I have been keeping up with the countdown but have not responded in quite a while. I was out of town on vacation for a week and just generally have been too busy to give this its proper attention. So here comes a big dump of the eleven movies from my list that have placed since I last commented (somewhere back in the seventies on the reveals).
The 400 Blows/Les Quatre Cents Coups
The first foreign film I would have ever seen is Albert Lamorisse's short
The Red Balloon (1956), which in my elementary school was one of several films that were screened on rainy days or towards the end of the year as studies were ending to fill the time (Marlo Thomas'
"Free to Be...You and Me" was the other most frequently screened flick). And of course I am old enough that it was shown on actual film, through a projector. I'm old. But
The Red Balloon has no real dialogue, so though it is a French film there is no French spoken nor subtitles to read. Apart from that the first foreign language film I would have been exposed to is Wolfgang Petersen's
Das Boot (1981), which played on cable TV a whole lot when we first got the service in my house. As I recall HBO would play both the dubbed and subtitled versions at different times during the day. However the first foreign language film that I purposefully sought out was François Truffaut's
The 400 Blows.
I was in middle school, probably around eleven or twelve years old, and my ever-growing interest in movies had led me to Alfred Hitchcock. In a world before streaming, for several generations that led almost inevitably to the interview book
Hitchcock/Truffaut. When I checked it out of the library and began pouring through it and making a long list of Hitchcock movies I had to watch and rewatch I had no idea who François Truffaut was. After reading the book I was intrigued and went to the video store to see which Truffaut movies my local shop might have on Betamax. The only one they had at the time was
The 400 Blows. I likely would have rented almost anything they had, but that it was his debut was of course perfect. I fell in love with it right away, likely helped by the fact that I was a moody kid myself, though my specific circumstances were nothing like Antoine Doinel's. Still, I connected with the story and the storytelling and that was the key to unlocking World Cinema for me at a young age. I would return to the foreign film section of video stores regularly after that.
In addition to it being a wonderful cinematic gateway drug
The 400 Blows still holds up and remains one of my all-time favorite films. No surprise it was high on my list at number five for twenty-one of its 129 points.
Rashōmon, RAN, and Ikiru
Truffaut may have been my gateway, and he is a filmmaker I certainly love, but the first foreign director I loved the way I loved Hitchcock was Akira Kurosawa. In making these kids of lists and ballots it is always difficult not to fill all of your limited number of spaces with one filmmaker. But when it came to Kurosawa and this ballot I just went for it. I have four of the master's movies on my list, three of which made the collective cut. The fourth will not be in the Top Ten, but that's OK. I knew it had little chance of making it, but I included it just the same. To me
Rashōmon is his masterpiece among masterpieces. It was number one on my ballot. Would have liked to see it sneak into the tippy-top of the list with
The Seven Samurai, but thirteen is more than respectable for a group list.
RAN -
乱 was the first Kurosawa I was able to see on the big screen, during its original release. By then I was fifteen and already leaning towards literature as well as film (my degree is in English) and already was familiar with Shakespeare and
King Lear, having watched the 1983 television production starring Larry Olivier. Kurosawa's transposing the story to feudal Japan works perfectly, and to see his bright canvas on a gigantic screen was truly awe inspiring. As I grew older and returned to
RAN again and again, especially after taking several Shakespeare courses in college and having
Lear be my favorite of the plays, my love for it only deepened. It was number four on my ballot. And then there's
Ikiru! When first devouring Kurosawa's films as a teenager I am sure I kept putting
Ikiru off. After the likes of
Seven Samurai, Rashōmon, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, and
The Hidden Fortress I wasn't keen on what was promised on the back of the video box: a modern story about a lonely dying man based on a novella by Tolstoy. But when I finally got around to it of course it opened up Kurosawa more fully and the sentimental story is so perfectly done. It was number eleven on my ballot.
I'll reveal my fourth Kurosawa pick after the group list is complete.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God/Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes
After Akira Kurosawa the next foreign filmmaker I became obsessed with was Warner Herzog. I stumbled onto him through Les Blank's documentary
Burden of Dreams (1982), which aired on my local PBS station one night. That led me first of course to actually watch
Fitzcarraldo, which is wonderful. I didn't vote for it but I was very satisfied to see it place on the collective list. But it was
Aguirre, the Wrath of God that blew me away on first viewing. The legend of Herzog himself is a character as wild as those he tells stories about, but Klaus Kinski's descent into madness and eventually the perfect metaphor of being adrift on a raft full of death and monkeys while professing his invincibility never ceases to make me smile the way only great art can. I have twenty favorite Herzog movies but only put two on my ballot. The other won't place but
Aguirre was my mighty number two, contributing twenty-four of its 231 points.
