'Anora' triumphs at the most depoliticized Oscars

Barcelona10 years ago, Sean Baker released a film, Tangerine, about two transgender prostitutes from Los Angeles who worked mostly at the intersection of Santa Monica and Highland. Just a 15-minute walk from that corner, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Baker collected the Oscar for best film on Monday for another vibrant, tender and funny story about sex workers. Anora, the best film of 2024 according to the ARA critics, has won a total of five Oscars: best film, director, actress, original screenplay and editing. A fair and important triumph, because it rewards an independent cinema that always stands by the oppressed and the marginalized, that gives voice to the most invisible in American society and that celebrates the beauty and imperfection of its protagonists without paternalism or condescension.

Anora, which won the Palme d'Or last year and now the Oscar for best film, thus achieves the two most important awards in the cinematic universe, a milestone that only three films had previously achieved: Lost days (1945) by Billy Wilder, Marty (1955) by Delbert Mann and Parasites (2019) by Bong Joon-ho. Baker's film also talks about how social inequalities shape our relationships: it stars an erotic dancer from a strip club who meets the son of a Russian oligarch and, in a short time, goes from shaking her ass in front of drunken clients for a few dollars to enjoying a life of luxury. hiding a few things about her situation in the United States.

It is significant that Quentin Tarantino has given the Oscar for best director to Sean Baker. The most relevant American filmmaker of his generation passes the baton to a younger director with whom he shares the passionate defense of cinema as a collective experience in a room. "Directors, continue making films for the big screen. I know I will continue to do so," Baker said in an emotional speech. Before, he had dedicated one of his Oscars to all sex workers, as he did in Cannes. Baker, the big winner of the night, takes home four Oscar statuettes individually and is the first director to win for editing his own film. This award, by the way, he dedicated to his producers and his dog Bunsen. "Yes, he gives me very good advice," he justified himself.

Beyond the triumph ofAnora, it has been a very evenly distributed edition with prizes for a good part of the favourites: The brutalist It won the Oscars for best original music, photography and actor (Adrien Brody); Wicked costume and artistic direction; Dune: Part 2 sound and visual effects; The substance best makeup; Conclave Best Adapted Screenplay; and Emilia Perez original song and supporting actress (Zoe Saldana). In Emilia Perez The award for best international film slipped away, which was ultimately won by the Brazilian drama I'm still here: big party in Brazil, therefore, where the Oscar gala coincided with one of the most important nights of its carnival.

Adrien Brody, Oscar and kiss

With the Oscar for The brutalist, Adrien Brody wins his second Oscar. If when he received the first, in 2003, he surprised the winner of the award, Halle Berry, with an unsolicited kiss, this time it was she who surprised him, on the red carpet, with an unexpected kiss on the lips. If Brody's award was predictable, Mickey Madison's award for best actress for Anora It has been one of the few surprises of a night that is generally quite predictable.

But it has been the other acting categories that have provided some of the highlights of the night. For example, seeing how Kieran Culki, best supporting actor for In real pain, He took advantage of his frenetic and rushed speech to remind his wife that last year she told him that they would only have a fourth child if he won an Oscar. The woman's face was a poem. Zoe Saldana's husband also had a leading role, and his wife praised her "wonderful hair" when collecting the award for best supporting actress. Emilia Perez. Saldaña recalled that she is the "first woman of Dominican origin to win an Oscar" and recalled her origins as a cleaner of immigrants. "Winning for a film in which I speak and sing in Spanish would have made my mother very happy."

Conan O'Brien and Karla Sofía Gascón

The Oscars have kicked off with a montage of scenes from the city of Los Angeles – a discreet reminder of the fires that the city has suffered – before giving way to musical numbers from the stars of Wicked Ariana Grande (Over the rainbow) and Cynthia Erivo (Defying gravity). In just five minutes the gala was already starting to get long, but luckily the presenter Conan O'Brien appeared, who after coming out from behind Demi Moore in the style of The substance He made a funny monologue without missing the opportunity to joke about the controversy of the season: "Anora has set a new record for fucks: 479, 10 more than Karla Sofia Gascon's publicist: "What did you do what?". An elegant way to handle the elephant in the room, especially since she immediately welcomed Gascon. O'Brien has fired darts without much venom at the lightning bolt The brutalist and made a joke about Netflix ("It's the leading studio in price increases") that may not be repeated next year, since there is a rumor that the Academy is considering broadcasting the next edition of the Oscars precisely through Netflix. He made worse sloppiness when, halfway through the ceremony, he said: "We've already reached the moment when Kendrick Lamar appears and says that Drake is a pedophile" or, already in the final stretch, "if at this point in the night he is enjoying the show, he has Stockholm syndrome." One of the few surprises of the night was the appearance of Mick Jagger on stage to the rhythm of Sympathy for the devil to present the Oscar for best original song, "I wasn't actually the first choice to be here, but Bob Dylan didn't want to come and suggested someone younger to do it."

A gala without a DJ

The ceremony was uneventful, with a series of O'Brien witticisms, sketches and more or less successful award presentations (led by Ben Stiller), a lively pace and few musical numbers – the best being the tribute to the Bond saga with Margaret Qualley showing off her dancing skills. It was a fairly apolitical gala, however, with a script that contained virtually no references to current political events. In the image of the film industry, the Oscars' reaction to Trump's victory was to take a step back and depoliticise the awards. The only things that broke the tone were a joke by O'Brien about "standing up to powerful Russians", a few spontaneous comments by Daryl Hannah in favour of Ukraine and, of course, the speech by Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, the protagonists of the documentary. No other land, who have called for an end to "ethnic cleansing" in Palestine and have called for "the path to a political solution to the conflict", pointing out that "US foreign policy is blocking it".

Oscar winners

Best film

• Anora, by Sean Baker

Best Direction

• Sean Baker by Anora

Best Actress

• Mickey Madison by Anora

Best Actor

• Adrien Brody by The brutalist

Best Supporting Actress

• Zoe Saldana by Emilia Perez

Best supporting actor

• Kieran Culkin for In real pain

Best International Film

• Even though I'm here, by Walter Salles (Brazil)

Best animated feature film

• Flow, a world to save by Gintes Zilbalodis

Best Documentary

• No other land, by Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Yuval Abraham and Hamdan Ballal

Best Original Screenplay

• Sean Baker by Anora

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Peter Straughan by Conclave

Best Photography

• Lol Crawley by The brutalist

Best editing

• Sean Baker by Anora

Best Original Music

• Daniel Blumberg byThe brutalist

Best song

• The evil, ofEmilia Perez. Music by Clément Ducol and Camille; lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard

Better sound

• Gareth John, Richard King, Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill for Dune: Part 2

Best Art Direction

• Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales by Wicked

Best costumes

• Paul Tazewell by Wicked

Best makeup and hair

• Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon and Marilyne Scarselli for The substance

Best visual effects

• Paul Lambert, Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe and Gerd Nefzer for Dune: Part 2

Best animated short film

• In the shadow of the cypressby Hossein Molayemi Shirin Sohani

Best short fiction

• I feel like a robot, by Victoria Warmerdam

Best Documentary Short

• The only girl in the orchestra, by Molly O'Brien