Oscars 2019 Category Breakdown: Best International Feature

Here’s how this works: every day leading up to the Oscars, I break down each of the 24 categories. The goal is to both familiarize everyone with the category itself (how it works, what its history is and how you go about figuring out what’s gonna win) while also making it easier to reference when I write my giant article with picks and everything. A lot of the leg work is already here. But really, the goal is to see if there’s anything to look for leading into Oscar night that could be a shortcut to me picking the category.

What we do is — I give you all the winners of the category throughout history, go over all the recent trends if there are any, discuss the precursors and whether or not they matter, and then we talk about this year’s category and how we got to it, and then just look at where we are and rank the nominees in terms of their likelihood of winning (at the current moment in time. Of course, things can and will change going into the ceremony). It’s all pretty simple. I’ve done this every year. Everyone should know the drill.

We begin with Best International Feature, which is the stupid new name for Best Foreign Language Film, a change they made to make it sound more inclusive and positive, rather than as the dismissive category for foreigners. Problem is — a name means jack shit unless you’re actually gonna work to make it feel like it means more. Plus also, the first time they have that name, we have the biggest lock of the night and a category that’s totally meaningless because we already know what’s gonna win.

It’s Foreign Language Film. There’s no methodology here. They have a shortlist, they pick five, usually you can guess the winner just by looking at them or at least have a great idea of what the favorites are. It’s been a while since we didn’t have a clear favorite for the category. One year in recent memory there was a favorite but then the tide turned politically and the other choice became the clear winner. Most of the time you just know. And this year, you really know.

Best International Feature

Corpus Christi

Honeyland

Pain and Glory

Parasite

Put it this way — in the history of Best Picture, whenever a foreign language film has been nominated in that category and been nominated in this category in the same year, it’s won.

Here’s the list of foreign language films nominated for Best Picture:

• Grand Illusion, 1938
• Z, 1969
• The Emigrants, 1972
• Cries and Whispers, 1973
• Il Postino, 1995
• Life is Beautiful, 1998
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000
• Letters from Iwo Jima, 2006
• Amour, 2012
• Roma, 2018
• Parasite, 2019

Letters from Iwo Jima is American but in a foreign language, and this category didn’t exist when Grand Illusion was nominated. The Emigrants was nominated in this category in 1971 but was nominated for Best Picture in 1972, after it had lost, strangely. Cries and Whispers and Il Postino were not nominated in this category at all. Of the rest — Z, Life Is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger, Amour and Roma — all of them won this category. We didn’t need that statistic, but now you have it. In case you were thinking of trying some fuckery.

Rankings:

5. Corpus Christi — It’s the one that no one knows. They only sent it out to Academy members this past weekend (I guess they figured it would get nominated). Hard to see this as anything other than the fifth choice, especially when you see all the factors working for all the other nominees.

4. Honeyland — It’s nominated in Documentary Feature as well. Being nominated in two categories, clearly some people liked it. However, to the voting body at large… here’s a foreign film nominated in two categories. What reason does that give them to vote for it here and not there? And what’s to get people to eve see it as compared to the other three? Maybe you can make a case for this as third choice, but definitely not above that. I don’t see any reason to think this pulls enough votes in any one single category to be a serious contender for the win.

3. Les Misérables — You could say this is fourth, but it’s no lower than that and no higher than this. I think this has a higher profile than Honeyland to the general voting body. It’s out now, I’ve seen trailers for this in front of big movies, Amazon is putting it out. Amazon is advertising this all over their website. And the title is something you know, so you’re gonna be at least a little intrigued about what it is. I think this is the third choice. I think this will get votes. I don’t think it’ll get enough votes, but it’ll get some votes.

2. Pain and Glory — It’s got a Best Actor nomination and it’s Pedro Almodovar. Until something else wins a precursor, this is the de facto second choice. It’ll get more views, therefore it’s liable to get more votes. It can never be the #1 choice because it’s not nominated for five other awards including Best Picture. But it’s clearly the second choice.

1. Parasite — There is no way you’re not calling this the favorite until it loses. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Production Design. A film like this has never lost in this category. You’re taking this all the way to the end, and maybe precursors will change and maybe you wanna try to make that argument on the night. Which will be stupid, but maybe you’ll make it. But until that night, and even as you make it, you’re not gonna say that this isn’t the favorite and the most likely film to win.

– – – – – – – – – –

http://bplusmovieblog.com