Predictions, docs and foreign films

The prediction game continues. Today, best guesses for the documentary feature and foreign-language categories. Putting these two together is not meant to diminish the importance of either, but to save a little space. Know that most predictions about the year's best foreign-lanuage film are made by people who haven't seen them all. That's certainly true in my case, but when it comes to Oscar, you don't always have to have seen every film to know which way the winds of victory are blowing. Anyway, here are today's predictions:

Best documentary, the nominees:
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls
Paradise Lost 3
Pina
Undefeated

Another difficult category, but Wim Wenders 3-D look at the work of choreographer Pina Bausch might be the best reviewed of all these films, a combination dance and interview film that introduced many viewers to Buasch's daring work. If there's an upset in this category, it's likely to come from Hell and Back Again, director Danfung Denis'examination of the life of Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris, who we meet in the midst of battle in Afghanistan and who we watch struggle after being severely wounded and returning to his North Carolina home.

Best foreign-language film, the nominees:
Bullhead (Belgium)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)

I've only seen two of these films, but I'm going with A Separation because it's one of the best films of 2011, a beautifully nuanced look at a deteriorating Iranian marriage and the difficulties that arise when the husband hires a young woman to take care of his father, an aging man who's suffering from dementia. Agnieszka Holland's In Darkness is considered the best challenger in this category. Holland tells the story of Jews forced to hide in the sewers of Lvov during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Don't you hate all the self-promotion you find on the Web? I certainly do. Having said that, let me once again invite you to join me, Denver Post Film Critic Lisa Kennedy, Starz Denver Film Festival Director Britta Erickson and Oscar maven Bob Becker for an Oscar preview Cinema Salon, 7:30 p.m., Wed., Feb. 22 at the FilmCenter/Colfax, 2510 E. Colfax Ave. We'll predict, I'm sure, but we'll also talk about why we still care (if we do) about the whole damn business. I enjoy doing these lively, informal Salon programs, in part because the audiences can be fun. I encourage you to try one.

'A Separation' is one of the year's best

This Oscar-nominated film takes a revealing look at life in Iran.

When western audiences first began to discover Iranian film, viewers were caught by the beauty and simplicity of stories that often focused on children, perhaps to avoid the stultifying intrusions of censors. Iranian film has evolved since then, and nothing stands as a better emblem of its potential maturity than A Separation, a powerful and emotionally involving drama about a husband and wife who separate and are then caught up in a legal battle involving the woman who takes care of the husband's aging father.

Though steeped in all manner of personal and social conflict, A Separation is one of those rare movies that respects every character's point of view, offering a complex and realistic portrait of characters operating under intense pressure: the urgent need to find custodial care for a demented father, the desire to open new opportunities for a daughter, the pain of a troubled marriage, the resentment bred by those who think society has pushed them toward the bottom and the sense of entitlement felt by a middle class that's not beyond condescension toward those assigned to lower status.

It's ironic, I suppose, thatA Separation -- nominated for Oscars as best foreign-language film and in the best original screenplay category -- arrives at a time when it's impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading about tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Those of us who've loved and championed Iranian film find it deeply disturbing that some of the country's finest filmmakers -- Jafar Panahi, for example -- are in jail. Others -- Abbas Kiarostami -- are working outside the country. It may not bring great joy to the likes of Ahmadinejad, but a movie such as A Separation has the kind of refreshing candor and authentic humanity that's at the core of exceptional drama.*

Director Asghar Farhadi begins the story with an Iranian couple mired in conflict. As A Separation unfolds, we start to suspect that this couple embodies many of the difficulties of life in Iran on both personal and political levels, which inevitably spill over into the realm of religion. These conflicts feel both familiar and strange, built on recognizable human frustrations, yet pushed to extremes in a society in which conflict resolution can be cumbersome.

The movie's crumbling marriage serves as a backdrop for everything else that transpires. Simin (Leila Hastami), a doctor, wants to find new opportunities abroad, presumably because of the way women are restricted in Iran. Simin wants to take her 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) with her. Her banker husband (Peyman Maadi) is willing to grant the divorce, but wants his daughter to remain in Iran.

Simin won't leave the country without Termeh, but she does leave her husband. She moves out of the couple's apartment and takes up residence with her parents.

Meanwhile, Maadi's Nader feels trapped by a sense of love and duty. He refuses to abandon his aging father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who suffers from dementia and needs 24-hour care. Semin's departure leaves Nader, who works as a banker, in desperate need of someone to watch his father.

