I've recently been on a foreign film kick and am looking for suggestions. Some of my favorties include
- Volver - La Vie En Rose - I'm Not Scared - Pan's Labyrinth - Abel (I sat in the cinema for about 10 minutes after the film ended, trying to decide what the hell I had just watched. So powerful)
I started a similar thread when I first joined BWW a few years ago, back when I was young and ignorant. Here's a link, not to be dicky or to stop this thread, but just to pass along the great suggestions I got. French movies thread
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A fairly random list of ten must sees out of thousands:
A Special Day, Ettore Scola; Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni The Official Story, Luis Puenzo; Norma Aleandro Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee; Zhang Yi Yi, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh The Lives of Others, Florian Henkel; Martina Gedick, Ulriche Mühe, Sebastian Koch Smiles of a Summer Night, Ingmar Bergman; Eva Dahlbeck, Gunnar Bjornstrand Ran, Akira Kurosawa; Tatsuya Nakadai Law of Desire, Pedro Almodovar; Eusebio Poncela, Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas, Miguel Molina 8 Women, Francois Ozon; Catherine Denueve, Fanny Ardant, Isabelle Huppert Pixote, Hector Babenco; Fernando Ramos da Silva Eat Drink Man Woman, Ang Lee; Sihung Lung
A couple of Brazilian films I would recommend: Central Station and City of God.
A Spanish film, DarkBlueAlmostBlack, is very good and somewhat Almodovar-ish. And while on the subject of Almodovar – All About My Mother.
The French film Amelie.
Israeli films The Band’s Visit and The Bubble.
The Italian film Cinema Paradiso.
Coach Bob knew it all along: you've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. You have to keep passing the open windows. (John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire)
The RED, WHITE & BLUE trilogy is a favorite of mine.
Other more recent films off the top of my head- THE SONS ROOM, RUN LOLA RUN, LUST/CAUTION, AUDITION, THE HOST, FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE, HIGH TENSION, CENTRAL STATION, IL POSTINO, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE, OLDBOY, THE ORPHANAGE,THE WEDDING BANQUET
I've seen a lot of good foreign films that have come out in the last 10-15 years. I would recommend these. All of them are very good and worth seeing. The ones I have * were truly exceptional.
A Separation (Iranian)* Biutiful (Spanish) Departures (Japanese)* The Kite Runner (Afghani)* Monsoon Wedding (Indian) The Stoning of Soraya M. (Iranian)* Gomorrah (Italian) Point Blank (French - the 2010 one, not the Mickey Rourke one)* Up the Yangtze (Chinese - more of a documentary) Revanche (Austrian)* Tell No One (French)* 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romanian)* The Secret In Their Eyes (Argentinian)* Monsieur Lazhar (French-Canadian) The Original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy (Swedish)
I've also seen and enjoyed City of God, The Band's Visit, Central Station and The Lives of Others which were already mentioned. All 4 are great films.
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Europa Europa Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown All About My Mother Talk to Her The Sea Inside Y Tu Mama Tambien The Devil's Backbone Thesis Rashomon The Seven Samurai Yojimbo Sanjuro Kagemusha Raise the Red Lantern Farewell, My Concubine Ringu A Tale of Two Sisters Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Eat, Drink, Man, Woman The Exterminating Angel The Discreet Charms of the Bourgoisie Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White Red) The Celebration Antonia's Line Delicatessen City of Lost Children Amelie 8 1/2 Amarcord La Dolce Vita Les Enfants du Paradise Au Revoir, Les Enfants Cache Character Breathless Ma Vie En Rose Run Lola Run The Host Monsoon Wedding The Vanishing Wings of Desire 8 Women Songs From the Second Floor Millennium Trilogy (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) Cinema Paradiso Il Postino Das Boot Let the Right One In Mon Oncle Belle Epoque The Wedding Banquet Kolya The Chorus Apartment Zero La Communidad Km .0 Amour Come Undone Tell No One Coco Before Chanel
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
If you have a Hulu+ membership, you gain access to a pretty large portion of the Criterion Collection, much of which is made up of classic (and sometimes rarely seen) foreign films. Several of which have been mentioned in this thread.