Amélie/Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain
Few movies have connected so perfectly with my senses of romance and weirdness as much as Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
Amélie. I already knew and loved Caro & Jeunet's
Delicatessen and
City of Lost Children and I knew
Amélie had broken all kinds of box office records in France, but I was not prepared for how much I went ga-ga for it. The word magic gets tossed around too much when it comes to movies, but to me it fits for this at times hilarious fantasy. It was number three on my ballot.
Incendies
As much as Jeunet's oddball romantic fairy tale floored me in a sweet way, Denis Villeneuve's
Incendies did the same for me with a dramatic punch to the gut. I saw it at a film festival and was instantly in love. To that point I had not seen any of Villeneuve's work, but unsurprisingly to me after
Incendies was unleashed on the world he got to start playing in Hollywood. That has culminated thus far with some spectacular big budget Sci-Fi epics in
Blade Runner 2049 and the new
Dune (2021), but while I love all of his films to date, nothing has moved and surprised me the way
Incendies does. That it made the collective list, even somewhere in the middle, makes me very happy. It was my eighth pick. If you haven't yet seen
Incendies don't read about it, just go watch it. And you're welcome.
Solaris/Соляри
I am not at all surprised that here at MoFo that an Andrei Tarkovsky film is in the Top Ten. What did surprise me, happily, was that not only did
Solaris make the cut as well but that it landed at number twelve! Once I saw
The Mirror at #86 and
Andrei Rublev at #23, I figured
Solaris was an also ran. I had it ninth on my list but underestimated its popularity with the rest of you. It was the first Tarkovsky I ever saw and instantly found it hypnotic and moving on first viewing. I love many Tarkovsky flicks and am not shocked to see him get four on the countdown but I love that
Solaris finished so high. As much as I love the movie I may be one of the few who appreciates Soderbergh's take on Stanisław Lem's novel almost as much. Different approaches to the material, but powerful to me.
Z
Like many great films Costa-Gavras'
Z is both of its time and timeless. You need not know anything about the actual assassination of a Greek politician that the novel and film are referencing under a thin veil of fiction to appreciate the frustration with corruption. Costa-Gavras' style and tone make for a document that will continue to highlight the dangers and apparent inevitability of deceit and injustice capable by governments and courts. I had it as my twelfth pick.
The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Gesundheit!) was already looking backward a couple decades with
The Lives of Others to a fictionalized tale of Communist-era East Berlin, but like
Z while its period specifics ring true its themes of suppression, privacy, and hypocrisy are sadly timeless. Von Donnersmarck has some cinematic touchstones too, including most directly Coppola's
Blow Out (1981), but the power it achives is all his and his actors, especially the magnificence of Ulrich Mühe as the Stasi snoop who becomes sympathetic to the artists he is charged with surveilling. A great drama executed perfectly. It was sweet sixteen on my ballot.
The Wages of Fear/Le Salaire de la Peur
And finally (for now), at number twenty-four on my ballot was Henri-Georges Clouzot's exciting
The Wages of Fear. This was another early find for me on my road of World Cinema. I don't think I even really read the back of the box, but judging from the cover and title I thought it was probably a World War II adventure like
The Great Escape (1963). Instead I got something even better. A small group of desperate strangers each hiding in the middle of nowhere for different reasons are drawn to transport volatile explosives by truck over treacherous terrain. The suspense of tension of Hitchcock but a sweaty, manly tale he likely wouldn't have been attracted to as one of his films. Love this one from the first time I saw it. For years I really did not care for Billy Friedkin's 1977 re-make. Partially because I loved the original so much and partially because the VHS transfer of
Sorcerer was pretty horrible. It wasn't until the 2014 restoration, which I saw theatrically before getting the BluRay, where I could finally reassess and love it as well. I still prefer the Clouzot original but Friedkin's is damn fine, too.
Those eleven give me fifteen from my list.
HOLDEN’S BALLOT
1.
Rashōmon (#13)
2.
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (#15)
3.
Amélie (#19)
4.
RAN (#18)
5.
The 400 Blows (#35)
6.
Army of Shadows (#90)
8.
Incendies (#61)
9.
Solaris (#12)
11.
Ikiru (#24)
12.
Z (#55)
16.
The Lives of Others (#38)
19.
The Conformist (#88)
22.
Roma (#83)
23.
Samurai Rebellion (#79)
24.
Wages of Fear (#67)
I only expect two more of my choices to make the Top Ten, which leaves eight of mine that won't make it. C'est la vie!