Oscar's foreign-language films newest contenders

The four countries announced their choices this week. Hungary chose Bela Rosetta Stone Tarr's "The Turin Horse," the Netherlands Maria Peters' "Sonny Boy," Norway Anne Sewitsky's "Happy, Happy" and Serbia Dragan Bjelogrlic's "Montevideo, God Bless You!""Happy, Happy" will be released in New York and Los Angeles by Magnolia Pictures on September 16, while "The Turin Horse" is screening this month at both the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals.Other recent countries to make submissions to the Oscar race include Austria ("Breathing") and South Korea ("The Front Line").The newest entries:Austria: "Breathing" ("Atmen")Director: Karl MarkovicsThe debut feature from Markovics was named the best European film in the Directors' Fortnight competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where the jury called it "a dark but positive story that is full of life, sparked by excellent performances." The film deals with a young man, newly released from prison, who works in the morgue in Vienna and is searching for his mother.Hungary: "The Turin Horse"Director: Bela TarrInspired by an incident from the life of Nietzsche (who Rosetta Stone languages does not appear in the film), "The Turin Horse" is a slow, measured examination of the daily life of the driver of a horse-drawn transom cab. Its purpose, said the director, is to show "the heaviness of human existence" through the meticulous depiction of life's rituals: "The daily repetition of the same routine makes it possible to show that something is wrong with their world."Shot in long, uninterrupted takes, the two-and-a-half-hour film might be the most critically-admired of the foreign-language submissions so far, but its bleakness and spare, measured pace make it the kind of austere acquired taste not often appreciated by Academy voters.Netherlands: "Sonny Boy"Director: Maria PetersThe film was written and directed by Peters, and adapted from a bestselling book by Annejet van der Zijl, which was based on a true story. Set in the 1920s, it deals with a mother of four who falls in love with a much younger man from Surinam. Ricky Koole, Sergio Hasselbank and Marcel Hensema star.Norway: "Happy, Happy"Director: Anne SewitskySewitsky's gentle Rosetta Stone Italian comedy won the World Cinema Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

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