12 Days of Oscar: Day 5 - Foreign Film

I love foreign film.  Foreign film often relies little to nothing on effects or big budget items.  They are about relationships, internal dialogue and pushing the art.  Needless to say if you don't have a good screenplay, good character development and good internal/external dialogue/monologue, your film will not fly.  These films have mastered the art.

FOREIGN FILM NOMINEES

1) Amour (Austria)

2) Kon-Tiki (Norway)

3) No (Chile)

4) A Royal Affair (Denmark)

5) War Witch (Canada)

This is my one incomplete category.  As of this posting I have not yet seen War Witch and so I will list my favorite to date.  I was honestly very surprised that the Intouchables, Barbara or Rust and Bone did not make this list.  At this point I would have replaced Kon-Tiki, A very good film about Thor Heyerdahl's voyage across the pacific on a raft and No, a good subject but slow film about the campaign to oust Pinnochet in Chile.  I would have nominated the Intouchables and Rust and Bone.  The Intouchables, a film about an unlikely friendship built between a quadriplegic man and his caregiver was my favorite foreign film of the year.  However, since it was not nominated, I will go with the historical period romance out of Denmark.  The Academy has all but etched "Amour", a film about a man coping with his wife's stroke, on the Oscar.

My Favorite:  A Royal Affair

My Oscar Prediction:  Amour