In Contention

Tag: Everlasting Moments

  • INTERVIEW: Jan Troell

    Jan TroellAfter taking a backseat to younger, scrappier film industries in recent years, 2008 marked a defiant resumption of the throne for a number of traditional world-cinema stalwarts – Italy was the talk of May’s Cannes festival, while France churned out one masterwork after the other. Joining them at the top, meanwhile, was Sweden, with a pair of exquisite, acclaimed titles that otherwise couldn’t be more diametrically opposed.

    While Tomas Alfredsson’s dreamy, disturbing awards-guzzler “Let the Right One In” announced the arrival of a startling new guard in Swedish cinema, the country’s official Oscar submission was the work of a decidedly gentler, more practiced hand.

    “Everlasting Moments,” a lyrical account of the life of Maria Larsson and her journey from abused housewife to accomplished photographer at the turn of the 20th century, is but the latest in a long line of works by esteemed 77 year-old veteran Jan Troell.

    The film, which opened Stateside on Friday, has been a humble yet not inconsiderable presence throughout this past awards season. Greeted enthusiastically at the Telluride and Toronto festivals, it went on to score a Golden Globe nod, and only narrowly missed the cut at the Oscars, having made the 9-strong shortlist in the foreign-language category.

    Troell, however, dismisses the whole awards business with good humor. “I was nowhere near as disappointed as people would like me to be,” he chuckles, speaking on the phone from his family home in Sweden. “They expect you to be depressed when you don’t make it, but that’s not the reason you make films. It would have been nice to go to the Oscars, but I’ve been there before, and I know not to take it all too seriously.”

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 pet peeves of the 2008-2009 Oscar season

    Rachel Getting Married

    The season is winding down this week.  The slow President’s Day holiday yesterday seemed to be more of a harbinger than a lull in the excitement.  This time next week, we’ll probably be over the fallout of the circuit and on to debating the contenders we’re likely to see a year from now.

    It’s a vicious, beautiful, sad, interesting circle.

    But before the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast puts a bow on the festivities Sunday night, it seems a decent enough time to reflect.  And not to be too negative, but this became one of the most irritating seasons I’ve ever covered, both in the lack of excitement to the dichotomy that circumstance presented for me (given that my favorite film of the year has lead the field throughout).

    With that in mind, I fully expect this piece to grate the nerves of more than a few readers.  Then again, I’m sure plenty of these views are shared by a handful as well, but whatever the case, a list of pet peeves began to stack up early on in the season.  I thought it reasonable to collect them here, so feast your eyes (or roll them), this is what got under my skin this year.

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  • Foreign film shortlist revealed, ‘Gomorrah’ snubbed

    This is the most vile of all Academy committees.  They prove their disdain for truly great cinema year in and year out (let’s not forget last year’s snubs of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “Persepolis” early on), and they’ve done it again this year, skewering Matteo Garrone’s blistering “Gomorrah,” leaving it for the dogs, cast aside, abandoned.

    The almighty foreign language film committee has chosen the following to proceed to the next stage of the season:

    “3 Monkeys” (Nuri Bilge Ceylan — Turkey)
    “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Uli Edel — Germany)
    “The Class” (Laurent Cantet — France)
    “Departures” (Yojiro Takita — Japan)
    “Everlasting Moments” (Jan Troell — Sweden)
    “The Necessities of Life” (Benoit Pilon — Canada)
    “Revanche” (Gotz Spielmann — Austria)
    “Tear This Heart Out” (Roberto Sneider — Mexico)
    “Waltz with Bashir” (Ari Folman — Israel)

    Turns out Guy correctly foresaw only four of these in his post this morning.  From these, I’d anticipate “3 Monkeys,” “The Baader Meinhof Complex,” “The Class,” “Everlasting Moments” and, the likely winner, “Waltz with Bashir” to make the final five.

    (Thanks to Blake for passing along the list, and kudos to him for anticipating the “Gomorrah” shaft.  I just wanted to disregard all that talk about the committee having an issue with the film’s violence, but you can’t give these bozos the benefit of the doubt, I guess.)

  • Foreign film shortlist to drop soon

    Waltz with BashirI believe the 9-title shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film is due today, but details on the announcement are oddly hard to come by, so I could be wrong.

    In any case, it’s one I’m having a tough time calling. The new voting system should ensure that some of the year’s most acclaimed contenders are spared the indignity of being left off the shortlist (as happened, notoriously, to “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “Persepolis” last year), so it’s difficult to see favorites “Waltz With Bashir” (fresh from its Globe win) and “Gomorrah” missing the cut. 

