Month of Foreign [Second Third Recap]

The Lives of Others

Even if every other movie we watched this month was terrible, the Month of Foreign would have been worth it for The Lives of Others.  By far the best movie yet.  The year is 1984 and the Berlin Wall is still up.  Secret government spies and informants use hidden bugs and cameras to keep tabs on anyone who might be a threat against Socialism.  The film follows one of these spies as he becomes involved in the lives of those he's spying on.  Excellent movie.

My Neighbor Totoro

This has been at the top of my Netflix queue for months.  A "Very Long Wait" message made me think that I'd never see Totoro again.  But the Movie Gods were good to us as it showed up in the mail halfway through our marathon.  It's as great as I remembered.  I'm steadily becoming a full-fledged fan of Miyazaki.

Last Year at Marienbad

Boooooooooooooooooooooo!

Pretentious.  LONG.  Boring.

Boooooooooooooooooooooo!

M. Hulot's Holiday

Apparently, my childhood obsession, Mr. Bean, was a blatant rip-off of Tati's lead character Monsieur Hulot.  He doesn't speak.  He's a bumbling fool.  And wreaks havoc wherever he goes.  All he's missing is a teddy bear.   Holiday was really fun but it was a little slow in parts.

Knife in the Water

Roman Polanski's directorial debut.  A happy couple invite a young hitchhiker onto their boat and sail around for a while before tensions rise.  But like The Class, they don't rise to American levels.  French tension, apparently, stays dormant for a long time and then rises a little at the end, sort of.  The end.  American audiences are confused, a little letdown, and worried their peers will think their dumb if they say they didn't like it.  By the way, I liked it.  Really.

Smiles of a Summer Night

Like Belle De Jour was Bunuel's most accessible film, the same can be said for Bergman and Smiles of a Summer Night.  Everything makes sense, the characters all have clear wants/needs, and they takes steps into meeting those wants/needs.  It was nice.  Whitney pointed out that this is probably the only Bergman movie to feature smiling.

Cria Cuervos

This movie's a trip.  In a good way.  I usually don't like movies that "mix fantasy and reality" but this one worked for me.  It takes a lot of patience (or a quick trip to Wikipedia) to figure out who's who and what's going on but if you stick around and put in the work, Cria Cuervos pays off immensely. 

Wings of Desire

Two inaccessible movies in a row.  Wim Wenders directs this film about an angel who falls in love with a circus performer and wishes to become human.  There's very little dialogue.  Most of the movie's made up of inner-thought monologues that only the angel can hear.  It's going to take a few rewatchings for me to really get everything the director's trying to say.  But the movie's shot beautifully, acted well, and the second best Peter Falk movie I've ever seen (Murder By Death is #1!)

Month of Foreign [First Third Recap]

The Official Story

Read review here.

Porco Rosso

Read review here.

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck

Repetitive Herzog documentary about Pennsylvania auctioneers.

Man Bites Dog

This movie is fucked up.  Definitely recommended for violence-lovers.

A documentary crew follows a serial killer around as he rapes, murders, and bodydumps local citizens.  The longer they film him, the more the filmmakers get involved.

Fantastic Planet

Aliens capture humans and keep them as pets.

Think Twilight Zone episode meets French animated sci-fi movie.

From the 1970s.     

Masculin Feminin

I have a new celebrity crush.

Her name is Chantal Goya.

She is a babe.

Belle De Jour

Catherine Devenue plays a housewife with intimacy issues.  She copes by becoming a prostitute.  Who wouldn't?  This is by far the most accessible Bunuel film I've ever seen.  I'd highly recommend this one.

I'm Not Scared

Whitney and I invited our friends over to watch this Spanish thriller.  Half an hour in, we were all covering our eyes, hiding behind blankets, and screaming.  All the good things we'd heard about I'm Not Scared turned out to be true.

The Class

I wrote my thesis on Hollywood ghetto high school movies so The Class has been on my To-Watch list for a while now.  As it turns out, the worst that French teachers have to deal with are kids who talk back, have disrespectful attitudes, and a limited vocabulary.  No one gets shanked by makeshift knives, has their dogs murdered, or gets their heads smashed into the floor.  You know, like American high schools.  Very interesting entry into the genre.

Summer Hours

Nice minimalist film without any real conflict.  Three adult siblings must decide to what to do with their mother's priceless art collection.  So they do.  The end.

Month of Foreign: Day Two: Porco Rosso

Sometimes I feel late on the Miyazaki bandwagon but then I remember that My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service were childhood favorites. Some of his later films, arguably his post popular, like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away didn't cast their magic spells over me. I never thought they were bad, they just didn't keep my interest. But after watching Ponyo and Porco Rosso, I think I'm ready to revisit them. I loved these two.

Have you seen Porco Rosso? What did you think?

Month of Foreign: Day One: The Official Story

My preferred method of killing two birds is by using one stone. The 1,001 Movies You Must See Club chose Luis Puenzo's Argentine political mystery, The Official Story, for this week's film. Whitney, an active member of the prestigious club, decided to capitalize on the situation by kicking off our Month of Foreign with the same movie.

When a middle-class teacher, Alicia, starts to suspect that her adoptive daughter Gaby might have been taken from a pregnant captor of Argentine's Dirty War (1976-1983), she begins to unravel the secrets surrounding Gaby's past. She finds dead ends wherever she turns. Her husband, a strict traditionalist, tell her not to ask questions. Her priest dismisses her concerns and tells her to honor God's will. The hospitals refuses to help her look into the records taken during the War. Alicia refuses to give up and eventually she beings finding out more than she bargained for.

Foreign films always find the most adorable and talented child actors. Remember the little girl in The Fall? Or the kid from Cinema Paradiso? Whoever cast Analia Castro to play Gaby in The Official Story knew what they were doing. This little doe-eyed angel outshone everyone she shared a scene with. It was important to find a girl who the audience would immediately attach themselves to because Gaby not only serves as the center of this story but also serves as a reminder of the uncountable abducted, tortured, and murdered Argentine citizens from this time.

The film carries itself through its characters. The story would make complete sense to anyone, even including people with no knowledge of Argentine history or culture. And while there are attempts to catch viewers up, the expository dialogue is minimal and presented in interesting ways. Some have referred to Story as a thriller but that's inaccurate by present-day definitions. Instead of a run-of-the-mill psychological or political thriller, The Official Story is really more of a mystery film with political undertones. You become more and more attached to Alicia and Gaby as the movie progresses and by the end, instead of being scared for them, feeling of sadness creep in and eventually a blunt sense of acceptance takes over. The mystery is solved but the Alicia's reactions are ambiguous. In fact, the end of the film is ambiguous. And after a months of foreign films, I'm sure I'll have had my share of ambiguity.

Month of Foreign

Whitney and I have a history of movie-themed months.  Month of Horror is coming up on its third year but we've decided that October is just too far away.  That's why we're watching 31 Foreign Films in 31 Days during the month of May.  Feel free to join us, read our reviews, and wish us luck.