Which foreign language film impressed you?

[poster342002]

No you haven't, I just read your post and now have no reason to watch that movie.

Err - I did put in a whopping great spoiler warning. If you chose to then read what was below it, then it's not really anyone's fault but your own. Nonetheless, I have further enhanced the warning.

 

[tastebud]

last life in the universe
the edukators
hidden
dolls
three colours trilogy.

loads more probably.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Amelie
My Neighbour Totoro

 

[chymaera]

Delicatessen and all four films in the French "Taxi" series.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

errr well putting my anime colection aside

dunno

they all count as films to me

i mean i love watching stuff like my zatoichi collection....
and of course i have some kurosawa classics

err i guess i kinda don't really notice the fact it's foreign any more

i have a high tolerance for subtitles

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Pan's Labyrinth
La Haine
Hana Bi
Run Lola Run
Momo (surprisingly good adaptation)
Aguirre Wrath of God
City of God

 

[aspirationjones]

Goodbye Lenin
Hidden (cache)
Kika, Bad Education, Volver....any Almodovar really - all good I feel
Does Trainspotting count?

Loads more I can't bloody recall now

oh

Man Bites Dog
Irreversible (that Freanch 'backwards' film)
Amelie (watched that last night ffs)

forgot
'Audition'
and
'Spirited Away' (animation)

and 'Phone'

 

[chilango]

Amelie
City of the Lost Children
Delicatessen
Run Lola Run
Europa Europa
Vagabond
Zazie dans le Metro
Motorcycle Diaries
Le Weekend
La Haine
Y Tu Mama Tambien
My Life as a Dog

 

[Dubversion]

hundreds of foreign movies, from nouvelle vague classics to italian westerns to korean horror to the new flurry of south and central american film makers.

 

[Biddlybee]

Not sure why I only listed one film (it was early when I posted). Like Dub says there are loads - that's just the first that came to mind - because I keep meaning to watch it again

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

In the mood for love - beautiful cinematography for starters, very well acted
La Haine - I vaguely recall it also had a fantastic soundtrack
Amelie - quirky
Three Colours Blue - again beautiful cinematography, and the colour blue ran through the whole film as a theme, from the subject matter, grief, the mood was quite 'blue' and also it was a visual theme, the water in the swimming pool, the blue crystals... and the music, too.
Life is beautiful - I thought this film was very touching
Le nombril du monde
The glory days

 

[glaucon]

Anything directed by David Lynch.

 

[Bazza]

Loads of people seem to like Amelie but not A Very Long Engagement which has much of the same cast and directors, etc.

So...if you haven't seen it, check it out. I loved it. Some good battlefield scenes too.

 

[Reno]

Anything directed by David Lynch.

The dwarf in Twin Peaks spoke backwards, but otherwise I don't see how his films are "foreign language"

 

[dynamicbaddog]

La Cabina (The Telephone Box) in Spanish. Not only impressed me - but frightened the crap out of me too. Basically, a short film about a man who gets trapped in a phone box...

I remember seeing that on telly when I was kid, it scared the crap out of me too

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

2046 (which I actually liked more than in the mood for love)
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance
Young thugs
Bird people in China
Swing Girls
Angel A
Pans Labyrinth
Ichi the Killer
Mindgame
Ong Bak
Fudoh
Tamala 2010
Zebraman
Open you Eyes
Infernal Affairs X3

Many Ghibli

 

[Dhimmi]

can anyone give me an answer on this?

Yes some do, but they tend to be the foreign films you'd have bought, like Battle Royal, Das Boot, L'Appartment, Amelie, Delicassen, Irreversable, etc.

I'm happy with almost anything with Vincent Cassel in it myself...

 

[Limejuice]

Many good films mentioned so far.

My favourite that hasn't been mentioned is probably Rouge, a Hong Kong ghost / love story. It stars the late Anita Mui.

I heartily recommend it to anyone who has to let someone go.

edit: not to be confused with another Chinese language film: Rogue

 

[Flashman]

Oh yeah I remember seeing that on Ch4 years ago. Also A Chinese Ghost Story, on Moviedrome, that was great n'all.

 

[Reno]

Talking of Chinese films, I really liked Dumplings which came out a year ago here. Very stylish and rather creepy, though not a horror film in the conventional sense.

 

[Lysistrata]

I love Pedro Almodovar's films and also another Spanish director, Carlos Saura. He has made wonderful Flamenco adaptations of Carmen and Lorca's Yerma and "Ay Carmela" about a theatre company performing during the Spanish Civil War and ending up behind enemy lines.

