Far too often the Best Short Film nominees at the Oscars are all-too-quickly forgotten. Even here, when I see the films I write of them but rarely bring them back up on Saturdays. Here I wanted to rectify that. I loved Helium best in the Live Action block and it ended up winning. Here were my initial thoughts as posted on Oscar night:
So, so, so, so happy that Helium won. What a gorgeous film that made me cry in its 20 minute run time.
Here’s the film:
As I mentioned the last time I did a DVD review, I don’t do them too often. I do prefer writing them when I didn’t write about a film I enjoyed upon its initial release. Thus, when I saw that A Royal Affair was coming around on DVD I decided I would do so.
I saw the film just before my annual year-end dash to see a multitude of titles and bolster my BAM Awards field. Its being the Danish submission and eventual Golden Globe and Academy Award Nominee also helped bring me out to it. However, I will admit that its costume drama nature did give me some trepidation, as did, as much I hate to admit it, its length.
I was glad to report then, and even gladder now, that I enjoyed it a great deal and it held up to a re-screening.
What brings this film jumping off the screen is that it doesn’t put the cart before the horse. It doesn’t make costume or historical accuracy as paramount. It immediately places the audience in a position where it can identify with the young queen and quickly plunges us into the loveless, arranged royal marriage and the torrid romantic love affair. Nearly as soon as the players and politics can be quickly established, we go into the personal matter.
What watching the DVD, with all its features underlined, is that the tale was rendered in a rather universal way, even though director Nicolaj Arcel wanted to bring the story to the big screen because it’s a big, great Danish tale that had not yet seen a silver screen rendition. What’s more interesting is that he learned of the more rounded nature of Carolne Mathilde’s character and her diaries in researching the film, and it created a great frame.
And this background information also lends some insight into the selection of the film as the Danish representative. As much as I, and many others, enjoyed it, I cannot judge how it stacks up to its competition, but it has now been underscored for me the national importance the tale has.
Most of these factoids were things I gleaned by listening to the three interviews (Mads Mikkelsen, Nicolaj Arcel and Alicia Vikander). The other bonus features are the standard trailer and two interesting royal tidbits: portraits and bios of key players in the film as well as royal family trees which trace both the Danish Royal family just prior to the film to the present, as well as the British Royal family to the present, as Caroline Mathilde was English.
The film is highly engaging, well written and excellently performed. When all was said and done it was nominated for a BAM Award last year (Mikkel Bo Folsgaard for Best Supporting Actor0.
It is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Magnolia Pictures home video now.
Markus Rygaard and William Jøhnk Nielsen in In A Better World (Sony Pictures Classics)
In a Better World is a Danish film which won Best Foreign Language Film at the most recent Academy Awards and that is a moniker which can carry a stigma for many. The two that come foremost to mind are that either it’s an inaccessible by the masses art film or that it’s essentially an American film transplanted and taking place overseas. None of these notions apply to this film at all.
However, this film did vaguely bring to mind the Best Picture winner The King’s Speech in as much as its accessibility and relatability are part of its appeal. However, there is still an artistry and at times poetry in the way the simple subject of this film is handled that makes it excel just beyond being something passable and there’s still that European sensibility to it that’s just a little more deft even when handling things in a very straightforward manner.
This film is really telling two stories most of the time: it tells of Elias’s struggle to deal with bullying (which is quite relevant to the current climate) and his father Anton’s struggle as a doctor working in Africa who has to treat a malicious man who has sent many women to his hospital tent clinging to life and the locals beg him not to. These narratives only truly intersect once, otherwise the film shifts, as Anton does, from location to location.
The third factor, one who starts on his own but becomes involved in Elias’s story and dominates that, is Christian. After the initial images of Africa grace the screen, Christian is heard reciting a poem in English (this is one of the longest L-Cuts I’ve ever seen). As the film frequently does it conveys information visually showing us he is at his mother’s funeral. Following her death he moves from London back to Denmark and meets Elias. He has a very different, more confrontational way of dealing with bullies and sticks up for Elias who gets picked on about his teeth and anything else they can think of. Eventually Christian’s way of seeing the world catches on with Elias and his father Anton struggles to show both of them otherwise.
This is the kind of narrative that could get quite preachy and pedantic but it doesn’t do so. It does take the opportunity and has the narrative to serve as a teachable moment but the characters never talk at us but to each other and each of them throughout prove themselves to be far too imperfect to be self-righteous. In the past employing children in meaty dramatic roles had been the sole purview of the foreign film, specifically those from Europe, while there are are now more opportunities here there’s still something a bit more genuine in the portrayal of the positive and negative aspects of youths overseas.
With the themes and plots that this film has it makes doubly sure to make all of its characters engaging, interesting and human and yet also makes most of them likable as well. In doing so these simple struggles which balloon to massive issues with each decision carry more and more weight due to the investment we’ve made in each of them and their well-being. While dealing in the philosophical it still has that emotional pull we need.
This identification made all the more easy by the cast which is nothing short of superb. The kids, of course, deserve first mention. Between the two of them they shoulder a lot of the burden of bringing this tale to life and each one of them has their own journey, and aside from one hiccup which I’ll attribute to willful misdirection, they make nary a misstep. What that misstep is doesn’t bear mentioning beyond the above. The bottom line is both Markus Rygaard as Elias and William Jøhnk Nielsen as Christian are fabulous in it and I was not surprised to learn that the latter was nominated as Best Actor in Denmark’s national film award (Zulu) and may factor greatly in mine (BAMs).
Furthermore, you have supporting them the very talented actors who play Elias’ parents: Mikael Persbrandt, whose own moral dilemma occupies much of our time and he shows the great range to be both tremendously sensitive and caring and extremely enraged and Trine Dyrholm whose despair drives this movie into your core and makes you feel it if you haven’t already.
