The following isn’t an in-depth review of the movies mentioned, but rather an opinion about their nominations and why the shadow cast by ROMA on them is the highlight of this year.
Leaving aside the controversies that come each year in the film industry — not because they don’t matter but because they are not the subject of this article — this season brought some of the most exciting moments in cinema in the latest years while also being one of the most predictable.
This season started early last year when multiple movies made a lot of buzz before they were even released. Yet, these highly anticipated movies turned out to be the ones that had less relevance in the awards season. I wouldn’t consider them complete snubs though — except for Destroyer, which deserved way more recognition thanks to its circular story and Nicole Kidman’s best performance in years — . For once, let’s take Beautiful Boy, Boy Erased, and Ben Is Back as examples. These movies generated quite the anticipation even before they debuted in the festivals circuit around the world; this had its explanation on the fact that they all packed great casts, recognized directors and stories that are important and relevant to our time. These three movies deserve nothing but good comments and they manage to give a message that sticks. But I can see why they didn’t make the cut in most of the awards this year: they either lacked an audiovisual language that went beyond and was a bit more poetic, as well as stories that didn’t feel just like an excuse to talk about an issue.
In the other hand, A Star Is Born, Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody were nominated for Best Picture, which makes it easier to argue that the four movies mentioned above deserved a place with them or instead of them. And not because both movies that had music as their core storytelling device weren’t good ones or because the first nominated movie from Marvel didn’t deserve it, but because they didn’t excel in any particular area that wasn’t linked to “the show”. By any means this makes them less, cinema is here to entertain and it doesn’t have to be the most conceptual work to be good.
Digging into the Best Picture category again, there’s BlackKklansman, which I dare to say is the most honest exposition of Spike Lee’s directional skills, bringing a social conversation that relies on carefully crafted comedy.
Then there’s Green Book, which I find to be the second best movie this year; it manages to create a comfortable yet controversial feel, along with remarkable performances and compelling situations that make for a really enjoyable movie that speaks louder than it apparently does on the surface.
We also have The Favourite, probably the most buzzed movie after ROMA and one that I would even dare to say could take the Best Picture prize, along with Green Book, if ROMA’s double nomination for Best Picture and Best Foreign Picture represents a problem. The Favourite is the perfect example of a movie that is greatly done but that I personally couldn’t stand and didn’t like at all. This is the kind of movie that I would never see again, and I repeat: it is not a bad movie. In fact, I recognize it is a great one. But I couldn’t deal with the ultra-theatrical feel of it in its structure, story and even performances, which made me feel like I was in the most dramatic theatre venue. In the end, I couldn’t even connect with a single character because they were not compelling to me in any sense.
And then there’s ROMA, the movie that is taking every award. Alfonso Cuaron’s most personal movie yet is the greatest achievement in cinema this year and I would even dare to say in the latest years. The beautiful portrayal of a Mexican family is the perfect representation of what movies are capable of saying without having to be extremely high budget or with the most complex fictional stories. This is a story that feels like real life, and that’s one of the things that makes it magical, it’s like seeing a day to day from a life that many of us can identify with — especially in Latin America — and that brings a heartwarming feeling that is really hard to get throughout an entire movie. This one gets it. Technically, ROMA is also a masterpiece with its really well contrasted black and white colors and impressive yet simple camera movements that evoke the presence of a spectator that is looking but not invading the space. In the end, what makes this movie so special to me is the fact that it shows that love and good actions are above any act of hate and revenge; both women overcome the pain they received by men by relying on their kindness and support as a family.
ROMA is the movie that will be written permanently in cinema history books and that will be taught in schools as a way to tell a story in a simple but meaningful way, with its symbolism, references and care to say what it needs to and nothing else.
And that right there is the reason why this Awards Season is clouded by an amazing movie that makes the rest feel like they were not up to the measure even if they are superb movies.
In the end, this is not about movies that don’t deserve the recognition, or about an award categorizing which movies are more than the others because there’s a subjective factor to take into account. It is about how a movie showed that it doesn’t have to be out of proportions to shine and give a lesson in the sense that cinema is here to say more than the obvious and yet be as simple as possible, just like real life.
