Foreign Language Hall of Fame

If you watch it, try and make sure it's in HD and preferably with surround sound or as close to it as possible. It's a heck of an experience.

Think I'll watch, The Belier Family, next.

I just finished watching Borgman but am way too tired to write anything about it tonight. Once I do post something though, that'll put us at 62 total reviews, which is a decent number.

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La Famille Belier

Oui, c'est spoilaires

On rare occasions a simple, paint by the numbers film with all the familiar highs and lows will actually hit the mark and make for a very enjoyable and very watchable experience.

Such is La Famille Belier.
With 3 of the 4 members of this family deaf and the remaining one their ears and voice to everyone else in this french village; we are introduced to the day to day and interaction of this tight and caring family and their, at times, peculiar but lovable ways.
The conflict that arises is that Paula, the voice of the family, can sing. Which becomes a surprise to her as her choir teacher coaches that singing voice to come out. To the worry and concern of her deaf family. That is, when she finally informs them AND that she has the opportunity to take singing courses in Paris. Away from them.

There are some heartwarming moments, some rather amusing ones; some of my favorites includes the Choir Teacher and the remarks he makes AT his students.
Along with this are some touching moments that, yes, pleasantly brought a tear to my eye. Including the image above where her father asks her to sing as he rests his hands over her vocal chords to "feel" her singing.
The second one is her audition where she "signs" for her family as she sings a song called "I Fly" which was truly wonderful and beautiful and I was happily misty eyed through that.
Also, a scene that has been brought up - for good reason, is the choir's concert where the sound is turned all the way down so that we experience what her family experiences while sitting through a choir's concert. Rather liked that.

Yet another very enjoyable film that I would never have seen if not for these HoFs. YAY

I haven't watched that but after looking it up yesterday i realized it was a film that was on Film4 (i think) in the background in the house i was in on New Years Day. Looked pretty weird, the main guy Borgman i'm guessing felt like a Lars Von Trier character or maybe like Lars himself i dunno, felt weird anyway.

I still can't get over how good 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' looks. Matching costumes / colour palette in nearly every scene. Bonkers.

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Warning: Spoilers for Borgman below.

While Marina isn't rude to Camiel at the start of the film, she is not exactly a great person. She neglects her children, but constantly blames either her husband or the nanny for not looking after them while she just lays around the house. The father is obviously violent and we learn later that he's also racist. We also don't know the real story about what was happening at his workplace.

While I expected that the father would obviously be punished for his actions, I thought that Marina would be left alone with the guilt of what she'd allowed (and wished) to happen. She was already racked with guilt about Western society, so that seemed like it would be a fitting conclusion to me. It may have been her strange lust towards Camiel that sealed her fate though, now that I think about it.

I'm interested to see what @CaptainT has to say about this film, since it was his nomination.

I want to watch Entre Nos next, but I cant find a good copy of it.

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"A film has to be a dialogue, not a monologue — a dialogue to provoke in the viewer his own thoughts, his own feelings. And if a film is a dialogue, then it’s a good film; if it’s not a dialogue, it’s a bad film."

- Michael "Gloomy Old Fart" Haneke

I just got the dvd from Netflix, not that it's a help to you.

I did a review for this a few months back so I'll just paste it here.
If my top 10 in my profile hasn't given you a clue, I absolutely adore this film. There are no words that can even scratch the surface of the love I have for this film. Never have I seen a fairy tale told this way, never have I seen a film carry so much emotional stakes, and never have I seen a story so beautifully told.

Del Toro describes this film with the following phrase: "It's a fairy tale for adults" and it is the most accurate phrase for Pan's Labyrinth. The movie presents the idea of a young girl fascinated by fairy tales, and she gets to experience her own, but this movie never makes it clear if this fantasy world is substantial, or if its merely a mental escape from her new life filled with sorrow, pain, and loss. It interweaves both ideas so flawlessly, that it powers the "adventure" with so much emotional resonance. Secondly, we have a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat secondary plotline dealing with the Civil War and Captain Vidal's injurious agenda of blood, torture and power, not only does this set the stakes for some of our heroes like Ofelia and Mercedes, but it also validates this story as a mature one. Aesthetically, this film is fantastic, from the set design, to the mind-blowing monster design, it's Del Toro's most iconic. And the ending is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen in all of cinema, it just cements this as a tragic fairy tale with a bittersweet ending. This is a masterpiece.

I could talk about this film for hours, and there's definitely more I want to cover, but I have some more foreign films to catch up on, peace.

SCORE - 100/100

The Age of Shadows

Spoilers for The Age of Shadows might be up ahead!

