It is enough to suggest that this 21-year-old actor is a definite contender for the best actor statuette.Įven Pedro Almodovar has declared Chalamet as the 'revelation of the year.' The setting is as spectacular as the narrative.Ĭall Me By Your Name will surely receive a lot of Oscar notice.īest scene: The last scene in the film - a long uncut shot of Chalamet facing the fireplace, tears streaming down his face. Italian director Luca Guadagnino is known for lush productions, including I Am Love (2010) and A Bigger Splash (2015).Ĭall Me By Your Name is set in a beautiful Italian town, where the summer days are long, people sit out, eat elaborate meals, talk, swim, get drunk, dance and naturally fall in love. Over the summer in 1983 when Oliver is assisting Elio's father, the two young men develop a friendship, a bond that culminates into romance. Many film festivals have programmed this heartbreaking story about a gay romance between a 17-year-old bright Italian-American Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and a 24-year old research scholar Oliver (Armie Hammer). One of the most celebrated films of the year, Call Me By Your Name is based on a script by the 89-year-old James Ivory (perhaps the last great act by a film-maker, who took a trip to India in the early 1960s to make his first feature with Shashi Kapoor called The Householder), and its the original source: A novel by the Egyptian-born writer André Aciman (he is a professor at the City University of New York).
Israel's official entry for the Oscars, Foxtrot boasts of strong performances, amazing cinematography and a great soundtrack.īest scene: The dance sequence at the beginning of the film's second chapter - a soldier performing the foxtrot in the desert with his gun as his dancing partner - is worth the ticket price alone. Set in three parts, the film focuses on a middle-aged couple, who are informed that their son has been killed during military duty, and the impact of that news, including a magical, almost surreal reflection of the young soldier's life in a remote part of the country.įoxtrot is deeply sad, but it is high art, featuring one of the best film-making in 2017.
His new film Foxtrot, winner of the Grand Jury Silver Lion at Venice, frees its characters out of a closed tank, but is equally claustrophobic, and a harsh critique of Israel's army. Israeli director Samuel Maoz's first feature - the Oscar nominated Lebanon - was a strong anti-war film set inside a tank, during the 1982 Israeli incursion inside Lebanon. When Hawkins returns home from work, she tilts her head against the bus window, while outside tiny ripples of rainwater takes different shapes, merging and then breaking into smaller pieces. I see a lot of potential Oscar honours for best film, director, actress, supporting actor (heartfelt performance by Richard Jenkins), cinematography, and, of course, art design.īest scenes: When Sally Hawkins and the alien float in a flooded bathroom. The film won the top Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival and seven Golden Globe nominations. The Shape of Water is definitely the best film of 2017. There is so much beauty in this lovingly told tale. It is also packed with action, adventure, thrills and the best production design I have seen in a film in a long time.Īt its core, The Shape of Water is essentially a romance between an unlikely pair - a grotesque looking amphibian alien and a lonely mute woman (a superb Sally Hawkins) stuck in a thankless job, cleaning restrooms in a secret science lab in Baltimore. His latest film is a superbly visualised fairy tale for adults that soars as a love story. His films have won him fans across the world. Mexican master director Guillermo del Toro has specialised in so many genres - from horror to fantasy to superheroes.