The MoFo Top 100 Foreign Language Film Countdown

→ in
Tools    





Haha. I deleted it!
__________________
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."



I'm a bit surprised that I didn't list Le Samourai but it made it pretty high anyway. And of course, forgot about Akira in making predictions. Great movie I feel I could use a rewatch.

28 and 27 are excellent too but La dolce vita is one of my favourites. Repeat viewings later in life added to my appreciation of the film. Had it 8th.

5. Close-Up (1990)
6. Chungking Express (1994)
7. Playtime (1967)
8. La dolce vita (1960)
13. Sonatine (1993)
14. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
15. The Mirror (1975)
17. Red Desert (1964)
21. Caché (2005)
22. Pather Panchali (1955)
24. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
25. Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2004)



Neither made my ballot, but I love both of them. Here are my reviews of each film:

The Cranes Are Flying (1957) -


WARNING: spoilers below
While I'm not the biggest fan of classic romance films, I was definitely eager to watch this film as I've been meaning to get to it for a while. While I'm not sure I consider it to be a great film, I liked a lot about it and another viewing may get me to like it even more.

After finishing it, I was rather surprised as to how it was a fairly low-key romance. After Boris left for WWII, most of the film followed Veronika's attempts of coping with his absence and the fear of him being killed, while she was stuck in a loveless relationship with Mark. Due to this, the film maintained a steady atmosphere of despair, yet never felt like it was wallowing in this. A major thing which sets this film above most other classical romances I've seen is that it refuses to tie itself up into a neat bow in terms of its emotional register. Many tragedies befall Veronika and, though she isn't able to recover from all of them, the ending shows that, even if she can't be made whole again, she can still move on. I found the ending to be more layered and impactful than what I normally see in romance films.

The camerawork and editing were also really impressive. The how-did-they-shoot-that scene of Boris running up a set of stairs as the camera followed him was pretty great, a dreamlike sequence of Boris imagining a wedding between he and Veronika was nothing short of technically impressive, and the air raid shown from the perspective of Veronika's apartment ranks among the most claustrophobic things I've seen in film in a while. I also appreciated how some of the lighting used in the happier and playful moments of the film had a strong, dreamlike glare to it (as could be seen with the sunlight in the opening, for example). These scenes caused the film to be stylistically impressive and they make me more excited to watch Kalatozov's Letter Never Sent.

With all that being said, while there's a lot to love about this film, I'll need to watch it again to decide if I think it's great or just really good since I'm still mulling over a major directorial choice in it. Around the middle of the film, Boris is killed in the war while on a reconnaissance mission. While his death is certainly unexpected and among the most visually and technically impressive scenes in the film, I did wonder whether his death would've had a stronger impact had it been saved for later. As it stood, I felt that his death sacrificed some of the narrative tension I enjoyed over whether he'd survive. To be fair though, this was in service of setting up an even bleaker tone in the second half with Mark being more at the forefront. Since I'm not quite sure what to make of that scene and the effect it has on the film as of now though, I'll have to rewatch the film to decide whether I liked this choice or not.

Regardless of what direction the film goes in in the second half though, I quite enjoyed this film and I found that it mostly lived up to its reputation as a great film. Another viewing may get me to like it even more.


La Dolce Vita (1960) -


I've talked about my relationship with Fellini in the past, but everything I've seen from him so far has left me cold. In addition to this film, I've also seen 8 1/2 and La Strada. While I don't have any issues with those films per se, I felt like they flew over my head. Given that, I wasn't so hot on rewatching this film concerning its 3 hour runtime, but to my surprise, I ended up liking it quite a lot. Though I'm not sure I loved it per se, it's definitely made me more eager to revisit 8 1/2 and La Strada.