At first, everything was a bit confusing and it was hard for me to figure out who was working with who, but as the story unraveled everything got clearer and the story started to make more sense. I think that this way of slowly giving more information worked pretty well since you could say that the way of telling the story complemented to the story. Since the story itself was about people trying to find and discover information too in a way. The movie got better and better for me as it kept going until it reached the best part of this movie, the train sequence. I thought that this was a great sequence and there was a constant tension which really kept me on the edge of my seat. After the ending of this sequence, I thought that the movie was finished, but it continued. While watching the next part I didn't really like it at first, because for me it didn't really feel like it added to the story and I was wondering why they didn't just stop the movie after the ending of the train sequence. The flashback scene fixed all the problems I had with this though. Knowing that this happened made the scenes that came before much more painful and I think that if the flashback would have been shown at the same moment in the movie as when it happened storywise that those other scenes would have had much more weight for me.
I thought that the movie looked really well. I liked the setting and there were some beautiful shots. I also thought that the acting, especially by Song Kang-ho was great.
Overall I thought that it was a great movie, everything fitted together really well and the only real problem I had with it was where the flashback sequence was placed in the story.

I like what you said there, it makes sense. I've felt that way about Assassination too...I was confused at first but then again the characters in the movie didn't know everything that was going on either, so it works to put us into the character's frame of mind.

Need to pick up my pace so I can have these great discussions with you guys lol.

True, none of them were pleasant people, but it still seems out of proportion. And it's more the gardener I was concerned about. If Marina's 'sin' is employing a nanny and a gardener then the same sin is committed by the film in treating them and the children as disposable, possessions of the parents and a means to punish them.

I'm afraid your interpretation of it made me like the film less! I don't feel like any of it was in any way justified. If they're all under the influence of this demonic creature then they're not really in control of their actions and deserve punishment even less. And although the violent father is a nasty piece of work, it seems to be Marina who receives the brunt of the punishment. She also seems to tricked into some kind of weird sex thing with Camiel and then punished for that too.

Can you not get La Famille Belier on DVD? It is available.

It's not at my library or Netflix/DVD.com, and I don't buy DVDs. But I think I've found it, in fact I hope to watch it tonight.

I KNOW, it's like a well-crafted dessert for the eyes!!

Just letting everyone know that I haven't disappeared. I've just been busy and have been unable to watch any movies at all. I still plan to finish the HoF

Spoilers for Borgman below!

I don't personally think that the punishment was justified either, since it's quite severe in comparison to what invited it. I just get the impression that the film is trying to say that these events have a purpose, and aren't just random acts of evil.

Stine are the children are the only ones who were directly under direct control of Camiel and his minions. They're the ones who "drank the kool-aid", so to speak, and they're the ones who survive at the end. I felt that the husband was just having his true nature revealed, as Camiel never interacted with him, other that putting the mark on his shoulder. It was his own paranoia, jealously, and wrath that made him react to things the way he did.

It's more complicated with Marina, since she is clearly having her dreams manipulated by Camiel to drive a wedge between her and Richard. However when they first meet Camiel, there is a hint that something is not quite right with their marriage. The way they talk to each other makes it seem like either one or even both of them are unhappy with their relationship.

When Marina first hits Richard for something he did in her dreams, I got the feeling that this is something that had happened at least semi-frequently in the past. His reaction seemed to be saying "Not this again, I'm really tired of your nonsense". The same thing happened whenever she broke down crying over how guilty she felt to be living comfortably when others have to struggle every day. It seemed like she was always a little unstable, and that perhaps she even subconsciously wished for something like this to happen.

Yeah, the gardener didn't do anything wrong. However they only killed him and his wife because Marina asked Camiel to stay, and agreed when asked if it was okay to get rid of him. Those deaths were really on Marina. She only cared about what she wanted, regardless as to what that meant for others. It revealed that she was a hypocrite for scolding her family for the same thing, and that her guilt was actually justified.

That's why I thought that her punishment should have been being left alone with the guilt of what she'd asked for. While she was being manipulated, I thought that Camiel was just drawing out these pre-existing thoughts and desires rather than actively creating them. If she was actually happy before, I don't think she would have ever asked him to kill her husband. It seemed as though Camiel saw something in her from the window before he first knocked on their door. He knew exactly what to say to irritate Richard, either playing on Richard's jealousy or distrust.

I think my point is that he didn't stop to toy with the people who lived at the first house he visited, but he did stop for them, and I think it's because he could sense something wasn't right there, which would allow him to have to his fun.