"Crouching Tiger" and the Foreign Language Films of 2000
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 10:00PM In preparation for the next Smackdown Team Experience is traveling back to 2000.
Juliette Binoche and Jack Valenti announcing Best Foreign Language Film.
Coming into the 73rd Academy Awards, the results of the Foreign Language Film category must have felt like the biggest lock of the night (this writer can only assume based on hindsight since he was only a five-year old bébé at the time). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the perfect storm when it hit American audiences. The film came from an established filmmaker, Ang Lee, who had made several critical and commercial hits in English and otherwise, the storytelling was tailored to better suit Western sensibilities, it featured international stars known to the English-speaking film market, it received rave reviews and enormous box office returns, and it was both partially funded and widely distributed by a major American studio...
Crouching Tiger is an exciting melting pot of genres stirred together to tell a fascinating tale of love, betrayal, and battle set in ancient China. The acting is top-notch, particularly by the women - Michelle Yeoh is quietly piercing as a steely warrior in a tragic romance with a colleague while Zhang Ziyi is ferocious as a reckless bride-to-be (who should’ve definitely been a bigger contender in the Supporting Actress race - more on that race in this week’s Smackdown).
In the field of foreign nominees, Taiwan led the pack by an enormous margin. Ang Lee's beloved hit had ten Oscar nominations including Picture, Directing, and Adapted Screenplay (and won four trophies on the big night, which is still the record for a subtitled feature albeit tied with South Korea's Parasite and Sweden's Fanny & Alexander). It was Taiwan's third nomination and first win and the only Asian nominee in that year's field.
The other contenders only had that single foreign film nomination.
Crouching Tiger's toughest competition was Mexico’s Amores Perros. The triptych film, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (who would soon become an Oscar favourite) does not shy away from the desperation, pain and violence of its protagonists. Gritty filmmaking has long been Iñárritu’s signature as a filmmaker and this early film was no exception. Its warts and all approach may turn off viewers, but the mmersion into this particular perspective comes off as an honest observation of the more dangerous parts of human behavior, interaction, and emotion. Scenes play out with immediacy that brings its stakes to a visceral level, especially the ones involving dogs, whether it be dogfighting or a dog stuck under a floorboard. By providing connective (and sometimes overlapping) elements to these stories, the film achieves a considerable cumulative impact. The result is a harrowing experience.
The rest of the field was very disappointing.
From the distressing, we move to the ighthearted. France’s The Taste of Others, directed by Agnès Jaoui, mainly focuses on a capitalist who falls in love with a theater actress. When he hires a teacher to improve his English it turns out to be the same actress! But this is just one of the several narrative strands in this film. The film follows several minor characters who are also connected. While the unifying element of the storylines is their focus on adult relationships they unfortunately share a lack of melodramatic tendencies. The filmmaking is staid, lacking any desire to go beyond the bare minimum to engage you in the narrative. Instead of presenting keen observations on romance, sex, and the mess created when multiple people become intertwined, the movie feels scattershot and aimless, but for the sensitive performances from its two leads.
Another nominee on the lighter side is Belgium’s Everybody’s Famous!, directed by Dominique Deruddere. It's a dark comedy about a fifteen-year old girl who regularly joins singing contests but never wins. This pushes her father to kidnap a famous singer so that his daughter will get the airtime and fame that she desperately wants. The problem with this film is that it is never enough of anything. The dark humor doesn't land because the film is non-committal with its tone. The more disturbing plot elements like the kidnapping and coerced sex, are not executed with nuance, turning these potential deeper elements into meaningless points of curiosity. The absurdity of the setup isn't pushed hard enough which makes the whole conceit feel half-hearted.
Finally, what is an Oscar Best Foreign Language Film lineup without a WWII film? That slot was filled for 2000 by Czech Republic’s Divided We Fall, directed by Jan Hřebejk. It's a dramedy about a childless couple who are hiding a Jewish man from the authorities. When the threat of their secret being exposed arises, the couple decides that the only way they can be protected is if she has a sudden “miracle” and gets pregnant. Divided We Fall walks a tightrope of competing tones, but the movie is scant on emotional context that might have given it more weight. Several moments in the film showcase dark humor established with blocking or the actors physicality (a scene which involves hiding the Jewish man under a blanket while the woman pretends to be bedridden comes to mind). Though individual scenes work, they dont always feel organic or motivated. It's all more exciting on paper than in the execution.
For a category that is very resistant to Asian cinema, I am glad the Academy was able to let go of their pre-existing bias, even if only for a moment, to reward Crouching Tiger which was the deserved runaway winner.
However, if we were expanding our shoulda-won conversation to the other submissions for 2000, I will easily choose another Asian film as the winner over Ang Lee’s masterful work.