    I’d like to say that the best film of 2008, “The Class,” is similarly assured a spot, but it’s a risky, tough-minded docudrama, and I’m not sure how the committee (even the executive panel created to keep things in check) will respond to it — especially with “Gomorrah” and “Bashir” also occupying contemporary, genre-spanning territory. Fingers crossed. 

    Beyond that, my predictions get shaky. I think my projected list is a little heavy on European entries, but it’s hard to predict which one/s will miss. The Academy invariably throws a few less-heralded curveballs into the mix, but with 67 entries to choose from (and many of them fairly unknown quantities), it’s anyone’s guess which obscurities have caught the committee’s eye.

    (More thoughts, and my predicted shortlist, below the cut.)

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  • The Sans weigh in

    Francisco and Diego, that is. Anyone else think there are a tad too many critics’ awards floating around out there? Seriously, what do they all mean? New York, Los Angeles, Boston and the National Society are the only ones that really register with me… maybe Chicago, if I’m feeling generous.

    The rest really kind of blur into one, particularly when they elect the same winners over and over again. Anyway, you won’t be surprised to hear that the San Franciscans went for “Milk” in a big way, while San Diego continued the lovefest for “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    The San Francisco picks:

    Best Picture: “Milk”
    Best Director: Gus Van Sant, “Milk”
    Best Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk” & Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
    Best Actress: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”
    Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, “Milk”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon”
    Best Foreign Language Film: “Let the Right One In”
    Best Documentary Feature: “My Winnipeg”
    Best Cinematography: Wally Pfister, “The Dark Knight”

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  • Foreign film watch: all the contenders

    The race starts here. With the deadline having passed on Wednesday, 53 67 countries have submitted a candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film award.

    Now it’s all in the hands of the Academy’s notoriously obtuse foreign film committee. Under a new system aimed to avoid embarrassing exclusions like last year’s snub of “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days” and “Persepolis,” the committee will vote on a six-film shortlist, while a smaller executive panel will add three extra titles afterwards.

    Looking down the list of titles, there aren’t any glaring omissions so far — and it’s nice to see left-field festival successes such as “Tony Manero” (Chile) and “Eldorado” (Belgium) in contention. There is still the problem of the ‘one film per country’ rule which means exceptional films such as “Il Divo” and “I’ve Loved You So Long” can’t compete. From a personal perspective, I’m also a little disappointed to see only two African entries: I fully expected Ethiopia to submit the much-acclaimed Venice success “Teza,” but it wasn’t to be.

    As I’ve said before, making predictions in this category is nigh-impossible, but for the hell of it (and so you can jeer at my foolishness come January), I’m hazarding a guess as to what the nine semi-finalists will be. My predictions, and a full list of the contenders, after the jump:

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  • Sweden and Germany loom large in Oscar race

    As anyone who follows the arcane workings of the Best Foreign Language Film award knows, there is no such thing as a sure thing in the category. However, it’s fair to say that Sweden and Germany have emerged as strong contenders in the race after both countries selected high-profile films as their official entries.

    Unsurprisingly, Sweden has chosen “Everlasting Moments,” a highly personal biopic from veteran filmmaker Jan Troell — a Best Director nominee back in 1973 for “The Emigrants.” The film is a portrait of Maria Larsson, Sweden’s first female photographer, who also happens to be the grandmother of Troell’s wife (and co-scripter) Agnes. The film bowed at Toronto last week to warm reviews, including this rave from Screen International:

    Discreet, old fashioned, traditional and altogether admirable, this is Jan Troell in what he does best … Paying minute attention to the smallest details, taking its time but never appearing to drag its feet, immensely sympathetic to its heroes and villains alike, this is an intimate family portrait and at the same time a rich canvas of working class life … This picture has quality stamped all over it, awards are likely to come its way whether for direction, photography or the performances of Maria Heiskanen and Mikael Persbrandt.

    By all accounts, it’s a stately, beautifully crafted period piece with a degree of social gravitas — difficult to see the Academy resisting that one.

    On a very different note, Germany has gone with Uli Edel’s terrorism thriller “The Baader Meinhof Complex” as its entry. The film, a chronicle of the infamous left-wing Red Army Faction group that terrorised the country through the late 60s and early 70s, has yet to open in its home country, but advance word is promising. (Jeff Wells gives some useful insight here.)

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