Just saw this brilliant film by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowsi. Beautiful cinematography with crispy black and white shooting, brilliant editing, superb acting. Beats out “Roma” by a long mile for best foreign film Oscar, IMO.
To me, Shoplifters and Capernaum beat them both by a long mile.
It’s very well-shot and the music is exhilarating, and it did a good job of evoking a time and place, but the main characters are so infuriatingly stupid throughout the movie I couldn’t even try to understand them, ugh. By the end I felt like standing up to clap and cheer. And then go see Shoplifters or Capernaum again.
I rarely say negative things about a movie, but this has been getting so much praise that my expectations were through the roof. So maybe the fault was mine, and I’m not sorry I saw it, but I never ever want to see it again.
Well, all 4 of the films cited are now official Oscar nominees (along with NEVER LOOK AWAY, from the filmmaker of Oscar-winning THE LIVES OF OTHERS).
I didn’t care for CAPERNAUM much (despite some genuinely heart-wrenching moments) and think BURNING was far superior. I haven’t seen COLD WAR yet but will soon, though it did get 3 nods–FLF, Cinematography and Director.
More Oscar discussion here.