Alternate Best Actor 2000: Results

4. Denis Lavant in Beau Travail - Although limited by the film's perspective, Lavant still makes strong use of his unique physicality as a performer.

Best Scene: Final dance

3. John Cusack in High Fidelity - Cusack gives kind of the final sendoff of his romantic leading side, in a wholly winning turn.

Best Scene: A bit of maturity.

2. Sol Kyung-gu in Peppermint Candy - Although the impact of his work is limited by the film's repetitive nature, Sol makes a strong impact of a man slowly losing himself in reverse.

Best Scene: Opening

1. Lee Byung-hun in Joint Security Area - Although a powerful volcanic turn as per usual from Lee, but also a surprisingly heartwarming one as well.

 

Best Scene: Recounting the truth. 

Updated Overall

Next: 2000 Supporting

Alternate Best Actor 2000: Sol Kyung-gu in Peppermint Candy

Sol Kyung-gu did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Kim Yong-ho in Peppermint Candy.

 

Peppermint Candy opens with a man committing suicide via train, and flashbacks to show the episodes that brought him to this place.

Sol Kyung-gu so far has lead three films that I've seen and two of those three I found almost intolerable in their overall approach. THANKFULLY, Peppermint Candy doesn't fall into that for me, not that I love this film or even like it exactly, but even with its subject matter I found the whole film far less unpleasant than the severely misguided Oasis and Hope. Although to be fair, as much as I disliked those films, I liked Sol in both films despite that. He was never the problem, and that is abundantly clear from the opening scene of this film, that I must contend actually is quite striking on its own. This as Sol's Kim wanders about a gathering of old schoolmates having a reunion. Sol is quite fantastic in this scene in portraying in his face this man who has so much more on his mind than anything related to meeting old friends. There is just a seething depression within him and a palatable pain that you can sense even as he isn't exactly opening up to these people. That is what makes the scene so remarkable actually is that Sol shows the attempted internalization, that given the severity of the condition of his depression it is still noticeable. Even when he tries to act happy, by singing karaoke any smiles are these forced upon puppet motions of his mouth, and nothing genuine can be seen. Sol is excellent in the moments of the random outbursts, as he presents them as basically leaks from his dam of trying to internalize the despair. These outbursts being he most genuine truth of the man. This leading to when he suddenly is upon a train track waiting for his demise, Sol quite effectively drops all pretenses giving a powerful portrayal of the insanity of the man as he screams to be taken back. Sol in this moments showing a man with nothing left but his demons that he's yelling towards the world in some final act of futility. 

That opening scene is great, and from that I thought this might be among director Chang-dong Lee's superior works like Burning and Poetry, however the film then falls into a little bit of a repetitious state for the first two flashbacks. This as the first we see him attempting suicide with a gun and failing, while leaving in a state of destitution. To Sol's credit his performance is effective in portraying in a way a variation in the depression. This as he's not quite at the end that we see in the opening, and in a way he denotes this by making it more expression. This as Sol almost showing the man's anguish as still a cry for help, albeit futile, rather than his final state where his fatal purpose has realized itself within his more internalized state. We do have a slightly different moment thrown in where Kim is brought to his hospitalized and in a severe state old crush by her husband. We get a little bit of tenderness from Sol as he offers Peppermint candy. Although the scene overall didn't quite come together for me, Sol's performance is affecting in showing the man putting aside his own despair for a moment in order to try to provide comfort to another. His eyes still reflecting his own pain, but at the same time there is that attempt at tenderness. We follow that again through a different depressing scene of an earlier past where Kim is in a failing marriage defined by adultery. Although one instantly can question Lee's choice for misery upon misery, Sol's performance does deliver once again. This however in another alternative state of depression that he vividly realizes. This more so now a man in denial of it. This as he wears a face of contentment but his internalized manner suggests otherwise. A particularly potent moment being when he randomly says that life is good essentially. His delivery being forced and labored, and most of all with this intention of emphasizing the idea in his own mind, when the opposite is the truth. 

