Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

On holidays at the moment, partner out for the day, raining outside, good times ...

The Hole (1998)

I've just started watching Tsai Ming-liang movies and really enjoyed this one.

8/10

Whisper of the Heart

Written by Miyazaki. Every shot in this film is a work of art. It has a simple story but creates interesting characters and generates real emotion. I loved it.

10/10

Raise the Red Lantern

My first Zhang Yimou movie. Liked it but got a bit frustrating due to a bunch of pretty annoying characters.

7/10

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Apur Sansur

honestly can say this is among my top 5.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Let The Right One In, it simply stunned me, beautiful, dark, depressing and some how uplifting. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ter_poster.jpg

The Grandmaster (2013) - Wong Kar Wai

WKW's entry for the most beautiful film ever made. Absolutely stunning to look at. One of the great things that WKW does, and most other directors, even the great ones, don't is use costumes, makeup, and the actors themselves to add to the beauty of his films. Take In The Mood For Love as an example - Maggie Cheung herself and the different dress she wore in every shot was, to me, mesmerising. The colours, her slow motion walk, everything ...

Sadly she has now retired so WKW has had to find others to play opposite Tony Leung. No-one can match Maggie Cheung but in this Zhang Ziyi does a pretty good job.

In this WKW also cast a Korean actress in a role where I don't think she said a word. She probably doesn't speak Cantonese but she looks perfect for the role and adds to the beauty of the scenes she is in.

I feel like Bergman is another who did this well with the choice of actresses.

The Grandmaster is a Kung Fu movie that many will think is a biographical movie about Yip Man but it's not really - it is somewhat biographical but it's really a WKW movie with Yip Man as one of the characters - for large parts of the movie it's really not about him at all. The action is fantastic but don't watch it for that - it's spread out and in between it's quite slow moving and quite philosophical.

I loved it but there are some flaws. WKW has a reputation largely for the visual and music elements of his movies but for me, it's his characters that make his movies great. He's not a story teller - he looks deep into people and relationships. Here I felt this was slightly lacking. I did develop some emotional attachment to the characters but not as much as I would have liked.

The film has been criticised for various things but mostly for plot elements that don't go anywhere. Those criticisms are somewhat valid but if you have watched his movies before you'll expect that anyway :)

9/10

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

A Seperation
It was able to create a intense drama by combining the divorce, family, law and mystery genre's to create a great film. As it ended the movie left you hanging making you wonder apon what happened in the end. All in all great foreign film.

Playtime - -
http://www.criticker.com/img/films/p.../Play_Time.jpg
A dadaist comedy without character development or plot that satirizes the consumerist culture that emerged in post-war France (and the rest of the industrialized world).

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I aggressively disliked Playtime the only time I watched it but, to be fair, my patience ran out soooo quick with that French Mr Magoo that I don't think I gave it a fair shot

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Playtime looked to me very much like a Fellini movie. Though with much more attention to the mise en scene.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Mise-en-scene seems to have evolved in meaning since I went to college but maybe not, since the people using the phrase here have never explained how they use it. :)

Hmmm, I always considered Tati to have one of the most singular styles in all of cinema, along with Rohmer, Kiarostami and Bunuel.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I think Playtime and Fellini movies definitely share a kind of self conscious something or other that is just not on my wavelength. If you liked Playtime, Guaporense, I recommend Songs From the Second Floor. It's similar but, in my opinion, way more successful and humanistic

You have watched way more art films than I have, so you notice more the differences between the various directors.

However, Playtime, with it's combination of lack of plot and character development and comedy remembered me of Fellini's Amarcord.

According to wikipedia:

"When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, sounds, and lighting."

Indeed, it is on my top 20 favorites. Touches the soul like very few movies do. May be a bit too saccharine for some.

Oh, in that sense I agree. I just thought you meant the style of the film as a whole.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

The style is quite distinct, yes. Like every great director.

Not all critics use the term in the same way. I guess you use it the Wiki-shorthand way, which basically means thoughtfully-personal direction instead of happenstance. Once again though with critics, their fave directors are always thoughtfully-personal. I tend to see it carried throughout every film with the best directors, but I also find a thread of consistency with what many consider journeyman and lousy directors. Ed Wood's "mise-en-scene" is surprisingly-consistent even if it's hardly "thoughtful".

