On The French Oscar Submission
Guest writer on her thoughts on the French Academy Award Submission controversy and why we should look beyond the “misogyny” argument.
On May 27th 2023, Justine Triet became just the third woman to ever win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for her 4th film Anatomy of a Fall. It’s one of, if not the highest prize you can win in world cinema. At the time, the path forward seemed obvious. Just like Julia Ducournau who had won it a couple of years before for her less than mainstream friendly film Titane, she would go on to represent France in the Best International Film category at the Academy Awards. The one Oscar that is awarded to the country rather than the filmmaker and which France has been chasing ever since it last won it in 1993 for Regis Wagnier’s Indochine. However, on September 21st, we learned that that honor would actually be given to another Cannes prize winner, The Taste of Things directed by French-Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng.
I’m not particularly interested in the awards machine other than for the fun of it but as both a Black woman in France and an inspiring producer and filmmaker whose ambition is to make films in France I do look at those decisions closely. I’m constantly wondering if this industry has a place for me and if I’ll be able to access those government fundings without having to compromise my point of view and politics. Every year their choice gives me an idea of what sort of art France wishes to support and promote.
For days now, Oscar pundits and fans alike have been scratching their heads trying to figure out where it went wrong. Justine Triet’s NEON distributed film had been at the top of so called “Oscar experts” potential winners’ list for months. Understandably, they looked to previous years for clues. 2019 immediately came back to the online discourse as some old wounds were reignited. It was the second time in less that 5 years that a woman was being overlooked for a seemingly less acclaimed movie made by a man. Namely, Portrait of A Lady On Fire directed by Celine Sciamma (a white woman) and Les Misérables directed by Ladj Ly (a black man). I do agree that that particular face off is very interesting to look at and that it does put into context why this year's choice is raising eyebrows. However their surface level similarity, man vs woman, is misleading. In a lot of ways Les Misérables was simply a stronger contender than Portrait of A Lady on Fire.
I feel like it’s important for me to say that I personally liked Portrait of a Lady on Fire better than Les Misérables. It was in my top ten in a very strong movie year. However, we’ve known that these decisions are not based on merit but are rather about narratives and winning chances. That’s why they have the French and American distributors come to Paris to defend their cases in front of a jury of French industry professionals. A list of people that changes every year but that has to be approved by the French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak.
This year the selection committee included producers Charles Gillibert and Patrick Wachsberger, composer Alexandre Desplat, directors Olivier Assayas and Mounia Meddour, and sales agents Sabine Chemaly and Tanja Meissner.
So let’s look at the case for picking Les Misérables. It was about police brutality in France but still something that an American audience could relate to. It had Amazon distribution (power) and a platform behind it. It won the Jury Prize (or “3rd place”) which matters a lot to the French industry, while Portrait of a Lady on Fire won Best Screenplay at 2019 Cannes . It was a big hit in theaters with more than 2 million tickets sold, while the period love story, Portrait, had to settle for 100k+ tickets sold. Ultimately, Les Mis ended up winning four French Academy awards (the Césars) including Best Picture in a ceremony that infamously saw Celine Sciamma and her lead actress Adèle Haenel walk out following Roman Polanski’s win for Best Director. Claire Mathon deservedly won her film’s sole César for Best Cinematography.
To this day, the online discourse will have you believe that Sciamma’s film was the no-brainer choice to represent France at the 2020 Academy Awards. I have to ask on what basis? Its critics score? History has shown that critics and Academy voters' tastes don’t always align.
The fact of the matter is Les Misérables was the French contender. It was about France right now, was beloved by the French public, critics and its industry at large and more importantly it fulfilled its mission; get nominated and lose to Parasite. If Portrait of A Lady on Fire was as strong a contender as they thought it was, it would’ve gotten nominations outside of the Best International Film category just like Parasite did that very same year.
Now I’m not denying that French society is misogynistic and queerphobic and that played a major part in Portrait of A Lady on Fire’s commercial and awards success (or lack thereof). We can also admit that it was a more challenging film for the average moviegoer to begin with, even if you took queerness out of it. It was simply never gonna outperform Les Misérables. France ended up selecting a movie about a lesbian love story directed by a man, Deux by Filippo Meneghetti, the year after. It did make the shortlist but wasn’t nominated.
However you will never convince me that it was harder for someone of Celine Sciamma’s stature to finance her fifth film than it was for Ladj Ly to finance his first feature about the Parisian suburbs with unknown actors. Ly was the underdog story not Sciamma and we should celebrate his success. Celine Sciamma did.
