Best Foreign Films?

Started by Livenotonevil, August 30, 2018, 06:41:27 PM

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Livenotonevil

Here's an idea for a thread.
May God forgive me for my consistent sins of the flesh and any blasphemous and carnal desire, as well as forgive me whenever I act prideful, against the desire of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Livenotonevil

#1
And here's an great film that I recommend - it's a little abstract and can be weird at points, but it's a film called "Repentance." It was a Georgian film made in 1984, but it was censored in the Soviet Union until Gorbachev allowed it's publication in 1987.

It's a film about a Georgian dictator (named Varlaam) with a mustache who persecutes people unjustly. Ringing any bells?

It discusses two main topics - how to deal with Stalin when people realized HOW horrible he really was, but secondly, and more importantly, religion in society, and the Soviet Union's injustice.



It's not a perfect film, but it has some of my favorite scenes and quotes from cinema.

The film ends with the lines













"Does this road lead to a Church?"
"No, it's Varlaam Street, it will not lead you to a Church."
"What good is a road if it doesn't lead to a Church?"

May God forgive me for my consistent sins of the flesh and any blasphemous and carnal desire, as well as forgive me whenever I act prideful, against the desire of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit.

martin88nyc

"The Decalogue" by Kieslowski
"These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Heinrich

Schaff Recht mir Gott und führe meine Sache gegen ein unheiliges Volk . . .   .                          
Lex Orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
"Die Welt sucht nach Ehre, Ansehen, Reichtum, Vergnügen; die Heiligen aber suchen Demütigung, Verachtung, Armut, Abtötung und Buße." --Ausschnitt von der Geschichte des Lebens St. Bennos.

Matto

#4
These are some of my favorites. I used to watch foreign films, but I was never an expert.
Anything by the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. If you watch only one of his movies, watch Tokyo Story. It should make you cry.
This one is for you, Livenotonevil, Andrei Rublev. Warning, there is some nudity.
I also have a soft spot for The Leopard (Il Gattopardo)
Ordet
And I guess I should include a Kurosawa film, so Ikiru.
I would like Pon de Replay to contribute to this thread.
I Love Watching Butterflies . . ..

Maximilian

The Russian movie, The Island.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0851577/



This is perhaps the best movie ever.

Another great Russian movie is Sergie Bondarchuk's War and Peace. It's the most spectacular epic ever made, and it can never be reproduced today.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063794/




For Kurosawa, I think there is no doubt that his later movies were his best.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080979/mediaviewer/rm3907533056?ref_=tt_ov_i



https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089881/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1







Jacob

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
--Neal Stephenson

martin88nyc

"These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Lynne

Quote from: Jacob on August 30, 2018, 08:54:03 PM
Diary of a Country Priest.

Someone gave me a digital copy of that. I need to ask him if I can share it here... It was excellent.
In conclusion, I can leave you with no better advice than that given after every sermon by Msgr Vincent Giammarino, who was pastor of St Michael's Church in Atlantic City in the 1950s:

    "My dear good people: Do what you have to do, When you're supposed to do it, The best way you can do it,   For the Love of God. Amen"

Mono no aware

My favorite Japanese movie is Kwaidan (1965), which is a quartet of ghost stories.  It has the best color photography I've ever seen in a movie.  Most of it was filmed on soundstages and sets, and many of the backgrounds are painted.  It has a rich, dream-like atmosphere.  It's one of the rare cases of artifice resulting in beauty.

But most of my favorite foreign films are by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. If Kwaidan has the best color cinematography, then Bergman's movies often have the best black-&-white.  Of my Bergman top five, only one is in color—Fanny & Alexander.  It has a philo-Semitic sequence that some might find distasteful, when the children go to live with a Jewish family.  But it's a note-perfect ode to Judaica: pawn shops with attics and basements full of antiques and junk and candelabras, bearded men in black coats, and fey and mysterious children.  The engimatic Jewish boy, Ismael Retzinsky, is even played by a female.  Bergman was not a believer but he was fascinated with Christianity.

Fanny & Alexander (1982)

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

The Magician (1958)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Jacob

Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 31, 2018, 06:39:36 AM
My favorite Japanese movie is Kwaidan (1965), which is a quartet of ghost stories.  It has the best color photography I've ever seen in a movie.  Most of it was filmed on soundstages and sets, and many of the backgrounds are painted.  It has a rich, dream-like atmosphere.  It's one of the rare cases of artifice resulting in beauty.

But most of my favorite foreign films are by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. If Kwaidan has the best color cinematography, then Bergman's movies often have the best black-&-white.  Of my Bergman top five, only one is in color—Fanny & Alexander.  It has a philo-Semitic sequence that some might find distasteful, when the children go to live with a Jewish family.  But it's a note-perfect ode to Judaica: pawn shops with attics and basements full of antiques and junk and candelabras, bearded men in black coats, and fey and mysterious children.  The engimatic Jewish boy, Ismael Retzinsky, is even played by a female.  Bergman was not a believer but he was fascinated with Christianity.

Fanny & Alexander (1982)

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

The Magician (1958)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Kwaidan: color better than Black Narcissus?

And Black and White Bergman?  I notice you don't mention Winter Light.
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
--Neal Stephenson

Mono no aware

Quote from: Jacob on August 31, 2018, 08:28:05 AMKwaidan: color better than Black Narcissus?

Emphatically yes, IMO.

Quote from: Jacob on August 31, 2018, 08:28:05 AMAnd Black and White Bergman?  I notice you don't mention Winter Light.

If I had made it a top ten, all three entries in the "trilogy of faith" would probably be included.  I love the conversation the pastor has with the cripple in Winter Light.

Bernadette

Babette's Feast and Tree of Wooden Clogs
My Lord and my God.

Lynne

Quote from: Bernadette on September 10, 2018, 10:15:32 PM
Babette's Feast and Tree of Wooden Clogs

I still haven't watched those!  :doh:
In conclusion, I can leave you with no better advice than that given after every sermon by Msgr Vincent Giammarino, who was pastor of St Michael's Church in Atlantic City in the 1950s:

    "My dear good people: Do what you have to do, When you're supposed to do it, The best way you can do it,   For the Love of God. Amen"

clau clau

Father time has an undefeated record.

But when he's dumb and no more here,
Nineteen hundred years or near,
Clau-Clau-Claudius shall speak clear.
(https://completeandunabridged.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-claudius.html)