Cutting Through Rocks - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Documentary Feature: Sara Khaki,Mohammadreza Eyni

This film was completely unexpected. Sara Shahverdi is a different kind of woman living in a small town in Iran with a big family and an incredible work ethic. She runs for city council and not only does she win (the only woman in the entire list of 200 council members across all of Iran), she gets the highest number of votes, which also entitles her to the community’s stamp. She spends her days helping people, stamping legal documents, managing construction, riding her motorcycle and busting gender roles. This is not always welcome in her community, but her strong will and her ability to win people over are incredibly inspiring. Her personal crusade is not only to make people’s lives better, but specifically to help girls be safe, be educated, and to do more with their lives than they ever thought they could (and certainly more than getting married at age 10, 12, 15). What a warrior. But not everyone is on board with her ideas, and suddenly the state accuses her of having too much masculine energy and puts her under review, whose final outcome could be forced gender reassignment surgery. But don’t worry, Sara would never go down without a fight.

While I have never assumed that things in Iran were great for women, this film gives a deep dive into what communal attitudes are, and what it’s like when women have essentially no say in their own lives. Hardly shocking but certainly tragic, and one wonders how much farther that society would advance if they didn’t disempower literally half of their brain trust. What a fantastic documentary well worthy of your time.

It Was Just an Accident - 2 Nominations

 

Best International Feature Film: France

Best Original Screenplay: Jafar Panahi (writer), Shadmehr Rastin (script collaborator), Nader Saeivar (script collaborator), Mehdi Mahmoudian (script collaborator)

France’s submission for International Feature takes place in Iran, where a car pulls into a mechanic’s shop containing a man, his pregnant wife, and his daughter. The lovely mechanic, Vahid, hears the squeaking of the man’s prosthetic, and he is certain that he recognizes the man as his sadistic jailhouse captor. Vahid finds a way to knock out and kidnap the man and digs a grave to bury him alive, but Vahid isn’t certain that the man he suspects is the man he remembers. He rounds up a mismatched little crew of fellow former prisoners to help him confirm the identity, but his kind nature continues to impede his plans for revenge.

Somehow this film finds a way to be funny, profound, and ask important questions about ethics, regret, and forgiveness. It was the most unexpected of the Oscars films for me both for the quality of the story but also, for the surprise of a challenging movie that still made me laugh time and again while dealing with truly difficult stories. Iran is hardly the expected setting of a comedic drama, but It Was Just an Accident executes brilliantly.

I’ve now seen 4 of 5 International Features (and frankly, the one I’m delaying until the very end is one I’m dreading) and I would rank this one in 4th place of the 4 I’ve seen so far. Having said that, if you have the time and you’re looking for a good foreign language movie to see on some night at home, this one is certainly worth it.

Mustang - 1 nomination

Foreign Film - France; Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven

Five sisters whose parents have died live in northern Turkey with their grandmother and uncle.  On their way home from the last day of school, they are spotted playing at the beach with boy classmates, and their nosy neighbor turns them in.  The uncle begins to modify their home into a more and more secure prison, not allowing the girls to go out.  Then begins wedding season.

Innocently enough, the oldest two girls (who by 1st world standards would still be too young for marriage, but by more traditional religious standards are perhaps old enough) are matched - one with the boy that she loves, and one with a young man who seems at least age appropriate, even if the bride is reluctant.  As the girls leave the nest, the imprisonment becomes more severe, and the younger girls fear for their well being as they are clearly not old enough by any measure to get married.  The youngest of the five is very clever and entrepreneurial, and their lives may all depend on her.

Mustang is a very good film and hard to relate to from a western lens.  If we can agree objectively that young children shouldn't be married off against their wills (which I hope we can), then I think we will also agree that the tension in this film is handled perfectly, lulling us into a false sense of security as the first two reasonable marriages happen and then turning such a sharp corner into trapping the younger girls into disastrous situations.