"Querelle", "Scene of the Crime", "El Norte", "Therese", "Berlin Alexanderplatz", "Nosferatu" (Herzog version), "La Belle Noiseuse", anything by Fassbender, Agnieszka Holland...and anything with Catherine Deneuve...
She has a new movie coming out in France soon where she play a casino owner in Cannes or Monte Carlo. Cannot remember the name. Will probably will not reach US until next year.
Has held up nicely age wise without the benefit of plastic surgery
LA STRADA was my first Fellini, and I found it a great entrypoint. Giulietta Masina! Gah!
Also, I've been really into Jacques Tati and (lately, since Criterion put out his work) Pierre Etaix. Foreign, yes, but their comedy is universal!
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
About Fellini, I watched The White Sheik a couple of weeks ago, and last week Il Vitteloni and they were both great. I always hear the expression ""like something out of a Fellini film", but never quite know what that means - I guess that mostly applies to his later works. I haven't seen the ones Jane mentioned, but intend to soon!
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Y Tu Mama Tambien Cleo from 5 to 7 Band of Outsiders Pasolini's Mamma Roma The 400 Blows La Strada Ali: Fear Eats the Soul The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Three Colors Trilogy (or The Decalogue if you're into the pretense of the 10 Commandments as a lot of these films are night and day) Nights of Cabiria The Housemaid- This Korean film was on TCM recently and I was seriously blown away by its inventiveness. No wonder Scorsese and Bong Joon-ho raved about this one. Lola Montes The Leopard The Earrings of Madame De... Senso When a Woman Ascends the Stairs The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Summer With Monika Jules & Jim Through a Glass Darkly Fanny & Alexander
Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy (Lola, The Marriage of Maria Braun, and Veronika Voss) all went out of print by Criterion, unfortunately (but rumor is it will go the way of Tati's films and reappear again as an upgrade). But they're on YouTube, as is his little known TV film he did called Jailbait. I actually think it is exceptional work as a teenage girl coming of age melodrama, oddly not in his Lincoln Center retrospective but I suppose finding any good print was difficult, and a great entry point. It actually made Ebert's Top 10 in the year I believe, years removed from its German TV debut, it had a specialty theater run.
I live for Fassbinder. I will say the BRD Trilogy you will need a helluva lot of post-war German context but I really find his whole run amazing. You cannot dismiss any of them even if it is not your cup of tea.
Catherine Deneuve films are the only sure thing French films with non-auteurs that get distribution. Or rather, it will certainly play for one week in NY.
I also love the work of Robert Bresson. I am actually kind of heartened that Richard Linklater is so clearly indebted to his work as well as Eric Rohmer. Rohmer I think can be a bit more challenging than Bresson so I'll throw my hat to Diary of a Country Priest, Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette, Pickpocket, and A Man Escaped.
A long time go, the Paris theater in NY showed the series Berlin Alexanderplatz. One episode at a time, once a week. That was my world. Being transported into the world of a film is my criterion for greatness, and once a week I was transported into the world of Franz Biberkopf. I will never forget that period of my life.
Fie, fie on all of these. They are merely dabblings at filmmaking. They are an embarrassment to the great art of cinema. Ptoo, ptoo.
If you want a truly great artistic film, you must see Wings of Desire and its sequel Faraway So Close. What Wim Wenders does in these films is other-worldly. I even hesitate to call them films. They are LIFE!
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
WILD STRAWBERRIES, Bergman FANNY AND ALEXANDER, Bergman PERSONA, Bergman (I just saw it again recently, so it came to mind.) 8 1/2, Fellini (My favorite ending to a film, ever.) JULES AND JIM, Truffaut
They're obvious and they're classics, but if you haven't seen them yet, you should. I'm a big Bergman fan and could give you two others you must see, but start with WILD STRAWBERRIES, at least.
Also, it's not exactly foreign as in "foreign language" but the British film of PYGMALION directed by Leslie Howard and Anthony Asquith is really, really good.
Gothy - I didn't realize there was a sequel to Wings of Desire. Thanks for the heads up. I think the first 30-40 minutes of Wings of Desire is some of the most magical, spellbinding stuff I've ever seen on screen. Unfortunately, once the dialog starts and the Peter Falk story begins, the spell breaks for me.