The Academy Awards have always had a very difficult relationship with experimental and artistic films or with films d‘auteur, but, nevertheless, below are five films that should have received at least a Best Foreign Film nomination by the Academy (if not a win) and were unjustly ignored. I am listing only the films that were officially submitted by their respective countries for consideration.
I. Wings of Desire [1987]
The Academy ignoring of Wim Wenders’s masterpiece Wings of Desire in 1988 now sounds like a crime. Was this film really worse than for example Course Completed (Spain) or The Family (Italy) that were nominated in that year? No, it was probably simply too artistic and complex to understand for the Academy. A philosophically entrancing cinematic experience, Wings of Desire tells of two angels in Berlin who observe the behaviour of people around them and things take a more complicating turn when they slowly realise that they can no longer be just impartial observers.
II. Ivan’s Childhood [1962]
This cinematic debut by Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky must be one of the greatest film debuts ever. Thematically significant, visually poetic and unbelievably touching, it tells the story of a twelve-year old boy during the World War II whose zeal to be part of the Red Army fighting the Nazis gains him the admiration of all men around him. The Soviet Union submitted this film for consideration for the 36th Academy Awards and it was unjustly ignored, with the Academy, surprisingly – if not shockingly, nominating such films as Los Tarantos (Spain) and Twin Sisters of Kyoto (Japan) over Ivan’s Childhood. Incidentally, the country’s anti-war masterpiece Come and See [1985] was also later bypassed by the Academy.
Continue reading 5 Foreign Films That Should Have Been Nominated for an Academy Award (Part I)
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