Foregin Language Films

• Andrei Rublev – Russian with subtitles. Long, but rewarding tale of a religious painter who forsakes humanity.
• Antonia's Line – Dutch with subtitles. Great film with lots of quirkiness that I did not expect in a foreign film.
• Autumn Sonata – Swedish with subtitles. A lesser Bergman film, but worth seeing. A few scenes are overdirected, but there are some good perfomances nonetheless.
• Babette's Feast – Danish with subtitles. Fine adaptation of the Dinasen short story.
• Belle de jour – French with subtitles. Surreal, raw, and a great perfomance by Catherine Deneuve.
• The Blue Angel – German with subtitles. The film that put Marlene Dietrich on the map. Emil Jennings is excellent as the stuff professor and admirer.
• The Burmese Harp – Japanese with subtitles. Great antiwar war film.
• Children of Heaven – Farsi with subtitles. A poor boy loses his sister's only pair of shoes. Comical and sad at turns. This might not sound like much, but the acting is not forced and the situations seem uncontrived. One of the gems of Iranian film.
• City of the Lost Children – French dubbed into English. Bizarre and very interesting.
• The Color of Paradise – Farsi with subtitles. Story of the relationship between a blind boy and his father, who does not want to be saddled with a crippled child. Sentimental at times, yet the overall story is well done, the acting superb, and a lot of the landscape shots remind me of Ang Lee or Michelangelo Antonioni. Director Majid Majidi does it again. He also did Children of Heaven.
• Come and See – Russian with subtitles. The hell of war seen through a child's eyes. One of the most disturbing films I've ever seen.
• Day of Wrath – Danish with subtitles. Paced drama centering on witchcraft in Denmark. Filmed in 1943. Great photography, memorable soundtrack, good performances, some brilliant scenes, and a neat plot.
• The Devil's Backbone – Spanish with subtitles. Compelling ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War.
• The Dreamlife of Angels – French with subtitles. Proof that French film is not dead. This one is the tale of two young woman trying to make it on the margins of society. They are at first drawn to then repelled from each other. Well done and not overintellectual.
• El Mariachi – Spanish with subtitles. This low budget Mexican films is spectacular, especially considering that it only cost $7,000 to make and two weeks to shoot. Spanish with subtitles.
• The Emperor and the Assassin – Madarin with subtitles. Deals with the first ruler of all China, showing how the best of intentions do not prevent corruption. Very well done, interesting story, large sets, with great acting, especially by Gong Li. It can be a little on the long side, weighing in at nearly three hours.
• Fanny and Alexander – Swedish with subtitles. Bergman's last film. Supposedly autobiographical. Full of many wonderful and arresting scenes.
• Faust – Czech with subtitles. I believe this is Svankmajer's most ambitious film to date.
• Fires on the Plain – Japanese with subtitles. Great antiwar war film.
• Forbidden Games – French with subtitles. War and loss seen through the eyes of two young children in rural France. Very funny at times.
• The 47 Ronin – Japanese with subtitles. The best telling of this tale I've seen.
• The 400 Blows – French with subtitles. I haven't seen all of Truffaut's films, but this the best of the ones I've seen.
• The Ghost in the Shell – Japanese dubbed into English. This is what anime should be all about!
• The Grand Illusion – French with subtitles. Good Renoir film about French prisoners of war in World War I. Does not demonize the Germans. Probably influenced later works, such as Stalag 17. (The latter film is about Americans prisoners of war in World War II.)
• Hiroshima Mon Amor – French with subtitles. Resnais goes overboard again, but it works
• Hour of the Wolf – Swedish with subtitles. Like Through a Glass Darkly, this film deals with insanity. Disturbing, memorable, and fine.
• Ivan's Childhood – Russian with subtitles. War through a child's eyes with the focus on the child.
• Johnny Stecchino – Italian with subtitles. A mafiosi tries to use a double to escape prosecution.
• L'Avventura – Italian with subtitles. Antonioni's masterpiece. Has to be watched attentively.
• La Bête Humaine – French with subtitles. Not Renoir's best, but good nonetheless.
• La Commare Secca – Italian with subtitles. Interesting early Bertolucci film. I'm not a fan of his other work, but this one works for me.
• La Jette – French with subtitles. Time travel story shot as a sequence of photographs. Basis for the more recent film Twelve Monkeys.
• La Notta – Italian with subtitles. Not as good as L'Avventura, but still worth seeing.
• La Ronde – French with subtitles. Stylized film about love triangles in Vienna circa 1900. Not overly sexualized and not at all cynical.
• Les Diaboliques – French with subtitles. Very like Hitchcock.
• Life is Beautiful – Italian with subtitles. It takes a lot of balls and talent to set a comedy in a concentration camp. If you like this one, see Night of the Shooting Stars.
• Little Otik – Czech with subtitles. Based on a Czech fairy tale, this film combines many of Svankmajer's experimental techniques with a straightforward narrative. It would probably be the best introduction to his feature length films.
• The Mirror – Russian with subtitles. A collection of dream sequences that are captivating. One of Tarkovsky's best.