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Obviously, a movie doesn't have to be in a different language for it to be considered foreign, however, I am going to say that the first and so far only movie that I have watched with subtitles that I thought was great is a movie called Oldboy, which along with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance, is part of a spiritual trilogy. Neither of the other movies were any good by the way.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

a separation....

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Late Spring. Beautiful movie.

Was that your first Ozu? I watched Tokyo Story awhile ago but was thinking about checking out some of his other stuff, like this one or An Autumn Afternoon (his color films look pretty stunning).

Tokyo Story was my first. This is my second. And not my last.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

The Yôjirô Takita directed Okuribito (Departures). An elegant and touching film.

His first rate stuff:

Late Spring

I Was Born, But...

An Autumn Afternoon

Early Summer

After watching a half dozen Ozu I recommend for you to watch Tokyo Story again. You will have a better mastery of his style.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

^Have you seen Floating Weeds? I know Ebert loved that one quite a lot.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Yes. I didn't like it as much as those 4 above. Though all Ozu I have watched is at least .

Would you consider anime a foreign film? If so, the last good one I watched was Princess Mononoke..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../fa/3iron2.jpg

3-Iron (Bin-jip) (2004) - Kim Ki Duk

This movie really caught me by surprise. I'd heard it was good but the poster and the story outline didn't excite me greatly but yesterday I decided to watch it - mainly because most of the Korean movies I've watched lately have been full of murder, revenge and more (as they tend to be) and wanted to watch something lighter. Well, this is an amazing film.

Kim directed another great film, Spring, Summer, Fall ..., but I actually didn't realise that before watching this. It tells the story of a guy who breaks into peoples homes when they are on holiday and lives there. He doesn't steal anything - just lives there and fixes their stuff, does their washing, etc. At one of the houses, one of the residents is unexpectedly still there - an abused wife. From there starts perhaps the most beautiful relationship I have ever seen in a movie. It is two broken people who find their soul mate.

This movie is not for everyone but if, like me, you love movies with characters that you can empathise with, this is for you. But don't expect anything like a romance movie with long speeches professing love ... neither of the leads say a word until the 80th minute of the movie - and the lead actor never speaks :)

There is a very mild fantasy element to the story as it goes on and overall the story is quite unrealistic but that almost makes it more endearing.

I loved this movie. 10/10

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ays_poster.jpg

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) by Christian Mungiu

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...urora_film.jpg

Aurora (2010) by Cristi Puiu



This is my first encounter with Romanian New Wave films and what an experience it was. Brutal realism combined with long takes and a minimalist style makes it one of my biggest experiences in newer cinema. I am not a big reviewer but i can definitely recommend it to people who are interested in the dark side of human relations.

I am really looking forward to watching The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, Police, Adjective, Tuesday, After Christmas and Beyond The Hills.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

http://www.hancinema.net/photos/fullsizephoto235186.jpg
Korean director Hong Sangsoo has stirred up another strange and playful film about the nature of narrative. It features a teenage girl writing a screenplay about three women visiting a coastal town in South Korea. All three women are played by Isabelle Huppert. Hong has a peculiar but very effective technique for enforcing thought on his meta-narrative. He frames his characters naturally with little cutting and little movement, until suddenly he will do a harsh zoom in on the fixed position. It breaks the naturalism of the shot, and reminds us what we are watching, and provides a cohesive way for a viewer to grasp the overall narrative.

The film is filled with repetition. Each incarnation of the visitor (all named Anne) searches for a lighthouse, has a run in with a lifeguard who's instantly attracted to her, and takes part in some sort of an affair. The repetition creates not boredom, but rather humor and intrigue. Instead of finding myself annoyed when I saw the same shot in the third story, I was intrigued and often caught off guard at the way that Hong toys with our perception throughout.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I liked portions of Young Torlees, but wouldn't consider it "great".

