OVP: Foreign Language Film (2000)

OVP: Best Foreign Laguage Film (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Amores Perros, Mexico

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Taiwan

Divided We Fall, Czech Republic

Everybody Famous!, Belgium

The Taste of Others, France

My Thoughts: On occasion, you write about certain categories at the Oscars where no one has really considered them as a five-wide race, even when they were an undecided five-wide race, and that is today's lineup.  Crouching Tiger, 24 years later, is the highest-grossing, entirely subtitled film with the exception of The Passion of the Christ (which is not generally considered in the same category given it's in Aramaic (a dead language), has an American actor is its lead, and is directed by Mel Gibson, one of the most recognizable Hollywood superstars of the 1980's & 90's).  It was nominated for Best Picture, it made buckets of money, and was cited for more nominations than any other subtitled film (before or after).  There was no world where it was losing this category.

To be fair, it's pretty obvious why it should've won even without the insane momentum it had headed into the night.  Crouching Tiger is a beautiful, complete film, with a quick bit of world-building (it is a romantic fantasy, after all), but one that makes you invest in the story at-hand and the pairs of star-crossed lovers at its center.  The art direction, visual effects, cinematography, acting...Crouching Tiger is glorious, and pretty much perfect in every line of the end credits.  Really, it was a film that was going to be a challenge to beat even against the best opponents.

The biggest competition for it in 2000 was Amores Perros, a film from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, a man who would go on to win back-to-back Best Director statues, and this was the start of his journey with Oscar.  I do not generally enjoy the films of Gonzalez Inarritu, and that extends to Amores Perros.  His films feel like a form of misery.  Life can be bad, and that can be reflected in art, but his films feel like torture, essentially the arthouse equivalent "...and then the dog died" sort of country music.  There's no artistry here.  I'd buy that the film is a metaphor for the hopelessness of depression...except that's all of his movies.  What it feels like is a film that wants you to be miserable, but doesn't have the good sense to create any sort of flare, other than to torture the actors.

Everybody's Famous! isn't much better.  The movie is definitely more fun than Amores Perros (so is a dental exam), and in the beginning it says some interesting things about fame.  But it becomes so stupid, the kind of comedy that would never be nominated for an Oscar if it were in English, and the bad continually outweighs the good the further into the conversation we get, the plot becoming too silly and ridiculous by the end of the picture.  Forgettable, and for a reason.

If you follow this category long enough, you'll know that there's virtually always a film about World War II.  This year, it's The Zone of Interest; in 2000 it was Divided We Fall.  The film talks about a group of people who hide a man fleeing a concentration camp in their home, and the ramifications of that for their lives.  The film uses this for comedy, and while you can make absurdist black comedies about anything (including World War II), it doesn't work for Divided We Fall.  The comedy bits are either not that funny or read like they aren't supposed to be funny, and it gets in the way of the film's central thesis about how tyranny changes who we are.  It doesn't work, but you can see what they were going for.

The Taste of Others is also a comedy, albeit one that at least works with its comedy even if it doesn't work with its plot.  The film is essentially an extended episode of Seinfeld, with the characters discussing life (and sex...mostly sex), with some genuinely funny bits, but it goes nowhere, and it doesn't lean into the pleasures of sex (for a group of people having a lot of it, no one seems to be enjoying it).  The characters are oftentimes indistinguishable...one man shaved his mustache and I was genuinely confused as to who he was afterward for WAY longer than I should've been for a movie I was watching in one sitting.

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 Globes went with Crouching Tiger as their winner, beating Amores Perros, The Hundred Steps (Italy), Malena (Italy), & The Widow of St. Pierre (France).  Some notable films that were submitted but weren't nominated at the Oscars in 2000 were Denis Villeneuve's Maelstrom (Canada) & Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (Hong Kong).

Films I Would Have Nominated: With the exception of Crouching Tiger, In the Mood for Love is so much better than the other four films that cinephiles should've considered criminal charges against the Academy for ignoring it in such a field.

Oscar’s Choice: If you told me Crouching Tiger got 90% of the vote in 2000, I'd tell you that you're being too conservative in your estimate.  A slam dunk win.

My Choice: Crouching Tiger would've beaten In the Mood for Love, but at least that would've been a competition.  Absent that other masterpiece, there's no comparison to the rest of a really mediocre lineup.  For posterity, I'd rank the rest as The Taste of Others, Everybody's Famous, Divided We Fall, and then Amores Perros.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  Is anyone going to defend one of the losers, or do we all agree that Crouching Tiger is the mandatory winner here?  I'm assuming most pick Amores Perros as their runner-up, but for those with AGI allergies, what do you like best?  And why on earth did they skip In the Mood for Love?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2000: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Foreign Language Film Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022