15Oct/070
10 Great Foreign Films
(935 points, 68 ballots)
Written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy
"Next to Citizen Kane ,easily the greatest cinematic debut, and also one of the most wonderfully personal films in history. And is there ever a shot better than that final freeze frame?"
Tripp Burton
(1030 points, 75 ballots)
Written by Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas
"Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers remains one of the most complicated political films ever built. Its ideas on terrorism and torture still fascinate today, especially as we continue to fight a possibly continuous war against terrorism."
Peter Labuza
(1054 points, 79 ballots)
"No better hallucinatory, screwed-up vision of obsession exists."
David Gaffen
(1056 points, 68 ballots)
Written by Renoir and Charles Spaak
"Renoir loved playing with the classes. He did so brilliantly in The Rules of the Game but by examining them in a World War I setting free of frivolity he allowed the examination to take on a life-and-death urgency that made the examination more piercing, and in the end, more personal."
Jonathan Lapper
(1105 points, 69 ballots)
"I don't understand this movie. I don't have to. I know it's brilliant anyway."
J. Cochrane
(1219 points, 76 ballots)
Written by de Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Oreste Biancoli,
Adolfo Franci and Gerardo Guerrieri
"If you do not tear up while watching De Sica's masterpiece, then you need surgery on your tear ducts."
Jeffrey Hill
(1275 points, 82 ballots)
Written by Fellini, Ennio Flajano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello Rondi
"The last five minutes destroy my composure. There is too much happening for it to fail to do so. Perfect double bill mate with The Life Aquatic, its American remake."
Ryland Walker Knight
(1422 points, 82 ballots)
Written by Lang and Thea von Harbou
"How many modern directors could make a film about a child killer, and evoke the same mixture of indignation, contempt and stark, true pity for the man's wretchedness?"
Campaspe
(1687 points, 105 ballots)
Written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni
"Kurosawa’s epic might not have invented badass, but it certainly refined it."
Paul Clark
"Kurosawa's supremely entertaining, durable and expansive action epic has probably gotten better with age, standing proudly near the top of the heap watching filmmaker after filmmaker try, and usually fail, to approach its timeless mixture of personal drama, broad comedy and surging, emotional adventure."
Dennis Cozzalio
"This is the granddaddy of epic foreign films, but like (John) Ford, never at the expense of the characters. With camerawork that still looks innovative today: including rapid cutting, quick zooms, and the fluid pacing Kurasowa set the bar for action storytelling in film for the next five decades."
Ron Houghton
"How to make friends and influence American Westerns. Magnificent in its own right."
Odienator
"This movie has more humanity packed into it than the earth."
Jeffrey Hill
"What epics should be - thrilling, moving, technically breath-taking, and historically serious. Like - one example - the historical point of the way guns are
transforming the world - all four dead samurai fall to gunfire."
Weeping Sam
"The perfect mix of entertainment and art."
Joseph Cox
"Most engaging 3+ hour movie I've ever seen."
Jesse Cunningham
"About as perfect a film as you will ever see."
Ryland Walker Knight
"Quite simply, the greatest film in ANY language of all time."
Mercurie
"It's a three-hour, 37-minute movie with a bare-bones plot and never becomes tiresome or tedious. How many action movies owe their debt to this movie?"
David Gaffen
"There’s a reason this movie seems to be on everyone’s Greatest Films lists. It is just that great."
Tripp Burton
"The best action movie ever. It's 3-1/2 hours long, but it's paced so beautifully that it doesn't seem long."
Sterling Taylor
"The incredible versatility of Takashi Shimura is demonstrated with his roles in this movie and in Ikiru.
Steve on the Mountain
(1801 points, 105 ballots)
Writen by Renoir and Carl Koch
"Not a perfect film, just the best."
L. Stevens
"The very flawed, human Octave may be the most lovable character in all of film."
Campaspe
"Renoir's prescient pre-war drama of societal collapse sneaks up on you and works on you from the inside out with a kind of unbearable lightness of feeling. Everyone should quit complaining that it routinely shows up in the top two of all these All-Time Best lists, just accept its greatness and bask in it."
Dennis Cozzalio
"The Discreet Lack of Charm of the Bourgeoisie."
Odienator
"As important and groundbreaking as Welles’ debut two years later, just watching the film is a semester of film school in itself."
Tripp Burton
"For two hours you ask, 'where is this going?' Then you find out the answer. Cruel and devastating. The perfect example of the plotless film."
Mark White
"The mastery of this film is beyond my capacity for speech."
Dave McDougall
"About as perfect a screenplay as you can imagine"
Ryland Walker Knight
"'Everyone has his reasons.' Funny, heartbreaking, foolish, and wise. One movie I can watch again and again."
Sterling Taylor
"I didn't get this movie until about half way through. Then something clicked, and by the end I was convinced its landmark reputation is warranted."
J. Cochrane
"That moment with the woman sitting and wistfully watching the mechanical piano do its thing without needing her to play it kills me every time."
Jeff
"When I first rented it, as soon as it ended, I rewound and watched it again. You could put it on a loop and never get tired of it, I think. It's hard to say much more and ever stop talking about it."
Weeping Sam
"'I wanted to depict a society dancing on a volcano' said Jean Renoir in regards to this wise, worldly and intricate comedy of pre-war upstairs-downstairs parallels and vicissitudes. He plays it wry and cheeky, but don't underestimate his bite. He paints an outwardly elegant though charred milieu, where characters know all there is to know about their own as well as each other's caprices and shortcomings, and have learned to be quite relaxed about them - those that haven't are bound to suffer. And though Renoir is eager to inject wherever possible his famous generosity of spirit, he's too shrewd to be at all optimistic. You could accuse him of cynicism, but you'd be misguided. He's long past cynicism."
GoranFound here.