Hong Kong’s In the Mood for Love is a masterfully crafted piece from Wong Kar-wai. It's a manifestation of his cinematic genius in every scene, shot, and cut. Two married neighbors come to realize that their spouses are having an affair, and they form their own bond that is strong and powerful. Wong’s directorial achievement is for the ages, maximizing the potential of its lean narrative to create something that transcends words and plot intricacies. Instead, the film lives and breathes in the silences between the words as missed opportunities flash before our eyes. With two beautifully aching performances from screen legends Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung, reverberating sounds, and hypnotic images, the film is potent in every aspect, earning its legacy as one of the greatest love stories put to film.
At the Oscars everything was pointing to an easy victory for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and deservedly so, especially given the roster of nominees. However, the lack of nomination for In the Mood for Love that year is a manifestation of a long-existing bias against Asian cinema that permeates the Oscars to this day. Rarely do we see Asian nominees represented in the-now renamed "International Feature Film" category. Even rarer is the chance to see two compete. (Only once in history were three Asian films nominated in a single year.)
I am happy for all the success that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had during its awards run, but shouldn’t we be able to celebrate more than one Asian film at a time instead of annual handing uninspired nominations to the usual European suspects?
Reader Comments (28)
I disagree about The Taste of Others. It's a wonderful film, slightly better than Amores Perros, and not quite as good as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Besides those three, my 2 other choices would have been Hong Kong's In the Mood for Love, of course, and Iran's Time for Drunken Horses. Both are absolute masterpieces. Divided We Fall is ok, but Everybody's Famous! is one of the worst films ever nominated. It's a moronic comedy and absolutely worthless! How anyone could watch this piece of crap and decide it's a better film than either In the Mood for Love or Time for Drunken Horses goes beyond incomprehensibility. Were there bribes of some sort distributed by the Belgians?
Oh, and Sweden's Songs from the Second Floor would have also made a very worthy nominee.
Wow I love Juliette Binoche’s fashion sense. Remember her Count Chocula cosplay when she won the Oscar? Icon.
I guess I need to rewatch Taste of others. I thought it was witty and elegant.
Also throe in Vietnam's THE VERTICAL RAY OF THE SUN as another Asian entry that should've been competing that year.
CODE UNKNOWN.
"Coming into the 73rd Academy Awards, the results of the Foreign Language Film category must have felt like the biggest lock of the night (this writer can only assume based on hindsight since he was only a five-year old bébé at the time)."
The great favorites of that year that were seen that they were not going to lose were:
Best Actress in Leading Role: Julia Roberts - Erin Brockovich
Best Actor in Supporting Role: Benicio del Toro - Traffic
Best foreign language film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Best Director: Ang Lee - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Gladiator was the big favorite for Best Picture but felt a certain threat from its competitors.
Ang Lee not winning Best Director was a surprise.
I saw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" right after reading the Tao Te Ching, so, while I loved Ang Lee's previous work - specially, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman and The Ice Storm, the film was a complete anticlimatic letdown with obviously faked acrobatics and a message that felt literally as a "Taoism for dummies", to be easily swallowed by mainstream multiplexes audiences. I thought for a while it had something to do, my reaction, to being a martial arts film, but that was erased from my mind after watching later, Stephen Chow's hilarious "Shao Lin Soccer" and specially maybe the best film of the XXIst century so far, Zhang Yimou's "Hero". Both make CTD pale in comparison, despite all its (faked) grandeur.
Too bad that Lee would follow up CTHD with his lackluster - but somehow daring? - iteration of Hulk, and it took us to wait to Brokeback Mountain and later Life of Pi, to reencounter with the master he is.
I do love In the Mood for Love, but consider it 2001 since that was its U.S. release date (only b/d I live in the U.S. and it would be my first opportunity to see it -- not trying to be a nasty imperialist!)
I also quite enjoyed Shower, Beau Travail, Yiyi, and Gohatto for foreign films, tho not sure any of them were eligible for the academy nomination.
Pei-Pei Cheng was my BSA pick that year.
That photo made me think “how do you explain to modern Oscar watchers the sheer weirdness of Jack Valenti randomly showing up to present at the Oscars every year?
^^My thoughts exactly. And he's been doing it FOR DECADES!!!
Jack Valenti always gave me the creeps.
In the Mood for Love is Top 10 of all time for me, and easily the best film of 2000. UGH, that would have been such a beautiful inclusion.
In the Mood for Love would have competed for the 2001 Oscar, and not for 2000 though. Right? All the American critics prizes for the film were for the year 2001.