On the surface, this film is lovely to look at. It largely consists of various parties Marcello goes to, where he's surrounded by his friends and various women he intends to start a successful relationship with. The deeper one delves into these scenes, however, Marcello's lifestyle feels less like a utopia and more like a prolonged mid-life crisis. The great tragedy of Marcello is that he desperately craves a change in scenery, yet every event he attends results in the same scenery and a similar outcome of winding up back at square one. Instead of abandoning this unfulfilling lifestyle though, he keeps on attending these parties, experiencing more and more failed relationships along the way. Though it's unclear what he wants, there seems to be something he intends to obtain from this lifestyle before he fades away from it altogether, except, one party after another, his attempts keep falling flat. On the surface, it could be said that his intention is to start a successful relationship, but I think his motives are more complex than this. He's already engaged to Emma, yet cheats on her and shows little interest in their relationship. However, if their relationship seems as if it's about to be destroyed, he attempts to prevent that from happening. This raises questions on whether he even knows what he wants. Whatever his intentions are, it's clear his desires won't be fulfilled in his current state.

The most commonly criticized aspect of this film is its length. While I'm not going to pretend the movie kept me fully engaged all throughout (I felt its length in a couple party scenes in the latter half), I think its length was part of the point. I love how Rotten Tomatoes has "...La Dolce Vita remains riveting in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- its sprawling length." in the film's Critical Consensus. Marcello seems trapped in a never ending cycle of attending parties and forming relationships, yet always ends up unfulfilled. His response to these failed attempts are to try again and again until something finally works out. In that sense, the repetition adds more layers to Marcello's characterization. I suspect that another rewatch will make this aspect more profound. As it currently stands, I struggled with the film somewhat (albeit, far less than I did when I first watched it), but the odds of me revisiting it are definitely much higher than they previously were.

Overall, I really liked this film. Brimming with bloat and repetition, it's not for everyone, but there's definitely a lot going on in the film beyond presenting a gorgeous portrait of nightlife in Rome interspersed with some drama. It's not quite a great film for me (again though, I suspect I'll like it more with another viewing), but it's grown on me to the point it's now my favorite of Fellini's films.
__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd



I need to see The Cranes are Flying. That's a film I hadn't heard of 1-2 years ago, but it's been all over MoFo these last few months.

La Dolce Vita was part of one of the last HOFs and I really enjoyed it, even if I didn't *love* it. Here's my review of it. Anyway, it didn't make my list.


My Summary:

Seen: 28/74
My list: 6/25

My List  
__________________
Check out my podcast: The Movie Loot!



Is it like a kind of challenge to post in the middle of the two films now?
You have to be quicker with these guys



Also, I think my favorite Fellini right now is Nights of Cabiria. I'm long overdue for a rewatch of 8 1⁄2 though, so that one may take the gold. I've yet to rate any of his films higher than
, but I've slowly been warming up to him in the past few years.



Is it like a kind of challenge to post in the middle of the two films now?
I know exactly how you feel! I use to dread & anticipate that someone would post in between my two daily presentations in the 1930s Countdown...Luckily they never did.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
The Cranes Are Flying is very poignant and powerful with some of the greatest B&W cinematography ever. Click on Watch on YouTube.


Fellini fashions his own completely-unique film about empty journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) who follows other empty people around Rome and writes up their lives for the even emptier "regular people" to feed upon in a way to forget about their own lives. The film is incredibly episodic, and while most of it is very realistic, there are occasional flourishes where time and location seem to disappear effortlessly under Fellini's masterful direction. The film does eventually add up to something powerful, but while you're watching the entire three hours, I can understand how it might bother and/or bore some viewers, but for those willing to look carefully and connect the dots, the final few scenes are actually quite powerful in offering up Fellini's own interpretation of fellow Italian auteur Antonioni's theme of people living alone and unable to communicate. The fate of Marcello's friend Steiner (Alain Cuny) and that of the giant manta ray at the end could only be conceived by a man who was deeply living in a world he felt was almost a vacuum yet desired to communicate, however seemingly-haphazardly, with humankind.

