OVP: Best International Feature Film (2020)
The Nominees Were...
Another Round, Denmark
Better Days, Hong Kong
Collective, Romania
The Man Who Sold His Skin, Tunisia
Quo Vadis, Aida?, Bosnia and Herzegovina
My Thoughts: We are well-past the halfway point of the 2020 races as this point, and today we're going to move into International Feature Film, a category that at least until the Oscar nominations were announced seemed like it could be up-in-the-air (after all, there weren't a lot of obvious contenders who could rise above), but a surprise nomination for Another Round for Best Director (which, it turns out, would happen again the following year for Drive My Car), got it an easy victory here. Since I don't have a lot of strong feelings about these nominees (save for one), we'll start with the film you're most-likely to have seen.
Another Round is not necessarily the most provocative of these titles (Tunisia got that one pretty handily), but it is not what you'd generally consider to be a standard-issue alcoholism film. What starts out as a Lost Weekend type situation turns into a bizarre experiment showing the good-and-bad of alcohol, and how four men can risk their professional lives (at the cornerstone of this story is how four men are not satisfied with their lives to the point where they are willing to do anything to feel something) with only one of them really feeling the consequences. The movie's politics are messy, and while I don't hate that (I'm not someone who needs a film to reflect my politics in order to love the picture), it does feel like the ending is perhaps too much of a leap compared to the rest of the movie to the point where it kind of feels like it condones alcoholism.
Better Days was a massive hit in China, the first Oscar-nominated film to really acknowledge the huge global sway that the country has taken at the worldwide box office (it would likely shock most American audiences to learn that the #3 film of the year is a movie called Water Gate Bridge which has barely made a blip in the States but has globally made more than Uncharted, Fantastic Beasts 3, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2). I thought the film's take on bullying was pretty basic, feeling repetitive & too long (and kind of like an afternoon special), and while I get the charisma of lead actor Jackson Yee (I get why he's one of the biggest stars in China right now), that's not enough to make up for a two-dimensional take on violence in schools.
Collective is the sole documentary in this group (increasingly it feels like this category is more open to documentaries after decades of that being not the case-I wonder if this will result in self-fulfilling prophecy as more countries submit them). I think the film's investigative journalism aspect, talking about the Romanian coverup that happened in the wake of a nightclub fire is interesting, as is the pivot to discussing the oversights that lead to a high death toll in Romanian hospitals, but a movie needs to be about more than its subject. Collective feels like reading a book report-there's nothing cinematic in its delivery, and it doesn't adapt to its format. It's an important subject, but that doesn't mean it's an important film.
I felt a bit better about The Man Who Sold His Skin. Initially trepidatious about seeing this movie (body horror films are my cinematic kryptonite-I genuinely loathe watching them & it makes me physically uncomfortable). While the subject is odd (a man who sells his body to be an art piece), it has something real to say about the sacrifices we make as a cog in capitalism that we aren't really compensated for. While we don't have a literal tattoo on our backs, we give our employers our youth, our time, the best years of our lives (knowing that we have a finite, albeit impossible to calculate how long, amount of years on this earth)...something this film argues we aren't compensated for. The movie suffers in some of its actual character work (Monica Bellucci's character is badly-written, and given she's the biggest name in the cast, this feels odd), but it definitely has something worth saying.
This is also true of Quo Vadis, Aida?. Inspired by true events, the movie shows two days in the life of a woman who works as a translator for the United Nations, who understands as her building is evacuated that if she does not get some sort of exit for her husband and two sons that their lives will be at risk. Even for those unfamiliar with the atrocities at Srebrenica (which resulted in the death of 6000 men-and-boys, one of the worst genocides in modern history), you'll catch on quickly to the stakes of the film. Jasna Duricic is breathtaking in the lead role, and the film reads at once as a political thriller that turns into a horror as we begin to understand the stakes (all of the men we see in the background are being marched to their doom). The film's ending is quite the capper-we get to see how quickly some want to return to normal, even if it means criminals are not brought to justice (a lesson that those in power never seem to learn).
Other Precursor Contenders: Awards ceremonies like the Goyas and the Cesars aren't good representatives here since they're typically honoring the main films of a specific country, so I only count the Globes among the awards bodies we check-in with for Foreign Language film. The Globe went with Minari as their winner (this wasn't eligible for the Oscars) ahead of Another Round, La Llorona, The Life Ahead (which was inexplicably not submitted by Italy), and Two of Us. In terms of sixth place, my gut is that it was either Two of Us (France) or Dear Comrades! (Russia), though I'm going based on how those countries historically have done with the Academy more than anything else...it's tough to read this category without box office numbers.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I don't see enough of the contenders to have a cohesive opinion here, and I don't have an obvious nominee I would've included that was in the running.
Oscar’s Choice: Another Round was the mild frontrunner headed into the Oscar nominations, and that Director nomination cemented its victory over Quo Vadis, Aida?.
My Choice: I will flip those two, with Quo Vadis being the more impressive film than Another Round, as it knows how to handle its politics in a smarter way. Following them would be The Man Who Sold His Skin, Collective, and Better Days.
Those are my thoughts-what about you? Are you with Oscar's love of Another Round, or do you want to join me in championing Quo Vadis, Aida? What do you think it'll take for a documentary to eventually win this trophy (it's clear more will be nominated)? And who was in sixth, given the lack of box office numbers makes it anyone's guess? Share your thoughts below!
No comments:
Post a Comment