Oscar Review - Philomena

I was surprised to see Stephen Frear's Philomena on the list of best Oscar nominees. This is not the comment on the quality of the film but based on the fact that it is not exactly a traditional best film contender. It doesn't have the expansive A-list cast of American Hustle and it doesn't delve into a deep analysis of historical or political issues in the same way as 12 Years a Slave or Captain Phillips. On the flip side, unlike other contenders with a similarly smaller a scope, such as Nebraska, it's rather conventionally written and directed. Perhaps it's ace in the hole was the enthusiastic support it received from Harvey Weinstein, arguable the pioneer of the modern Oscar campaign.

The film is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman seeking out any information on the child she gave up for adoption whilst being in the care of a catholic convent in the 1950s. She reaches out to Martin Sixsmith, a real life spin doctor and journalist, who then takes her on a (fictionalised¹) journey across the US in search of her long lost son. So, does it deserve to be on one of the best Oscar nomination list of recent times?

Oscar Review – Her

If you are not familiar of what the term “High Concept” means; essentially it refers to being able to condense the premise of a film, book or whatever to a simple concept. The most cited examples of this tend to be “what if we cloned dinosaurs” or “Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are twins”. Out of all of this year’s Oscar contenders, the High Concept conceit of “a man falls in love with his computer operating system” is perhaps the most eye catching. Her, directed by Spike Jonze, is about that very thing. I must admit that the high concept idea did worry me as I thought it could degrade into a pretentious, avant garde, post modernist, up it's own arse analysis of the meaning of love in a technological age or go the other way and be about an operating system being driven violently insane by jealousy. So what did Spike Jonze do with this high concept?

Oscar Review (analysis)– 12 Years a Slave

Note: Over the next couple of weeks I intend to do reviews of all 9 best film Oscar contenders. Most won't be this long but there is so much to be said about 12 Years a Slave that I thought I'd spend a bit of extra time on it. The following is as much of an analysis as it is a review.

I guess it's of note that there have only been a small number of mainstream Hollywood films that directly deal with the issue of Black slavery. Perhaps it's because America's “original sin” does not make for comfortable viewing for the average American cinema goer. It's of further note that of those films the central characters are often white. Examples such as Lincoln, Glory and Amazing Grace often tell the story of abolition from the perspective. Other films such as Ride with the Devil and Gone with the Wind often place the concept of slavery itself firmly in a supporting role to a central theme of the American Civil War. Even Spielberg's Amistad, a film in which Morgan Freeman and Djimon Hounsou play leading roles, still required a cast of white heroes to further the court room drama. I guess in the minds of Hollywood produces, the majority white cinema going public requires a leading character with whom they, as privileged white people, can relate.

I am not trying to devalue all the aforementioned films as the story of abolition, and white people's role in it, is a story that should be told. However, I think its important that it was not until recently that the mainstream Cinema going public was able to see slavery from the perspective of a black main character projected on the Big Screen. Tarantino had his own unique take on it with 2012s Django Unchained¹ and 2013 bought us 12 Years a Slave.