Eventually, Nader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to care for his father. It doesn't take long for another conflict to emerge, this one between Nader and Razieh. This clash is bolstered by the staunch religious convictions of Razieh's resentful, unemployed husband (Shahab Hosseini). Razieh says she's uncomfortable with duties that include changing the clothes of Nader's incontinent father, something she views as improper and perhaps a violation of Islamic law.

I won't burden you with more plot description, but know that Farhadi weaves a tangled web of cross-purposes in which the movie's characters struggle to advance their various points of view. And don't think that Nader carries the torch for reason in the face of Islamic fundamentalism. He's a flawed man whose behavior contributes to his problems.

Farhadi also takes the characters through Tehran's legal bureaucracy as the parties seek redress. We begin to feel that life in Iran is beset by complications that prevent the movie's adults from attaining any sense of sustained equilibrium.

Farhadi provides enough information for us to understand each characters, although it's never easy to say who's right or wrong. Interestingly, the movie opens with both Simin and Nader pleading their case to an unseen judge, who's supposed to rule on their divorce. Let's just say, you wouldn't want to be that judge.

Given its complex scenario, it should come as no surprise that A Separation generates plenty of tension about the fates of its characters. Farhadi takes us into a highly stressed society that's full of irreconcilable conflict. That's a lot of thematic territory for what could have devolved into a domestic soap opera, but A Separation is much too perceptive for that. It's an insightful and honestly observed piece of work.

*In an interview, Farhadi told TimeOut London that censorship in Iran is a bit like British weather, "one day it’s sunny, the next day it’s raining. You just have to hope you walk out into the sunshine." The censors allowed Farhadi to film the script he submitted, a process no Iranian filmmaker can avoid unless he or she wants to work underground. I hope the sun of sanity shines on more of them.

The 10 best movies of 2011

Time for the year-end wrap up, which -- for most critics -- means a list of the top 10 movies of the year. If 2011 wasn't a banner year for movies, it wasn't bad either. I always figure that if I have a difficult time narrowing my list to 10, it must have been a better-than-average year.
In 2011, even some of the more hyped movies (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II were good. A word about the series, which concluded this year, probably is in order: Aside from keeping a ton of British actors off the unemployment line, the Harry Potter movies turned out to be more consistently involving than anyone initially might have expected.

But among the special pleasures of the year, I rank a few more highly than others, even though I don't necessarily want to burden them with 10-best stature.

-- Screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh turned director for Kill the Irishman, the story of the rise and fall of Cleveland hoodlum Danny Greene. Ray Stevenson gave a fine performance as Greene, and the always enjoyable Christopher Walken had an equally nice turn as Jewish racketeer Shondor Birns. At the time of the movie's release, I wrote that it broke no new ground, but did a hell of a job turning over old soil. If you're partial to gangster movies, you should make it your business to find this one on DVD.

-- Sometimes, a movie arrives with buzz acquired at the Sundance Film Festival. That was the case with Another Earth, a movie in which director Mike Cahill used a sci-fi backdrop (a second Earth hovered mysteriously over this one) to explore the grief-stricken life of a young woman (Brit Marling) whose careless driving resulted in the death of a mother and child. The sci-fi element may sound a bit far-fetched, but the movie's emotions felt absolutely real.

-- I approached Rise of the Planet of the Apes expecting nothing, but found something I'd been missing, a genuine helping of pulp excitement. Who'd have believed anyone could breathe new life into the Planet of the Apes series? Director Rupert Wyatt did.

-- Great performances abounded in 2011. Brendan Gleeson was glorious, profane, rude and strangely endearing as an unorthodox Irish cop in The Guard.

And then there's John C. Reilly. What a year for an actor who usually flies under the radar. Reilly played the raucous Dean Ziegler, an insurance agent who insisted on upholding the cause of ribald fun at a gathering of Christian-oriented insurance agents in Cedar Rapids. In Terri, a movie about an overweight teen-ager, Reilly was wonderfully inappropriate Mr. Fitzgerald, an assistant principal unlike any other we've seen, not that assistant principals are much of a movie staple. Of course, Reilly also appears in We Need to Talk About Kevin and Carnage, both of which have yet to open nationally.

And the year shouldn't pass without mention of Kevin Spacey's work in Margin Call. We're not talking about the flippant Spacey of movies such as Horrible Bosses or Casino Jack, but an actor who carried the full weight of a collapsing financial institution on his shoulders.

And while we're on the subject of Margin Call: I didn't put it on my top-10 list, but it should be acknowledged as one of the best acted movies of the year -- not only by Spacey, but by Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Simon Baker and Paul Bettany.

