As we near the end of the year, with its endless succession of highfalutin best-of lists and wispy awards prognostications, it's worth noting there still hasn't been a breakout foreign language hit this year. Usually, by now, there are at least two such releases, one that gains favor with the critics and arthouse crowds (like last year's bizarre and brilliant French import Holy Motors) and another that crosses over into the mainstream zeitgeist (something like, say, the pulpy French thriller Tell No One or the Mexican fairy tale Pan's Labyrinth). The most lucrative, of course, is that rare foreign film that appeals to both casual moviegoers and discerning film fans; The Artist from 2011 fit that mold. This year, there have been small waves but nothing even approaching a splash.
The closest to a potential foreign sensation we’ve had was Blue Is the Warmest Color, the French coming-of-age drama that won the coveted Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Featuring gorgeous, naturalistic photography and two of the year's strongest performances (by Léa Seydoux and a barely of-age Adèle Exarchopoulos), Blue Is the Warmest Color is the kind of movie you can't help but get swept up in. Plus, the movie emphasized emotions over artiness, making it an easy sell to mainstream audiences.
But Blue Is the Warmest Color had two major strikes against it: its 3-hour running time and its NC-17 rating. The NC-17 rating, given the film due to its explicit lesbian sex scenes (though, if they were heterosexual, one wonders if it might’ve slid by with a strong R), prohibits the movie from being shown in most major American chains and strongly limits how the movie can be advertised, since many papers and TV stations refuse to advertise NC-17 movies. Then there was the running time, which limited the number of times it could be screened per day.
If that weren’t enough, the film had a third strike: Thanks to bizarre rules about release dates, the film was ineligible to be France's Foreign Language Oscar entry. It is, however, eligible for the Golden Globes, so it may get some love from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. People may mock its murky practices and grabby members, but at least the Foreign Press Association knows when to rally around a worthy film.
The Oscar shortlist was recently announced and is populated with movies that have amassed a fair amount of buzz over the past few months, thanks largely to film festival screenings. Said buzz, however, is far from deafening. The Chilean film Gloria, which seems like one of those old-people-in-love movies but with an arty, foreign glow is an early favorite as is The Past from Iran. Asghar Farhadi, who directed previous Oscar winner A Separation, gives it some clout and early word has been good, especially because the filmmaker seems to have structured and paced the movie like a dynamic thriller. Italy's The Great Beauty, from Il Divo director Paolo Sorrentino, has also stirred up murmurs of praise and should pop up on discerning critics’ top ten lists, but it seems to lack the necessary juice to make its way to the multiplexes (especially since its release is being handled by Janus Films, best known for the premier home-video label The Criterion Collection).
A pair of foreign movies that seemed destined for breakout foreign-feature success were undermined by creative interference by the same man: Weinstein Company co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. First, there came The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-wai's martial arts biopic that centered around Ip Man, the fighter who trained a young Bruce Lee. It was a classic Wong Kar-wai affair: sweepingly romantic, lushly photographed and sharply bittersweet. Released in August, it could have been a lovely change of pace from the endless onslaught of summer movies.
But Weinstein ordered Kar-wai to dramatically re-cut the film—a move that, by all accounts, proved disastrous. The original version made the Oscar short list as Hong Kong's entry, so maybe Academy screeners of the director’s cut will start floating around out there, allowing audiences to behold Kar-wai's original vision.
More baffling still was Weinstein's treatment of Snowpiercer from South Korean master Bong Joon-ho. The Weinstein Company snapped up the rights to the film for a number of global territories, including the U.S.A. But, instead of screening it or scheduling it for a 2013 release, they insisted that the director cut 20 minutes out of the finished film, prompting a creative tug-of-war that continues today (the movie was released on August 1 in its native country). What makes the situation stranger still is that the movie was a colossal hit in South Korea, opened to healthy box office in France and features American movie stars (like Captain America himself, Chris Evans) and was filmed mostly in English. It barely even qualifies as a foreign film, and yet it hasn't seen the light of a multiplex projector here.
Unquestionably, 2013 was a rich and varied year for American films—everything from landmark documentaries like After Tiller to effervescent arthouse fare like Frances Ha to whatever Spring Breakers was graced our moviegoing experience. Traditionally, foreign films are where we have sought out the unconventionality, wildness and experimentation we couldn’t find in homegrown movies. But this year, we thankfully found in American movies the qualities reserved for the imports. This isn't American exclusionism—it's just the truth. Maybe there wasn't a breakout foreign movie this year because, maybe, we didn't need one.