92 years on, Best Picture goes to... a foreign language film!
NEW DELHI: Not so long ago, director Bong Joon-ho dismissed the Oscars as “not an international film festival” and a narrow celebration of “very local” fare. He was convinced that English-speaking audiences and juries didn’t have the patience for “foreign” cinema. “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles,” he said imploringly, through his translator, at the Golden Globe Awards last month, “you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
It took 92 years, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally overcame the “one-inch barrier” of subtitles. On Monday, it awarded Bong’s social satire Parasite four Oscars, including the inaugural Best International Feature award (renamed from best foreign language film), and somewhat shockingly, the most coveted prize, Best Picture.
This is the first time a nonenglish language film has won the honour. No Korean film has ever been nominated
for an Oscar. Director Bong, as he is affectionately (and reverentially) called by his cast and crew, came close once, when his 2009 feature, Mother, was submitted as South Korea’s official entry to the Academy Awards. But the film didn’t even make the December shortlist, a hurdle that this year stopped India’s Gully Boy in its tracks.
After winning the prestigious Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Bong was given a hero’s welcome in his home country. The 50-year-old filmmaker had expressed hope that the victory would introduce the world to Korean cinema, a validation that even internationally popular Korean directors such as Park Chan-wook, Kim Di-kuk and Lee Chang-dong hadn’t been able to earn.
By honouring it with a Best Picture award, The Academy has not only made good on what it very nearly achieved last year with Alfonso Cuaron’s Mexican film Roma, but it has also found its way back into the good graces of cinephiles who had all but given up on an organisation that has, of late, displayed a tendency to pick the most controversial Best Picture winners. In 2019, the largely forgotten Green Book won the top prize. In 2017, the indie drama Moonlight upset the fan-favourite La La Land.
As he scooped up one Oscar after another, toppling legends of American cinema such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, the mood in the room began to change. What began as a surprise win for Best Original Screenplay — Bong and his co-writer Han Jin-won beat twotime winner Tarantino — turned into an absolute sweep. Over the course of the three-and-a-half hour telecast, the Korean Bong became an underdog favourite, not unlike some of the most enduring heroes of American movies, cheered on by stalwarts of an industry he once felt alienated by.
Parasite’s win is not just a sign of an evolving Academy, but also a shining example of a classically orchestrated awards campaign. Somewhat echoing the film’s plot, which sees the impoverished Kim clan infiltrate the wealthy Park family, the upstart studio, Neon, left no stone unturned in pushing its way into a clique that often reeks of exclusivity. Even this year, the favourite to win the big award was director Sam Mendes’s World War 1 movie, 1917, which despite its rather unconventional nature — it was filmed to look like one unbroken shot — was just the sort of handsome costume drama that The Academy tends to recognise.
In the run up to the Oscars, Neon sent Bong on a whirlwind publicity tour, ensuring that the endearingly shy director make the rounds of every late night talk show in America, and attend high profile parties designed to appease Academy voters.
The effort paid off. Bong now finds himself in the possession of four shiny golden statuettes, each of them an unambiguous reminder that good cinema is the most universal language of all.