As for other non-English language films, "Pan's Labyrinth" was fantastic. I've also enjoyed:

Delicatessan and City of Lost Children
Raise the Red Lantern - about concubines in China
Babette's Feast - Danish film with sumptuous cinematography

When I lived in Spain I saw a lot of English/American films dubbed into Spanish, it's strange seeing them again in English nowadays!

 

[Fez909]

Blind Shaft is a nice'n'grim film about Chinese mining.

And there's always the Seventh Seal for a bit of classic film action.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

...Infernal Affairs X3

I've only seen either one, or maybe two of these, I can't remember now.

The Hollywood remake got really good reviews, but I couldn't bring myself to go and watch it, because the original was so superlative.

 

[OldGirl]

Old Boy and Lady Vengeance
The beat that my heart skipped
Infernal Affairs (all 3)
Life is Beautiful
Three Colour-Blue
2046

I liked Dumplings

and many many more

 

[OldGirl]

I've only seen either one, or maybe two of these, I can't remember now.

The Hollywood remake got really good reviews, but I couldn't bring myself to go and watch it, because the original was so superlative.

I watched the american version and it was bad! very bad!

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I've only seen either one, or maybe two of these, I can't remember now.

The Hollywood remake got really good reviews, but I couldn't bring myself to go and watch it, because the original was so superlative.

It was on the list of films on the plane I was on but I could not bring myself to spend 3 hours rewatching a film. I caught the end on the monitor of the guy in front and there seemed to be some slightly different killing going on at the end.

I would like to see the chinese ultimate edition that had all three films and then a massive cut with all the events of all three films in order.

 

[May Kasahara]

There's lots I love; one that I really enjoyed recently was The Consequences of Love. And now I've reminded myself that I missed a screening of that director's new film (The Family Friend) last night

 

[DJ Squelch]

There was a readers top 40 foreign film list in the guardian the other day.

HERE

List was -

1. Cinema Paradiso
Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy/France, 1988

2. Amélie
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France/Germany, 2001

3. Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1954

4. City of God
Fernando Meirelles, Brazil/France/USA, 2002

5. The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo, Algeria/ Italy, 1966

6. Breathless
Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1960

7. Jean de Florette/ Manon des Sources
Claude Berri, France/Switzerland/Italy, 1986

8. Bicycle Thieves
Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1948

9. Pan's Labyrinth
Guillermo del Toro, Mexico/Spain/USA, 2006

10. In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong/France, 2000

11. Tokyo Story
Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1953

12. Les Enfants du Paradis
Marcel Carné, France, 1945

13. The Seventh Seal
Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957

14. Jules and Jim
François Truffaut, France, 1962

15. La Haine
Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995

16. Il Postino
Michael Radford, France/Italy/Belgium, 1994

17. Oldboy
Chan-wook Park, South Korea, 2003

18. Delicatessen
Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, 1991

19. La Dolce Vita
Federico Fellini, Italy/France, 1960

20. The 400 Blows
François Truffaut, France, 1959

21. Aguirre, Wrath of God
Werner Herzog, West Germany, 1972

22. Wings of Desire
Wim Wenders, West Germany/France, 1987

23. Fanny and Alexander
Ingmar Bergman, Sweden/France/ West Germany, 1982

24. Andrei Rublev
Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union, 1969

25. Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein, Soviet Union, 1925

26. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ang Lee, Taiwan/Hong Kong/USA/China, 2000

27. Pather Panchali
Satyajit Ray, India, 1955

28. Ran
Akira Kurosawa, Japan/France, 1985

29. Three Colours: Blue
Krzysztof Kieslowski, France/Poland/Switzerland/UK, 1993

30. Central Station
Walter Salles, Brazil/France, 1998

31. Come and See
Elem Klimov, Soviet Union, 1985

32. Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2001

33. Three Colours: Red
Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland/France/Switzerland, 1994

34. Wild Strawberries
Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957

35. All About My Mother
Pedro Almodóvar, Spain/France, 1999

36. Hidden
Michael Haneke, France/Austria/ Germany/Italy, 2005

37. Cyrano De Bergerac
Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France, 1990

38. Downfall
Oliver Hirschbiegel, Germany/Italy/ Austria, 2004

39. La Règle du Jeu
Jean Renoir, France, 1939

40. Life Is Beautiful
Roberto Benigni, Italy, 1997


I'm surprised "The Vanishing" isn't on there, certainly one of my favourites.

 

[Bazza]

Yeah, The Vanishing is a freaky film. Shame about the remake.

I'm yet to watch Cinema Paradiso in its entirety...

 

[dynamicbaddog]

The last foreign film I saw was at The Curzon in Mayfair, it was a French film, Private Fears in Public Places, an adaption of an Alan Ayckbourn play and I enjoyed it a lot, very amusing and visually very impressive with the falling snow in almost every scene