Eh, being someone who’s going on to study languages and stuff in college and hopefully film in university, I’ve found myself really interested in foreign films. Mostly european and asian (pretty obvious since I’m studying French, German, Cantonese and Japanese) but really I’ll watch anything. So, anyone got any recommendations?
Well, I’m a cinema major so I can probably be of help. Here are some of the most important ones.
The Bicycle Theif (Italian)
La Strada (Italian)
La Dolce Vita (Italian)
8 1/2 (Italian)
Suspiria (Italian)
The Seventh Seal (Sweedish)
Wild Strawberries (Sweedish)
Through a Glass Darkly (Sweedish)
Winter Light (Sweedish)
The Silence (Sweedish)
The 400 Blows (French)
Breathless (French)
Jules and Jim (French)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French)
Blue (French/Polish)
White (French/Polish)
Red (French/Polish)
The City of Lost Children (French)
Last Tango in Paris (confusing combination of French, Italian, and US)
Strike (USSR - silent)
The Mirror (USSR)
Stalker (USSR)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German - silent)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (German)
Wings of Desire (German)
Tokyo Story (Japanese)
Equinox Flower (Japanese)
Good Morning (Japanese)
Rashomon (Japanese)
Seven Samurai (Japanese)
Ran (Japanese)
Tetsuo (Japanese)
Ringu (Japanese)
Pretty much anything by Akira Kurosawa.
If you want to watch Japanese movies there are really no two ways around Gojira, luckily nowadays there are prints available with the original Japanese version in regions 1, 2 & 4.
You might also want to watch Azumi if you want to see how the japanese handle katana movies nowadays. (Or well, one of the possible ways)
Kurosawa is great but he is also very western in style.
The most “Japanese” of the great Japanese directors is generally considered Yasujiro Ozu.
But be aware that many typical western moviegoers consider his films to be very dull.
Oldboy - korean i think
that was the best film i watched last year
I’ve already seen Ringu. It was pretty good, but not as fantastically brilliant as I’d expected it to be. Not all that scary either, but that was probably because I’d read the manga before hand. I have Azumi here, and according to my brother it’s quite good, so I’ll probably be watching that before the week is up. Maybe.
I tried to watch wings of desire, and really couldn’t get into it. The introduction Took way too long, and I was really bored by the time I got to the acrobat. I have been hoping to watch ‘Through a glass darkly’ though. Just because it has a cool name.
I’ll print off the list, grab my ID and head to HMV for some shopping later, after I’ve done my revision (GCSE’s in thirteen weeks! :D).
[quote=“Scott”]Oldboy - korean i think
that was the best film i watched last year[/quote]
I second that, it’s a must-watch film by Chan-wook Park. Brutal in all ways a movie can be.