2013 Golden Globe’s Foreign Language Film Award nominees are RUST AND BONE, KON-TIKI, AMOUR, A ROYAL AFFAIR and THE INTOUCHABLES. AMOUR, A ROYAL AFFAIR, KON_TIKI and THE INTOUCHABLES are also included in shortlist for best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
RUST AND BONE (DE ROUILLE ET D’OS)
2012, Sony Pictures Classics, 120 min., France, Dir. Jacques Audiard.
Single father and would-be kickboxer Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is working as a nightclub bouncer when he meets Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), who works at a marine park training killer whales. When Stephanie’s legs are amputated after an accident, she draws closer to Ali, but the young man’s wandering eye and financial straits threaten to keep these soulmates apart. Cotillard’s bravura performance has earned awards from the Telluride Film Festival as well as SAG and Golden Globe nominations. “A passionate and moving love story which surges out of the screen like a flood tide” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.
KON-TIKI
2012, Nordisk Fil Distribution, 118 min., Norway, Dirs. Joachim Ronning, Espen Sandberg.
Norway’s grandest production to date translates Thor Heyerdahl’s intrepid 1947 journey across the Pacific on a primitive raft into a larger-than-life, visually dazzling epic. Ethnographer Thor (Pal Sver Haggen, about whom The Hollywood Reporter writes “has something of the young Peter O’Toole about him, evincing charisma and madness nearly in equal measure”), along with a motley crew, assembles a raft inspired by the pre-Colombian Incas as a means of proving his theory that the Polynesian islands were settled by South Americans crossing the Pacific. What follows is the Peru-to-Polynesia excursion, which co-directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg and a crew of hundreds fill with first-rate adventure, high-seas gravitas and nail-biting suspense, set against majestic cinematography.
AMOUR
2012, Sony Pictures Classics, 127 min., France, Dir. Michael Haneke.
This heart-breaking look at love in the twilight of life won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was named best film of the year by Time magazine. The latest film from acclaimed writer-director Michael Haneke is the story of retired music teachers Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who are living a quiet life in their Paris apartment when Anne suffers a stroke. Her condition deteriorates following surgery, and she exacts a promise from her husband not to send her to a nursing home – but the strain of caring for his wife mounts on George, and daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) is little help.
A ROYAL AFFAIR
(EN KONGELIG AFFAERE)
2012, Magnolia Pictures, 137 min., Denmark, Dir. Nikolaj Arcel.
Based on real events, this historical drama is set among the court of Denmark’s mentally ill King Christian VII in the late 1700s. As the King (Mikkel Folsgaard, a Best Actor winner at this year’s Berlin Film Festival) grows further removed from reality, his physician Johann Friedrich Struensee (CASINO ROYALE villain Mads Mikkelsen) exerts increasing influence over the monarch. While Struensee’s support of progressive policies is a boon to the country, his romantic interest in the Queen (Alicia Vikander) is more problematic.
THE INTOUCHABLES
2011, The Weinstein Company, 112 min., France, Dirs. Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano.
In this sparkling comedy, Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a wealthy quadriplegic looking for a new live-in caretaker. Senegalese immigrant Driss (Omar Sy, who earned a Best Actor Cesar for this role) seems an unlikely choice at first, but because he treats his new employer without pity, the two hit it off. Their widely different backgrounds offer each a window into a new world: Driss experiences art and culture, and Philippe, encouraged by his young friend, brings a woman into his life. A major box office hit throughout Europe!