What proceeds then is largely Lee depicting more brutalities of life as we flashback to Kim's further time as a police officer which mostly involves brutalizing suspects, mixed in with further circumstances of the failures of his romantic life. These segments though do at least allow for us to see Sol's performance that has an understanding for his character. We see the less jaded man, though still in a perpetual state of not quite being able to achieve happiness. Sol is effective though in playing with kind of the weight of his life in these scenes a bit. This showing a bit more overt anguish at some of the brutalities he deals with, and a greater passion of the moments that border on potentially a better life for himself. Still negativity seems to intercede at every point, until we flashback again to his time as a soldier, where again his life seems defined by unpleasantness. Sol again though does impressively show a troubled, but less jaded man. This in reflecting how scared he is in the situation, and his lack of conviction in the violence involved. A situation that ends in a tragic point, but at this point in the film, one can't help but almost roll their eyes by how much you feel Lee's going for the most obvious of manipulations. Which, actually even that scene might've worked if the execution of it didn't feel so melodramatic in terms of the method in which the tragedy occurs. We only find contentment in the man as he is a realized student, and Sol's performance is impressive in showing the weightless man compared to the deeply troubled soul of the first scene. I wish though I cared as we find that Lee wants to make that unbelievably original point that it "was the system man!". Which honestly I'd be fine with if this whole thing felt more honest. The film though I feel struggles to escape the artifice of the presentation, in part because of how unrelenting it is in making its fairly obvious point. That theme, even the structure, and even with the exact same opening scene, which would be an amazing short film on its own, this could've been something special as film. Lee's choices in his writing though always feel contrived to create the situation, rather make it seem a natural reflection of life and in turn the power of the scenario is lost. Having said that, Sol's performance is one element that felt genuine in the film. While he seems trapped in the scenario, Sol's performance does create something remarkably in revealing a man mentally wasting away in reverse.

Alternate Best Actor 2000

And the Nominees Were Not:

John Cusack in High Fidelity

 

Denis Lavant in Beau Travail

 

Sol Kyung-gu in Peppermint Candy

 

Lee Byung-hun in Joint Security Area

 

Sean Connery in Finding Forrester

Alternate Best Actor 2002: Results

9. Sol Kyung-gu in Oasis - Sol delivers a convincing portrayal of a man with disability, if only it was in a film I had more patience for. 

Best Scene: Bus.

8. Greg Kinnear in Auto Focus - Kinnear gives a fascinating depiction of a man living as a contradiction and the degradation that occurs as he tries to maintain this strange illusion.

Best Scene: Seeing his agent the last time.

7. Leslie Cheung in Inner Senses - Cheung gives a performance that leaves all the greater impact due to its real life connections, however even standing on its own it is a moving portrayal of dealing with guilt.

Best Scene: Ending.

6. David Gulpilil in The Tracker - Gulpilil excels in his off-beat portrayal of a man quietly taking control of a situation.

Best Scene: Making the turn.

5. Bill Paxton in Frailty - Paxton plays off his presence well in helping to create his southern Gothic horror story, in being both the seeming a genuine father and a deranged fanatic.

Best Scene: After the death of the sheriff.

4. Philip Seymour Hoffman in Love Liza - Although I found the film repetitive I found Hoffman as usual gives a convincing portrayal, here offering a moving portrait of a man suffering through his specific despair.

Best Scene: Reading the letter.

3. Olivier Gourmet in The Son - Gourmet gives a compelling portrayal of a normal man essentially dealing with a revenge scenario.

Best Scene: Confrontation. 

2. Chiwetel Ejiofor in Dirty Pretty Things - Ejiofor delivers a compelling leading turn portraying effectively a decent man trying to navigate a troublesome situation.

Best Scene: Airport goodbye. 

1. Hiroyuki Sanada in The Twilight Samurai - Sanada delivers a brilliant low key turn as a samurai who more than anything just wants to be able to live his life.

Best Scene: Talk before the final duel.

Updated Overall

Next: 2002 Supporting

Alternate Best Actor 2002: Sol Kyung-gu in Oasis

Sol Kyung-gu did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Jong-du in Oasis.

Oasis tells the story of an off-beat ex-con trying to bond with a woman with cerebral palsy.

