Friends of Foreign Flicks

Why I got into foreign films

To be honest, I originally started watching foreign movies because I liked the odds of seeing a quality film. As I strolled through the countless titles at blockbuster, I came upon the half of a shelf dedicated to films from around the world. One title stared out at me, Junk Mail (Budbringeren).  I started thinking: Here's a film from Norway, now I know they don't have an economy like we do but I'm sure there's quite a few films made there every year. Now, how many of these American films are released and distributed in Norway every year? Here's one film that happens to be the only Norwegian title Blockbuster had. As if to say: If you're going to see one film from Norway.......ever, make it this one. So I picked it up and as it turns out, I kinda liked it. It was interesting, funny and gave me a peek into a different culture that I may have never seen otherwise.

Since then, I've seen many more titles from around the world, some great gems, some not so good. But one thing I've allways said, If you're looking for something memorable, your chances of randomly picking it up from your local rental store greatly increase if you look in the foreign section.

This is my first group so please add some words to make me feel special.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

I totally agree! One of the biggest perks of foreign films for me is when I'm learning about a different culture while simultaneously being entertained. I always cite "To Live" and "Raise the Red Lantern," two movies I saw in my History of East Asia class, as prime examples. I wouldn't say that's specifically why I got into watching foreign movies, but it's one reason why I enjoy them.

I watch foreign films for the same reason I watch any other movie: simply because it looks interesting. For me, a movie is a movie, no matter where it comes from, and I feel like what makes a movie appealing should go beyond whether or not you have to read subtitles. I can't stand it when someone refuses to watch a foreign film because they "don't like reading."

For a while in high school and my first year in college, I got really into Spanish, Mexican and South American films. We watched a lot of spanish-language movies in my high school spanish class, like "The Sea Inside," "El Norte" and "The Official Story" as chances to learn about the cultures, and to see how much of the movie we could understand with our limited command of the language. The high point was when our teacher let us watch "El Mariachi." I was pretty excited last year when I saw "Pan's Labyrinth" and realized I could actually understand what the actors were saying fifty percent of the time.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

I took 3 years of Spanish in high school & I can probably get about a third of most spanish movies. My Spanish teacher taught us European Spanish (which doesn't make a lot of sense in Phoenix, Arizona).

But I completely agree, first and foremost I am a fan of films and specifically filmmaking as an artform. There are plenty of great films from this country, I am just a little extra exited about being able to see a story told from a sometimes drastically different point of view. I especially like to see foreign films made or that take place during the era of European socialism, such as ,The Tunnel, The Bicycle Thief or Pan's Labyrinth. It's interesting to see if the filmmaker is condeming or condoning any one philosophy and what the general sentiment was in that country during that time.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

If you like period pieces I have to recommend The Devil's Backbone. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, it takes place during the Spanish civil war (much like Pan's)  don't have much time to go into depth but this is a fantastic film, you wont be disappointed. Also, there is a bit of a creepy side to it, just a little heads up.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

An interesting observation, that I completely agree with, however do you not suspect that we, here, receive only a portion of the films made in various countries? I wonder if the bulk of films out of any country are not just as bad as those produced here are ( for instance I have seen plenty of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, 'Asian'  that are simply as god-awful as anything from USA )??? Are we just getting the 'cream of the crop' and basing the judgement on that?

No matter, walking into a video story, closing my eyes at the foreign section and picking, I cannot imagine not pulling out something worthwhile.

I think what set my interest in motion was going through a 'humanities' class which part of it was watching 'great' films and seeing that english language films made up only 2 to 3 percent of the total and thinking hmmmm, 'what the hell am I missing?' 

A plus to the foreign films is seeing how the particular cultures are visible through the film; dynamics of family, class, relationships, areas of value/importance, aesthetics, mores, etc... It is hard to imagine most of these films being English language films, there simply is no cultural equivalent although some represent standards of the human experience.

and by the way, thank you for the invitation to this group.

puhn 

Re:Why I got into foreign films

Puhnner:

An interesting observation, that I completely agree with, however do you not suspect that we, here, receive only a portion of the films made in various countries? I wonder if the bulk of films out of any country are not just as bad as those produced here are ( for instance I have seen plenty of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, 'Asian'  that are simply as god-awful as anything from USA )??? Are we just getting the 'cream of the crop' and basing the judgement on that?

