We weren’t among those who were surprised by Argentina, 1985’s win for international feature at the Golden Globes this year. A film about the effort to punish a military dictatorship for subjecting a nation’s people to untold horrors in the name of protecting them from leftist influence? That sounds like a slam-dunk Oscar winner to us. And if you’ve seen director Santiago Mitre’s depiction of the Trial of the Juntas, then you know that its gently impassioned and highly polished presentation is the icing on the cake.
For a moment, it seemed like the only thing preventing us from watching any of the films that Argentina, 1985 was up against that night is that we don’t feel the pressure to do our due diligence the way we did when we started predicting the Academy Awards more than 20 years ago. And then the Oscar nominations happened and All Quiet on the Western Front tied The Banshees of Inisherin for the second most mentions. And then All Quiet on the Western Front won seven BAFTA awards, including best picture. And then Eric texted me this tweet.
Flash forward four days and one screening of All Quiet on the Western Front later and I can report that while no one in director Edward Berger’s film eats enough stolen goose to experience “twink death,” many twinks do in fact meet their literal demise across a grueling two-and-a-half-hour bloodbath. We’ll get into the details of that carnage when we assess the film’s chances in a few other categories and just say that, while there’s an airlessness to its construction that only underlines its lack of moral shading, there’s no doubt from frame one that the meticulousness of the film’s technical proficiency is the stuff of Oscar glory.
Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front
Could Win: Argentina, 1985
Should Win: Close
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