This brings us back to 2023. If you look at the actual movie and not who made it, Anatomy of a Fall actually has much more in common with Les Misérables than it does Portrait of A Lady on Fire. It won a bigger prize at Cannes, the biggest prize in fact. It had commercial and critical success in its home country. It actually just crossed the one million tickets sold milestone last weekend. As of early September 2023, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders (Japan) and The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer (UK) were its toughest competition. You can’t tell me that those films, as incredible as they might be, have the frontrunner energy Parasite had. Most experts had Triet’s film as the frontrunner since May and although they share the same US distributor, I believe NEON will campaign for it more than they did for Sciamma’s. I believe in its chances to still get a couple nominations in other categories at the Oscars. If she does, I’m grateful she won’t have to share her accomplishment with her country.
To be fair at this particular time we can’t know if The Taste of Things will do better or worse. It is scheduled to be released in France on November 8th and with two French stars leading it, Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, it is likely to do very well. It already won the Best Director prize at Cannes and this selection and potential nomination might give it the extra push it needs to go even further. Trần Anh Hùng deserves this moment for his career. That being said, if both films had a good critical reception and a good cast we have to look at what sets them apart.
I don’t think the misogyny argument is silly but I do think it’s the wrong misogyny argument. It is misogyny, but as it pertains to France’s fascism not the lazy and simplistic “man over the woman” narrative or the even more belittling “food story over female driven story” narrative.
That would undermine the fact that Justine Triet made an important and brave anti establishment and anti Macron government speech during the biggest moment of her career and to speak up for not just herself but also her peers and those of us coming after her. Now I believe she is being punished for it.
It might look like a minor controversy to the outside world at the time, but I cannot overstate how big of a deal it was. It was in the French news cycle for weeks and created endless political debates on the primetime news. What is happening to her right now is more or less what she denounced in her speech. A French society where according to Triet, “protest was denied and suppressed in a shocking manner” and how “ this pattern of increasingly uninhibited dominating power is now at work in several areas; obviously socially is where it is the most shocking, but we also see it in all spheres of society, and the film industry hasn’t been spared”.
The French minister of culture Rima Abdul Malak, as in the very same person in charge of the selection committee, immediately reacted by saying she should be grateful because France, through its government funds, is the reason for Triet’s success and accomplishment.
I’m not saying Trần Anh Hùng's film isn’t good or even better. (Anecdote: I actually met him when I was in high school at a premiere in a small town 5 hours from Paris for his movie Norwegian Wood (2009). It was very important for my developing cinephile mind at the time and I vividly remember him being so kind.)
I cannot wait to see his newest film, but I haven’t heard a compelling argument as to how his case was overwhelmingly stronger at the time they made their decision. People will argue it is simply a matter of taste (pun not intended).
Maybe. We will never truly know.
What we do know is that capitalism doesn’t care about merit or taste. It cares about profit and about winning. So when you see a powerful group of people making a choice so obviously against their own benefit you have to ask yourself what they are trying to protect. France hadn’t been closer to a win in decades. What is the message they are trying to send?
It’s hard for me to believe that they would simply want to discourage female driven storytelling. Their last international film submissions : Deux, Titane, and Saint-Omer, all directed by women, doesn’t back up that theory. Therefore, given the facts I have in front of me, I can only deduct the message is to not speak up at all. They will shut it down one way or another even if they have to sacrifice a potential win. They decided to lose the battle to eventually win the war.
In a way, The Taste of Things is the perfect scapegoat. It’s a film about the type of French culture they want to present to the world, in this case it’s culinary heritage and it’s acclaimed enough that for international viewers, it would make perfect sense as a choice. I can’t blame them for thinking maybe we wouldn’t notice.
We noticed.
I know some would prefer for us to argue amongst each other about how this choice is sexist or how saying it’s sexist is actually racist because the male director is not white rather than look deeper at who makes the decisions and who and what it benefits.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we should take the current writers and actors strikes in the US as an opportunity to rethink the whole film business ecosystem. The awards industrial complex is part of that. Since it looks like it’s not going to be abolished anytime soon, what can we do to make it better? There have been much discussion about adding categories, like stunt coordination, or reforming others. The international film category needs to be part of that conversation. Films should not be representing countries and governments should not be choosing who gets to be submitted. You have filmmakers making some incredible work currently in prison because of their art. While France is obviously not there yet and French cinema has the privilege of having several films produced each year great enough to be competing for awards, there needs to be a fairer process put in place that leaves no room for suspicions of foul play. In this golden age of access to cinema and diversity of choices, there is no reason we should have to choose between Team Justine Triet and Team Trần Anh Hùng.
You can be both, be in the middle, dance all night.