It's probably the absolutely remarkable Close-Up.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ialposter1.jpg

White Material (2009) by Claire Denis



A bit better than her acclaimed film Beau Travail. Claire Denis revisits Africa during an erupting civil war. Isabelle Huppert puts on an amazing act as a struggling mother as well as coffee producer, during the shadows of war. Beautiful imagery combined with a great soundtrack and a rich story, makes this movie one of my top choices for 2009. Michael J. Andersson from Tativille describes White Material very well: "White Material filters its narrative through a shifting interiority and shuffled temporality that affects its nightmarish portrait of post-colonial Africa, where DJ's call for revolt against the continent's remaining whites and child-soldiers sport firearms and machetes."

http://www.e-venise.com/pics/cinema/...le_huppert.jpg

http://feminema.files.wordpress.com/...591_923088.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tre_coups2.jpg

The 400 Blows (1959) by François Truffaut

Simply the best movie ive seen by Truffaut so far. Its a coming of age drama that both contains heartfelt emotions as well as suffering. A very good depiction of adolescence with social issues as a focal point. I had really high expectations going into this film, as this should be one of the defining movies from the french new wave. These expectations were fully met! Besides being a beautiful film, the script was absolutely fantastic. I clearly like this movie better than Breathless and Hiroshima, Mon Amour (the two other defining films of the french new wave).

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http://sacvs.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/fenced-in.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JSFuCWgT84.../400blows1.jpg

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

The Fast Runner,a film set amongst the Inuit people of the Arctic,exploring the themes of love,revenge and survival.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I think Run Lola Run, it surely made me want to go out and run!

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Departures (Japan)

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

3 Idiots was particularly funny, although overlong imo.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Nosso Lar -Brazilian film about the supposedly true experiences of the Brazilian psychic Chico Xavier. The premise is nonsense, but the film was very well made, good production values. A great fantasy.

I really enjoyed Bader-Mainhof Complex!

State of Seige and Z were also quite good.

Walzing with Bashir, One Day in September, and Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story were also wonderful foreign films. So was the film A Brief Vacation.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Now here's the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, AND directed by a woman.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_prod...448/wadjda.jpg
Wadjda (Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012)

Neorealistic portrayal of a girl who dreams of getting herself a bicycle, which is forbidden for girls.

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Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

The Scent of Green Papaya

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Throne of Blood

http://mattslifeinfilm.files.wordpre...uba-poster.jpg

I Am Cuba (1964) by Mikhail Kalatozov

4 stories about the Cuban revolution told by the Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov. While this is indeed propaganda, this is one of the most visually stunning movies of all-time. Highly recommended if youre keen on long takes and interested in the technical aspect of cinema. While i have only seen The Cranes Are Flying by Mikhail Kalatozov this seems to be his most visually accomplished film.

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http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/wp-...a-funeral1.png

http://www.cineaste.com/332images/Cuba3.jpg

http://www.austinfilm.org/image/soycuba1.jpg

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Most recently viewed? Battle Royale (last night), which I give an 8/10 to.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Ivan's Childhood
http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-pr...d_original.jpg
Great movie. A really nice introduction to Tarkovsky, gorgeously shot with a gritty and powerful tale of the loss of innocence by war. Not exactly the masterpiece I was hoping for but impressive nonetheless. 8/10

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Once were warriors from New Zeland

hangover 2

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Confessions. Really good Japanese movie.

This week, it was Philomena, a true story, in which a fired reporter (Martin Sixsmith in real life), looking for a new gig, stumbles on a woman who was an unwed mother in Ireland back in the 50's. She was forcibly put into a catholic institution which used her and other similar girls/women as near slave labor, eventually selling their babies to rich clients, many in the US. The reporter digs into the story, eventually writing a book that was quite a dark revelation. Judi Dench and Steve Coogan star in the move which was filmed in England, Northern Ireland, DC and Maryland. It's not exactly an enjoyable movie, it was a revelation about the bad old days of the church in Ireland.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I'm a sucker for British costume dramas. The last one I rewatched is one of my favorites:

"Sense and Sensibility" (1995)

Directed by Ang Lee.
Screenplay by Emma Thompson...

...who won the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay...

...and deserved it.

The Hand by Jiri Trnka

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4Th36zN_g

Excellent stop motion animated short. There's no dialogue so no issues with language barriers or anything being lost in translation. I got turned on to this after seeing clips of it in The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Gonna have to check out other Trnka films.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

The Intouchables

http://www.movieposterdb.com/posters...4_3a88aa2b.jpg

Holy Motors 2012

Definitely different. Still reflecting on it days later.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Also.. 'Agora'

LOVE this movie. knowing that there's definitely some artistic license in how much is historically accurate, it's still heartbreaking example of knowledge wasted due to the political maneuverings of power hungry & disagreements of faith.Love Weisz in this. First time I've remember seeing Oscar Isaac & Max Minghella, who were great as well.