I forgot to mention that Nico can be seen in the film. She has a very small part, and I suppose she's actually playing herself (her name is Nicolina), but many of the actors are actually playing characters with their own names. Anyway, if you've never noticed Nico in the movie, she has a scene in the car with Marcello and a few others and she begins to speak with a Teutonic accent, exactly the same way she "sings" on the Velvet Underground and Nico record. She is obviously speaking German, but when Marcello asks her what language it is, she responds "Eskimo". Not really too much to say, but something fun for those who care about such pop culture trivialities.
__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page



Another Yippee day for me with The Cranes Are Flying from my personal ballot making an appearance. Didn't care too much for La Dolce Vita.

Seen: 53/74 (Own: 33/74)


Faildictions ((バージョン 1.01):
26. Angst essen Seele auf [Ali: Fear Eats the Soul] (1974)
25. Beau Travail (1999)



The Cranes Are Flying 1957 ‘Летят журавли’ Mikhail Kalatozov



+
The Cranes Are Flying is great, high on my war list and my third fav Russian film of all time. Only listed two of them on my ballot; War and Peace and **** *** *** can't reveal yet, it could/should still show up.

Also Harry gets 'post of the day' for Beastie Boys.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right

That psychological montage! Goosebumps!

Le Samourai is cool. As cool as you never will be, haters! The music theme is so good. It's addicting. I spent a couple of evenings listening to just that theme on repeat. I think this is my favorite Melville even though my first thought is always Red Circle for some reason.



Akira reminds me of the good ole times when an innocent cinephile tried searching for this film but instead got Asa Akira porn in search results. Oh well, these are the experiences that shape us. Nah, just kidding. I'd long known her at the time plus she's not that great. Oh wait, how come I talk about porn instead of anime!? Well, these two are not always mutually exclusive... No, stop! Seriously though, I watched Akira years ago and thought it only good. Couldn't understand why it's so renowned. Time for a rewatch, eh? Oh, the soundtrack is great.



It's hard to tell if The Cranes are Flying is better than Soy Cuba. It's much easier to just stay it's a great film. The cinematography slays and the story is pretty moving, too. Ballad of a Soldier will never make it by now. Too bad. I love it. :[ These two are probably the best two films of the Soviet Thaw.



La Dolce Vita is my favorite Fellini ex aequo with Nights of Cabiria. These two did not have the bucolic elements I found annoying about some other Fellini films. Also, that giant hand on a helicopter scene inspired Angelopoulos.

__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



La Dolce Vita is an incredibly colorful and vivid look into the highs and lows of the entertainment industry and the people who dwell in it.



Welcome to the human race...
I've seen La Dolce Vita once and liked it, should really revisit it to see how it holds up for me. Haven't seen The Cranes Are Flying.
__________________
I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Love both of these but neither made my list. I need to rewatch Cranes. Just rewatched La Dolce for a HOF. Similar but not as great as the Fellini to come.



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
Neither made my ballot, but I love both of them. Here are my reviews of each film:

The Cranes Are Flying (1957) -


WARNING: spoilers below
While I'm not the biggest fan of classic romance films, I was definitely eager to watch this film as I've been meaning to get to it for a while. While I'm not sure I consider it to be a great film, I liked a lot about it and another viewing may get me to like it even more.

After finishing it, I was rather surprised as to how it was a fairly low-key romance. After Boris left for WWII, most of the film followed Veronika's attempts of coping with his absence and the fear of him being killed, while she was stuck in a loveless relationship with Mark. Due to this, the film maintained a steady atmosphere of despair, yet never felt like it was wallowing in this. A major thing which sets this film above most other classical romances I've seen is that it refuses to tie itself up into a neat bow in terms of its emotional register. Many tragedies befall Veronika and, though she isn't able to recover from all of them, the ending shows that, even if she can't be made whole again, she can still move on. I found the ending to be more layered and impactful than what I normally see in romance films.

