Although it was shown at numerous U.S. film festivals in 2016, Iran’s The Salesman did not have an official run in the U.S. until January 2017, making it ineligible for most 2016 year-end awards. Perhaps that’s why its Oscar nomination and win came as a surprise to many who thought that Germany’s multi-honored, Oscar-nominated Toni Erdmann would be an easy Best Foreign Language Film winner, especially since France’s submitted Elle and Spain’s submitted Julieta failed to make the list of nominees. South Korea’s acclaimed The Handmaiden, which also took many U.S. year-end awards, was not submitted by for consideration by its country of origin.
The Salesman became only the second Iranian film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film after 2011’s A Separation. Both films were directed by Asghar Farhadi whose works shed a spotlight on Iran’s average working people who are generally ignored by the country’s state run media. This one is about an actor/teacher whose life takes a dark turn while he is performing in a local version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
In the middle of the night, he and his actress wife are awakened by an order to evacuate their apartment building as it is starting to collapse. While badly damaged, the building does not collapse, but is nevertheless uninhabitable. A fellow actor in the play offers to sublet one of his apartments to them. They accept and move in, but are uneasy because the previous tenant has left most of her belongings there while hunting for a new apartment of her own. One night, while waiting for the actor to return, the wife is about to enter the shower when the buzzer sounds. Assuming it’s her husband, she buzzes the door to the building open, unlocks and opens her apartment door, and goes to her shower. As anyone who has ever seen a movie would know, it wasn’t her husband buzzing, but someone looking for the previous tenant. The wife is severely beaten, setting up a moral dilemma as the film becomes a tale of revenge and retribution. Parallels to the play being performed are many. Both Shahab Hosseini as the actor and Taraneh Alidoosti are outstanding as is the supporting cast including the numerous young men who play the actor’s students.
The Salesman was given a limited release by Amazon and is now available on Blu-ray and DVD, as is The Handmaiden, which was also given a limited release by Amazon.
Chan-wook Park’s The Handmaiden is an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ contemporary British novel, Fingersmith, which was given a three-part miniseries run in the U.K. in 2005. Chan-wook Park, whose previously best known work is the 2003 South Korean film Oldboy, sets his version in the Japanese occupation of Korea, which lasted from 1910 to the end of World War II. If you’re familiar with Park, but not the source material, you may not be expecting some of the turns the narrative takes.
The story is told in three parts. Part one begins with a young Korean girl trained to be a thief, who is given the opportunity to become a Japanese lady’s maid in a plot orchestrated by a fake Japanese count who uses her to coerce the lady to marry him. He is after the lady’s money. However, there is more to the plot than the simple premise suggests, much more. The lady has been raised since the age of five by the widowed husband of her aunt, who is addicted to trashy novels. He has his own plan to marry the lady and take her money. Neither man counts on the two women falling in love and thwarting their plans.
Part two recounts the plot of part one from the standpoint of the lady. Part three brings it all to a satisfactory conclusion. Richly textured, with sumptuous settings and costumes and eye-filling cinematography, it is all played to the hilt by Min-hie Kim as the lady, Tae-ri Kim as the thief, Jung-woo Ha as the fake count, and Jin Woong-Jo as the detestable uncle.
The Red Turtle, like The Salesman, was nominated for an Oscar even though it was not given a theatrical release in the U.S. until 2017 (Editor’s note: the film received the requisite 2016 Academy-qualifying run for it to be eligible for nomination in Best Animated Feature, which has different rules for eligibility than Best Foreign Language Film, It was, however, given a full release in 2017.). The animated feature is a true international co-production. It was conceived by Dutch-born animator Michael Dudock de Wit, his first feature-length film as director, a collaboration between French production studio The Wild Bunch and Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli.
Don’t expect another Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle. This is a Robinson Crusoe-style story about a shipwrecked man who is thwarted from leaving his deserted island by a large red sea turtle. Eventually a shipwrecked young woman joins him and they have a son, but who is the woman and what happened to the red turtle? In time, you will know. The film is beautiful to look at, with very little spoken dialogue. It’s enough to just watch and learn.
Released in theatres last September and on home video last January, Disney’s Queen of Katwe fell a bit under the radar on both occasions. Based on an ESPN Magazine article, the film tells the true story of a girl from a Ugandan ghetto who becomes a triumphant chess champion over a four-year period.
A departure for legendary filmmaker Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay! , The Namesake), the film benefits from its under-utilized film locations and the extraordinary acting debut of Madina Nalwanga as Phiona, the girl from Katwe. She is strongly supported by David Oyelowo as her teacher and mentor and Lupita Nyong’o as her strong-willed mother. A coda features cast members with their real-life counterparts. It’s available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.
Making its Blu-ray debut is Man of La Mancha, Arthur Hiller’s disappointing 1972 film version of the Tony-winning Broadway musical that starred Peter O’Toole as Don Quixote, Sophia Loren as his Dulcinea, and James Coco as his Sancho Panza. Cervantes’ source material has stood the test of time for four centuries, but sadly, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh’s score was put to death in just seven years. None of the actors can really sing, O’Toole doesn’t even try, he’s dubbed as Loren certainly should have been. Despite the critical drubbing the film received, it does have its supporters, and it should be noted O’Toole won the Best Actor award of the National Board of Review in conjunction with his performance in The Ruling Class.
The film was one of three adaptations of Tony award-winning musicals that year. Cabaret and 1776 were the others. The National Board of Review named Cabaret and Man of La Mancha the first and second best films of the year ahead of The Godfather, Sounder, and 1776, each filling the next three slots.
This week’s new releases include France’s Things to Come and the Blu-ray debut of The Accidental Tourist.