Not exactly great in the artistic sense, though it is a great example of all the tropes of otaku* media combined in 150 minutes, Nanoha The Movie 2nd:

http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__..._2nd_A%27s.PNG

It's significantly better than the 1st movie though. The plot is also quite complex for a 150 minute movie, given it's the plot of a manga compressed into this runtime. There is a ton of very heavy (forced even) drama. However, the amount of colorful magic rays coming out from the English and German speaking magic/electronic staffs of the flying main characters, which are powered by magic ammunition, was simply too much for me to handle at certain points. And I am a fan of this kind of thing, but here it was simply overkill: The poster actually shows a lower amount of color than you usually see on the screen at each frame of the movie. This is likely the most colorful movie I ever watched.

Theoretically this is supposed to be adult but there isn't anything here that's mature: there is not much graphic violence and no shots of nude adults. Oh yeah, I think that pedophiles are actually included as a target audience of this since there are actually shots of nude children (like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer). Thinking about it, comics and animation are actually good ways to handle this social group since in the west they usually watch photos and films of real children.

Still, it's significantly better than the 1st movie, so I give it 80/100. Yes, it's actually a quite powerful muscular drama movie (whose drama is more explicit than in Miyazaki and Ozu, more similar to Kurosawa's cinema) whose power is suppressed by simply too many colorful magic rays.

Interestingly, it's not listed on the critiker database even though it's the 13th top selling blu-ray disk in Japan of 2013 (sold even more than The Hobbit and Wreck it Ralph there).

*Otaku is a word used by the Japanese to designate teenagers and adult males who don't have much of a social life and dedicate their entire free time to science fiction, fantasy, comics books, anime and videogames. Basically, it's nerd in Japanese.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Why do you keep talking about Ozu when reviewing anime?

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Ozu's influence on manga and anime is enormous.

That's like talking about Orson Welles influence on modern hollywood movies.

Yet another odd comparison from Guaporense!

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

It is not odd. It's pure ignorance from our part in calling it odd. Toy Story 3, for instance, has scenes and lines taken directly from Citizen Kane.

And I remember that when I watched Late Spring for the first time (first Ozu film I watched) I remembered having the same feeling from it as watching stuff like Dragon Ball.

It's obvious when you think a little about it that animation and manga are not hermetically sealed from live action cinema and literature, specially the 1950's classical Japanese cinema, which is the most influential period of Japanese live action film.

Ozu's influence on manga, the dominant form of Japanese popular culture since the 1970's, is obvious by the frequent use of pillow shots in manga (http://books.google.com.br/books?id=...page&q&f=false).

The domesticity and realism, the most obvious characteristics of Ozu's cinema, are also the characteristics of even the most hardcore otaku fantasy titles such as Nanoha 2nd. Lack of clearly defined antagonists also characterize that movie, differently from the western equivalents (such as The Avengers) and the drama and character development is more similar to Kurosawa's movies than Miyazaki's.

Ozu's slice of life cinema's influence is more obvious when you look at slice of life anime and manga such as Bunny Drop and K-On (or Ghibli's slice of life film: Only Yesterday, Whisper, Poppy Hill). A very large fraction of manga and anime is slice of life stuff.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I haven't seen any movie that fully understands or implements Ozu's style, especially his use of 3D space and editing patterns

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Of course. You cannot find a perfect imitation of the work of a genius such as Ozu.

In the same way you cannot find a perfect imitation of the work of Shakespeare. However no one would think of denying his influence over English speaking literature because of it.

Ozu and "Anime"

Mark F asked me why I talk about Ozu when I am talking about anime. First I was puzzled: in my mind I was talking about a Japanese film, so it's natural for me to compare it to the work of the most influential directors such as Ozu. However, since it was an animated film made in Japan, hence, called "anime" in the west (a term that I find problematic), one can understand that question, given that the ignorant western film critics appear to think that anime is just bottom of the barrel entertainment while Ozu is though as the highest level of cinematic art.

