Get your popcorn ready:
Sunday marks the 88th Academy Awards. You’re probably aware of the big American films: The Big Short, The Martian, The Revenant etc. But the real gems are the nominated international films, or as the academy calls them, the Foreign Language Films. This year the subjects of these five cinematic beauties range from to arranged marriages and gender rights in rural Turkey to the deforestation of the Amazon at the beginning of the 20th century.
The nominations this year come from around the globe, with first-timer Jordan securing the country’s first Academy Award nomination. Before you head to the closest Indie movie theater or turn on Netflix, here’s a quick summary of what to expect:
1) Embrace of the Serpent directed by Ciro Guerra (Columbia)
You have to follow the storyline of this movie closely. Two men narrate the film: a European explorer and a shaman, and the story is set in two different time periods (before and after religious and ecological colonization). The plot centers on when the men travel deep into the wilderness to look for the surviving members of their tribes. The men bond by sharing cultures and ideas and ‘daring to dream’.
GC style recap: This film provides a chronological look at the devastation that religious, cultural and ecological colonization had on the indigenous people and environment in the Amazon during the early 20th century.
2) Mustang: directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven (France)
Five sisters living in a remote village of Turkey near the Black Sea are put under house arrest by their conservative relatives after innocently playing on the beach with their male friends. The girls are then put through a set of gender rituals--wife lessons from aunties and planned dates with acceptable bachelors. One-by-one the girls are to be married, with the youngest still awaiting their future as the film ends.
GC style recap: Arranged marriage and gender equality are key themes in this movie, as well as adherence to conservative cultures and traditions.
3) Son of Saul directed by László Nemes (Hungary)
Saul is a Hungarian prisoner of the Aushwitz-Bikenau concentration camp. His job as a “custodian of death” is to lead other inmates to their deaths and then dispose of their bodies. When a young child survives the gas chambers, and is quickly killed by another method, Saul risks his life to find a rabbi who can give the boy a proper Jewish burial.
GC style recap: Told through entirely Saul’s perspective, this film is masterful in its portrayal of a gruesome time in the world’s history.
4) Theeb directed by Naji Abu Nowar (Jordan)
It’s 1916, the eve of World War I in Arbia’s Hejaz province. The Ottoman Empire is poised to take over all of Arabia. Two Bedouin boys make a unique contribution to history as guides to a British Officer through theimportant Ottoman train tracks.
GC style recap: This is an academy award-nomination-first for Jordan. The movie was shot entirely in Jordan and used non-professional Bedouins for the roles
5) A War directed by Tobias Lindholm (Denmark)
“In a war the frontlines are everywhere.” Set under the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, this film takes on the issue of war and its effects on army commander Claus Pedersen’s life on the battlefield and at home.
GC style recap: Knowing how to lead and protect is commander Claus Pedersen’s main duty. And the ambiguous, elusive concept of morality in war is this film’s main theme. Claus is left with the choice of how to best protect his men. He makes a choice that saves them, but endangers the people he swore to protect. His choice puts him and his family in a precarious situation.
These films both celebrate and critique history and culture around the globe. The beauty and verisimilitude of these films push audiences to think beyond their culture to take on a new perspective.
So go out and see if you can find a theatre showing one of these gems. You will not be disappointed.