Sunday, November 11, 2007
Exotic Foreign Films
Clip from Jean-Luc Goddard's Weekend
Cormac McCarthy: There are a lot of good American movies, you know. I'm not that big a fan of exotic foreign films. I think Five Easy Pieces is just a really good movie.
Joel Coen: It's fantastic.
Cormac McCarthy: Days of Heaven is an awfully good movie.
Joel Coen: Yeah. Well, he is great, Terry Malick. Really interesting.
Do you watch movies from another country or language? I do...Do you have some you can recommend?
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12 comments:
I'm frightfully ignorant of this genre....
I admire people who can watch a Goddard film and... well, I admire people who can watch a Goddard film.
Har! Over the years, I've watched quite a few films made outside of North America, and many have been excellent. Being unilingual, I have to be in the right frame of mind to watch films with subtitles, though, because, well, it's more work.
If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the 2001 French romantic comedy "Amelie". Here is the link for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelie
Wow, well I watch quite a lot of foreign-language films, though not nearly enough. And of course it's endlessly fascinating to me that the Oscars (their celebration of US cinema notwithstanding) is almost entirely unable to recognize foreign cinema within its main categories, such as Best Picture. It includes British films, y'see.
Recommendations of films I've seen recently include:
Sheitan (aka Satan);
le dîner de cons (catch it before the remake comes out);
Intacto;
The Warrior and the Princess (aka Princess and the Warrior);
Since Otar Left.
I enjoyed all of these, but for me, le dîner de cons was the best. Laugh-out-loud funny. Sheitan was the weirdest, very odd!
Also, check out Switchblade Romance (aka Haute Tension) for gore.
All right! Some movie reccommendations!
Gardenia...when I was young I went to other language films at least once a week. I was crazy for them and the exposure. I thought they were so cool. I still do but mostly...I've been recording them on cable.
Mister Anchovy, yes, it can be tiring to read subtitles, it's true. I do prefer them to movies being dubbed though. I love seeing movies made outside of America and Canada though...if you find good ones, it stirs up the jouces. I found goddard had the most incredible cinematography. Yes...his narratives seemed to come from the tradition of abstract painting...but like Lynch, they need continued viewing and they keep on giving.
Malcolm,I have seen andloved Amelie! But thank you because I think it's worth owning and my bf hasn't seen it.
*, YES! I've jsut recorded this past weekend The Princess and The Warrior...we didn't get to it yet. We watch Before Night Falls...I've seen it before, but wanted to re-visit an acting role of Javier Bardem since seeing No Country. I love the movie Run Lola Run and as soon as I saw the director and actor were back together...I was geeked for Princess and Warrior.
Other good films:
Nine Queens; Valentin; Bombon el Perro; and Historias Minima (all Argentinian);
City of God; Central Station; Carandiru (all Brazilian);
Kolya (I believe this is Hungarian);
The Best of Youth (this is an epic nine-hour film from Italy. It feels like a normal-length film, it's so good); pretty much anything by Nanni Moretti, especially The Son's Room; Cinema Paradiso; The Last KIss (the original Italian version, not the Hollywood remake).
I love foreign films. I find most films that come out of Hollywood trite or at least manipulative. Foreign films tens to be a lot more real in their approach to the plot and the characters.
Ah, of course I agree with the commenter who suggested Amelie. And Since Otar Left was really very, very good!
Happy viewings!
Red, it's funny because it's so relative. They are "foreign films" to their own countries you know? I loved Nine Queens. Actually, we have it on tape because I wanted the Anchovy's to see it, turned out they bought it online and had already seen it. The remake is atually very good too...and almost identical to the original. city of God i have seen too and loved. Will track down your other suggestions. This is the season for watching movies!
I've just thought of another: Bus 174, a Brazilian documentary about a bus hijacking. Terrifying.
see ikiru if you haven't. you probably have though. but it's really awesome.
oh and yeah city of god is really god.
Candy, going back several comments, I don't relate Goddard's narratives to any abstract painting tradition. I'm not sure he would be very comfortable with that idea either. I've never actually thought about a movie-maker in those terms. Interestingly, there are a number of musicians that I feel make music that is very much akin to abstract painting. The example that leaps to mind is Ornette Coleman. In fact I sometimes listen to Ornette Coleman when I'm working in the studio for just that reason.
Well, I agree with you mucsically. I am not saying that his movies are abstract...but his narratives seem to resonate with abstraction..an I think Ornette Coleman makes sense held next to Goddard. But I must do some more thinking on this ok?
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