Nanoha the movie 2nd doesn't use explicit pillow shots, like Kurosawa and Miyazaki as well, however many anime titles do (mostly TV anime and direct to video anime). For instance, lets have a close look at a small (1 minute) section of an Ozu film:

These are screenshots from a random slice of a Ozu movie, a sequence of scenes from Autumn Afternoon:

Shoot 1:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psa1e12aab.png

Shoot 2:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psc48bfacd.png

Shoot 3:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psdc17060f.png

Shoot 4:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps52f7f9d0.png

Shoot 5:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps1aed24ab.png

Shoot 6:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps0e779aee.png

Shoot 7:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps0ef848f5.png

Now, let's compare with a random half a minute slice of PMMM, an anime TV series edited into a 4 hour movie:

Shoot 1:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps71ac50d4.png

Shoot 2:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psc4ddb92c.png

Shoot 3:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps42167a33.png

Shoot 4:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psdf6d2b3f.png

Shoot 5:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps359716ae.png

Shoot 6:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps74f9ae53.png

Shoot 7:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps80ddbef5.png

Despite the similarities in direction, An Autumn Afternoon is much more subtle visually, being very minimalistic, PMMM, a typical example of Shinbo's directing style, is extremely aggressive visually (with super aggressive symbolism involving chairs in scene 6 for instance). PMMM is also much faster, these 7 scenes show up in less than 30 seconds, while An Autumn Afternoon lasts for 1 minute. Well, that's the difference in pacing we can expect between something from 1961 and something from 2011, exactly 50 years later.

An Autumn Afternoon is a slice of life movie, most of the dialogue doesn't have any relation with the plot while in the 5 hours of PMMM, every line of dialogue is directly relevant to the plot (in fact, the dialogue of PMMM is generally regarded as being exceptionally free of fat unrelated to the driving plot).

However, Ozu's directing style has had tremendous influence in the direction of movies, TV and manga.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I don't see similarity in composition, tone or overall effect. None of the PMMM shots seem at all very Ozuian

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

That post seems to suggest that every outdoor shot of buildings is inspired by Ozu :p

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I don't see any similarities either.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Note the use of high angles in PMMM, a technique which Ozu completely abandoned for low angles that didn't distort the image. Any similarities (which are few) seem to result from cultural similarities rather than stylistic choices. Ozu's lighting is far more naturalistic and less stylized than that of PMMM, and the outdoor shots lack Ozu's obsession with and playing with geometries, something that pervades every shot of his here and nearly none in PMMM. The closest comparison I see is that of the last PMMM shot, which shows a planar composition through a doorway, however that shot even has far more obvious depth than Ozu's doorways, which are often deceptive in depth.

It's difficult to work in a hostile environment. Well, I will try.

"Any similarities (which are few) seem to result from cultural similarities rather than stylistic choices."

It's way more similar than between it and Mizoguchi, Naruse, Kurosawa or Miyazaki. And you never talked about the obvious pillow shoots in 5-6, Ozu's trademark, now became standard issue in Japanese TV, film and manga.

I actually see very explicit use of geometry on a few Shinbo shoots (1,2,6). Explicit pillow shoots in both cases on (5) and (6). Of course, light is much more naturalistic in a live action film than in a super stylized animation like PMMM. Of course, if you try to see blatant attempt at copy you will not see it because Shinbo has his own very characteristic directing style.

Though here it's notable the use of shadows, you don't see that in Family Guy. Note, however, that Shinbo directs as if it were a live action film. That comes fundamentally from manga, which adopted the techniques of a virtual camera in the 1970's. A very restricted set of western animation started to also adopt a virtual camera recently. However, stuff like Family Guy, also super stylized, doesn't have any visual creativity, different from Shinbo directing (who directs Family Guy?).

Anyway, the similarity becomes more apparent if you drop 7 shoots from random 25 seconds of a contemporary American movie, whose Ozu influence is almost null. Almost no attention paid to composition, just shoot the character over the whole screen when they talk, the standard in most modern film and TV:

Shoot 1:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psc6f9cc70.png

Shoot 2:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psa8d9d46c.png

Shoot 3:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps80a0c98f.png

Shoot 4:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psece5516b.png

Shoot 5:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps04e84627.png

Shoot 6:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psc0b78383.png

Shoot 7:
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps456698ee.png

Roger Ebert also noticed the direct Ozu influence in Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9WEyuMq0Yk

Those are pillow shoots. Not only of buildings but in PMMM, shoot (6), it's also of an open window. These shoots don't have any obvious reason to be there and are used to create a certain "breathing space" between scenes.

