Favorite Foreign Films

I have only seen 6 of these.

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa) gets my nod.

I don't think I can EVER decide which one I like best ... check out my website and see 500 reviews of which 400 of them belong to foreign films of all kinds and there are too many things out there, to be able to make a real choice of something more special than any other.

I kinda "grew up" loving Bunuel and Godard, mostly because of their I don't give a poop about what you think and always create something that violated your idea of what a movie, or idea, or this or that should be ... and it was always fun to watch. from a film that goes around all the characters heads to a film claiming "FREEDOM" (shouted just like Marlon Brando) and ending in a murder ... well, into a painting, anyway! I still cherish that vision ... but then, he had started with the picture of Jesus laughing some 40 years earlier (something like that) and even had a fantastic last supper on one film, so it was hard to now appreciate the humor in the whole thing. Godard was funny in that he disliked the mechanical attitude about making films and his camera, and everything else were always "independent" to the point that the characters go left, and the camera goes right and he tells you that their talk is boring and maybe we will find something better over here! That's a lot of fun, although it throws us off because it is not a Hollywood crapper at all, and film school doesn't like to talk about it because it destroys their idea of "what film should be", specially in America!

There is a lot to like. The literary/novel like idea of some films by Berri (specially Jean and Manon), and then the visual designs for Kurosawa, someone that had massive fights with Japanese folks because they didn't want art films, they wanted money and he went out and got money everywhere else except in his own country and in the end ... he is remembered and they are all just idiots that no one knows otherwise.

Bergman is special in the sense, that few folks knew how to make an actor look better, although I really think that this was more of a design by Nykvist than it was Bergman's, and the cinematographer made the detail in the film better, and Bergman allowed for the visual to linger a bit more which gave the films an incredible emotional edge that surprised a lot of folks.

Fellini, for me, was more about how to tell the Italians to go to hell, and leave the __________ behind, and no scene EVER tells me more about him, than the opening of INTERVISTA which you must see ... that kid is Fellini ... and we still don't get it ... the kid would never know or understand what all the hoopla and bullsheepdip was all about ... and that in itself is neat and special! We still don't look at films that well, when we see this! It's not about this or that ... it's about your kid having to do what he must ... regardless!

Too many things.

One special director ... Pedro Olea, and one film specially ... THE FENCING MASTER which is such a magnificent film, and I wish that the Spanish authorities had enough class to re-issue that film properly and make it available for an English audience. Without that the film is dead on its tracks and it's not only beautiful, it is tightly directed, clean and far out ... not to mention the best fencing film EVER made that had nothing to do with showing off like Hollywood!

Les Uns et Les Autres (One and the Other) (1981)

Hi,

LOVE IT!

I don't usually review many "Hollywood" films, because there are so many reviews and they are all chartbusters, and everyone has seen it anyway. 

Just recently I picked up the book "Altman on Altman" and it was a fascinating read for me, considering how much I have been busy with writing a book on improvisation, and while I had never really enjoyed Altman for some reason or other, I can now see the reason why ... it was intentionally done that way to break apart the conventions of film in America ... and they had more improvisation than we could ever conceive, and this also included the camera and other elements of the film, including giving actors the wrong lines. Lots of fun to read! Massive fun!

But in general, I don't mind seeing things like Pulp Fiction, but it bothers me that Jean-Luc Godard is not even appreciated in America, but a Hollywood film can copy and make fun of it (cheeseburger is one, and that is done more than once in Godard films!) ... but no one will bother to check the originals and find how it was that the copy came about ... more or less!

My favourite NZ film is Perfect Strangers: a thriller starring Sam Neill & Rachael Blake.