The camerawork and editing were also really impressive. The how-did-they-shoot-that scene of Boris running up a set of stairs as the camera followed him was pretty great, a dreamlike sequence of Boris imagining a wedding between he and Veronika was nothing short of technically impressive, and the air raid shown from the perspective of Veronika's apartment ranks among the most claustrophobic things I've seen in film in a while. I also appreciated how some of the lighting used in the happier and playful moments of the film had a strong, dreamlike glare to it (as could be seen with the sunlight in the opening, for example). These scenes caused the film to be stylistically impressive and they make me more excited to watch Kalatozov's Letter Never Sent.

With all that being said, while there's a lot to love about this film, I'll need to watch it again to decide if I think it's great or just really good since I'm still mulling over a major directorial choice in it. Around the middle of the film, Boris is killed in the war while on a reconnaissance mission. While his death is certainly unexpected and among the most visually and technically impressive scenes in the film, I did wonder whether his death would've had a stronger impact had it been saved for later. As it stood, I felt that his death sacrificed some of the narrative tension I enjoyed over whether he'd survive. To be fair though, this was in service of setting up an even bleaker tone in the second half with Mark being more at the forefront. Since I'm not quite sure what to make of that scene and the effect it has on the film as of now though, I'll have to rewatch the film to decide whether I liked this choice or not.

Regardless of what direction the film goes in in the second half though, I quite enjoyed this film and I found that it mostly lived up to its reputation as a great film. Another viewing may get me to like it even more.


La Dolce Vita (1960) -


I've talked about my relationship with Fellini in the past, but everything I've seen from him so far has left me cold. In addition to this film, I've also seen 8 1/2 and La Strada. While I don't have any issues with those films per se, I felt like they flew over my head. Given that, I wasn't so hot on rewatching this film concerning its 3 hour runtime, but to my surprise, I ended up liking it quite a lot. Though I'm not sure I loved it per se, it's definitely made me more eager to revisit 8 1/2 and La Strada.

On the surface, this film is lovely to look at. It largely consists of various parties Marcello goes to, where he's surrounded by his friends and various women he intends to start a successful relationship with. The deeper one delves into these scenes, however, Marcello's lifestyle feels less like a utopia and more like a prolonged mid-life crisis. The great tragedy of Marcello is that he desperately craves a change in scenery, yet every event he attends results in the same scenery and a similar outcome of winding up back at square one. Instead of abandoning this unfulfilling lifestyle though, he keeps on attending these parties, experiencing more and more failed relationships along the way. Though it's unclear what he wants, there seems to be something he intends to obtain from this lifestyle before he fades away from it altogether, except, one party after another, his attempts keep falling flat. On the surface, it could be said that his intention is to start a successful relationship, but I think his motives are more complex than this. He's already engaged to Emma, yet cheats on her and shows little interest in their relationship. However, if their relationship seems as if it's about to be destroyed, he attempts to prevent that from happening. This raises questions on whether he even knows what he wants. Whatever his intentions are, it's clear his desires won't be fulfilled in his current state.

The most commonly criticized aspect of this film is its length. While I'm not going to pretend the movie kept me fully engaged all throughout (I felt its length in a couple party scenes in the latter half), I think its length was part of the point. I love how Rotten Tomatoes has "...La Dolce Vita remains riveting in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- its sprawling length." in the film's Critical Consensus. Marcello seems trapped in a never ending cycle of attending parties and forming relationships, yet always ends up unfulfilled. His response to these failed attempts are to try again and again until something finally works out. In that sense, the repetition adds more layers to Marcello's characterization. I suspect that another rewatch will make this aspect more profound. As it currently stands, I struggled with the film somewhat (albeit, far less than I did when I first watched it), but the odds of me revisiting it are definitely much higher than they previously were.

Overall, I really liked this film. Brimming with bloat and repetition, it's not for everyone, but there's definitely a lot going on in the film beyond presenting a gorgeous portrait of nightlife in Rome interspersed with some drama. It's not quite a great film for me (again though, I suspect I'll like it more with another viewing), but it's grown on me to the point it's now my favorite of Fellini's films.

