奧斯卡最佳外語片獎參賽熱門盤點

At first glance, the field for the Academy Award for best foreign-language film looks inscrutable: a record 83 countries and territories submitted entries, including four that are competing for the first time. But the number of real contenders for the Oscar to be awarded on Feb. 22 is actually much smaller, two dozen at most, and therefore somewhat easier to parse.

乍一看，奧斯卡獎最佳外語片的贏家很難預測：共有83個國家和地區提交影片，打破了紀錄（其中四個國家或地區是首次參賽）。不過真正有實力角逐2月22日奧斯卡獎的影片要少得多，最多20多部，所以分析起來還算容易。

Though there is no clear favorite, in contrast to recent years, the submissions from Europe look both strong and varied, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that European films will end up dominating the process. There has been a lot of early buzz about both the Russian candidate, a tense political drama called “Leviathan,” and the Swedish selection, a slyly subversive take on gender roles called “Force Majeure,” and while they may eventually emerge as front-runners, they are not the only submissions that have impressed festival filmgoers or critics.

雖然沒有顯然特別受喜愛的影片，但與近年相比，今年歐洲提交的影片看起來既強勢又多樣化，所以有理由認爲歐洲影片將最終主導競賽過程。俄羅斯影片《利維坦》(Leviathan)和瑞典影片《不可抗力》(Force Majeure)很早就引起熱烈討論，前者是一部緊張的政治劇，後者以隱蔽的顛覆視角探討性別角色。雖然它們可能最終成爲領跑者，但給電影節觀衆和評論家留下深刻印象的還有其他影片。

Take, for example, the Polish candidate, Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida,” a post-Holocaust drama about a novice nun who discovers that she is Jewish. Also from Eastern Europe is “White God,” a political allegory with “Animal Farm” overtones, in which dogs rise up against their human masters. And Belgium, something of a power in this category in recent years, has weighed in with the Dardenne brothers’ “Two Days, One Night,” an examination of corporate exploitation starring Marion Cotillard as a factory worker about to be laid off. Italy and France have won more Oscars than any other countries, 14 and 12 respectively, so they must always be taken seriously. Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty,” from Italy, won the last Oscar in the category, and this season’s submission is Paolo Virzi’s “Human Capital,” which transports an American novel about greed on Wall Street to the boardrooms of Milan. Meanwhile France, in an odd way, is getting two bites at the apple: besides “Saint Laurent,” Bertrand Bonello’s biopic about the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, there is “The Nightingale.” Though nominally China’s entry and spoken in Chinese, the film’s director, Philippe Muyl, is French, and the story line seems a variation on his 2002 film “The Butterfly” in that both are road movies in which the main characters are an old man and a young girl.

比如波蘭影片《修女艾達》(Ida)。它由帕維爾·帕夫利科夫斯基(Pawel Pawlikowski)執導，故事發生在納粹大屠殺後，一個新修女發現自己是猶太人。同樣來自東歐的還有《白色上帝》(White God)，這部政治寓言片具有《動物莊園》(Animal Farm)的色彩，片中的小狗們起義反抗人類主人。比利時是近些年這一獎項中崛起的勢力，本次提交了達爾代納兄弟(Dardenne brothers)的《兩天一夜》(Two Days, One Night)，該片探討的是公司剝削，瑪麗昂·歌迪亞(Marion Cotillard)飾演一位即將被解僱的工廠工人。意大利和法國獲得奧斯卡獎次數最多，分別是14次和12次，所以需要一直對它們予以重視。去年保羅·索倫蒂諾(Paolo Sorrentino)的意大利影片《絕美之城》(The Great Beauty)獲得了奧斯卡最佳外語片獎，今年意大利提交的是保羅·維爾齊(Paolo Virzi)的《人力資本》(Human Capital)，它把一部關於華爾街貪婪的美國小說搬到了米蘭的證券交易所。與此同時，今年法國奇怪地有了兩部參賽片：除了伯特蘭·博內洛(Bertrand Bonello)關於時裝設計師伊夫·聖洛朗(Yves Saint Laurent)的傳記片《聖洛朗》(Saint Laurent)，還有《夜鶯》(The Nightingale)。雖然後者名義上是中國參賽影片，對白是中文，但導演菲利普·穆勒(Philippe Muyl)是法國人，故事線索似乎與他2002年的影片《蝴蝶》(The Butterfly)類似，都是公路電影，主人公都是一個老人和一個小女孩。

