 |
 |
| Directed by Carlos Saura; Starring Miguel Ángel Sola, Cecilia Narova, Mia Maestro, Juan Carlos Copes, Carlos Rivarola, Sandra Ballesteros, and Oscar Cardozo Ocampo |
While I hold the category as one of the most important at the Academy Awards, I always think that the Best Foreign Language Film category is a bit below par every year. This past year, four out of five of the Best Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Screenplay nominees were from films that garnered a ***1/2 or **** rating, but the foreign race has never done this. This year it was given to the film that did deserve it, Life is Beautiful, but they nominated films like Tango and Central Station over the likes of The Celebration and The Dreamlife of Angels (have not seen the latter but have heard great things). Last year the award was given to the almost unbearable Character, while they did not even nominate the great Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink) and Ponette. The category is easy to ridicule but at least it is better than the “if it’s Holocaust let’s give it an award” Documentary Feature category (Hoop Dreams, anyone!). Of note: the three best foreign language films of all time in my opinion never won the award: Au Revoir Les Enfants was nominated but lost to Babette’s Feast, while The Seventh Seal and Jules and Jim were never even nominated.
Central Station was nothing to write home about but at least it was led through by a nice and tidy script and a wonderful performance by Fernanda Montenegro. This film has very little to offer besides a nice view. The film lacks any coherent script as it somewhat tries to tell the story of Carmen set to the filming of a movie featuring many (and do I mean many) tango dances. The tango dances are great to watch until you see the tenth tango within an hour. I loved the films use of lighting as well as the colorful characters. I just think it is too bad that those assets could not have been used on a much better film.