You never see those in typical American movies. You also never see those in the movies by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Naruse, Miyazaki, Kobayashi and several other famous Japanese directors. You usually just jump from one scene to the next without any breathing space.

However, they became almost standard in manga and TV after Ozu's influence. I see them in manga all the time as well. A common situation as explained in the google book's link I provided.

Watch Roger Ebert's interview above.

Or better, compare this, another example:

Ozu's Late Spring

Shoot 1: Noriko happy
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oriko_glad.png

Shoot 2: Pillow shoot
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...00px-Vase1.png

Shoot 3: Noriko sad
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Noriko_sad.png

Compare to the TV anime series

K-ON, episode 1:

Shoot 1: Yui anxious
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps1ed449c9.png

Shoot 2: Pillow shoot 1
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps0a9534c0.png

Shoot 3: Pillow shoot 2
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps5948d338.png

Shoot 4: Pillow shoot 3
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps12b1f785.png

Shoot 5: Pillow shoot 4
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psaa1dccfc.png

Shoot 6: Pillow shoot 5
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps5de6dac4.png

Shoot 7: Pillow shoot 6
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...psc5c10e7e.png

Shoot 8: Pillow shoot 7
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps4b17294c.png

Shoot 9: Yui happy
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps5ff8383d.png

Well, the stills you pulled from Ozu are from two characters' interactions ad thus results in tighter shots with less experimentation. Ozu's playfulness with geometry is due in part to Japaese architecture, shots like these:
http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/fil...eautumn/10.jpg

http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/fil...weeds/6_sm.jpg
are better and more typical examples of the interactions of several of Ozu's visual schema.

It should be noted as well that not all of Ozu's pillow shots are simple inserts, many of them function as well as a kind of visual joke as in the opening shot of Floating Weeds
http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/fil...ds/pillow1.jpg

Or function as a sort of extended establishing shot as in Late Autumn (This is one of my favorite sequences in Ozu, I'm not sure why but in 35mm I fell in love with it)
Attachment 12205
Attachment 12206
Attachment 12207
Attachment 12208

I think the typical definition of a pillow shot (as with much of the writing on Ozu) is oversimplified. They serve as more than just breathing space, but are an alternative visual mode of transportation from scene to scene as opposed to a dissolve. They link spaces between scenes in a fluid manner regardless of narrative significance. I find it strange that you reference a book on Ozu's pillow shots that specifically says that Ozu's shots are more than breathing space and are filled with narrative and thematic significance.

The Killer (1989)

http://anotacoescinefilo.files.wordp...ng?w=500&h=268

I never said they were only breathing space. However, they also do that.

Pillow shoots, not used by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Kobayashi, Naruse, etc, nobody in the west, became standard in manga and anime. See the super obvious K-ON example above.

Ozu's directing includes these quite rare characteristics:

1 - Static camera that doesn't follow the character. Is standard in manga and anime.

2 - Low angles, also widely used in manga and anime (though not exclusively as in Ozu's films):
http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps0d71d6d0.png
Also see PMMM shoot (3).

3 - Pillow shoots: standard in manga and anime. For instance, K-ON episode 1 uses 7 straight pillow shoots, more than Ozu's used. PMMM the movie has hundreds of pillow shoots spread all over. Miyazaki used "ma", a certain breathing space in shoot that took longer than usual instead of pillow shoots. His work influenced directly the direction of John Lasseter for Toy Story 2 and subsequent Pixar movies, hence Pixar's directing style is indirectly influenced by Ozu's.

4 - Very subtle/controlled acting: not standard in manga and anime, (see shoot above for an example). Though Only Yesterday tries to imitate even this aspect of Ozu's style.

5 - Use of lighting and shadows. Standard in manga and anime (shoot above for an example). (not very uncommon in other movies though)

In particular, PMMM the movie uses all these minus 4. It's shows very strong Ozu influence. The influence is probably indirect: Ozu influenced manga which influenced animation and PMMM is just a random example of recent animation.