• The Monster – Italian with subtitles. The police trying to track down a serial killer pick the wrong man.
• Next Door – Norwegian with subtitles. A film that starts out with a quite normal breakup and gets more twisted from there on.
• Night of the Shooting Stars – Italian and German with subtitles. About a village in Tuscany during World War Two. Should be compared with Life is Beautiful for its comic aspects, though this is not a comedy.
• Nights of Cabiria – Italian with subtitles. It's amazing how the main character manages to wind her way through all levels of society in such a short time and, despite all her failures, still finds joy in life.
• Nosferatu – German with subtitles or dubbed into English. Werner Herzog's remake has problems, but it's still a good
• Nostalghia – Russian and Italian with subtitles. Surreal tale set in Italy in the way on Takovsky could direct it. Corey thinks it's his best film.
• Ossessione – Italian with subtitles. Transplanting an America crime story into Fascist Italy might seem doomed to failure, but it works.
• Pather Panchali – Bengali with subtitles.
• Pathfinder – Laplander with subtitles. A passage to manhood tale set in the Norwegian Tundra. Based on a legend.
• Persona – Swedish with subtitles. Great psychological drama about the relationship between an actress who refuses to speak and her nurse. Well shot, well performed. One of Bergman's best.
• Ran – Japanese with subtitles. Great retelling of "King Lear." Set in Japan during its feudal period.
• Raise the Red Lantern – Madarin with subtitles. Interesting role for Gong Li as fourth wife of a man who collects wives.
• Rashomon – Japanese with subtitles. Another classic.
• The Rite – Swedish with subtitles. Claustraphobic, semi-Kafkaesque, risque drama about a troop of actors being prosecuted for violating the laws of some unnamed country.
• The Road Home – Madarin with subtitles. Sentimental, but well executed film about a man recalling how his parents got together after his father dies.
• Rosetta – French with subtitles. Highly kinetic film set in Belgium about a girl trying to maintain her self-respect and lead a normal life despite being saddled with poverty and an apathetic, alcoholic mother.
• Rules of the Game – French with subtitles. Very funny take on adultery and risque for its time.
• Salvatore Giuliano – Italian with subtitles. Great little docu-drama.
• Sansho the Bailiff – Japanese with subtitles. In my opinion, the greatest Japanese film and one of the greatest films.
• The Sacrifice – Swedish, French, and English with subtitles. Tarkvosky's last film. Not as good as all his others, but worth seeing.
• Seven Samurai – Japanese with subtitles. Entertaining, though not a great film. Inspiration for The Magnificent Seven.
• The Seventh Seal – Swedish with subtitles. One of the most accessible (to Americans) foreign films I've seen.
• Seven Years in Tibet – Good story and another example of Brad Pitt's flexibility.
• The Shop on Main Street – Czech with subtitles. One of the better films of this genre.
• The Silence – Swedish with subtitles. Third part of Bergman's "faith" trilogy, along with Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light. Not as good, in my opinion, as the second part, Winter Light, but worth seeing once you've gotten some other Bergman under your belt.
• Simon of the Desert – Spanish with subtitles. Surreal and irreverent.
• Solaris – Russian with subtitles. Very long but captures the essense of Lem's novel. This refers the Tarkovsky version.
• Stalker – Russian with subtitles. Slow moving yet arresting.
• The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum – Japanese with subtitles. Depressing and well filmed and acted tale of an actor in 19th century Japan who changes his whole life based on one act of honest decency. Early Mizoguchi effort comes off great as usual.
• Swept Away – Italian with subtitles. Role reversal on an island in the Mediterranean that combines social commentary with slapstick. Well shot and well performed.
• Tampopo – Japanese with subtitles. An interesting look at food culture in Japan centering on one woman's desire to become a master noodle chef. A little predictable and overdone at times, but it still works.
• Taste of Cherry – Farsi with subtitles. I like this film a lot, except for the last sequence.
• Tattooed Life – Japanese with subtitles. Yahuza film that's set in prewar Japan. Much better, in my opinion, than the ones set in the 1960s or later.
• Through a Glass Darkly – Swedish with subtitles. First part of Bergman's "faith" trilogy, along with Winter Light and The Silence. You might have to be a Bergman fan to like this one.
• A Time for Drunken Horses – Farsi with subtitles. Story of a Kurdish family trying to get by on the border between Iran and Iraq. At times, sentimental, but still powerful. Wonderful landscape shots too.
• To Live – Madarin with subtitles. Story of one family's life in China from right before the Revolution to today.
• Umberto D. – Italian with subtitles. Depressing, funny, and uplifting all roled into one.
• The Virgin Spring – Swedish with subtitles. The Last House of the Left does not do justice to this classic. Another Corey pick!
• Wild Reeds – French with subtitles. This recent (1994) coming of age story is set in France during the Algerian crisis – early 1960s – and masterfully focuses on 4 young students coming to grips with life. Thanks to Corey for turning me on to this.
• Winter Light – Swedish with subtitles. Second part of Bergman's "faith" trilogy, along with Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence. Great, though very stark and depressing.