The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame III: Foreign Language Edition

That one's from me. I was surprised at how many of you haven't seen it. It's an incredible film, so I'm glad you liked it.

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You picked it for me? Thank you, I never would've guessed. If anything, I feel like I could be underrating it. It kind of snuck up on me.

Now I'm wondering how you sorted your DMs and the nominations

This was my back up pick for you.

I watched Au Revoir Les Enfants in an HoF some time ago and thought highly of it. I had considered it for Cricket I thought I'd let someone else snag it as it seemed like a real good choice for him. I'm not surprised he really liked it.

Shoot the Piano Player



Easily the best of Truffaut that I've seen so far, and although it falls short of being a true personal favorite it has a lot going for it. I thought it was a really well directed film, and the screenplay was pretty good too. I enjoyed a lot of the dialogue and the interactions amongst the characters. The ending scene was shot really well too. The beginning scene almost equally as cool. I love the noir vibes it gives off. Feel like I should like it even more than its rating but there is still something that keep it from the next level.

I've liked everything I've seen from Truffaut and Shoot the Piano Player was one of them.

Rosetta



Movies with themes like this really tend to be down my alley but with this one unfortunately I didn't find a genuine connection
I actually thought the character who played Rosetta was a little weak but I do see now she was highly praised for her performance. I don't know I just didn't see it. It didn't seem believable to me and there just wasn't enough emotion portrayed into the part. And being that the film is basically 100% reliant on how one would feel about her performance in a way that's where I just don't think it connected the dots for me. Would have liked to see more out of the mother and daughter relationship, perhaps a flashback to a happy time or whatever. I get that this was probably the point of their relationship to see an eternally distant one but for me it just didn't check the boxes in what I was hoping it would. I can't blame anyone though for liking it or perhaps thinking I would as well.

I'm so unfamiliar with Rosetta that I don't even remember posting it as a nomination.

I'm even MORE unfamiliar; this was my Blind Grab for ya raul because the theme is up to your alley. . .
So hoping it would have delivered.
Sorry.

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

Part of this is preparing for the countdown so there's bound to be some ups and downs.

It's all good Ed even I thought I'd like it more. Not a bad film just one that doesn't do much for me.

I watched Stray Dog (1949). Directed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, and Keiko Awaji, the film is about a rookie detective whose gun is stolen on a scorching hot day. He spends the rest of the day trying to track down his gun. I thought the film was good, but not great. Acting is good, especially by Mifune and the story is interesting, but not as consistently gripping as I would have expected. I did like the look of the film. I've seen 13 Kurosawa films and this one would not be in my top 10 but I'm glad I watched it. My rating is a .

The Marriage of Maria Braun

I thought this was good. I really liked the look of it, which has always been one of the main attractions of Fassbinder films for me.

That Maria is a metaphor as well as a character is both a strength and weakness of the film in a way. A strength because it adds a sort of depth and commentary to the story, but maybe a weakness in terms of getting to believe in or like the character as a person. Having said that, I thought the actress playing Maria did a good job in the role and conveyed her determination well.

I really ought to watch more of Fassbinder’s films. I always intended to, having loved Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and liked Fox and His Friends, but I didn’t get on with the first part of Berlin Alexanderplatz and that put me off a bit.

I feel the same as Allaby about Stray Dog, not in my top 10 Kurosawa but still absolutely a good film.

I nominated The Marriage of Maria Braun for a HoF so of course I think highly of it.

I have loved a good bit of Fassbinder but, unfortunately, his stories don’t stick with me super well.

Maria Braun, Petra Von Kant, and 13 Moons are my faves.

His long form stuff was great too. I really liked Berlin, but liked 8 Hours even more.

Fassbinder is a great character storyteller

Fitzcarraldo, a man with a dream. A dream to build an Opera house in the middle of the Amazon. But first, he must get the money. How do you get the money? Rubber trees. Find a way to get to those rubber trees and we'll all be rich and you'll have your opera house. Fitz's girlfriend buys him a beauty of a ship for the journey and after the locals spend some serious time rebuilding the PoS he sets sail, upriver, looking for the end of his rainbow.

I found this to be both exciting and dull. It starts slow but once they get on the river it starts moving. A little. Then a little more, then a little more until they (the ship) come to a complete stop, which is were the movie really picks up and turns into a straight up documentary on how to move a ship over a hill using primitive tools. That entire sequence is amazing but I couldn't help but think the entire time it was happening "That poor f'n crew. If they only knew what they were signing up for!"

Herzog has a documentarians eye and it shows up often here. Some of the jungle shots look straight out of Nat Geo. and, let us not forget, he has a little experience in this setting. There are some great, memorable shots in this movie. Kinski is very good as well and his performance kind of surprised me. We've all heard the stories of the production of this movie and somehow Kinski was able to keep all of the chaos and madman shenanigans going on offscreen, offscreen. Aside from Kinski being Kinski and me thinking he wanted to kill everyone all the time just because he's Kinski it never comes through in his performance. So, if you are hoping Aguirre shows up, spoiler: he doesn't. I never got the sense that Fitz was a madman, more that he's just a little nutty.

This is a movie that I respect more than like. It's an amazing production and it's highs are very high but the lulls are there keeping it from being truly great.

I've recommended this to several people and they've all told me to quit recommending movies to them. I thought it was really good but was a wee nervous about recommending it again. Glad you kind of liked it.

This one was from me, so I'm glad you got something out of it. Even though I think I rate it higher than you, I kinda agree with your last statement. But like Aguirre, it is a film that kinda stuck with me afterwards.

Two scenes in particular that stuck with me, and both occur in the first half...

1) The scene where the steamboat is about to turn into that other river (was it the Pachitea?) and there's this fear from the crew about what they'll find. I thought that was one of the most edge-of-your-seat, tense scenes I've experienced recently as we are sitting there dreading what will happen. Even if nothing happened, it had me biting my nails off.

2) The scene where Fitzcarraldo arrives at that abandoned train station that's being taken care of by a poor man and his family. To me, the station, which was part of a past project from Fitzcarraldo, exemplifies one of the themes of the film, which is how the working people are subject to the whims of the wealthy, however fleeting and meaningless they are. This was a massive project that was discarded and forgotten without any regard for this man and his family, who has been giving it sweat and blood for years, without the "bosses" even noticing.


Anyway, based on your favorites, which I felt leaned towards grand-scale, adventuresque films (Ben-Hur, Raiders, Jaws), I thought this would be a good fit.