Behind the scenes: how El Secreto de sus Ojos got an Oscar for Argentina
Well done Argentina for scoring an Oscar at the weekend for El Secreto de sus Ojos. The award for the Best Foreign Language Film does, indeed, go to the country not an individual filmmaker.
And this isn’t the only little-known thing about this category. I’ve just been researching it for an article in The Linguist magazine.
Here are some oddities:
- Each country has to narrow down their entire annual output to just one representative. This can be problematic. Do you pick the film that went down best with the home crowd or the one that is most likely to please Americans? Should Spain go for a crowd-pleasing Almodavar film every year or risk it with an unknown?
- There were over 60 films on the longlist this year. To be involved in narrowing these down, Academy members must have seen 80% of the category’s film screenings. This recently prompted The New York Times to suggest that votes must come mainly from retirees with time on their hands.
- To be classed as ‘foreign’, 50% of the film’s dialogue has to be in a language other than English. Previously this had to be the country’s official language, but this was amended shortly after Italian film Private (2004) was disqualified because its main languages were Arabic and Hebrew.
The category is unlike any other, but, for all its faults and complications, it can still provides a great boost for little-known industries – both domestically and internationally.
Vanessa Ragone, executive producer of El Secreto de sus Ojos, told me some weeks ago the film is already “one of the biggest hits of contemporary Argentine cinema”. In the week of its Oscar nomination, DVD sales in Argentina were outselling other current domestic titles almost tenfold and the film returned to 20 cinema screens. Imagine how that will grow now. And overseas too.
Personally, I’m not convinced it was THE greatest foreign film of the year, but it definitely deserves to be a success and I’m delighted to see Argentinian cinema get recognition on such a global platform. I was also pleased to see a Peruvian film nominated for the first time with La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow).
Yet, as this BBC article points out, not all Peruvians were pleased.
Rolando Arellano, a marketing expert and columnist, responded to the Oscar nomination by saying the film did not show the reality of a developing country with strong economic growth. Instead, he said, it "reverted to the stereotypical image of a problematic nation with very poor and extremely downtrodden people who live with the ghost of official and unofficial terrorism".
Interestingly one of my Argentinian housemates just said she was pleased that Argentina won this year with a film that did not focus wholly on the past dictatorship. The only time Argentina’s won an Oscar before was for The Official Story which was a heart-wrenching tale of children stolen during the ‘Dirty War’.
Some critics are suggesting El Secreto de Sus Ojos (or indeed some of the other strong contenders) should have been in the Best Picture category too. Especially as this year the category was upped from five to ten nominees. As yet no foreign language film has ever won best picture. Maybe next year…
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for other ‘world cinema’ tips, check out this excellent blog http://dzong2.blogspot.com which throws up lots of other strong contenders from the Oscar longlist.
Great post, Vicky!
‘Argentina’ has produced some extraordinary films over the years – in the mid-1990s I did a Masters thesis on the new (post-modern) Latin America cinema and spent a year travelling the continent attending film festivals, talking to filmmakers, and burying myself deep within film archives and cinematheques for weeks on end.
Before the trip I had suspected Argentine cinema was pretty special based on the films I’d managed to see in Australia over the years and as part of my degree, but I had no idea what magical stuff was being made over there until I spent two months in Buenos Aires, and then kept seeing Argentine films shine at festival after festival I attended on the continent.
You’re right – this film might not be the most brilliant film of last year, but it will draw some attention to Argentine cinema in the West more generally, and inspire film-lovers to head to their video store to look for more.
If you see a copy of the Lonely Planet South America guide lying around somewhere, check out my overview (now out of date) on Latin American cinema, which is essentially a taste of my thesis.
Loving our Grantourismo project, but I’m envying you there…
Thanks Lara. I am envying the fact that you had that film-festival project! Must have been fantastic. I already noted your spread in LP. Still haven’t made my way through all your recommendations, but I’m working on it…
My housemates where talking about El Secreto again last night. “I’m waiting for the Hollywood remake now,” said one. He was joking, of course. But why does Hollywood feel compelled to remake movies that are so much better in the original form? Eg Vanilla Sky and The Departed. I hear they also remade the excellent Argentinian film Nueve Reinas. It’s as if all the original context, layering and personality is totally dispensable.