Category: Non-English Film

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Cries and Whispers (1972)

While Harriet Andersson painfully dies of uterine cancer, her sisters Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin and servant Kari Sylwan keep watch, struggling to care for her while dealing with their own issues. I’m sure much of the film went over my head as it is quite stylized and the perspective quickly changes between the four women, but the performances reflect lives of pain and loneliness. Unforgettably the rooms these women embody are dramatically and oppressively covered in red while they themselves drift around in white dresses.   Best Picture Nomination

Oscar Win: Best Cinematography

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced; Best Costume Design

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Golden Voices (2019)

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jewish married film dubbers Maria Belkin and Vladimir Fridman immigrate to Israel and realize they must reinvent themselves in their new country. It’s a sweet little film about an older couple having to refigure out where they fit in the world and with each other. It also has a lovely sense of nostalgia towards film, particularly those of Fellini, and sharing the love with the world at large.

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Border (2018)

Possessing an unusually heightened sense of smell, Eva Melander works for Swedish customs, sniffing out smuggled contraband. When she encounters someone else with similar features, it sends her on a voyage of personal discovery to her origins and unexpected revelations about the world at large. This is a very weird film and there were many places it went that were hard to get behind. Melander’s performance is striking. With the makeup for her character, she is completely unrecognizable, but her inner humanity still shines through.  Fantasy

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

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In Darkness (2011)

During World War II, a Catholic sewer worker and thief, despite his best misgivings, hid a group of Jewish people in the sewers of Lwów, Poland. Adapted from one of two books about the incident, the film suffers from coming after many better films on the Holocaust. The majority of the film is set in the sewer, which means much of the film is very dark and there are umpteen closeups of rats scurrying about. The runtime is already fairly long, but there isn’t a lot of time spent building the characters of the Jewish group before they go into hiding, which makes each person hard to discern in the dark. For better or worse, the film doesn’t shy from portraying the characters humanly. There is quite a bit of sex for a film about genocide and many scenes involve various characters yelling at each other.   War

Oscar Nomination: Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

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Amarcord (1973)

It is hard to not immediately compare this to The Hand of God as they are both Italian films featuring a teenager as he comes of age surrounded by a cast of eccentric characters. It’s obvious this influenced that other film. While I’m still rather done with films centered on white, teenaged boys, especially when they all seem to feature adults sexually taking advantage of children, this one exceeds the others as it allows the focus to move away from the boys and let the other characters have time to shine. Set in a Northern Italian seaside village during the 1930s Mussolini era, it offers a real sense of time and place while also having just enough surreal, dreaminess to invoke a feeling of nostalgic memory.

Oscar Win: Best Foreign Language Film

Oscar Nominations: Best Director; Best Writing, Original Screenplay

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Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

A donkey is born, named Balthazar, and cared for by four small children. The film follows this donkey’s life as he’s passed from owner to owner, accepting the changes and doing his work with little protest. His life is very often heartbreaking but he also experiences love. It’s a simple story, but it’s also very real, sad, and universal.   Animals

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A Royal Affair (2012)

Princess Alicia Vikander of Great Britain moves to Denmark where she is betrothed to King Mikkel Følsgaard. When the King proves to be childish, a bit abusive, and possibly crazy and the country oppressive for the educated Queen, she begins an affair with the King’s physician Mads Mikkelsen which changes the course of Danish history. I sometimes have a hard time getting in to period films, especially like this one when they drag a bit and are overly long, but the leads have an appeal and it was interesting learning a bit of history that I had no inkling about. Unsurprisingly from its title, it leans heavily into the romance angle which at least prevents it from getting dragging too far into the intricacies of Danish politics.

Oscar Nomination: Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

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Nights of Cabiria (1957)

This film follows the episodic journey of prostitute Cabiria from her almost drowning after being pushed in a river by her boyfriend to her later romance with a man who seems too good to be true. Through it all, she maintains an unmerited optimism against the cynicism of her peers and life itself. I didn’t love this as much as La Strada, the previous collaboration between Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina, but Masina’s presence still shines. Her character is so incredibly tough and spunky with a fragile, hopeful light that refuses to be extinguished no matter the degradations she must endure.

Oscar Win: Best Foreign Language Film

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Panda and the Magic Serpent (1958)

With the help of his animal friends, Xu-Xian attempts to overcome obstacles placed by a local monk in order to reunite with his princess love. Known for being the first color anime and one of the first to reach United States soil, the animation is adorably rendered, particularly the two animals. Sadly the version I watched on Hoopla was a poor copy and the colors and line work are rather faded and washed out.

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Nobody Knows (2004)

Based on a true story, a young mother secretly moves her four children into a new apartment and later abandons them to the care of the eldest, not yet a teenager. It’s an obviously heartbreaking tale and it goes on for long enough that it feels verging on tragedy porn. The film is mostly scenes of the children acting amongst themselves and this is handled delicately and naturally, letting the kids be kids even while the outside world puts very real pressures onto them.

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