The Foreign Film Thread.

[gwynplaine]

"Small Change" and "Day For Night" are my favorite Truffaut films, along with his Doinel series.

Even though they are interesting, I don't think the later "Doinel Films" are as brilliant as "400 Blows."

 

[darkseid26]

Understandable. I love the "Doinel films". I feel like I grew up with Doinel and I always get watery eyed during the very end of "Love on the Run".

 

[gwynplaine]

Yeah, Truffaut and Leaud were a very interesting and unique cinematic pairing
I thought that Leaud's performance in "400 Blows" was one of the best that I've seen by a child actor. Right up there with the kids in "Night of the Hunter", Tatum O'Neal in "Paper Moon" or Elliot in "ET", as well as a few others that I can't think about right now.

 

[gwynplaine]

Understandable. I love the "Doinel films". I feel like I grew up with Doinel and I always get watery eyed during the very end of "Love on the Run".

Have you seen Truffaut's "The Last Metro" with Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu?

 

[darkseid26]

Have you seen Truffaut's "The Last Metro" with Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu?

Yup. I think it may have been my first Truffaut film actually, or second after "The 400 Blows". Depardieu and Deneuve are great in it.

 

[gwynplaine]

Yup. I think it may have been my first Truffaut film actually, or second after "The 400 Blows". Depardieu and Deneuve are great in it.

 

[gwynplaine]

Just ordered a couple of Jean Gabin's classics: Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion" and Marcel Carne's "Le Jour Se Leve."

 

[childeroland]

Does anyone know where to get a DVD of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Daughter of the Nile?

 

[darkseid26]

I've come to the conclusion that Fellini is God.

 

[gwynplaine]

I've come to the conclusion that Fellini is God.

t:
I love Fellini too, especially the early ones like "La Strada", "Il Bidone", "I Vitelloni" etc...

 

[darkseid26]

He makes it look so easy. Filmmaking that is.

 

[gwynplaine]

He makes it look so easy. Filmmaking that is.

 

[darkseid26]

Just saw "Diary of a Country Priest". Need time to let that one sink in. My mind is kind of racing.

 

[SoNicRaDiATioN]

Just saw "Diary of a Country Priest". Need time to let that one sink in. My mind is kind of racing.

I had the same feeling about it. This film lived with me for days, as all great art should.

*Recently I had similar reactions to Days of the Eclipse and The Taste of Cherry.

 

[gwynplaine]

Just ordered a couple of Jean Gabin's classics: Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion" and Marcel Carne's "Le Jour Se Leve."

I had seen them a few years ago and loved them both. Just watched them again recently. Gabin's acting is so modern and powerful.
Two true masterpieces of cinema. Highly recommended for those who haven't seen them and don't mind black and white or subtitles.

 

[Secret Fawful]

I really really want to see the 1928 Chinese silent film The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple...but I doubt that will ever be possible. I am sad. The movie is 27 hours long.

 

[TomServo]

Watched Throne of Blood and thought it was quite good, not Kurosawa's best, but certainly a very good film, he was truly a master.

 

[darkseid26]

Thorne of Blood is my favorite Kurosawa, along with High and Low.

 

[gwynplaine]

Just watched for the 1st time "This Man Must Die." Great film (it inspired Sean Penn The Crossing Guard", but it is much better imo.) It is based on a book written by Nicholas Blake ("The Beast Must Die"), actually a pseudonym for British poet Cecil Day-Lewis who is also Daniel Day-Lewis' father.
It's my second favorite Claude Chabrol movie after "The Butcher." Both films star a young Jean Yanne at the peak of his talent.

 

[TomServo]

Thorne of Blood is my favorite Kurosawa, along with High and Low.

I can see why as it was really good. High and Low is also fantastic, my favorites are Sanjuro and Yojimbo, and of course (real original, I know) Seven Samurai.

 

[darkseid26]

Nothing wrong with that haha


Kurosawa is probably the only filmmaker where I've never read anything bad said about him. I guess the consensus is he is "The Master" and it's a well deserved title.

 

[childeroland]

Just watched "Not One Less," one of Zhang Yimou's more neorealistic efforts. You really can see Kiarostami's influence here but this is definitely Zhang's own voice--I don't know how he got this past the censors, particularly with those final devastating moments in the car and in the village classroom. Superb, just wonderful.

 

[childeroland]

Watched Ann Hui's Summer Snow. Lovely low-key comedy.

 

[childeroland]

Enjoyed In the Hands of the Puppetmaster a lot. Plays a lot like Flowers of Shanghai in being a series of tableaux but otherwise shares a similar aesthetic with City of Sadness.

 

[childeroland]

The Black Cannon Incident -- a very funny satire on Chinese bureaucracy that plays like something out of Bulgakov.