Which film will win Best Foreign Language Feature tomorrow?
I loved Mustang, about 5 sisters in Turkey suddenly imprisoned and sold off one by one to suitors. It's colorful and heart-warming with a great plot.
Just watching the long-legged, long-haired five teenage sisters was a lot of fun.
Son of Saul, on the other hand, was grey and dismal but very important to see, a tribute to those who did not survive the Holocaust.
So many books and films are about Holocaust survivors, so few about those who died. If you ever wondered about the mechanics of killing and disposing of 6 million people, this film shows how it was done.
Which film would you vote for?
If I were voting, it would be a hard decision. I care about the rights of women being compromised by fundamentalist Muslims, but I applaud the effort to inform us all about the nasty details of the worst mass murders in world history.
One problem with Son of Saul is that women appear on screen in only about 3 minutes out of 107 total. Like the numbingly grey palette, this imbalance is done on purpose to reflect reality, but it doesn't make good watching for half of the viewers.
My decision: to vote for Son of Saul because of its great importance, both historically and currently in further documenting a reality that recedes from us and is denied by too many.
Mistreatment of women in some parts of the Muslim world is a problem growing in the 21st century, a problem of the present and future. Let's wrap up the past and give the Oscar to Son of Saul, then turn to our present and future problems.
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