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Best Foreign Language Film

Like the Documentary Branch, the foreign language nominating committees can produce headscratchers. As I explained last year, mini-scandals regarding snubs in this race resulted in changes to the rules that now permit a nominating body to add three movies to the six selected by the branch for a total of nine into the shortlist bakeoff. The entire branch then selects the final five after forced screenings, but the entire Academy is allowed to vote for the winner (as in all categories, now).

For all the controversy over #OscarsSoWhite, a pet peeve of mine has always been that European films are overwhelmingly favored here (not surprising given the Academy’s demographics). One of my favorite movies of the year, Ixcanul, Guatemala’s first ever entry into the race, did not make the short list. Neither did Brazil’s moving The Second Mother or Argentina’s thrilling The Clan. Asian films also do not do very well here, with the much revered Taiwanese entry The Assassin also conspicuously absent from the list of nine finalists.

Instead, it was seven European movies along with Jordan’s Theeb and Colombia’s Embrace of the Serpent. Those two made the final five, along with Hungary’s Son of Saul, France’s Mustang and Denmark’s A War. Hungary’s movie, at times even considered a potential Best Picture nominee, will easily win that country its first Oscar. It’s by far the highest profile of the bunch and has no real challenger.

Still, I wonder if it’s the most deserving. My biggest problem with the movie, a close-up, tense follow of a Jewish prisoner losing his sanity in Auschwitz as he is tasked with cleaning up after other incinerated prisoners, is that it tries too hard to not be a “typical Holocaust movie” and ends up being exactly that. Is there such a thing as a non-typical one of those at this point? The acting is intense, and the sequences are bone-chilling - the violence and action occur mostly off-camera and can be heard but not always seen - and even refreshing in their point of view. But unlike most others, I did not find the particular subject matter that compellingly different than many other entrants into this genre.

France’s Mustang, by contrast, is a methodic and subtle examination of teenage life in the face of repression. It follows five sisters who live in very conservative Turkey, are not permitted to leave the house, and are expected to enter into arranged marriages. Trouble arises as the five, all beautiful in their youthful ways, are a magnet for boys. Tragedy, friendship, and loyalty ensue as the sisters accept or embrace their fates in different ways. If anything has a chance to steal it from Saul, it is this well-reviewed, touching film.

A War, the Danish nominee, is another interesting movie, if not necessarily the one with the most original premise. Do the ends justify the means? Is punishment appropriate for a soldier who wantonly ordered the bombing of a barracks, which turned out to have dozens of civilians, in order to save his fellow soldiers? Should that soldier, or his buddies, lie to ensure that he isn’t punished? The movie offers no easy answers to any of these difficult questions, and perfectly sets up an almost in equipoise balance of the equities by depicting the difficulties that the soldier’s wife and children go through in his absence. In the end, the movie is, somewhat predictably, about the tragedy and injustice, the pointlessness of war. It stands little chance of winning, however.

And while I have not yet gotten around to seeing Embrace of the Serpent, I have much admiration for Jordan’s Theeb, which is a fictional story about a young Bedouin boy living in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, and how his interactions with British soldiers affect and alter his life. It is inventive, touching, and ultimately important to understanding what is going on still today in that part of the world. Still, Jordan will have to be content with landing its first ever nomination, but not winning.

Will win: Son of Saul

Could win: N/A

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