Raveh on "4 Months" & Oscar situation

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Israeli film blogger Yair Raveh, writing on his recently launched English-language version of Cinemascope, shares my concern about the Oscar chances of Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Raveh isn't just dubious about this winner of the European Film Award for Best Feature and Best Director (plus the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or last May) not taking the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. He doesn't even think it'll be nominated.

"I predict it will not be one of the five nominated Foreign Language films," Raveh states. "Not because of the abortion theme, but because [Mungiu's] filmmaking style is all but indigestible to American viewers." Academy fuddy-duds, he means.

Raveh says a nomination won't happen for the same reasons that films by Dardenne brothers or Bruno Dumont have never been nominated. 4 Months is "stark, naturalistic, mirthless and devoid of music. It looks like a documentary or perhaps an improvised piece, and it's easy to miss the stand-out filmic achievements Mungiu has brilliantly pulled off, starting with the movie's ironic self-referential title."