Telling that quick little summary really doesn't cover the half of it, as is the case it seems for every film by Lee Chang-dong, a filmmaker who tells his unique stories in his own way at his own pace. This film is no different in this regard, as all his films are more a spiral of storytelling than a through line. Poetry was about a woman dealing with dementia but also not that. Burning was about a man trying to discover what happened to his girlfriend, but also not that. Well here we have that central conceit that honestly sounds like the set up for a bad Hollywood feel good film like I Am Sam. Made by Lee Chang-dong though it is of course not that, but it isn't wholly not that either. I guess though the "feel good" intention it itself more than a bit of struggle I think, where I have to digress into how one even examines a film with a particular subject matter. I suppose this was on my mind a bit more from also watching the unlikely original screenplay Oscar winner from this year in question, Talk to Her. A film I would describe as well written in a general sense, well directed, and in general well acted, however the essential conceit of the film, and how that conceit was treated prevented me from at all embracing the film. This as that film features a man who is essentially a stalker very intimately treating a coma patient, the woman he was stalking. Now the film treats it as though that character is some innocent sort of character that alleges a purity of some sort, however that approach in a way made me reject that film all the more. Again even though I could recognize overall the film was artfully done, however that barrier stood too tall fundamentally within the narrative to quite overcome it.

I say all that as a similar experience came from Oasis, which again is by a filmmaker who clearly has a vision and is attempting to take a risk. This in this unlikely love story between Sol's ex-con and the woman with cerebral palsy, who is also related to the man's past, as she is family member of the person Jong-du killed in a hit and run that led to his imprisonment. Well the man takes interest in the woman, Han Gong-ju (Moon So-Ri), but that interest is to first attempt to sexually assault her, which is only prevented from her naturally freaking out about his behavior. This element is frankly less fundamental to this film than the conceit of Talk to Her, but it did cause my interest within the story to almost immediately cease. Again though it is more execution than just content, as obviously I've followed technically far more sinister leads in films, the problem is though this isn't the story about a sociopath, it seems like it's trying to be a sweet romance. Although all of that isn't really all that much attached to what I'm here to write about, Sol's performance, however it is a starting point that is where I come to this film. Anyway, so how about Sol's work. Well he has the secondary challenge within the film, Moon's is greater in terms of portraying a mentally and physically handicapped person, his Jong-du is just somewhat mentally handicapped, which is never gone into great detail. Sol's performance though is one of a man who just is off in some way anyways that is hard to exactly completely put your finer on though one thing that is obvious is he stands out like a sore thumb.

I must grant Sol credit that he does disappear into the role as the man he portrays he finds just a naturalism within the man's manner. This in the slightly odd way of overly smiling, and his movements that have a consistent sort of awkwardness to them. He portrays them with the right quality as basically a given as the man. This amplified further in his way of speaking that is with an over eagerness that again emphasizes a man whose mind is functioning fully, it is broken in more than one sense. This as he successfully presents a man who is too eager to please, and his whole manner seems as though the man has some constant wish to do this. Of course this then leads into the relationship that portrays that initial meeting, which I won't fault Sol's performance. His portrayal is that of the man's awkwardness going to the point of becoming dangerous in the moment of the attempted rape, which I'm not quite sure why it is in the film. Anyway past that questionable inclusion though we get to the meat, which is why it is more questionable, as the film has scenes of more sincere bonding between Jong-du and Gong-ju. This that I had no real interest in again, not to keep harping on it, but..."what the hell Lee?". In a setup like this though the worst thing that can happen is becoming detached from the film's reality, which unfortunately happened for me....so things went a bit more slowly as the film went on. This in that I just didn't care about the romance of any potential at this point, so I guess I really looked just at the acting, which for a film like this is a bit of a problem actually.

