Sarah_Jayne

With this being Oscars week and one of the best picture nominations being a remake of an Asian Language film and another two being subtitled combined with the recent popularity of Pans Labyrinth I decided it might be nice to start a thread like this. I have a real love of world cinema because I like to learn how other cultures tell their stories and to experience the best cinema the world has to offer and not all of that is in English. I know a lot of people have this fear of subtitles but I think a lot of that is in not seeing the best films because when a film is good you don't notice you are reading. The use of subtitles in tv shows like Lost and Heroes shows that it doesn't take away from the story.

So, I thought if those of us that do like world cinema could suggest a few for those that don't know where to start (or just want do discover some gems) it could be fun and useful.

I will start off with:

City of God (Brazil) - Had to be the first to mention it. Just a fantastic film that is the tale of gang warfare in the slums of Brazil.

Amores perros (Mexican) - From the same director of Babel but don't hold that against him. The story of interconnecting events surrounding a car crash. You have to be able to stomach some nasty dog fighting scenes.

Jean de Florette (French) - If you ever wondered why Gérard Depardieu is famous this is the film that will show you why. In his own language he is a really good actor (another reason to use subtitles because dubbing is evil and doesn't show you how good the original actors can be). It is a very gentle tale of a man that moves his family into a small French village and the next door neighbors don't like it and set out to do anything to try to make him leave. After you watch is watch the sequel Manon des Sources.

Taxi (French) - Just to show that not all French film is up its own backside. This was remade by Hollywood but was horrible in comparison. It is just the first in a series of Taxi movies that are just wild romps with a French taxi driver.

Eat Drink Man Woman (Taiwan) - This film has been remade into a number of different languages including Tortilla Soup which is the English language version using a Latin American family. It is the story of an old chef that is living with his three grown daughters.

Battle Royale (Japanese) - Nobody does brutal like the Japanese. A bunch of students brought to an island t be on a game show. The only this is the game show requires them all to hunt and kill each other.

Run Lola Run (German) - Super fast paced with a good soundtrack. A German thrill that tracks Lola trying to get a bunch of money before her boyfriend robs a bank to get it. This is a 'do over' type movie where it explores how the story would be different if different things happened to Lola during the day. hard to explain but a world cinema film for the modern generation.


Okay, that is my start...add your own...