Amélie, a brilliant film.

[Globalti]

Some great recommendations there, I'll try to see them all.

Any Eric Rohmer fans on here? His best known was probably Le Rayon Vert - The Green Ray: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091830/

 

[perplexed]

Amelie is one of my all time favourites. Totally absorbing film. (We have the poster on a wall)

Incidentally, we went to Paris on a long weekend a few years ago, and accidentally stumbled across the cafe they used in the filming. Got a picture somewhere...

 

[Ghost Donkey]

I really enjoy watching Amelie. In an interview the director said a lot of the humour was lost in the english translation. I'm not complaining and don't see me ever speaking French to a level of understanding a film.

 

[zizou]

I've been in love with her for nearly a decade now.

I realise that makes me sound a bit of a sad bastard being in love with a fictional character but love it is

 

[Globalti]

I really enjoy watching Amelie. In an interview the director said a lot of the humour was lost in the english translation. I'm not complaining and don't see me ever speaking French to a level of understanding a film.

I'm sure there were lots of subtle quirks in the script, just as there were in the filming. The whole film just summed up everything I love about France and the French.

 

[Jacqui]

Saw the Green Ray but was more confused when I came out ( they do that sometimes these French Films ) .

A really good one is Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis laugh out loud funny ..

 

[Reiki_chick]

and try Life is Beautiful - from laugh out loud comedy to I've got some dust in my eye tearjerker

 

[ASC1951]

... from laugh out loud comedy to I've got some dust in my eye tearjerker

ditto Withnail and I, which is on the telly again next week. Deservedly a cult classic.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Saw the Green Ray but was more confused when I came out ( they do that sometimes these French Films ) .

A really good one is Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis laugh out loud funny ..

Ah, yes. That was excellent.

 

[rh100]

I love the film Amelie - I watched it with subtitles, I think I prefer that to dubbed over audio

My only other foreign language films so far are:

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (French), about a guy with locked in syndrome - the book is even better
Goodbye Lenin - one of my favourite films, set in east Germany during the fall of communism etc, brilliant storyline and very funny/sad
edit: I forgot to mention Cinema Paradiso

yet to watch are Let the Right One In, The White Ribbon and Waltz With Bashir - saw these on the world cinema awards on tv a while back.

 

[Ghost Donkey]

I'll second Goodbye Lenin. The Cinemoi (?) channel, which is still free on the virgin media telly box, has been showing a few French films I already wanted to see and several more I'd like to see based on googling the films on the guide. Sadly time won't permit it at the moment. I caught the first half of Exiles and hope to see the rest before the channel becomes subscription only.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I love how this has turned into a thread about 'foreign films' as if they are somehow all related! French cinema at least has some coherence - you can identify some clear characteristics of French cinema, movements and so on. But English-speaking people (and this goes all the way from the average moviegoer to the ridiculously patronising Oscar for best foreign language film) do have this wonderful tendency to group together anything not in English - which doesn't make much sense. No offence intended, it's just interesting. Carry on...

 

[Ghost Donkey]

I love how this has turned into a thread about 'foreign films' as if they are somehow all related! French cinema at least has some coherence - you can identify some clear characteristics of French cinema, movements and so on. But English-speaking people (and this goes all the way from the average moviegoer to the ridiculously patronising Oscar for best foreign language film) do have this wonderful tendency to group together anything not in English - which doesn't make much sense. No offence intended, it's just interesting. Carry on...

It's a valid point but we're used to a majority of english language films in nainstream cinemas and film channels with others specialising in "foreign" or art house type films.


In contrast, when we visited the in-laws in Athens before we had kids we used to go to the cinema a few times to stop my wife going mad with her family. We stopped the cinema trips when we had kids. The whole foreign film definition thing doesn't really exist at all there as the modern Greek language film industry isn't very big. Films are films from wherever with Greek subtitles. They get the same english language films we see as well as a greater mix from other countries at mainstream cinemas than we do. It also meant I could only watch english language films there. A French film with Greek subtitles is not an option for me. The same could be said to a much lesser extent about music. Another tangent :-)

 

[Stephenite]

I've just borrowed 'Un long dimanche de fiancailles' (A Very Long Engagement) from the library on the strength of the recommendations on this thread. Looking forward to it.

At the same time i borrowed (and have just seen) the documentary 'The Kon-tiki Expedition'. Fantastic adventure, and well told. Won an Oscar in 1947 for best documentary. Other Norwegian films i've seen recently include:

Ni liv (9 Lives) B+W post-war;
Kautokeino Opprøret (Kautokeino Uprising) a tale of rebellion against 'the man' in the far north;
Trolljegeren (The Trollhunter) best seen on the big screen, best fx since the original Clash of the Titans;
Elling (Elling) is a serious comedy and life-affirming;
Psalmer fra kjøkkenet (Psalms from the kitchen) a quirky take on modernisation set in the '60s;
Max Manus (Max Manus) wartime Norwegian resistance;
Fritt Vilt I, II, III (Fair Game 3 films) horror;
and for lovers of the truly absurd - Svidd Neger (i'm not going to translate it).

Elling is probably the one Globalti would prefer though all are recommended.

 

[Intelligenthamster]

Two of my favourite films recommended here- Goodbye Lenin, which is both sad and funny, and Delicatessen which I think is hilarious in a very dark way. The reference to the cliches about French food in that the guy in the basement who doesn't want to eat what his neighbours do, so he has flooded the room to breed frogs and snails, makes me smile- and the sequence where the landlord/butcher's bed is creaking while he is making love is great, as we see everyone else in the building doing various jobs and they all end up working in time with the creaking.

Most of my favourite films seem to be foreign- Stalker, Dead Letter Office, Ring (the Nakata original). I don't know why, other than that they are just that little bit different.

And of course, there is Belleville Rendezvous...