The Secret Agent (c) NEON
The Oscars accept a single film submission from each foreign country. How the countries pick their film varies. This year, there are 92 films submitted and that list will be pared down to 15 when the shorts are announced next Tuesday, but here are my thoughts on six of the hopefuls. I did review Norway’s Sentimental Value earlier in the year. Also, I have been hearing good things about Belén from Argentina, Sound of Falling from Germany and Sirāt from Spain, all three I will surely review soon. Some of the films listed are currently in theaters or on streaming, if you want to catch up on some hopefuls.
Film: The Secret Agent
Country: Argentina
In Cinemas
One of the most critically acclaimed international films this year has to be Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, which won two of the major prizes at Cannes this spring, with Best Actor going to Wagner Moura (he’s most known in the US for his roles in Narcos and Civil War). Set in Brazil in 1977, the film follows Marcelo (Moura) as he tries to flee the lawlessness of Brazil’s dictatorship with his son. As he nervously waits, taking a new identity in the meantime, Mendonça Filho successfully recreates the mood and era of 1977, humorously mixing the rampant corruption with the joyous abandon of Carnival as well as the obsession with sharks as the country falls under Jaws fever. My only complaint is that it feels like a reel of the film is missing as the perspective suddenly changes course for the last chapter. It is a valid artistic choice, but my allegiance to the character felt shortchanged having things feel so unfulfilled. Still, it’s an immensely enjoyable film, and Moura is sure to get a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
It Was Just an Accident (c) NEON
Film: It Was Just an Accident
Country: France
In Cinemas
Also sure to be honored at the Oscars has to be the latest film by Iranian writer-director Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes. Panahi, who directs his film in secret, has been imprisoned by the Iranian government on many occasions, and earlier this month, he was sentenced in absentia to a year in prison for propaganda (i.e. making films criticizing the current regime), which he will serve whenever he returns to his home country. It Was Just an Accident indeed starts with an accident in which Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), who’s driving home with his wife and daughter, accidently hits a dog, but the actual accidental meeting is when Eghbal is recognized by the owner of the garage, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), as someone from his past. The less you know of the rest of the film, the better, but if you know the plot of Ariel Dorfman’s play (or film adaptation), Death and the Maiden, the moral quandary is very similar. This is certainly a masterful film, but there seems to be a lack of poetry that made Panahi’s last film, No Bears, one of my favorites of 2022. But It Was Just an Accident is sure to be a major Oscar contender.
All That's Left of You (c) Watermelon Pictures
Film: All That's Left of You
Country: Jordan
In Cinemas on January 9
All That's Left of You is a historical drama about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as seen through the eyes of three generations of a Palestinian family from 1948 to present day. It starts with patriarch Sharif (Omar’s Adam Bakri), an orange farmer in Jaffa during the 1948 Palestine War, who must give up his property to the Israelis. In the 1970s, we follow Sharif’s son, Salim (Saleh Bakri), whose humiliation in the refugee settlement by Israeli soldiers is witnessed by his young son, Noor, embarrassed by his father’s lack of honor. The defiant Noor is seen in the early 1980s as a rebellious teenager participating in protests and defying his mother, Hanan, (played by the director Cherien Dabis), who tells him to keep his head down and not stand out. The poetry of the title is explored in the final time jump to the present as the now elderly Salim returns to what is now a modern Tel Aviv. All That's Left of You is an exceptionally made film by Dabis, an American director of Palestinian and Jordanian descent, that feels both epic and intimate, assisted by a beautiful score by Amine Bouhala, with some striking imagery indelibly etched in my mind.
Left-Handed Girl (c) Netflix
Film: Left-Handed Girl
Country: Taiwan
On Netflix
Shih-Ching Tsou has a working relationship with recent Oscar-winner Sean Baker (for Anora) since co-directing their 2004 film, Take Out, and producing many of Baker’s subsequent works, including The Florida Project and Red Rocket. Now, Baker is returning the favor with Tsou’s solo directing debut, Left-Handed Girl, co-writing the script with Tsou, co-producing and editing the film about the trials and tribulations of single mother Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai). She tries to make enough money from an outdoor noodle shop to support her two daughters, the older, sexually active I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma), who is resentful and independent, and the younger I-Jing (the adorable Nina Ye), the title character who is told by her grandfather that a dominant left-hand is evil. How I-Jing internalizes this character flaw is the best part of the film, using the same point-of-view perspective as the kid in The Florida Project, which this film most resembles in the common theme of desperate mothers in impossible situations. There are so many twists and turns to the plot, including Shu-Fen’s disapproving family and a crazy scene at a birthday banquet where so many secrets are revealed, it felt like I was watching the pilot episode of The Real Housewives of Taipei. But the film belongs to little Nina Ye, who steals it with her evil left hand intact.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamino (c) Altered Innocence
Film: The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo
Country: Chile
In Cinemas and For Rent on Letterboxd Video
One of the more expressionistic films of the year, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo takes place in the early 1980s in a remote mining town in Chile filled with men, except for one house (which doubles as a bar) run by a found family of trans women, who are both reviled as devils (don’t look them in their eyes) and seen as a sort of sanctuary. Diego Céspedes’ film is mostly from the perspective of eleven-year-old Lidia (Tamara Cortés), who is wise for age, but still may not understand the motives and actions of the adults around her. Her main guardian is Flamingo (Matías Catalán), a strong-willed but tragic figure whose health is in decline (there is a plague in town, unnamed). Flamingo also has an unhealthy (literal and psychological) relationship with the violent and jealous Yovani (Pedro Muñoz), who tries to quit her, but is always seduced by Flamingo’s Mysterious Gaze. These are serious themes, but there is also a streak of sardonic humor as when a gaggle of trans women take on a group of teenage bullies or when the matriarch of the house (Paula Dinamarca) explains to Lidia that she was the one who gave all her tenets animal names based on their physical or personality traits, but won’t explain why she gave herself the name of (wink, wink) Boa. Céspedes’ script begins to meander after a brutal confrontation in the middle of the film, but the dreamy (if you’ll forgive the pun) fairyland ambience is hypnotic. I may not get the ultimate point of The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, however, I was always interested.
No Other Choice (c) NEON
Film: No Other Choice
Country: South Korea
In Cinemas on December 25
Hands down the most popular international film for the cinephiles (like those on Film Twitter) has to be fan favorite Park Chan-wook’s latest, No Other Choice, which follows Man-su (Squid Game's Lee Byung-hun), a company yes-man who loses his job after the paper factory he works for is sold to an American conglomerate. His sensible wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) takes the news as most people would: cutting expenses and luxuries, as when she sends the family dogs to her parents, which upsets their two children. Man-su, however, takes the news as if it's a death sentence, and like Squid Game, when he hears a rare job opening is imminent, he decides he has no other choice but to eliminate the competition. Literally. Park’s film, based on Donald E. Westlake novel, “The Ax,” is a manic black comedy in which we witness each of Man-su’s successive plans get crazier, as does the pain of his constant toothache, which is an obvious metaphor that makes no sense as his wife works at a dental office. Ever since getting a cult following from his early violent films like Old Boy and Lady Vengeance, Park’s later films have matured and used his favorite tropes to the service of wonderful puzzle plots like The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave. No Other Choice has a lot of fun, macabre moments, but Park may have overestimated an audience’s tolerance for someone who is essentially (despite how bumbling Man-su is) a serial killer, even in a satirical, absurdist tale of a have demoted to a have-not. Many fans compare this film to Parasite, which is a bit of a stretch. There is a lot to enjoy here as Park is too good a director to make anything without his unique skill and vision, but your mileage may vary.
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