I'm surprised "La Strada" went over your head. I like Fellinis' 50s movies, but then things went awry for my tastes. However, "La Strada" might be his last good movie. I gave it a 7.5/10, but the first time I saw it, I felt frustrated (cold, too) until the end. But it intrigued me so much that I watched it 2-3 times in less than a week (in a crummy motel).



Marcello wants what he doesn't have.



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
38/72



-La Strada - 10/10
-The Battle of Algiers - 10/10
-Wild Strawberries - 10/10 - Nice self-reflecting movie. One of Bergman's best.
-The Cranes Are Flying - 10/10 - My favorite Russian movie. I liked the tension when the cheating daughter-in-law had to live with her husband's parents, while he was risking his life in war.

-Le Trou - 9/10
-The 400 Blows - 8.5/10
-Knife In The Water - 8.5/10
-A Man Escaped - 8/10
-Nights of Cabiria - 8/10
-Sundays & Cybele - 8/10
-Close-Up- 8/10 -
-Pather Panchali- 8/10
-Tokyo Story - 8/10
-Contempt - 8/10
-Wings of Desire - 8/10
-La Dolce Vita - 7.5/10

-Harakari - 7.5/10
-Red Desert - 7.5/10
-Le Cercle Rouge - 7.5/10
-Rome, Open City - 7.5/10
-Shoplifters - 7/10
-Léon Morin, Priest - 7/10
-Bob Le Flambeur - 7/10
-Rififi - 7/10
-The Virgin Spring -7/10
-Run Lola Run - 7/10
-Le Samourai - 7/10
-The Conformist - 7/10
-The Celebration- 7/10
-The Lives of Others - 7/10.
-Au Revoir les Enfants - 6.5/10
-Last Year At Marienbad - 6/10
-Roma - 6/10
-Z - 6/10
-Army of Shadows - 5/10
-The Mirror - 5/10
-Fitzcarraldo - 5/10
-Le Haine - 4/10



I remember compiling a list of top 25 favorite movies of all time when I was in my early twenties, and including La Dolce Vita in the last spot. It wasn't that I actually considered it one of my favourites. I had only recently watched it, and I'm not even sure how much I even liked it. But I remember including it simply on the fact that it seemed like it was something that had opened a door for me. That offered me an escape from all of the kinds of movies I had been watching up until that point and had grown completely bored of. I still don't know how much I actually like La Dolce Vita. I respect it a lot, and I love moments of it. As a whole though, not sure. Fellini is a director who I legitimately love without actually loving many of his actual movies (maybe beyond Nights of Cabiria). I mostly just really like them. But, even still, I think La Dolce Vita absolutely deserved to be on that list, on that day, because I was correct in understanding what it was offering me. I haven't looked back much since.


Cranes is a movie I'm absolutely convinced I've seen, but whenever I look at stills from it, nothing seems familiar. I do own it though, so I'm sure I can rectify this anytime. I did finally correct this with Ballad of a Soldier recently (another movie I was certain I had seen but hadn't). Can't say I liked that one all that much though.



I'm surprised "La Strada" went over your head. I like Fellinis' 50s movies, but then things went awry for my tastes. However, "La Strada" might be his last good movie. I gave it a 7.5/10, but the first time I saw it, I felt frustrated (cold, too) until the end. But it intrigued me so much that I watched it 2-3 times in less than a week (in a crummy motel).



Marcello wants what he doesn't have.
From what I remember, I enjoyed most of it, but wasn't sure of what to make of the final 10 or so minutes and its significance to the rest of the film, specifically with Zampanò crying at the end, unless it was supposed to signify him having regrets over his treatment of Gelsomina and Il Matto or something. I've been meaning to revisit it for a while though, so I might enjoy it more this time around.