The only thing I thought was consistently off was one theme from the score, which played quite frequently and seemed the most discordant of all the pieces. This is a shame because many sections were quite effective but are rendered less memorable by the repetition of the most unpleasant section.
In a Better World is certainly the kind of film which could improve with a second viewing and was most definitely worth not only of its awards but of your viewership.
I decided that I would not write during what portion of the red carpet I did watch as attention must be paid. Overall, while in the end there was nothing that will likely go down as a historic Oscar look. It was one of the better looking overall displays I can remember.
I don’t know when this half-hour pre-show started (it wasn’t that long ago). I never really cared for it and it’s a little superfluous and just makes the show end later. Why does it still happen?
Begnini’s celebration is my least favorite acceptance moment. For the record.
You gotta love Steven Spielberg. Wiping the producer’s forehead and giving him water is classic.
Like the opening montage of best picture nominees. Why not the end shot from Inception?
Great opening with Anne Hathaway and James Franco. Great joke in the opening about James ‘appealing to a younger demographic.’ Glad to see the families get introduced.
Tom Hanks presents as Gone with the Windand Titanic get mentioned. Art Direction and Cinematography mentioned early in the show is a nice change. This was not a category I was looking for an upset in Alice in Wonderland takes Art Direction. Shocked.
First, applause of the night upon hearing Wally Pfister’s name called for Cinematography. Very well deserved award. Loved his speech in regards to Nolan.
Another pleasant surprise and the first standing ovation of the night as Kirk Douglas is introduced.
Douglas’s shtick may go down as one of the moments of this year. Also, I have to see Animal Kingdom. It has been decided.
I stand corrected Leo’s speech.
“I’m Banksy”
-Justin Timberlake
Awesomely amazing line.
I said it previously I would be rather happy if The Lost Thing got animated short. Congratulations.
Toy Story 3 wins Best Animated Feature. I knew that already.
Didn’t really like that Screenplay got the short shrift in terms of presentation. No excerpts or anything. Surprised but gladdened by the win for The King’s Speech. I also think that winners should realize there are 23 other winners who all deserve their time to do their thanks and shouldn’t risk taking some time from others.
I want to see In a Better World but am a little surprised it won. It’s the 3rd Danish winner and surprisingly the first since 1959.
Am I the only conspiracy theorist who thinks clips are based on one’s chances of winning? That was not the best scene for Mark Ruffalo at all.
Best part of Bale’s speech was his saying he’d dropped the F-bomb enough already. Oscar-winner or not he’s had plenty of other wonderful and worthy performances not the least of which is the one that launched his career many years ago, Empire of the Sun. All roads lad to Spielberg.
I’ll bet the theme from E.T. has been played at the Oscars every year since 1982. It always makes the closing medley.
OK, so does Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch winning mean that the trend away from composers towards current/former recording artists is going to stick?
First, winner I was extremely geeked about in a while. Sound mixing goes to Inception. And there goes another sweep in the sound categories. I wish I had stats for it but I bet it happens a lot. I have also enjoyed how everyone is thanking Chris Nolan first, almost as if they are trying to subtly point out his being snubbed for Best Director.
I really wish that more time would be spent on the technical awards maybe a special after the earlier presentation. Some really awesome technology gets kind of glossed over.
I need to look into the other Make-Up nominee that I hadn’t heard of, The Way Back. Looks sweet.
Leave it to President Obama to have the best choice as best Oscar-winning song. I’m a little tired of these categories that flex their nominations between three and five. Pick a size. Really, only four songs were nominated? Why? The process is intricate but music is where you can add to your appeal if you’re looking to boost ratings. I was floored when “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” won that scored high enough to be nominated and win but yet this year songs by Eddie Vedder, Alanis Morissette and Justin Bieber didn’t?
Kudos to Luke Matheny not only on the win but on plugging all the nominees who are iTunes. They were great.
The best, most entertaining part of the night was the musical montage.
Inside Job wins and now I never want to talk about Banksy again.
Billy Crystal comes on for a bit. Always glad to see him back.
Inception wins visual effects and stops Alice’s unthinkable streak.
Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. should do something together that’s not as “Holmesy” that was pretty funny stuff.
Listening to the other nominees actually got me rooting for Randy Newman for the first time in years. Some sleepy stuff in there.
Complete and utter failure this year in the “In Memoriam” montage. Firstly, with the lives singing people who were shown didn’t get their due applause like they did in previous years and first the SAG Award show excluded Corey Haim and now the Oscars did too. I assure you he is missed by many film fans and is exclusion is a joke.
Tom Hooper wins for The King’s Speech. Dare they split it?
Best story told by a winner tonight has to be Hooper’s tale about how his mom found out about the play and said “Tom, I just found your next film.”
They were at it again. Kevin Brownlow is a man who has more than earned his Life Achievement award. For all intents and purposes he pioneered preservation and restoration of films and brought many silent films back from the dead. Here is a link to Kevin Spacey’s speech about him at the Governor’s Ball.
I also found it a little humorous that they said Jean-Luc Godard was sorry he couldn’t be there.
This congratulatory intro to lead acting categories is also making it take a lot longer than it has to.
It looks like there’ll be no surprises in the acting categories.
Congratulations to Colin Firth for his win. It’s his first but it shouldn’t be. If you haven’t seen A Single Man you most definitely should. It’s good to know that some people do get their due.
Listing the previous winners and nominees in the Best Picture category is a great way to lead off the Best Picture montage.
The King’s Speech wins Best Picture and now I can rest comfortably.
The finale was a fanastic and needed addition to the show. It was either ending on a jubilant note or a down one based on where my rooting interest were. if they keep this up it’ll be a fantastic close every year. Great job, P.S. 22.
The Movie Rat 