazia and Georgia, brings to fore the region’s tragic history. Despite the film’s pivot of two Estonians awaiting to harvest the season’s crop of tangerines being caught in the crossfire between rival soldiers, is a homily on the futility of war, proving to be an engrossing saga.
Who will harvest the Oscar? Fingers crossed, over to the Academy.