It Was Just an Accident
While the Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just an Accident, may have won this year because One Battle After Another wasn’t at the Cannes Film Festival, it is certainly very deserving of the award. While the subject matter limited its upside slightly for my personal enjoyment, it’s an extremely good film, especially on a technical level, the acting and directing are excellent. It’s also surprisingly funny, despite the dark focus of the film. The script and dialogue are particularly good - very 12 Angry Men. This is must watch for any Oscar movie fans, as it’s a very likely nomination for Best Picture. With a 8.75, this lands just outside the top 5 for the year for ZEJ.
-Z
A classic International Best Picture Nom super heavy plot with a surprising amount of humor thrown in, I really enjoyed this. The characters were well developed and the final scene was really powerful. Some of the dialogue-heavy scenes felt a bit long, but that also might be an issue of having to read so many subtitles. Even though I didn’t pick this for my Movie Fantasy League, I’ll be rooting for it to do well come awards season.
-E
The first high level foreign film of the season if I am not mistaken. Sadly, not the movie's fault, I was in a tired mood that wasn’t really ready for a film like this, but no matter the mood this is an objectively very good film. Acting was great and had a few extremely powerful moments, but to my surprise it was much more of a comedy than you would expect. This will win awards, so you better find time and see it!
-J