No matter, walking into a video story, closing my eyes at the foreign section and picking, I cannot imagine not pulling out something worthwhile.

I think what set my interest in motion was going through a 'humanities' class which part of it was watching 'great' films and seeing that english language films made up only 2 to 3 percent of the total and thinking hmmmm, 'what the hell am I missing?' 

A plus to the foreign films is seeing how the particular cultures are visible through the film; dynamics of family, class, relationships, areas of value/importance, aesthetics, mores, etc... It is hard to imagine most of these films being English language films, there simply is no cultural equivalent although some represent standards of the human experience.

and by the way, thank you for the invitation to this group.

puhn 

I took a World Cinema class in college, which turned out to be one of my favorite courses in my major. We actually covered the statistics of the number of films produced in the different cinemas of the world and the numbers are pretty amazing. We see a fraction of a fraction of what is actually being made, and the countries themselves are only see a fraction of what is being made in their own country because of the dominance of American Cinema through globalization. It's kind of sickening when you think about all the films we are missing out on and how people around the world aren't even seeing what their fellow citizens are creating. It's kind of like we are stripping them of their culture, I don't know, it just sad. More later on foreign films I love.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

csprague:

I took a World Cinema class in college, which turned out to be one of my favorite courses in my major.

Did you take that with Plantinga?  That was one of my absolute favorite classes too.  Even though I was the only person in the class who had actually hear of or seen more than half of the movies or people he talked about, that class still introduced me to so much.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

Risselada:

csprague:

I took a World Cinema class in college, which turned out to be one of my favorite courses in my major.

Did you take that with Plantinga?  That was one of my absolute favorite classes too.  Even though I was the only person in the class who had actually hear of or seen more than half of the movies or people he talked about, that class still introduced me to so much.

Yeah, World Cinema. Oh Carl Plantinga:) I love that man. He was brilliant, and yet some how out of the loop. I actually had him for my first film course ever, it happened to be an interim that did a brief overview and examination of the hollywood system. I took it on a whim, thinking I would rather spend the month watching movies than reading books. It changed my major to Film Studies:) I guess good profs do that. or maybe just good films.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

magrebi:

If you like period pieces I have to recommend The Devil's Backbone. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, it takes place during the Spanish civil war (much like Pan's)  don't have much time to go into depth but this is a fantastic film, you wont be disappointed. Also, there is a bit of a creepy side to it, just a little heads up.

I saw The Devil's Backbone, I thought is was pretty good, but overall I would have to say that it was somewhat typical in the horror/ghost genre with better than average cinematography. Which is similar to what I thought of The Orphanage, except that the cinematography was much better than average. Anyway, not sure if I'm making any sense, I just finished my fifth black & tan...................... speaking of good imports.

Re:Why I got into foreign films

Puhnner:

An interesting observation, that I completely agree with, however do you not suspect that we, here, receive only a portion of the films made in various countries? I wonder if the bulk of films out of any country are not just as bad as those produced here are ( for instance I have seen plenty of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, 'Asian'  that are simply as god-awful as anything from USA )??? Are we just getting the 'cream of the crop' and basing the judgement on that?

No matter, walking into a video story, closing my eyes at the foreign section and picking, I cannot imagine not pulling out something worthwhile.

I think what set my interest in motion was going through a 'humanities' class which part of it was watching 'great' films and seeing that english language films made up only 2 to 3 percent of the total and thinking hmmmm, 'what the hell am I missing?' 

A plus to the foreign films is seeing how the particular cultures are visible through the film; dynamics of family, class, relationships, areas of value/importance, aesthetics, mores, etc... It is hard to imagine most of these films being English language films, there simply is no cultural equivalent although some represent standards of the human experience.

and by the way, thank you for the invitation to this group.

puhn 

Yeah, it was a little different back in the era of VHS. But now, Europe and other regions have thier own format for DVD and the cost to distribute in the states also includes reformatting so a lot of crap simply never makes it here. I had to wait about nine months extra for Day Watch to come out on in an American format.