The
Door
is an Irish film about an incident that occurred in the former Soviet Union. I
suppose by now most people have heard that the subject of the film is the
aftermath of the accident at Chernobyl, but at the start of the film, we only
know that an entire town is being evacuated. We are not explicitly told why. I
first suspected that I was watching a Holocaust film, but the more contemporary
clothing dissuaded me from that conclusion. We follow one family, primarily
through a series of flashbacks, as they deal with the declining health of the
daughter. When we see the end credits' reference to Chernobyl, the film makes
sense in retrospect, but that doesn't make it any less bleak. It is a well-made
film, certainly, but this is pretty dark material to watch.
Sweden's
Instead of Abracadabra is the funniest of the nominated films.
It's about a rather inept self-identified magician who still lives at home with
his parents. He's really terrible at his craft, having seriously injured his
mother in the famous trick of inserting a sword into a box containing a person.
The magician's father wants him to take a more serious job, but the younger man
knows that he can show everyone his talent and win the heart of a lovely nurse
who's just moved in next door to his family's farm. There are many laughs to be
had watching this film; it's the only one of the five that is primarily
designed as a comic piece. After the screening I watched, almost everyone was
repeating the magician's catch phrase of "Chimay!" (or something to
that effect), suggesting that it was the one that stuck with people the
longest.
Kavi is a co-production
of India and the United States and deals with serious subject matter in a very
restrained, adult way. The title character is an Indian boy whose family is
forced to work at a brick factory in what amounts to slave labor. They are
attempting to pay off a debt by making bricks, but we quickly get the sense
that their debt will never be allowed to be paid in full. Despite efforts by
government officials and activists to rescue the workers and despite attempts
on Kavi's part to flee, the bosses always seem to succeed. This is not
necessarily an easy film to watch, given how unflinchingly it depicts the
forced labor that some in India must endure, but it is clear in its message and
offers a sense of hope that young people like Kavi might be saved from a life
of endless, brutal work. The writer-director, Gregg Helvey, graduated from one
of my alma maters, the University of Southern California, but I was already
impressed by this film (his master's thesis) before the end credits revealed
that piece of information.
Miracle
Fish
is an Australian film about a little boy who, on his birthday, seeks refuge in
the nurse's office at his school. He's been teased by some of the other boys at
school for his lack of presents (save for the title fish, an odd piece of
plastic that curves to tell your fortune or something—I never quite got a
handle on this), and he just wants to get away from everyone for a while. When
he wakes up from his nap, the school is empty. At first, the boy is very happy
because it means he won't be teased any longer about being poor, but there are
signs that something odd and dangerous has occurred. Much of the second half of
the film is incredibly dark and rather frightening. Even though the subject of
the film is a young boy, this is definitely not a movie for children.
The
New Tenants
is mostly just an actor's showcase, and as such, I found it to be a little
dull. The title characters are a gay couple who have just moved into an
apartment that was the site of a gruesome murder. We watch as one strange
neighbor after another appears at their door, each one adding a little piece of
information to the puzzle of what happened in the apartment. A couple of
recognizable actors appear in this short, notably Vincent D'Onofrio and Kevin
Corrigan, but the others (all character actors, unsurprisingly) are vaguely
recognizable as well. The plausibility of the sequence of events was a bit much
for me, and the ending is just a bit too bizarre. To be honest, I also didn't
particularly enjoy the rather stereotypical depiction of gay characters either.
At this point in our history, do we still need to be trafficking in stereotypes
for the sake of overacting?
Oscar Winner: The New
Tenants. I suspect that the quirkiness of the film coupled with the
performances of actors many of the voters probably know personally was just too
tempting to overlook. It is certainly an accomplished film, but I still feel
unsatisfied with the ending, which seems to take the movie and its characters
firmly out of the realm of the "real" where the film has (perhaps
absurdly) kept them throughout the narrative.
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