Throughout this topical drama about a Wall Street firm on the verge of collapse, the actors keep their performances under tight control as they keep an eye on one another during a long night of meetings, personal jockeying, financial analysis and ethical indifference.

When Alfred Nobbs starts playing around the country, watch for the robust performance of Janet McTeer in a role that's best discovered in a theater.

I would, of course, be remiss if I didn't mention a couple of special foreign-language films: Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre takes an encouraging look at people behaving decently toward an "illegal" immigrant, and Korean director Chang-dong Lee's Poetry manages, rather miraculously, to make a successful mix out of a horrific event and the search for self-expression by an aging, Alzheimer's-stricken grandmother.

Whether any of these movies becomes an important part of movie history remains to be seen, but each boasted elements that either moved me or which I enjoyed immensely, and I didn't want to push on without at least giving them a tip of the hat.

So now, for my top 10:
1. THE TREE OF LIFE.

I put this as the top of my list because Brad Pitt, as a stern father, never has been better and because director Terrence Malick took a highly personal look at growing up in Texas during the 1950s. I'm not sure that Tree of Life was totally successful in mixing the intimate and cosmic or that every part of the movie worked equally well, but making a personal movie on this scale requires daring, skill and an artist's view of the world. Malik has plenty of all three.

2. HUGO.

It's difficult to imagine anyone loving movies as much or as intelligently as Martin Scorsese. And in Hugo, an adaptation of a story by Brian Selznick, Scorsese puts every ounce of that love on screen. Hugo is both a boy's adventure and an unashamed ode to the delight movies provided in their infancy. And, yes, it also boasts the best 3-D ever.

3. The ARTIST.

Director Michel Hazanavicius has made a silent movie that's clever, involving and entertaining. He tells the story of a silent movie star (Jean Dujardin) whose career hits the skids when sound arrives. Sounds familiar, but Hazanavicius' movie -- shot in sumptuous black-and-white -- feels as fresh as anything I've seen this year because Hazanavicius seems to believe in the power of cinema to speak directly to the heart.

4. A SEPARATION.

If you don't think Iranian movies have matured beyond the days of beautiful images and simple stories about kids, you haven't seen A Separation, one of the most emotionally complex movies of the year. Director Asghar Farhadi tells the story of a husband and wife who separate and are then caught up in a legal battle involving the woman who takes care of the husband's aging father. A Separation is one of those rare movies that respects everyone's point of view.

5.MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

I debated whether to put this one on my list at all, but finally decided that it belonged there because of Elizabeth Olsen's terrific performance as a young woman who escapes from a cult. Martha Marcy also builds more tension than most of the big-budget movies that try for similar effects. Credit director Sean Durkin with an amazing debut that keeps us involved by never quite allowing us to find our balance.

6. RANGO.

I've long contended that director Gore Verbinski (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) is one of the few directors working today who really understands how to use images to comic effect. For all of his work on Pirates (and, no, I'm not saying those movies were great), Verbinski's most creative effort didn't sail on the high seas. It takes place in the desert, where Verbinski stages a clever animated western that stands as this year's best and most imaginative piece of animation.

7. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.

Director Lynne Ramsey's spare and horrifying adaptation of Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel - ostensibly about a killing rampage at a high school -- is really a stark and often horrifying exploration of the dark side of motherhood. Kevin isn't everyone's cup of tea, nor should it be. But for those who like filmmakers who push things to disturbing extremes, Ramsey's movie is a keeper. It's also one of the most visually arresting movies of the year, and features outstanding work by Tilda Swinton.

8. INTO THE ABYSSS.

Werner Herzog's The Cave of Forgotten Dreams has found its way onto a variety of 10-best lists. But I was more affected by Herzog's Into the Abyss, a documentary about far more than senseless murder -- although it's about that, too. Into the Abyss looks at shattered Texas lives, and stands as a clear-eyed examination of capital punishment, particularly what it does to those charged with carrying out death sentences.

9. THE DESCENDANTS.

Director Alexander Payne's look at a Hawaiian lawyer (George Clooney) trying to cope with terrible loss is both touching and funny. Although it's a few clicks short of a knockout, Payne's movie stands as one of the best and most meaningful mainstream entertainments of the year.

10.MONEYBALL.

Director Bennett Miller (Capote) brings engaging authenticity to the story of Billy Bean (Brad Pitt), the Oakland Athletics' general manager who tried to build a winner by employing a system created by a nerdy statistician (Jonah Hill). Moneyball is smartly written and fun, a baseball movie that dares to wonder whether it's right to romanticize the sport.