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，奥斯卡奖最佳外语片的赢家很难预测：共有83个国家和地区提交影片，打破了纪录（其中四个国家或地区是首次参赛）。不过真正有实力角逐2月22日奥斯卡奖的影片要少得多，最多20多部，所以分析起来还算容易。

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.
虽然没有显然特别受喜爱的影片，但与近年相比，今年欧洲提交的影片看起来既强势又多样化，所以有理由认为欧洲影片将最终主导竞赛过程。俄罗斯影片《利维坦》(Leviathan)和瑞典影片《不可抗力》(Force Majeure)很早就引起热烈讨论，前者是一部紧张的政治剧，后者以隐蔽的颠覆视角探讨性别角色。虽然它们可能最终成为领跑者，但给电影节观众和评论家留下深刻印象的还有其他影片。
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.
比如波兰影片《修女艾达》(Ida)。它由帕维尔·帕夫利科夫斯基(Pawel Pawlikowski)执导，故事发生在纳粹大屠杀后，一个新修女发现自己是犹太人。同样来自东欧的还有《白色上帝》(White God)，这部政治寓言片具有《动物庄园》(Animal Farm)的色彩，片中的小狗们起义反抗人类主人。比利时是近些年这一奖项中崛起的势力，本次提交了达尔代纳兄弟(Dardenne brothers)的《两天一夜》(Two Days, One Night)，该片探讨的是公司剥削，玛丽昂·歌迪亚(Marion Cotillard)饰演一位即将被解雇的工厂工人。意大利和法国获得奥斯卡奖次数最多，分别是14次和12次，所以需要一直对它们予以重视。去年保罗·索伦蒂诺(Paolo Sorrentino)的意大利影片《绝美之城》(The Great Beauty)获得了奥斯卡最佳外语片奖，今年意大利提交的是保罗·维尔齐(Paolo Virzi)的《人力资本》(Human Capital)，它把一部关于华尔街贪婪的美国小说搬到了米兰的证券交易所。与此同时，今年法国奇怪地有了两部参赛片：除了伯特兰·博内洛(Bertrand Bonello)关于时装设计师伊夫·圣洛朗(Yves Saint Laurent)的传记片《圣洛朗》(Saint Laurent)，还有《夜莺》(The Nightingale)。虽然后者名义上是中国参赛影片，对白是中文，但导演菲利普·穆勒(Philippe Muyl)是法国人，故事线索似乎与他2002年的影片《蝴蝶》(The Butterfly)类似，都是公路电影，主人公都是一个老人和一个小女孩。
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.
德国也提交了一部传记片——《姐妹情深》(Beloved Sisters)，它讲述的是18世纪诗人、哲学家弗里德里希·席勒(Friedrich Schiller)与卡洛琳和夏洛特·冯·伦格费尔德(Caroline and Charlotte von Lengefeld)姐妹的爱情纠葛。以色列的《离婚审判》(Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem)由罗内特和施罗密·艾尔卡贝兹(Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz)姐弟导演，讲述的是另一种家庭纠葛：一个想与丈夫离婚的女人发现自己受到犹太教法庭的无情摆布。
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.
西非沙漠国家毛里塔尼亚首次参加奥斯卡奖角逐，提交的是阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·西塞戈(Abderrahmane Sissako)的《通布图》(Timbuktu)，它似乎极有可能晋级。这部影片讲述的是一个信奉世界主义的宽容社会在伊斯兰圣战者入侵、强制实行伊斯兰教法后发生的故事。该片今年5月在戛纳电影节上获得两个小奖，引起热烈讨论。它的主题当然很合时宜。
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.
这个类别还包括三部关于同性恋生活不同侧面的影片。葡萄牙影片《现在怎么办？告诉我》(What Now? Remind Me)似乎注定无法晋级：它是一部时长2小时45分的纪录片，导演华金·平托(Joaquim Pinto)记录了自己与艾滋病病毒的抗争以及他与丈夫的生活。不过，另外两部不应该被忽视：瑞士影片《圈子》(The Circle)审视的是20世纪50年代苏黎世的地下同性恋，把纪录片镜头与依剧本拍摄的场景穿插在一起；巴西的《爱，简单》(The Way He Looks)讲述了一个成长故事，一个懵懂少年努力克制自己对班上一个新来男孩的强烈喜爱。
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.
委内瑞拉将大力推介传记片《解放者》(The Liberator)，它讲述的是西蒙·玻利瓦尔(Simón Bolivar)的事迹，由埃德加·拉米雷斯(Édgar Ramirez)主演，著名指挥家古斯塔沃·杜达美(Gustavo Dudamel)为影片做曲。不过，拉美地区最耀眼的提交影片来自阿根廷——达米安·斯弗隆(Damián Szifrón)的《荒蛮故事》(Wild Tales)是一个关于暴力与复仇的多段式影片，分为六个部分，基调在荒诞派喜剧与情节剧之间转换，高潮是一个灾难性的婚礼。
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.
本届奥斯卡的选片过程将与过去类似。圣诞节前后将公布包含九部影片的短名单，其中一些是投票选出的，还有一些是奥斯卡奖外语片委员会挑选的。1月15日将公布五部提名影片。
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.
短名单往往有些出人意料。去年，被大力吹捧、被认为稳操胜券的三部影片未能入选短名单，它们是智利的《格洛丽亚》(Gloria)、沙特阿拉伯的《瓦嘉达》(Wadjda)和伊朗的《过往》(The Past)。最后这部最令人意外，它的导演是阿斯哈·法哈迪(Asghar Farhadi)，他的上一部电影《一次别离》(A Separation)获得了2012年奥斯卡奖。相反，当年来自波黑、柬埔寨和匈牙利的一些不被看好的电影晋级了。
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.)
局外人很难把握的一个因素是片长。以美国标准看，今年提交的其中几部影片特别长，很难估量奥斯卡投票人们对此感觉如何。阿根廷、加拿大、法国、德国、冰岛、葡萄牙、俄罗斯和乌克兰提交的影片时长都在两小时以上。土耳其影片《冬眠》(Winter Sleep)片长将近3小时20分（而智利的《杀人》[To Kill a Man]只有紧凑的82分钟）。
“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》审视的是土耳其农村富人和穷人之间的关系，让人想起了契诃夫和易卜生的剧作，导演是努里·比尔盖·杰伊兰(Nuri Bilge Ceylan)，该片今年5月在戛纳电影节上获得大奖。但是杰伊兰过去在奥斯卡的成绩不是太好：虽然他2009年的黑色惊悚片《三只猴子》（Three Monkeys，时长1小时40分）晋级短名单，但获得更多好评、在2011年戛纳电影节上获得评审团大奖的《安纳托利亚往事》（Once Upon a Time in Anatolia，时长2小时37分）当年却未能晋级。
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.
换句话说，随着奥斯卡季向前推进，外语片类别中有很多故事可看。你可以期待这个类别出现最有吸引力的影片。