Not taking stock into the character's leads one to just look at the posturing of the actors. Again I can praise Sol to the extent that I believed him, less so for Moon So-Ri unfortunately who sadly is no Daniel Day-Lewis. This in that I wasn't at all convinced by her physical portrayal of the palsy leading to me just feeling as though it was just...well acting. Again this leading to further problems in the romance I was already not invested in, this as I found half it not even convincing as a person within the film. This only leaving Sol in his character that I didn't care about, playing his part with a reasonable degree of effectiveness, again only in that I believed his portrayal of the disability. The character though remained static, this as really the creation of the humanity and sympathy for him should come from the romance. The romance I don't care about nor do I believe. So there's a bit of a problem here for Sol, who honestly can only do so much in my mind. This in that he hits the note that he does hit, he sets up really the template for the man and is convincing in that. Lee Chang-Dong's choices though left it as a template and only that however. Again I say this without relishing the criticism as I've liked all his others films that I've seen and found their off-beat approach intriguing to say the least. I suppose though then it is only befitting that one of his great gambles doesn't pay off. Well that was the case for me and Oasis. The off-beat choices frankly detracted from the conceit rather than amplifying it. A conceit that was genuinely already a big enough risk on its own. Its choices for brutality to avoid sentimentality didn't work for me, frankly didn't even make it any less overly sentimental, just jarring. Sol does what he can in the lead, but I'll admit the film ended up obscuring my perspective of his work.

Alternate Best Actor 2002

And the Nominees Were Not:

Leslie Cheung in Inner Senses

Chiwetel Ejiofor in Dirty Pretty Things

Bill Paxton in Frailty

Hiroyuki Sanada in The Twilight Samurai

Sol Kyung-gu in Oasis

Predict Those Five, These Five Or Both:

Greg Kinnear in Auto Focus

Olivier Gourmet in The Son

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Love Liza

David Gulpilil in The Tracker

Timothy Spall in All or Nothing

Alternate Best Actor 2013: Results

10. Alden Ehrenreich in Beautiful Creatures - Ehrenreich brings such a genuine charm and sincerity in his work that he manages to make up for a mostly bland part. 

Best Scene: The course of his life.

9. Domhnall Gleeson in About Time - Gleeson gives an appropriately charming and endearing turn that manages to balance the film's tone nicely.

Best Scene: Final talk with dad.

8. Toni Servillo in The Great Beauty - Although I had no great affection for his film, Servillo managed to carry me through it in his charming and reflective portrayal of a man trying to find meaning in hollow extravagance.

Best Scene: Finding a great beauty.

7. Sol Kyung-gu in Hope - Although somewhat underused by the film he's in, Sol does deliver in granting the appropriate heartbreak and anger in a father's reaction to a true horror being inflicted upon his family.

Best Scene: Shifting his daughter to another room. 

6. Terence Stamp in Song For Marion - Stamp delivers, even when his film gets a bit corny, offering a genuine portrayal of grief that rises above his material.

Best Scene: "Goodnight My Angel"

5. Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight - Hawke gives an excellent turn continuing naturally in his "maturation"  of Jesse especially in how that is reflected with his chemistry with Julie Delpy as Celine.

Best Scene: Hotel room fight.

4. Simon Pegg in The World's End - Pegg delivers an overtly hilarious performance as a man still living as a high school rebel, though is equally heartbreaking in revealing the sad truth of such a state.

Best Scene: Nothing got better.

3. Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace - Bale gives perhaps his quietest turn and one of his most powerful as a man defined by hardship essentially fulfilling a personal duty through revenge. 

Best Scene: Listening to the tape.

2. Christoph Waltz in The Zero Theorem - Waltz gives a turn completely unlike his Oscar winning ones, through his moving depiction of  of the struggle of an extreme introvert while maintaining the humanity needed for the film's surreal journey.

Best Scene: Turning Down Bainsley's Offer.

1. Masaharu Fukuyama in Like Father. Like Son - Good predictions Michael Patison, Charles H., Luke and Tahmeed. Fukuyama gives a great naturalistic turn that manages to give such a restrained yet truly poignant portrayal of a father coming to term with his faults through some very unlikely circumstances.

Best Scene: Reuniting with his son.

Updated Overall

Next: Supporting 2013

Alternate Best Actor 2013: Sol Kyung-gu in Hope

Sol Kyung-gu did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Im Dong-hoon in Hope.

Hope tells the harrowing story of an 8-year-old and her family trying to recover from her brutal rape. 

