The Overlooked 1983

When it comes to the Oscars and films that were snubbed, sometimes you have to take into consideration when it was actually eligible, especially when it comes to snubbed foreign films. For example, many people may say that Ozu’s Tokyo Story was the best film of 1953, but it wasn’t released in America until the 1970s. Or if you look at it another way, many Academy members are just biased towards non-English language films competing for Best Picture. Many feel they should just stick to the Best Foreign Language Film category. I mention this because the first overlooked film of 1983 is a non-English language film, despite receiving a slew of other nominations.

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Fanny and Alexander

Nominated for 6 Oscars: Best Director (Ingmar Bergman), Best Original Screenplay (Ingmar Bergman), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Anna Asp, Susanne Lingheim), Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist), Best Costume Design (Marik Vos-Lundh), and Best Foreign Language Film (Sweden).

Oscar Trivia: The film won four Oscars - Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art/Set Direction, and Best Costume Design

Mini-Review: Fanny and Alexander is a classic; the culmination of a celebrated director's brilliant career. In the film Bergman sums up the themes of a body of work in which the director often brought audiences to the edge of the abyss and invited them to contemplate the void; and here, using a child as his stand-in, Bergman illustrates very clearly how it is that this void found its genesis and why it can never quite be filled. The difference is that the dilemma of existence in Fanny and Alexander is shown through a child's eyes (Bergman seldom used children elsewhere) and it's suffused with the magic of childhood curiosity and discovery.

Not only does Bergman manage in Fanny and Alexander to capture the flavor and atmosphere of a Swedish town circa 1907, he also expertly reveals events as seen through the eyes of a child without any wordy dissertations on doctrines, and makes a powerful statement against religious zealotry. The results are quite frightening.

Many passages are indelible; I'll never forget, for instance, the children's rescue from the bishop's home, a logically impossible sequence but a seamless fantasy on the screen, or Alexander's encounter with the madman and the inscrutable tragedy that follows.

Just a magical movie in all aspects.

Score: ***** out of *****

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A Christmas Story

Nominated for No Oscars

Oscar Trivia: Melinda Dillon, who played Ralphie’s mother/Mrs. Parker, is a two-time Best Supporting Actress nominee for 1977s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1981s Absence of Malice.

Mini-Review: Since this is essentially a children’s movie and a holiday one at that, it was no surprise that it was snubbed by Oscar. In fact it wasn’t much of a hit upon its initial release. Only through being aired on television during the holiday season has it gained the following it currently has.

It’s such a charming and lovable Christmas film. The cast is wonderful--especially Darren McGavin (who I think deserved a Best Supporting Actor nomination), Peter Billingsley and Ian Petrella--the laughs are nonstop if rarely subtle, and the whole thing deserves to be a Christmastime classic. It just never gets old, even if TNT plays it 24 hours on Christmas Day.

Score: ***** out of *****