Good foreign films? — Page 2

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#26

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/25/14 at 3:47am

Some great choices that I will need to check out too.

Here are some of mine, apologies if I list any that have already been mentioned.

Le Temps qui Reste (Time to Leave) - gay man who is terminally ill. Melvil Poupaud is great in this and beautiful to look at too!!

Swimming Pool - fab psycho thriller with Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier.

Sous Le Sable (Under the Sand) - Charlotte Rampling again. Husband goes missing. Is he dead? Missing? Charlotte as his wife carries on as normal and pretends he is still with her. Wonderful film.

All the above directed by Francois Ozon

Crustacs et Coquillages (Cockles and Muscles) - camptastic musical with a wonderful performance by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

I Am Love - Tilda Swinton in a beautiful Italian film, falling in love with a friend of her son.

Curse of the Golden Flower - starring Gong Li and her breasts!! The film is OTT but looks amazing.

In the Mood for Love - Maggie Cheung - love story set in 1960's Hong Kong.

Updated On: 7/25/14 at 03:47 AM

#27

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/25/14 at 5:25am

YOU I LOVE is a Russian film about a guy who loves a woman who loves a guy. It's sweet, but well done. Its one of the movies I've seen once but I won't ever forget.

#28

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/25/14 at 8:55am

8 1/2 -- one of the great works of 20th Century art, a joyous and moving experience, radiantly lovely from start to finish, one of those life-changing experiences.

Most of Fellini, actually. LA DOLCE VITA is inevitably rather dated in places, but it still packs a wallop.

Bergman -- I'd say start with SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT. The delightful comedy that inspired A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, it shows that Bergman has a highly developed sense of comedy that can be felt even in THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE MAGICIAN, which I highly recommend. FANNY AND ALEXANDER is probably his greatest film, for me, movies don't get better than that.

Kurosawa -- you can't go wrong. Start with SEVEN SAMURAI, and if you don't like it, just stop watching movies altogether. HIGH AND LOW is a brilliant film about a kidnapping and its consequences, a real high point. STRAY DOG is a great noir cop drama about a cop whose gun is stolen and used to commit a crime. All with Toshiro Mifune, who actually is the actor everybody thought Brando was.

Truffaut: THE 400 BLOWS. Just see it.

Antonioni's L'AVENTURA is very much worth seeing, a not pretty picture of alienation and absence, and still manages to be entertaining.

Visconti's THE LEOPARD, a big juicy historical family saga as times change in 19th Century Sicily. Politics, religion, sex, war, revolution, Alain Delon at the height of his beauty and a 45 minute full formal ball sequence that is one of the Great Wonders Of The Cinema.

I'd recommend Jacques Tati, but I don't think his films work well on video, especially for a first viewing.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/

Updated On: 7/25/14 at 08:55 AM

#29

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/25/14 at 9:43am

"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."

Horse Tears, I completely understand. When I first saw the movie, I thought "Peter Falk? Of all people he could use, Peter Falk?"

I love the theme that this movie is exploring. Spiritual beings who are so curious about being human.

And then Hollywood had to come along and ruin it with their Nicholas Cage crappy remake City of Angels.

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.

#30

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/25/14 at 11:02am

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone! Looking forward to seeing some of them :)

#31

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/27/14 at 1:45pm

Incredibly underrated, understated French film: DOMAIN, with the irreplaceable Beatrice Dalle.

Incredibly overrated, understated French film: THE KID WITH THE BIKE.

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

#32

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/27/14 at 1:52pm

The Dardenne Brothers, who did The Kid With a Bike, Rosetta, La Promesse, and Le Fils are actually from Belgium but there films are largely French language. I'd recommend Rosetta and La Promesse first, actually.

#33

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/27/14 at 4:19pm

If you like 'em seriously out there, I highly recommend DOGTOOTH.

#34

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/27/14 at 4:23pm

"And then Hollywood had to come along and ruin it with their Nicholas Cage crappy remake City of Angels."

Thanks for suggesting WINGS OF DESIRE, Goth. I've heard nothing but positive remarks about it.

I'd like to recommend an offbeat and somewhat disturbing Spanish-language film released in 1983, Eréndira. It was directed by Ruy Guerra and written by Gabriel García Márquez.

#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.

#35

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/28/14 at 11:17am

Several more: Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, Zhang Yimou’s To Live, Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, Tom Tykwer’s 3, Masayuki Suo’s Shall We Dance?, Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions, Joon-ik Lee’s The King and the Clown, Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot, Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

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)

#36

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/28/14 at 11:22am

Only really familiar with French foreign films, but I'd highly recommend:

Ma Vie En Rose
Le Huitieme Jour
Au Revoir Les Enfants

Three really solid films, but each will break your heart in a new and different way. And that doesn't sound like I'm doing a good job selling it haha, but they're really amazing.

#37

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/28/14 at 11:23am

This weekend I watched a really interesting German film called FREE FALL. The material may be a little well-worn (German police officer with pregnant girlfriend falls for fellow male police officer and his life falls apart), but the performances are terrific.

If you haven't seen the Israeli films Yossi & Jagger and the follow-up, Yossi, do it. The first is quite good, the second is heartbreakingly wonderful.

#38

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/28/14 at 4:41pm

Yeah, I saw Free Fall a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps I've watched too much LGBT cinema, but I wasn't impressed. I feel like we've seen this story over and over again - bicurious "straight" man gives in to desire and then has to deal with the professional and personal repercussions. Perhaps it's time to give this familiar trope a rest.

#39

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/28/14 at 4:44pm

^ I felt the same about the story, but thought all the performances were rather strong. Particularly Hanno Koffler.

I've watched a bunch of gay movies on Netflix and all I want to scream is 'Isn't anybody happy?? Even for a moment???'

#40

Good foreign films?

Posted: 7/28/14 at 5:03pm

I don't know what LGBT film festivals are like in other cities, but OutFest in LA, which just wrapped up, had an extraordinary variety of LGBT themed films - a good deal of them foreign language - and very few of them dealing with this, frankly, old fashioned coming out stuff. I was so pleased to see how many very talented, young LGBT filmmakers are moving beyond the obvious stories and offering complex, interesting and creatively unique perspectives on LGBT life. Hopefully some of them will get distribution. Alas, for every one of them that does we'll probably get another 17 editions of garbage like Eating Out or Another Gay Movie.

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