4 Months, 3 Weeks, And Geriatrics
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The best film of 2007, first-time Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”, didn’t even make the nine-film short list for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Adding insult to injury, “Persepolis” didn’t make the list either. WHAT?!
This is ridiculous. The voting body that determines the foreign film short list is composed of about 300 retired fogies, most over 75 years old, who probably couldn’t tell the difference between a Fellini carnival and a state-fair hodown. In the Academy’s defense, the voting body that determines the nominee short list has been criticized for years within their ranks. Time for an overhaul?
The Academy’s foreign film selection is always conservative, but this is beyond mere oversight. 4 Months and Persepolis are by far the two most talked-about and praised foreign films of the year (beyond The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which can’t compete in the category due to its American funding) - these folks have seen these films, and deliberately snubbed them.
It’s funny how the mainstream entertainment media constantly berates the Golden Globes for their shady voting procedures, their lack of authority as film critics and tastemakers, and their blatant star-whoring. The Oscars are trumped up as ‘what matters’. Yet this film got nominated for the Globe in this category. So did Persepolis. Remember when Brokeback Mountain won Best Pic at the Globes and the Academy gave it to Crash?
It’s predictable, and rather boring, for film snobs to shame the Oscars for their bad choices. It’s a tired complaint. Chris Marker won’t be winning Oscars, get over it. This snub, however, transcends the usual whining. 4 Months won the European Film Awards’ Best Picture, the Cannes Palme d’Or, and Best Foreign Film from the National Society of Film Critics, the Chicago and Toronto Film Critics Associations, and much more.
I’m now even more invested in the WGA strike ending in time for the Oscars. I want my red carpet stars, I want my Ryan Seacrest, and I most certainly want to be on the sidelines throwing pies at the stodgy old men responsible for this travesty.