WHAT FOREIGN FILMS HAVE YOU WATCHED LATELY?

[laffite]

Kuroneko (1968)

If you like revenge movies, you'll like this.

If you like watching women getting raped, you'll like this.

If you like major trash, you'll like this.

[laffite]

Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1977) The opening scene reveals folks sitting at a table speaking to each at random. No exposition. It continues this way. No music (a great asset in movie). The movie unfolds and there is no intrusive audience manipulation. What you see is what you get. One begins to get the idea behind Herr R.

Excellent !!

[Masha]

Kuroneko (1968)

If you like revenge movies, you'll like this.

If you like watching women getting raped, you'll like this.

If you like major trash, you'll like this.

I like that movie very much! I disagree heartily that it is trash.

I believe there is a significant cultural aspect. I have watched this movie in a theatre in Japan and the audience action/reaction showed it definitely made a much greater impression than is expressed by audiences in other countries.

[LostHorizons]

Kuroneko (1968)

If you like revenge movies, you'll like this.

If you like watching women getting raped, you'll like this.

If you like major trash, you'll like this.

I have it recorded so good to know.

[laffite]

Kuroneko (1968)

If you like revenge movies, you'll like this.

If you like watching women getting raped, you'll like this.

If you like major trash, you'll like this.

I have it recorded so good to know.

Don't erase it, the movie has a fan (and apparently many more.)

[Masha]

I have it recorded so good to know.

It might profit you to know also: IMDb.com rated it: 7.4/10, rottentomatoes.com rated it: 96% on the TomatoMeter with an Audience Score of: 84%.

Typical reviews:

Film Journal International: "Serious movie buffs and die-hard horror fans alike will want to see Kaneto Shindo's elegantly dream-like story of earthbound violence and otherworldly revenge, rooted in Japanese folklore and shot in shimmering, widescreen black-and white."

New York Review: "The movie's implacable sense of poetic justice is only equaled by its graphic smarts."

Village Voice: "Nippo-Gothic horror fables have a long tradition of proto-feminist outrage... Kaneto Shindô's Kuroneko may take the cake."

Boston Phoenix: "With an invidious black cat meowing about, Shindô's movie, elegantly shot in widescreen black-and-white, melds Edgar Allan Poe and Oedipus Rex, all in sight of the legendary Rashômon Gate."

[Nellie LaRoy]

I watched Chantal Akerman's No Home Movie recently, it's a very good movie but it's also sad that it was her last movie, as she died much too soon.

[laffite]

It made me want to frow up. What ever happened to taste!? We are not safe, I tell you, we are not safe. The world has become more and more decadent. LoL. Ptui!

[LostHorizons]

I just finished Black Cat and I found a massive plothole. If the mother was willing to damn herself to hell for her son since her love was that strong then why did she care about him cutting off the arm of her temporal ghost form? She was going to go to Hell for all eternity in a day anyways. It just seemed like a really dumb plot to have her turn on her own son for something like that when she was demonstrated to be as devoted to him as his wife was.

[LostHorizons]

It made me want to frow up. What ever happened to taste!? We are not safe, I tell you, we are not safe. The world has become more and more decadent. LoL. Ptui!

Yes, Chantal Ackerman makes me want to throw up too. She should’ve invested her energy and time in finding a decent film editor.

[LostHorizons]

I have it recorded so good to know.

It might profit you to know also: IMDb.com rated it: 7.4/10, rottentomatoes.com rated it: 96% on the TomatoMeter with an Audience Score of: 84%.

Typical reviews:

Film Journal International: "Serious movie buffs and die-hard horror fans alike will want to see Kaneto Shindo's elegantly dream-like story of earthbound violence and otherworldly revenge, rooted in Japanese folklore and shot in shimmering, widescreen black-and white."

New York Review: "The movie's implacable sense of poetic justice is only equaled by its graphic smarts."

Village Voice: "Nippo-Gothic horror fables have a long tradition of proto-feminist outrage... Kaneto Shindô's Kuroneko may take the cake."

Boston Phoenix: "With an invidious black cat meowing about, Shindô's movie, elegantly shot in widescreen black-and-white, melds Edgar Allan Poe and Oedipus Rex, all in sight of the legendary Rashômon Gate."

Yeah, I finished it. See my post above. It was visually very lovely and the plot was decent until the end which I found ludicrous. I would give it 7/10 just for cinematography.