Germany has also submitted a biopic of sorts, “Beloved Sisters,” about an 18th-century love triangle involving the poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller and the sisters Caroline and Charlotte von Lengefeld. Israel’s “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem,” directed by the sister and brother team Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, deals with domestic entanglements of a different kind: a woman seeking a divorce from her husband finds herself at the mercy of an unsympathetic rabbinical court.

德國也提交了一部傳記片——《姐妹情深》(Beloved Sisters)，它講述的是18世紀詩人、哲學家弗里德里希·席勒(Friedrich Schiller)與卡洛琳和夏洛特·馮·倫格費爾德(Caroline and Charlotte von Lengefeld)姐妹的愛情糾葛。以色列的《離婚審判》(Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem)由羅內特和施羅密·艾爾卡貝茲(Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz)姐弟導演，講述的是另一種家庭糾葛：一個想與丈夫離婚的女人發現自己受到猶太教法庭的無情擺佈。

Among the newcomers, the West African desert nation of Mauritania, which submitted Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Timbuktu,” seems to have the best chance of advancing. A drama about what happens to a cosmopolitan and tolerant society when jihadists invade and impose Sharia law, “Timbuktu” won two minor prizes at the Cannes film festival in May, has received strong reviews and certainly addresses a timely topic.

西非沙漠國家毛里塔尼亞首次參加奧斯卡獎角逐，提交的是阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·西塞戈(Abderrahmane Sissako)的《通佈圖》(Timbuktu)，它似乎極有可能晉級。這部影片講述的是一個信奉世界主義的寬容社會在伊斯蘭聖戰者入侵、強制實行伊斯蘭教法後發生的故事。該片今年5月在戛納電影節上獲得兩個小獎，引起熱烈討論。它的主題當然很合時宜。

The field also includes three films about different aspects of gay life. Portugal’s “What Now? Remind Me” seems destined not to advance: it is a two-hour-45-minute documentary in which the director Joaquim Pinto chronicles his own struggles with H.I.V. and his life with his husband. The other two, however, should not be discounted: Switzerland’s “The Circle” looks at Zurich’s gay underground in the 1950s, interspersing documentary footage with scripted scenes, while Brazil’s “The Way He Looks” is a coming-of-age tale about a blind teenager grappling with his attraction to the new boy in class.

這個類別還包括三部關於同性戀生活不同側面的影片。葡萄牙影片《現在怎麼辦？告訴我》(What Now? Remind Me)似乎註定無法晉級：它是一部時長2小時45分的紀錄片，導演華金·平託(Joaquim Pinto)記錄了自己與艾滋病病毒的抗爭以及他與丈夫的生活。不過，另外兩部不應該被忽視：瑞士影片《圈子》(The Circle)審視的是20世紀50年代蘇黎世的地下同性戀，把紀錄片鏡頭與依劇本拍攝的場景穿插在一起；巴西的《愛，簡單》(The Way He Looks)講述了一個成長故事，一個懵懂少年努力剋制自己對班上一個新來男孩的強烈喜愛。

Venezuela is going to be heavily pushing “The Liberator,” a biopic about Simón Bolivar with Édgar Ramirez in the title role and a score by the renowned conductor Gustavo Dudamel, but the splashiest submission from Latin America comes from Argentina. Damián Szifrón’s “Wild Tales” is an anthology in six parts about violence and revenge; alternating in tone between absurdist comedy and drama, it culminates in an episode about what may be the most disastrous wedding ever.