Now with that description I suppose it may seem obvious why this film might not have been the easiest to take in. Of course, I'm not really one who is too shy to more extreme subject matter. I will say though the film itself rubbed me the wrong way, and it was not the subject matter itself that did. This was rather than matter in which it was realized with, what I felt to be, an unfortunate blend of the most unsettling blended together with the style of a more cloying light hearted feel good feel, where even the characters dress up in outrageous costumes. Although I will say the film's heart does seem to be in the right place. I'll admit there is a purpose for that here, this was an instance where this approach didn't blend appropriately, for my own view anyways, and made the experience of watching the film especially unpleasant, while not in the fashion as intended by the filmmakers. What I'm here for though is to look at Sol Kyung-gu's performance, which in a certain sense is separate from the overarching narrative of the film. This is as Sol's performance very much stays within the reality of the situation and at least in terms of his own work avoids the sort of tonal tricks the film uses to try to alleviate the intensity of the central horror.

  

Sol's performance is a consistency of reality within the film and provides this truth from the outset of the film. This is where we just see Dong-hoon as the working dad. Sol doesn’t have a great deal of focus in these scenes however Sol's performance is consistently effective in these moments, by essentially not exactly standing out. He just exudes the right naturalism as this workaday father. Sol does something well in these early scenes in suggesting sort of an assumed love for his daughter, even when portraying the early moments with almost a casual distance. This is not Sol portraying an actual coldness or anything, but rather just the state of measured affection of a family just living their life without a thing to worry about. That is instantly thrown out of the window most horribly though when Hope is raped and brutally beaten leaving her in a hospital. Sol's performance matches this trauma in conveying the sheer devastation of the act, in his often silent face, that nonetheless exudes the sheer anguish in the man. Sol's work is powerful in itself as he is able to realizes the severity of the terrible act without becoming overwrought.

The film then breaks into its separate stories one of the recovery of Hope, and the other the attempt to get justice for her by arresting the horrible man. Sol is great in realizing the weight of the situation within his performance essentially for the rest of the film. Rightfully, Sol shows that this is a changed man who likely will never be able to achieve that blissful indifference ever again when it comes to his family. Every moment he is onscreen Sol reveals at least some level of the strain of the knowledge of what happened to his daughter and keeps it as this consistent element as this hole in the man's soul. Sol's work though carefully does find the nuance within this and does not portray a single note even with being the focus of the character. There are of course the most extreme moments where we see the vicious hate, that Sol wraps within this always palatable grief, at the man who has committed this crime that also transfers against the police who do not instantly arrest the man. Sol brings the right intensity in these moments by in his face creating it always as being inspired by his sorrow.

Sol provides the right contrast then in his scenes with his family and his daughter. Here to he finds the right difference depending on the moment, the grief a constant. In this we see the moments just in proximity of his daughter, where Sol shows the man as essentially this shell of a person much of the time with his anger as one of his few outlets of existence. The moments directly with his daughter Sol is terrific in bringing this desperate warmth as he tries to show his love to daughter. He captures a very real sense of affection though even this is portraying it as this distraught act as it is still intertwined with his personal anguish. The film then takes its approach which often leaves Sol as adjacent to what is going as people try to help Hope to recover from all over the community. This technically includes Dong-hoon as he even dresses up as one of her favorite children's show characters. The man though is essentially petrified within his state and Sol is very moving in the moment of the still grieving father, even within his suit, as a man in this endless suffering. The only real change, which Sol does gradually realize effectively, is the internalization of grief as the man says less and less, though the heartbreak is always evident in his defeated physicality of depression along with the eyes filled with the endless tragedy. This is a very good performance even as it is often pushed to the side within the narrative. Although I do wish there had been time to grant more within Dong-hoon's personal story, what we do see is well realized by Sol's work. This is as even though I felt at times a dishonesty within the overall choices within the film, Sol’s performance consistently offered a strict honesty within his powerful portrayal of the man’s painful journey.

Alternate Best Actor 2013

And the Nominees Were Not:

Toni Servillo in The Great Beauty

Domhnall Gleeson in About Time

Christoph Waltz in The Zero Theorem

Simon Pegg in The World's End (feat. Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz)  

Sol Kyung-gu in Hope

Predict these five or those five, or both:

Alden Ehrenreich in Beautiful Creatures

Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight

Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace 

Terence Stamp in Song for Marion

Masaharu Fukuyama in Like Father, Like Son