Dude, these are low height high angle, not low height low angle (or medium height low angle) like Ozu's shots.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I don't care about the text, but nice screens, Guap!

The text is pretty nonsense:

Don't really like watching foreign films...don't like reading while I'm watching a movie.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Awesome, bro

Another one of them. :facepalm:

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Foreign? ...or is it World Cinema? :)

Just watched:

Blue is the Warmest Colour ...9/10

The Great Beauty (Italian: La grande bellezza) ...8/10

I'm going with The Past. I feel like no one has watched this, and it's definitely worth a watch.

IP Man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXOiqHOdLjs

I think of it as non-English language films.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

A Short Film About Love, which I just viewed last night. It instantly became one of my very favourite films.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

The last great foreign film that I saw recently is Cinema Paradisco and it a great foreign film to watch if you are still doing your MOFO 80's list.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8NO0gYlttP...dragon-inn.jpg

Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) by Tsai Ming-Liang

I have been going through the filmograpy of Tsai Ming-Liang, while many of his films are superb, i feel like this is one of his most important. However i would say that What Time Is It There? from 2001 is also up there as one of his best. Goodbye Dragon Inn is in someway one of his most radical piece of art, in terms of, that there is nearly no dialogue, maybe 4-6 sentences all in all. The movie is stripped down and could just be seen as a movie about moviegoers going to the last show of a cinema, but the interaction or the lack of interaction, between these moviegoers is interesting. Michal J. Andersson from Tativille writes: "the space becomes the perfect platform for Tsai's thought: here is a place where people find themselves in close proximity, even as they fail to interact with one another"

The aesthetics of the movie are to die for, but in general so are all of Tsai Ming Liangs movies. I would definitely call him a great auteur as there is a distinct creative vision that goes through all of his movie. This is a must watch if your interested in contemplative cinema, Taiwanese cinema or interested in one of the great directors, who is still working today! His 2013 feature Stray Dogs continue his line of very good movies, with a distinct personal creative vision!



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bPaWNptja_...1h25m12s59.png

http://darkenedscreens.files.wordpre...dragon-inn.jpg

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

It's about boring people watching boring movie yet we somehow do the same while watching Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Inception ain't got sh*t on it. It's also the slowest comedy film ever made. Situations are awkwardly hilarious.

"The cinema is dead, so let's make another boring film! And now a glorious twist - the main hero goes to the toilet!"

PS: I loved it.

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Goodbye, Dragon Inn is the best of the few Tsai Ming-Liang films I've seen. As Minio said, it's among the slowest comedies ever made, and it tackles its comic-elegiac tone perfectly. It's also worth noting that while he is working within the Taiwanese industry, Tsai is not Taiwanese. He's from Malaysia, but after studying in Taiwan an seeing the great degree of freedom allowed by the industry at the time, he decided to make films there and has since worked and lived there, but he certainly maintains his Malaysian identity.

Also, nice to see you quoting Michael J. Anderson, TokeZa!

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Oh, thank you so much for reminding me about this movie Takeza!
I remember I watched this long time ago and have been haunted by its memories since then, but unfortunately didn't recall the title name nor the director, I only recalled was that it was an asian work.
I need to re-watch this! Thanks a lot!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...#39;argent.jpg

L'argent (1983) by Robert Bresson

First of all i want to say i am a huge fan of films like A Man Escaped, Pickpocket and Au hasard Balthazar so i might be a bit biased when it comes to the movies of Bresson. L'argent was the last movie from Bresson, but i must say that its one of the most intriguing ones, of those that i have seen. The film contains a lot of subtleties even though its quite minimalistic. As far i understand it, its Bressons take on capitalism and a quite harsh one i must say. The title in Danish would be translated in to something like "Blood Money", which is quite fitting for this harsh yet poetic movie. The actions througout the movie by most of the characters are depicted rather coldly and through these actions the movie builds up to a climax of comatosely proportions.

I wont say i was blown away as i was by A Man Escaped and Pickpocket, but L'argent still ranks among the finer works of Robert Bresson. A huge recommendations considering his filmography.

+

http://www.reelingreviews.com/largentpic.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1H5qBwyKk2...0/largent2.jpg

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

Re: Last great Foreign Film you saw
 

I couldn't get into L'Argent. My least favourite Bresson.