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Current time: December 13, 2024, 10:38 pm

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Non-English Language Films
#1
Non-English Language Films
So we just had the Oscars, another mutual masturbation festival for the Hollywood set.

Apart from the token 'Best Foreign Language Film' and the extremely rare win for Roberto Benigni in 1997 (well, he was playing a holocaust victim in the film he won Best Actor for), Hollywood largely ignores a world of wonderful cinema.

I would love to know what wonderful delights are out there that I may have missed. My current list of favourites includes...

Three Colours: White (my unfashionable favourite of the tricolour series) Krzysztof Kieślowski
It's Winter - Rafi Pitts
Good Bye Lenin - Wolfgang Becker
Kasaba (Small Town) - Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The Sacrifice - Andrei Tarkovsky
Kung Fu Hustle - Stephen Chow
Raise The Red Lantern - Zhang Yimou
Garage - Lenny Abrahamson
Les Rivières Pourpres - Mathieu Kassovitz
Angel A - Luc Besson
The Seventh Seal - Ingmar Bergman
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence - Nagisa Oshima (half Japanese half English language)


What non-English favourites of yours would you recommend I see?


MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci

"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
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#2
RE: Non-English Language Films
Volver is good, and one of my personal favorites is Sin Noticias de Dios, also known as Don't Tempt Me. Don't Tempt Me is about an angel from heaven (Victoria Abril) and an angel from hell (Penelope Cruz) fighting over the soul of a boxer.
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#3
RE: Non-English Language Films



i haven't seen White yet. I'll likely not anytime soon, but I'll keep it in mind.


Before Christmas I was really into K-Dramas, but I haven't watched much lately; I'm not a big movie watcher.

Raise The Red Lantern and The Seventh Seal are favorites. (I've watched Seventh Seal like 20 times; sometimes I put it on when I'm reading just to listen to the language.)



I'll be back when I have the energy to assemble a presentation.


[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
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#4
RE: Non-English Language Films
Some of these arent in a "foreign language" for me. But here are some of my non american favorite films anyway:


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#5
RE: Non-English Language Films
Off the top of my head:

Tale of Two Sisters
Pan's Labyrinth
Ichi the Killer
Irreversible
Diabolique
Funny Games
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#6
RE: Non-English Language Films
Jab We Met
Les Comperes
Seven Samurai
Find the cure for Fundementia!
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#7
RE: Non-English Language Films
All right, for things like this, it's easier for me to list directors I like:
* Werner Herzog (although it's mostly his early stuff that's in German; hell, some of it (Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, and one version of Nosferatu) was actually shot in English and dubbed in German later.
* Robert Bresson
* Guillermo del Toro
* Fritz Lang (again, mostly his early work, although, given what happened in Germany shortly after sound was introduced into film, it's very understandable that he only made four sound films in German.)
* Michael Haneke
* Elem Klimov (only one film of any particular note, Come and See, but what a film it is!)
* Luis Bunuel
* Rumanian New Wave
* Marcel Carne
* Alejandro Jodorowsky
* John Woo (One of those directors whose work dropped in quality after coming to Hollywood)
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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#8
RE: Non-English Language Films
Am I allowed to nominate American films for this? A lot of the time, the dialogue has barely a tenuous connection with English at best. Tongue
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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#9
RE: Non-English Language Films
Hellfire, if I'd have thought of that, I would have nominated "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," "Trainspotting," and "A Serious Man."
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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#10
RE: Non-English Language Films
I have to agree with you there. There's more recognisable English in the YouTube comments section than in those films combined.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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