Mere months before the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency, Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho took the stage at the 77th Golden Globe Awards to accept the award for Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language. That would be far from his last acceptance speech during the 2020 awards season — Parasite received a litany of accolades over the ensuing months, including four Academy Awards, for International Feature Film, Original Screenplay, Director, and of course, Best Picture. But it would certainly be his most memorable.
With apologies to his Best Director speech at the Oscars, during which he said he planned to “drink ‘til next morning” in celebration, one particular quote from his Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language speech still stands the test of time: “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
Parasite was far from my first experience with a foreign film, but its award-winning run in the early months of 2020 seemed to mark a changing of the tides for international titles reaching mass audiences. Of course, critics and cinephiles had already made a habit of overstocking their watchlists with foreign features. But when I look back on Parasite’s shocking Best Picture win, I don’t think about the audience that had already been hoping and praying for its coronation.
Instead, I think about the way it piqued the interest of viewers like my parents, particularly my father. I often call him simple, not in an intellectual sense, but in relation to his lifestyle. He’s worked as a courier for FedEx for longer than I have been alive; he roots as hard for the Buffalo Bills as he does his family’s well-being; he loves The Beatles and Pink Floyd more than anyone I’ve ever encountered. In other words, I think he’d be a big fan of Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.
He’s a man who used to meet my movie recommendations with a cursory, “Are there subtitles?,” but in the wake of enjoying Parasite, is now a bit more curious — adventurous, even — when it comes to trying out less mainstream cinematic offerings. Perhaps I can use this monthly column as a partial means to that end: sending suggestions his way, and the way of other interested moviegoers.
What I hope this column offers most, however, is a snapshot of this year’s best international films while also looking at those titles through the lens of the Academy Awards. I’ll be highlighting films that could feasibly contend at next year’s Oscars, as well as those that should be considered, even if other prognosticators might not see nominations in their future. Oh, how I wish I could have tilted the scales last year for films like Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves (Finland), Christian Petzold’s Afire (Germany), Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (Italy), Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents (Argentina), DK and Hugh Welchman’s The Peasants (Poland), and Lila Aviles’ Tótem (Mexico). And of 2023’s nominated titles, no amount of praise is too much for the aforementioned Perfect Days (Japan), Ilker Çatak’s The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany), and the eventual winner, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom).
Perhaps even beyond providing an all-encompassing portrait of this year’s inevitable deluge of international cinema, I hope to advocate for its existence and prominence. I’m never more frustrated than when I hear about a great international film being optioned as an English-language remake; Thomas Vinterberg’s Oscar-winning Another Round (Denmark), which will apparently have its American remake directed by Chris Rock, and the James McAvoy-starring remake of Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (Denmark/Netherlands), are two infuriating examples that come to mind. And on March 27, it was reported that the Cannes Film Festival is launching a program of its own that will encourage multilingual adaptations of buzzy European titles. The program’s press release placed an emphasis on its hope to “tap into the thriving IP market… [remakes] offer lower risk and proven marketability.”
To which this viewer says: Where’s the fun in that? Some of my finest cinematic memories have come in the form of the international unknown, from attending a screening of Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War (Poland) without any knowledge of its plot, or falling in love with Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (Norway) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (Japan) when the I was desperately searching for movies that would make me feel something as the pandemic droned on in 2021. More often than not, I’ve found that international titles have provided that: fresh narratives from storytellers whose visions have yet to be reduced to rubble by the increasingly one-track-minded American studio system. I’m constantly eager to find more, and I hope my musings on the topic will fuel your desire to do the same. After all, who are we to let a one-inch tall “barrier” deter our discovery?
