Netherlands, Kazakhstan enter Oscar ponies

Thanks to regular commenter Jonathan for alerting us to the news that The Netherlands has selected Jean van de Velde’s “The Silent Army” as their entry in the Best Foreign Language Film race.

The film, which played in the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes this year, is set in East Africa, and follows the plight of a widower on a quest to rescue his young son’s best friend, after the boy is recruited as a child soldier by a rebel army.

Extensively recut after receiving a critical drubbing in its home country in 2008 (the casting of local pop star Marco Borsato accounting for much of the jeering), the film’s reception at Cannes was improved but still somewhat tepid, with many critics citing excessive sentimentality and political correctness as major debits. (Not that either of those qualities is a disadvantage with voters in this category.)

Interestingly, Kirk Honeycutt’s unenthusiastic review likens it to a certain critically dismissed title that wound up finding significant favor with the Academy:

“The Silent Army” is bedeviled by the same problem Edward Zwick faced in “Blood Diamond”: How to tell African stories involving brutal conflicts and child soldiers without having white men come to the rescue of poor blacks. Since there is little black filmmaking tradition in sub-Saharan Africa other than South Africa and producers are convinced white audiences can’t get into black stories unless whites get involved, we’ll continue to get films such as “Blood Diamond” and “The Silent Army.”

So, it’s “Blood Diamond” meets “Nowhere in Africa” meets “Kolya” … how can it miss? Seriously, however, the Dutch entry should never be disregarded in this race: with three wins and seven nominations in the category, the country’s strike rate rather belies the size and significance of its film industry. Meanwhile, in recent years, they’ve pulled nominations out of the hat for such minor works as “Twin Sisters” and “Zus & Zo.”

Meanwhile, Screen International reports that Kazakhstan has selected Ermek Tursunov’s “Kelin” as their foreign-language hopeful, ahead of the film’s North American premiere at Toronto. You might remember that the country scored their first ever nomination two years ago with “Mongol.” (Last year’s entry, festival darling “Tulpan,” was a rather better film, but too low-key to gain any Academy traction.)

“Kelin” sounds more in line with the latter film: a dialogue-free study of arranged marriage and cross-class romance, it’s drawn warm reviews thus far, with Variety declaring it “beautifully shot, amusingly written and handsomely produced.” It doesn’t sound likely to bother the voters much, but let’s see if it finds any champions in Toronto.