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We are delighted to see not one, but two prominent Asia-centric films, Chinese director Lulu Wang’s The Farewell and South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, be included in this year’s ceremony as nominees for some of Hollywood’s most prestigious awards.
One category in which both films will engage in direct competition is Best Foreign Language Film, an award the two films are vying for alongside the French films Les Miserables and Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Spain’s Pain and Glory. Asian cinema is no stranger to this category; previous Golden Globe ceremonies have seen such films as Cambodia’s First They Killed My Father (2017) and Japan’s Shoplifters (2018) and The Wind Rises (2013) compete for the title of Best Foreign Language Film in their respective years.
That being said, many have criticized this category for hindering the presence of foreign films in categories dominated by Western cinema (in fact, HFPA rules forbid such films from competing in the main Best Picture Categories, both Drama and Musical/Comedy), and as a result, there has historically been little representation of foreign cinema outside this category. This is not the case for The Farewell or Parasite, however, as both films have successfully garnered nominations in other categories apart from the expected Foreign Language Film award, and could potentially break new ground if chosen above the competition for these awards. For The Farewell, a Chinese/American co-production consisting primarily of dialogue in Mandarin Chinese, lead actress Awkwafina has received a nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical Category, which she will compete for alongside Ana de Armas of Knives Out, Cate Blanchett of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Beanie Feldstein of Booksmart, and Emma Thompson of Late Night.
In spite of the category’s name, Awkwafina’s performance bears a noteworthy dramatic edge that we believe allows the performance to shine as a potential winner for this award. Through her depiction of Billi, a young woman struggling with the terminal illness of her grandmother (or Nai-Nai as Billi calls her) and the rest of her family’s refusal to let Nai-Nai know of her own diagnosis, Awkwafina effectively captures and displays the multiple conflicting emotions she goes through over the course of the film, helping make The Farewell a moving work of cinema that’s dramatic, but knows just the right places to lighten up and relieve tension. The competition in this category is strong, but we are confident that Awkwafina has a very solid chance of coming out on top.
Proving even more successful in categories outside Best Foreign Language Film is the South Korean film Parasite, with director Bong Joon-ho being named in not one, but two additional award categories. For the film, which details the efforts of a lower class family manipulating their way into employment by a family of significantly higher economic status and the fallout that ensues from their actions, Joon-ho has received nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay, the latter of which he shares with fellow screenwriter Han Jin-won.
Not unlike Awkwafina, Joon-ho finds himself competing with some of Western cinema’s most iconic names in these categories; also vying for the title of Best Director are Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Martin Scorsese for The Irishman, Sam Mendes for 1917, and Todd Phillips for Joker. Best Screenplay is no less competitive; along with the aforementioned Tarantino, there is also Marriage Story’s Noah Baumbach, The Two Popes’ Anthony McCarten, and The Irishman’s Steve Zaillian hoping to take the prize. Nonetheless, given the overwhelming acclaim that Parasite and Joon-ho have received over the award season, one should not be so quick to rule out a potential victory in either category.
Whatever the results are for this coming Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony, we here at World Wide Motion Picture Corporation congratulate the filmmakers of The Farewell and Parasite for what they have accomplished so far. In an increasingly globalized world, we believe that it is more important than ever for foreign cinema to be accessible and admired by people from all parts of the globe. A victory for either film in any of their nominated categories will most certainly be incredibly beneficial in achieving this goal, but even if the ceremony ends with both films leaving empty-handed, their achievements up to this point have already done more than enough in helping make foreign cinema a more prominent staple of the overall cinematic landscape.
