With less than a week to go before the deadline for submissions in the Academy’s foreign-film category, new entries are coming fast and furious. Here’s the latest batch, ranging from lowbrow comedies to gangster pictures to, no surprise, a Holocaust drama.
I’m also adding these films to the Odds’ main foreign-film roundup, which is here.
Belgium: “The Misfortunates”
Variety called director Felix van Groeningen’s film “a visually robust and often hilarious Flemish tragicomedy,” though it deals with a family of drunken lowlifes not ordinarily apt to find a sympathetic audience among Academy voters. The sympathy, though, might go to the film’s protagonist, a13-year-old boy who grows up in the chaotic household.
Adapted from a semi-autobiographical novel by Dimitri Verhulst, the episodic film jumps back and forth over a few decades, with raucous comedy reportedly giving way to a more bittersweet, emotional tone
Bolivia: “Zona Sur (Southern Zone)”
Set in an upper-class household in La Paz, during a time of social upheaval in Bolivia, “Zona Sur” was envisioned by director Juan Carlos Valdivia as more of a comedy, and then evolved in “a piece of a more thoughtful nature.” It deals with a rich family living in a bubble of comfort in the Southern District of La Paz, with the servants who help them maintain that bubble, and with the forces that eventually, in the words of the film’s official synopsis, “make the bubble burst.”
Valdivia’s film “American Visa” was Bolvia’s official submission in 2006, but did not receive a nomination.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: “Guardians of the Night”
A Sarajevo-set film called “Guardians of the Night” conjures up images of war zones and devastation, but the setting for director Namik Kabil’s film is considerably more prosaic: it’s about a pair of night watchmen who meet after hours in a large department store. One man has odd stomach pains, and thinks he might be pregnant; the other is diet-obsessed and a devotee of self-help tapes. The country’s history of conflict intrudes when a neighbor across the street, a war veteran, keeps triggering the alarm system and summoning the police.
Action is reportedly at a minimum; it’s just a night inside the store with a couple of odd characters who come to a few realizations by their morning coffee. The director calls it “a one night introspection.”
Trailer (not in English, but not much dialogue).
Music video set to scenes from the film.
Brazil: “Salve Geral”
The true events that inspired this film became known as “the Brazilian September 11th,” and that connection with American history was clearly one of the factors that went into the selection of director Sergio Rezende’s $4 million drama.
