It seems like every year the the foreign-language committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences piss us all off with some major snub. Despite winning the Palmed’Or in 2007, Cristian Mungiu’s amazing Romanian abortion drama, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” was snubbed by the AMPAS Oscar Foreign shortlist as was the brilliant animated French film, “Persepolis” (in 2007 it was Carlos Reygadas’ “Silent Light” and Fatih Akin’s “Edge of Heaven” that were criminally overlooked).
This year it appears that the major frontrunner that many expected to make the cut, Italy’s “Gomorrah” by Matteo Garrone was also snubbed.
Films that did make the cut were the 2008 Palme d’Or winning French film, “The Class,” Israel’s excellent animated documentary about the 1983 Beirut Massacre, “Waltz With Bashir,” Sweden’s hotly touted “Everlasting Moments,” Germany’s controversial, “The Baader Meinhof Complex” and a film that the Criterion Collection loves so much, they’ve already scooped it up for DVD distribution, the Austrian film “Revanche,” among others (Turkey’s “3 Monkeys” also generated a lot of foreign buzz this year). Here’s the nine films that made the shortlist. Come Oscar time this list will be whittled down to five films.
Foreign Oscar Shortlist.
“3 Monkeys” (Nuri Bilge Ceylan — Turkey)
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Uli Edel — Germany)
“The Class” (Laurent Cantet — France)
“Departures” (Yojiro Takita — Japan)
“Everlasting Moments” (Jan Troell — Sweden)
“The Necessities of Life” (Benoit Pilon — Canada)
“Revanche” (Gotz Spielmann — Austria)
“Tear This Heart Out” (Roberto Sneider — Mexico)
“Waltz with Bashir” (Ari Folman — Israel)
Other films that can be considered small snubs by the AMPAS foreign-language committee are Chile’s “Tony Manero” and especially Norway’s “O’ Horten” which was considered a strong contender. Don’t get mad at the exclusion of excellent films like France’s “I’ve Loved You So Long,” (which we adored), blame the country that didn’t submit it on their nation’s behalf (France obviously went with the Palme d’Or winner and you can’t really blame them for putting their best foot forward).
If you’d like to see the original list of the 69 eligible films submitted from each country (not every country submitted a film in time), Wikipedia has the list. After the Golden Globe win, the recent events in Gaza pointing the spotlight on the film and a lot of late-season award praise, Ari Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir,” is easily the frontrunner now and probably has the best shot at winning the award.
We hear amazing things about “3 Monkeys,” “Everlasting Moments” and “Revanche,” so we hope they’re released stateside sometime later this year.