KNEECAP (2024) - 12/2/2024

This should be the International Film winner

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about the potential leaders for Best International Film for this upcoming Oscar cycle. There’s a Brazilian film I’m Still Here that’s gotten a lot of love. I keep hearing of an Indian film All We Imagine as Light which won the Grand Prix at this past Cannes (which is the runner up award for the festival), but India has dismissed that film as its official selection for a lesser heralded and known film (at least internationally). Maybe, this means another country who helped produce it can pick it up, which is what’s happening with another film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. That film - while about Iran, shot in Iran, and spoken in Farsi - was picked up by Germany who helped co-produce it in secret because of the political nature of the film, and the Iranian government’s traditional attitude towards dissenters. The favorite, though, seems to be Emilia Pérez - the Spanish speaking film that takes place in Mexico, but is France’s official entrant because of the link (and funding) through director Jacques Audiard. However, I’m here to say it should be Kneecap, the official entry for Ireland.

The group Kneecap hails from Northern Ireland the North of Ireland and are an Irish rap trio that have gained a lot of popularity within the last five years. This film follows the three lads as they come up and gain popularity as a hip-hop group with most of the film spoken in Irish¹. Seems pretty straight forward right? On the surface, it may seem as if there’s not a whole lot to it, but realistically, this has become one of my favorite movies of the year.

Music biopics are hard, predictable, and often suck. I’m sure too, that sadly, this one will be easily compared to 8 Mile (white dudes rapping coming from the slums of their respective city); Kneecap however is far more than that. The three men (Naoise, Liam Óg, and DJ Provái) play themselves in the exploration of Irish nationalism and what it means to embrace your inherent culture and dispel colonialism. The conflict that has plagued Ireland throughout history and especially the north over the past sixty plus years is not an easy thing to explain in a few sentences (although Say Nothing, the book and the Hulu adaptation do a fantastic job), but when we talk about Derry or especially Belfast (where this film is shot and takes place) we usual boil it down to the times of The Troubles. This film instead tells us what it means to be from West Belfast (the predominantly Catholic area) in modern times and how 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement, the lasting effects of British apartheid can still be felt in this city - once the home to the most terrorist activity in all of Europe.

To combat this rule, the main characters speak in Irish, which has been a dying language in its motherland due to English assimilation. The film goes on to point out how in the North of Ireland, there are only about an estimated 6,000 native speakers. Therefore, every word said is inherently a bullet fired, a metaphorical middle finger to colonialism and its destructive nature on indigenous and native people. While there is plenty of English (usually from one side of the political spectrum) most of the cast speaks in Irish which can be read in several different ways. First, that it is only natural to some of the main cast who are fighting for an Irish Language Act to get passed, which will officially recognize Irish as an native language of the country. Because these characters are fighting for that right, they should speak it in their everyday lives. Second are the Republicans who believe an inherent and correct form of protest against British rule is speaking Irish, which is how our main characters get introduced. When Liam is arrested and refuses to speak English to the cops, J.J (Provái) is called in to be an interpreter. Third is to point out that while Northern Ireland may be a part of the United Kingdom, it is not English, no matter how hard they try to make it be. By proving that the native people who live and breathe there already have a culture of their own, they are showing that an Irish film can be exactly what it is, Irish. And fourth (and probably my favorite) is by having this film set and shot in a predominantly English speaking country, they dictate a majority of the dialogue in Irish for over 100 minutes just to get it potentially nominated for Best International Film in a place that happens to be under English rule, which is hilarious and an incredible “fuck you”.

Now, if this film seems as if it's a sad or solemn deep dive into the erasure of the Irish people, it is quite the opposite. This film has so much style and is too fucking funny for its own good. It takes on a sort of gallows humor approach to the material at hand and exacerbates it at full force. There are incredible jokes throughout that rip apart the culture and the English. The group’s actual music is weaved in so naturally throughout the film in a very believable and intelligent way. And, incredibly, there is a hilarious and excessive amount of sex and drug use that never feels gratuitous, in fact probably more celebratory of life more than anything. On top of it all, they were able to get Michael Fassbender to play a key role all while dropping an amazing semi-meta joke².

So, why do I think this should be the Best International Feature (previously Foreign Language) winner? Well, because it’s literally about a foreign language. Not in a way that is about someone learning a new language or embracing culture (I guess it is actually kind of about embracing culture), but how language is inherently important to culture and identity. As the film states at the end, every 40 days, a language is forgotten and the reason for that is the destructive nature of colonialism. Look at how America and Canada built Indian schools to rip natives from their families and assimilate them into their country’s pre-fitted ideals? So much has been lost from that. The same can be observed about all of Central and South America. Language is the basic foundation for every single culture ever, and by erasing it, you erase an entire lineage.

This is why we acknowledge a foreign films, because while these countries and cultures may not be in our direct line of consumption, they are important for us as viewers to have a window into other parts of the world; that way, we are not so locked up in our own tiny box that is America. It is important to know what is going on and what is important in other parts of the world, and a large part of that is through film. And those films need to be told through the language of their native speakers. Kneecap not only tells us a story of ongoing economic and political struggle throughout Northern Ireland, but it does it while trying to preserve Irish heritage.

The other reason is that the topic of colonialism is ever present in the current political climate. Foreign films tend to be recognized for their reflections of the political climates of the time, like like Z or Parasite. These are films that inherently have great stories, but they strongly examine the states of the respective countries they take place in. The semi-settled-but-realistically-ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland is nothing new, but can be seen as a stand-in for the current situation in Palestine. The analogy by no means is perfect and may seem simplified, but it is true, and one that is voiced by the members of Kneecap themselves. They are inherently two sides of the same coin - native people who want to be left alone and have sovereign rule over their own homeland. Currently, Belfast is far removed from the terrible stages that Palestine is currently caught in, but it doesn’t make the case any less sympathetic. It is a very important issue right now, and if Hollywood loves nothing else, it's to pat themselves on the back by awarding a film they think solves a problem.

The issue here is the Emilia Pérez of it all. Pérez, with the global force that is Netflix behind it, has a much clearer path. One, because it is a Netflix production, and Netflix is a juggernaut. This year, Emilia Pérez seems to be the only film they are throwing their marketing dollars behind to push for nominations and hopefully wins during awards season. That, and the global availability of the film has made it more well known after its wins in the festival circuit. Also, with Pérez, it seems to have hot-button issues dealing with both the trans community - something that is constantly being questioned by conservatives and the right - as well as the lasting cartel issues that persist in Mexico. The cast of Emilia Pérez are a lot more starry too, and the Academy loves nothing more than promoting stars.

I think that is truly what it will come down to at the end of the day, Pérez’ popularity and exposure, even with Kneecap now being on Netflix. But if the Academy really cared about international language and film, this should absolutely be the winner.

1. Personally, I got to see them this past year at Reading Festival and they were fucking awesome and also hammered at 2pm on a Friday, which, same.

2. There’s a line uttered in reference to Fassbender’s character in which Liam says, “What do you call a former IRA member that now teaches yoga? Bobby Sandals. Which is amazing seeing as how Fassbender literally played Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen’s Hunger.