Despite its nominations and wins, I still believe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon underperformed at the oscars. It should have at least a couple of actors nominated and Ang Lee should have won.
I'm also mad for In the mood for love.
@Jesus Alonso - Hulk is a masterpiece, a movie in which we don't see the superhero for more than an hour. The final act is set on an empty stage like a Russian play, with a father-son showdown. To this very day, it's Lee's darkest movie. It's the most dense depiction of the dualities Lee has always filmed between sense and sensibility: Tiger/Dragon, Lust/Caution, Ennis/Jack, Elinor /Marianne.
Arlo:
Hong Kong submitted In the Mood for Love for the Best Foreign Film in 2000. Because it was not nominated, it could have been eligible in 2001, the year of its commercial release in the US. Apparently, its distributor did not bother to submit it for eligibility because it's not on the For Your Consideration list for either 2000 or 2001. What a shame.
The Academy’s distaste for Asian features manages to come out even in years they award one of them. As Amy Camus notes In the Mood for Love was submitted by Hong Kong that same year, but the Academy only chose to nominate one even though both were deserving. A similar event happened two years later when Hero was nominated from China, but Infernal Affairs from Hong Kong was also available but that had gotten the axe. I mean they kind of made up for it when they showered Scorsese with Oscars for The Departed, but it would have been nice if they had dominated it in the first place.
So it was pretty remarkable for the Academy to nominate both Farewell My Concubine and The Wedding Banquet in 1993.
Isn't "funded by a major American studio" a reason for disqualification from the foreign language field? Didn't something like that happen in 2007 with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?
I thought it's only the HFPA that disregards any circumstances and simply more than half of the film has to be in non-English.
@cal roth
I see what you say, however, the final comfrontation is two actors shouting at each other, first, overacting then switching to a blurry and dark CGI show that is impossible to follow. Lee simply doesn't understand the source, and specially the real drama behind Hulk - I recommend you to check out Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben's masterful limited series "Banner", to understand what they could have done...
The best things in Hulk are:
1) Decided Marvel Studios to take matter on its own hands
2) Ang Lee learnt VFX/CGI heavy filmmaking, which would help him inmensely for that masterpiece that is Life of Pi.
Aside from the ending, the very worst moment of Hulk is the freeze frame with the death of Josh Lucas' character.
That being said, I always admired how brave Lee was on some creative choices, like the editing and composition... even if it only worked half of the time.
@harmodio
Ang Lee was certainly not a lock for Best Director (despite the DGA win). He may have been slightly in the lead, but there was a real chance Ridley Scott could win, especially if Gladiator inched ahead in Best Pic. Definitely not a lock on the level of Julia Roberts and Benicio del Toro. Soderbergh was a legitimate surprise in a ceremony that had a decent number of them (Marcia Gay Harden, ahem).
Gladiator was also in no way a lock for Best Pic. It was a legitimate three-way race between it vs. Tiger vs. Traffic. (Even EW's Oscar issue made that point.) All had won key guilds and you could make a legitimate argument for any of them. Again, certainly not in the same category as Roberts, Del Toro, or CTHD in Foreign Film. It was an exciting ceremony for that very reason.
Boom-Boom! As mixed of a record as I believe he had, I kinda miss the 38 year history of Valenti's heavy-handed role as head of the MPAA. He certainly left a mark on the industry and always a momentary pace change whenever he showed up at the Oscars.
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE’s snubbing was painful even if I was glad for CTHD’s success with Ampas (but I would have loved to see Michelle Yeoh fill Binoche’s spot in Best Actress line-up)
@Jesus Alonso, thank you for sounding out how ordinary Crouching is...I've watched tons of WuXia movies (martial arts) and Ang Lee's so-called masterpiece is not even in my Top 10. In terms of storyline, acting, acrobatics, it pales in comparison. Here in Asia, many of us were kind of bemused when Crouching was thrust into the stratosphere of raves and awards.
In the mood for love, on the other hand, is a true masterpiece.
@ cal roth
For me, that honor goes to The Ice Storm.
It's true that wuxiapians directed by King Hu, Chang Cheh, Tsui Hark and Ching Siu-tung (just to name a few) are magnificent and deserved all the kudos, but CTHD scored big with Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Awards, two very coveted far east prizes. Even if it was also a consequence of the incredible momentum, it still means that the enthisiasm back then didn't come only from western audience
I am not a huge fan of CTHD mysekf. It was well made but I don't think it brought anything new, or reinvigorate the wuxia genre the way that some of the newer wuxia films did, like Hou did with the Assassin, or even some of Tsui Hark's films from more than a decade ago.
It's a great year of "Asian Cinema" though. You also got Platform and Yi Yi, which I would have given all the awards in the world to!