Are you ready for the Oscars?
With the second semester of the school year well underway and responsibilities quickly piling up, it’s high time you ask yourself, “am I ready for the Oscars?” Whether you are a seasoned cinephile or are unsure what TIFF stands for, it’s often hard to feel fully prepared for this hallmark event of the awards season, which features 53 nominated films this year. In light of the overwhelming volume of films, allow this article to serve as a handy guide to the 2020 Academy Awards and a suitable substitute for the development of your own opinions on some of the most notable films of the past year.
Parasite
One of the most critically acclaimed films of 2019, Parasite provides a truly unique cinematic experience, with its refusal to follow genre norms and its effortless interplay between striking visuals and creative narrative. Parasite tells the story of a South Korean working-class family (the Kims), down on their luck and in search of work. The family’s son (Choi Woo-shik) manages to fake his way into an English tutor job with a well-to-do family (the Parks) and, after gaining their trust, creatively manipulates them into hiring his parents (Song Kang-ho & Chang Hyae-jin) and sister (Park So-dam) for similar household roles. The high-concept schemes that the Kims develop to ingratiate themselves with the Parks—and the ensuing intertwining of the two families’ lives—set the stage for Parasite and provide the background against which the film makes its cultural commentary.
Parasite’s greatest strength is its ability to bridge the gap between the satirical and the serious. Though it begins with a light-hearted tone, this slowly disintegrates as the film’s title begins to take on a double meaning.
In contemplating this meaning, the film provides a critical and thought-provoking story of class, compelling you to consider not only the intricacies of the relationship between the Parks and Kims, but also the relationship between the upper and lower classes more broadly. This subversive class narrative is punctuated by truly hilarious moments, inspired cinematography, and stellar performances from every actor.
Few modern directors have been able to so successfully walk the line between astute political commentary and excellent filmmaking. Bong Joon-ho, by expertly combining polemic and artistic brilliance, has cemented himself as one of the strongest living directors, and Parasite as one of the defining films of the past decade.
Marriage Story
Portraying the increasingly messy divorce of an acclaimed theatre director (Adam Driver) and actress (Scarlett Johansson), Marriage Story is an emotional film that leans heavily on the performances of its leads. Rather than becoming a crutch, however, Driver and Johansson’s performances are engaging, complex, and incredibly human. They create a film that forces you to identify with its characters despite their tragic and sometimes pitiful flaws.
The most impressive element of Marriage Story is the wide emotional range that Driver and Johansson are able to display. Though their characters are engaged in a bitter legal battle over custody of their son, the film is punctuated with moments of humour, levity, and happiness. This emotional flexibility is an incredible accomplishment on the part of Marriage Story’s leads and of its director, Noah Baumbach.
Of interest to many Ultra Vires readers will be the scenes depicting the legal conflict between Driver and Johansson’s characters. Though the characters are at first intent on securing an amicable divorce, negotiations over the fate of their child’s life quickly fall apart. The lawyers in the film (Laura Dern & Ray Liotta) are portrayed as cut-throat and aggressive, each seeking to smear the other party in an increasingly uncordial fashion. The portrayal of this legal conflict was described as “stunningly on point” by a New York divorce lawyer.
Depending on your perspective, this is either good or bad news for those of you seeking to begin a career in family law. Though the lawyer-mediated vitriol that Driver and Johansson’s characters direct at one another makes for some of its most entertaining scenes, the movie truly hits its stride when the smoke clears and the custody battle is over.
Driver and Johansson deliver some of their best work as the film winds down and their characters pick up the pieces of their lives. The film’s tone goes from frenetic to melancholy, allowing its characters and its viewers to contemplate the fact that, despite the tremendous amount of suffering that humans can inflict on one another, life goes on.
1917
Directed by Sam Mendes, 1917 is a World War I film that, in equal parts, adheres to and breaks away from the conventions of contemporary war films. The film portrays the journey of two British soldiers (George MacKay & Dean-Charles Chapman) behind enemy lines, delivering an urgent message to Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Though 1917 relies on a tried, true, and tired premise, it is an ambitious and innovative undertaking in cinematography. Notably, the film attempts to create a “one take” illusion. Through clever editing, it retains the appearance of having been shot in a single take. Though this sounds gimmicky at first, it is actually rather impressive. Combined with the memorable creativity of its high-concept shots, 1917 establishes itself as the most technically impressive film of 2019.
But even though 1917 frequently pushes the envelope in terms of cinematography, the film begins to stumble when it tries to be emotional. The weakest scenes are those that attempt to remind you of the humanity of the combatants (and non-combatants) whose lives are disrupted by war. They instead serve as an all-too-unpleasant reminder that the people you are watching on screen are actors. This is not uncommon in war films, which often have difficulty navigating between the imperatives of emotional candour and hyper-masculine action. Nevertheless, the film’s failure to demonstrate real emotional fluency makes some of its scenes utterly forgettable. In light of this, it is difficult to avoid comparing 1917 to films like Dunkirk, which are equally impressive in a technical sense, but play to their strengths by opting to forego any significant exploration of their characters’ emotional complexities.