委內瑞拉將大力推介傳記片《解放者》(The Liberator)，它講述的是西蒙·玻利瓦爾(Simón Bolivar)的事蹟，由埃德加·拉米雷斯(Édgar Ramirez)主演，著名指揮家古斯塔沃·杜達美(Gustavo Dudamel)爲影片做曲。不過，拉美地區最耀眼的提交影片來自阿根廷——達米安·斯弗隆(Damián Szifrón)的《荒蠻故事》(Wild Tales)是一個關於暴力與復仇的多段式影片，分爲六個部分，基調在荒誕派喜劇與情節劇之間轉換，高潮是一個災難性的婚禮。

The selection process this Oscar season will be similar to that of years past. A shortlist of nine films, some chosen by vote and others selected by the Academy’s foreign language committee, will be announced around Christmas; of those, five nominees will be announced on Jan. 15.

本屆奧斯卡的選片過程將與過去類似。聖誕節前後將公佈包含九部影片的短名單，其中一些是投票選出的，還有一些是奧斯卡獎外語片委員會挑選的。1月15日將公佈五部提名影片。

Traditionally, the shortlist contains some surprises. Last year, three films that had been highly touted and were considered shoo-ins were instead left off the list: Chile’s “Gloria,” Saudi Arabia’s “Wadjda” and, most surprising of all, Iran’s “The Past,” directed by Asghar Farhadi, whose previous film, “A Separation,” had won the Oscar in 2012. Instead, longshots from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia and Hungary advanced.

短名單往往有些出人意料。去年，被大力吹捧、被認爲穩操勝券的三部影片未能入選短名單，它們是智利的《格洛麗亞》(Gloria)、沙特阿拉伯的《瓦嘉達》(Wadjda)和伊朗的《過往》(The Past)。最後這部最令人意外，它的導演是阿斯哈·法哈迪(Asghar Farhadi)，他的上一部電影《一次別離》(A Separation)獲得了2012年奧斯卡獎。相反，當年來自波黑、柬埔寨和匈牙利的一些不被看好的電影晉級了。

One variable that is hard for outsiders involves running time. Several of this year’s submissions are very long by American standards, and it’s hard to gauge how Academy voters feel about that. Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Portugal, Russia and Ukraine are among those offering films that run for two hours or more, and Turkey’s submission, the drama “Winter Sleep,” has a running time of nearly three hours and twenty minutes. (At the other end of the spectrum, Chile’s “To Kill a Man” clocks in at a very taut 82 minutes.)

局外人很難把握的一個因素是片長。以美國標準看，今年提交的其中幾部影片特別長，很難估量奧斯卡投票人們對此感覺如何。阿根廷、加拿大、法國、德國、冰島、葡萄牙、俄羅斯和烏克蘭提交的影片時長都在兩小時以上。土耳其影片《冬眠》(Winter Sleep)片長將近3小時20分（而智利的《殺人》[To Kill a Man]只有緊湊的82分鐘）。

“Winter Sleep,” an examination of relations between rich and poor in the Turkish countryside with echoes of Chekhov and Ibsen, is directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and won the top prize at Cannes in May. But Mr. Ceylan’s track record at the Oscars is not exactly encouraging: though his “Three Monkeys,” a 2009 noir thriller with a running time of 1 hour, 40 minutes, made the shortlist, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,” which received better reviews and won the jury prize at Cannes in 2011, but ran for 2 hours, 37 minutes, failed to advance.

《冬眠》審視的是土耳其農村富人和窮人之間的關係，讓人想起了契訶夫和易卜生的劇作，導演是努裏·比爾蓋·傑伊蘭(Nuri Bilge Ceylan)，該片今年5月在戛納電影節上獲得大獎。但是傑伊蘭過去在奧斯卡的成績不是太好：雖然他2009年的黑色驚悚片《三隻猴子》（Three Monkeys，時長1小時40分）晉級短名單，但獲得更多好評、在2011年戛納電影節上獲得評審團大獎的《安納托利亞往事》（Once Upon a Time in Anatolia，時長2小時37分）當年卻未能晉級。

In other words, there are many story lines to watch in the foreign-language category as this Oscar season progresses. You can count on the most intriguing ones being pursued in this space.

換句話說，隨着奧斯卡季向前推進，外語片類別中有很多故事可看。你可以期待這個類別出現最有吸引力的影片。