Posted on 12/19/2009 2:01:18 PM PST by randita
I really enjoyed the responses from last week's "What Are Your Favorite Movies Made Before 1950?" thread (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2406295/posts).
So here's another movie topic - favorite foreign language films of any era. (Hey, we need a pleasant distraction from the debacle going on in DC!)
If you know the date or even decade of the film and the language, please include it.
Thank you and enjoy!
Very anti-chekist.
Pan’s Labyrinth
This movie stays with you for a long time.
Der Himmel über Berlin (1987) Wings of Desire.
It's about this poor dude who is rendered quadraplegic by a stroke, but manages in his state to communicate and to write a book by blinking his eye at the young speech pathologist, who happened to be smokin' hot. (I mean totally smokin' hot, and speaking french, too...)
I thought I wouldn't like it but I went to see it with my wife and it was really quite good. It was a tragedy, obviously, but without any of the cheesy Hollywood affectations one might expect.
Four thumbs up.
"Jules et Jim" (1962)
"Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - 1964)
"I soliti ignoti" (Big Deal on Madonna Street - 1958)
"Umberto D." (1952)
"Aleksandr Nevskiy" (1938)
"La passion de Jeanne d'Arc" (1928)
"Roma, città aperta" (Rome, Open City - 1945)
"Nosferatu" (1922)
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920)
"Vampyr" (1932)
I agree on Ran, Das Boot, and Stalingrad. I would also add Bergman’s Magic Flute. I would add that my vote should only count for half - since I have seen so few compared to some of the afficiandos on this string.
However, my all time favorite foreign or English movie is Sergei Bondarchuk’s Waterloo. The original was 3 hours long. Alas the best available DVD is but 128 minutes. I am not sure it quite qualifies as a foreign film since all the lead actors are great British and American actors - Plummer, Steiger, Welles - not to be missed by any film buff.
Queen Margot...I love seeing my ancestors butchered.
/sarc
das Boot always pops up....the Red White and Blue series
Kurosawa...anything.
Worth it just for the opening minutes.
Diva - French. Don’t flame me.
That older Chinese Kung Fu chick was nuts about him, but he couldn't take his eye off that little chick who stole the Kung Fu book because he had some sort of complex about perfect Kung Fu or some such stuff.
Total chump. :)
Goodbye Lenin is a great movie about the fall of the Berlin wall and the cultural changes that came quickly to the East Berliners. Funny as hell as well.
I agree that Akira Kurosawa’s Ran is a great film. So is “Throne of Blood”, Kurosawa’s version of Macbeth. (Lady Macbeth in this one will send a real chill up your spine.) Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” is one of the greatest films ever made, and “Ikiru” (”To Live”) will break your heart.
MAny of the previous posted, here’s what I didn’t see...
Tropa de Elite (2007) - Brazil (there are like 10 bootleg”sequels”, not those, I mean the original version)
City of God - Brazil
Elephants_Dream_720-h264-st-aac.mov - free to distribute European CGI animation short.
Manda Bala
The WarLords (2007) - China
Also Known As:
Ci ma (Hong Kong: Cantonese title) (working title)
The Warlords (International: English title)
Tou ming zhuang (China: Mandarin title)
Warlords (USA) (new title)
Mongol (2007) Mongolia/Russian
Downfall
...I can’t possibly be the only Monsieur Hulot fan on this thread...
You are not alone, my friend!
The Return of Martin Guerre (French)
LOf’nL!
“Repentence” 1988 Georgia
Although the entire film may not be the greatest, it has one of the most moving scenes in all history - a shipment of logs arrive from the labor camp, and the villagers descend on them, hoping to read messages from their loved ones carved in them.
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