[Nellie LaRoy]

Recently watched Singapore Sling (1990) on Criterion. Wow, what can I say? This makes anything from Lynch or Jodorowsky look positively tame and restrained by comparison. I don't really know much about Greek director Nikos Nikolaidis, but this is supposed to be his magnum opus.

Apparently, this was shown at the Toronto Film Festival on the year of its release, but for the life of my I cannot remember it ever having been shown in US theaters at any point during the 1990s. Maybe it was a bit too shocking?

Anyway, it's definitely a good movie to watch if you're in the mood for something deeply bizarre and borderline revolting.

[Masha]

I just finished Black Cat and I found a massive plothole. If the mother was willing to damn herself to hell for her son since her love was that strong then why did she care about him cutting off the arm of her temporal ghost form? She was going to go to Hell for all eternity in a day anyways. It just seemed like a really dumb plot to have her turn on her own son for something like that when she was demonstrated to be as devoted to him as his wife was.

That is not a plot hole. It is a Japanese cultural/mythological aspect. It is not difficult to grasp a general understanding but requires far more skills than I possess to explain properly.

[Feinberg]

Here are a few that I enjoyed ...

Paris Memories (2022) France
The Castle of Purity (1973) Mexico
Little by Little (1970 France
Herod's Law (1999) Mexico
Y tu Mama También (2001) Mexico - second time seeing this
Let the Right One In (2008) Sweden - second time seeing this
La Promesse (1996) Belgium
Two of Us (2019) France
The Fool (2014) Russia - really liked this one
A Priceless Day (1979) Hungary
Dheepan (2015) France - second time seeing this
Rome 11:00 (1952) Italy

[kingrat]

Here are a few that I enjoyed ...

Paris Memories (2022) France
The Castle of Purity (1973) Mexico
Little by Little (1970 France
Herod's Law (1999) Mexico
Y tu Mama También (2001) Mexico - second time seeing this
Let the Right One In (2008) Sweden - second time seeing this
La Promesse (1996) Belgium
Two of Us (2019) France
The Fool (2014) Russia - really liked this one
A Priceless Day (1979) Hungary
Dheepan (2015) France - second time seeing this
Rome 11:00 (1952) Italy

I haven't seen the others, but LA PROMESSE is indeed a fine film. This is my review from 2009:

I liked LA PROMESSE (1996, dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne) very much. Igor (Jeremie Renier), about 14-16, helps his father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) in his business of using illegal immigrants to work on his construction projects in Antwerp. Roger exploits his cheap labor and charges his workers high rent for lousy apartments. When one such worker is injured, Igor promises the man to look after his wife and child, who have just arrived from Burkina Faso. Igor begins to develop a conscience about what he and his father are doing. Roger does love his son, but the only way he knows to show this is by treating him as an adult pal prematurely.

Although you could easily turn this into Hollywood melodrama and uplift, that’s not the Dardennes’ approach. Hand-held cameras, no music except what the characters hear. Although there are many close shots, the approach is objective, matter-of-fact, with no interest in creating additional sympathy or anger toward the characters. One poster at TCM City, JonasEB, makes the interesting observation that “very on the nose editing” is the key to the film’s success. The Dardennes do not believe that sloppy camerawork = sincerity or that rambling dialogue = real life. [I think I intended this as a slam at John Cassavetes, who clearly does believe this.] LA PROMESSE is narratively as taut as Fred Zinnemann at his best. The editing doesn’t linger. There are no speeches about the plight of illegal immigrants, no sense of political views being hammered into our thick skulls. There’s no backstory, no psychological probing of the characters, just what the characters do. If you want to see this as an existential film, you could.

SPOILERISH: To understand how the Dardennes handle important story points, look at the way we learn about what the father intends to do in Cologne. We don’t understand why Igor jumps in the car until after the fact. We can appreciate, then, how this scene was set up by the earlier scene where Roger turned over the wheel of the van to his son. One of the greatest moments in the film occurs when the father decides to buy his son a hooker for his first sexual experience. We see the father, his girlfriend, the son, and the prostitute in a bar smoking, drinking, and singing. Then the film cuts to Igor the next day pushing the wheelbarrow which has figured prominently in an early scene. No tender SUMMER OF ’42 moments. Nothing. This little episode has made zero impact on Igor’s life, and is insignificant compared to everything else in the film. Thus the directors stomp on cinematic clichés, and I can hardly say how much I admire this. The ending of the film is somewhat odd; I could make an intellectual defense of it but it didn’t feel as right as many other parts of the film did.