Too often do I hear among friends "Subtitles? Nah can't be bothered with reading when I'm trying to watch a film" which I find completely disheartening, especially as it normally comes just as I try to recommend the latest foreign film I've got my hands on.
So here is my attempt to show why I love World Cinema. Admittedly the films I have seen in other languages are the ones that have garnered praise in the English Speaking award system, however this is always the way as I am positive the smaller UK films will not reach many French, German or Spanish movie enthusiasts.
To begin, we have the French language movies. Paris Je t'aime is most likely responsible for my love of foreign language films, and it is an ideal introduction to the world if you have no experience of reading subtitles as you watch a screen. This is because it is not entirely in French, it is a film of many films written, directed, and starring a plethora of French, English, American (and many other countries) talent. One of my favourite segments is of a French couple where the husband is about to leave his wife for a younger woman, when she reveals she has terminal cancer. It is the most romantic five minutes I have ever witnessed, and makes me cry each and every time I watch it.
Next is a film that is sheer brilliance, Amelie. Audrey Tautou, along with Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, is acting royalty in my opinion, all three ladies can branch across English speaking blockbusters and French sophistication. To Amelie itself, it is a quirky cute movie, quite bizarre but you utterly fall in love with Amelie and her crazy little adventure. Tautou stars in another of my personal favourite foreign films, Coco Avant Chanel which charts the rise of designer Coco Chanel from poverty to international powerhouse. I learnt a lot from this film, and I'm not so into fashion or designers but I gained a new respect for Chanel, it also stars Alessandro Nivola - a rare actor who can speak many languages fluently and in the appropriate accent, who also happens to be gorgeous.
Onto Marion Cotillard's contribution to French speaking film; you would recognise her in English language films from Inception and Public Enemies to name but two, however her Oscar winning performance was of course in La Vie En Rose. Based upon the life of singer Edith Piaf it is a wonderful portrayal of the rise and personal fall of a legend, the fact its in French should not put you off watching.
Juliette Binoche is a powerhouse in both English and French movies, and if you see a film advertised that stars Juliette you should most definitely give it a shot. I actually have never seen her most famous French film Three Colours Blue, but it is an award winner on both sides of the pond so I'm sure it will come across my radar at some point.
Onto Germany now, and though it may be a cliché I am going to discuss how a film about Hitler and one concerning the Stasi of East Germany make German language films worth the effort.
So chronologically we begin with Downfall, the last few days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker. This film is magnificent, it portrays the lives surrounding Hitler, how people believed in him until the end, how defiant and egotistical Hitler was, but also scarily how caring and involved with even the lowliest secretary. Critics made special note that Bruno Ganz's portrayal of the 'fearless leader' was one that 'almost made him human', rather a bizarre statement because no matter how monstrous the actions are we are all human beings with real emotion. After seeing this film I have noted that it made me almost feel sorry for the man, but mostly I think this is because the confined nature of the film means you concentrate solely on the bodies in the bunker frightened to death about the future and all discussing their Fuhrers rapid decline. You see a man so twisted up in his own illusions that when they unravel he himself begins to come apart, eventually as we all know taking his own, his lover's, and even his dogs life. I cannot recommend this film highly enough to anyone remotely interested in the Second World War, and especially to those not because there are parts of history everybody should know about.
Next I want to discuss The Lives Of Others, a film set in 1985 in East Berlin while Germany was divided into West and the German Democratic Republic. It is a film of idealism, focusing on Stasi (Secret Police) Captain Wiesler and his surveillance of a supposed loyal playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. This film made me make many faces, from smiling, to horror, to sadness I think my forehead and mouth had quite the workout. It rightfully won the best foreign language Oscar in 2006 because it is such a thought provoking film, but ultimately it is a film about human nature and what certain situations will provoke in us. For Captain Wiesler it is a profound change in his principles, he goes from showing us the very worst of human nature to the very best. I do not want to spoil the plot for people as this film was such an eye opening experience for me, and it made me smile through tears, that I believe if I revealed the story no-one would be inclined to see it.
Lastly I want to show the diversity of the Spanish language films. For this I will focus on Volver, starring the stunning Penelope Cruz, and then Motorcycle Diaries showcasing the talents of a very underused Gael Garcia Bernal.
Volver shows the less serious side of film making, much in the same vein as Little Miss Sunshine for its sparky humour and dysfunctional family, but also has notes of the serious as an abusive partner gets his just desserts. The film is about a mother coming back from the dead to help her daughters, the elder of whom played by Cruz who disposes, with her daughter, the body of said abusive partner in a friends empty cafe freezer. Whilst doing so she accidentally becomes a caterer for a local film crew and manages to make money from the unfortunate death, all the while her Mother's ghost is staying with her sister and trying to repair relationships. Cruz's daughter is the only one not caught up in the religious significance of a mothers return, and it is refreshing to see the deeply ritualistic Catholic faith being gently poked fun of through ghosts and murder. I always prefer to hear an actor in their own language if they have a strong accent, and Penelope Cruz excels in this film as she can be relaxed and fluid with her speech, so her acting improves tenfold.
The Motorcycle Diaries is quite a different kettle of fish, it is a film set in 1952 about a 23 year old Ernesto Guevara (later to be known as Che) taking time out before completing his medical degree to travel across South America with a friend on their motorbikes, eventually stopping in Peru to work at a Leper Colony. Through their journey they encounter the unbelievable poverty of their neighbours, and Guevara goes from happy as a clam frivolous student to a more serious young man determined to make a difference. The early life of Che Guevara was not something I had heard much about, I knew he was a revolutionary Cuban Marxist who is revered across the world and splashed on T-Shirts of those trying too hard to be Socialists, but I had no idea he was a doctor or that his politics were massively influenced by seeing and working with the unjustified poor.
To round off my Spanish language appraisal I cannot forget to mention Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth. It is a visual spectacular with an undercurrent of a serious and tragic story of a young girl in the middle of the Spanish Civil War creating a fantasy world to escape from her own, and yet her own fantasies are just as frightening as real life. Anybody who enjoys fantasy will love this film, they may not want to watch it more than once but it is a true gem in the archives of Spanish Language film-making.
One day I will review one of my own set of personal favourite foreign language films, the Studio Ghibli collection from Japan, but that would be too comparative of Disney to be fully justified in a World Cinema review.
For now I hope that I have persuaded some that just because a film has subtitles doesn't mean it is any more work than a film without, and in fact can be so much more worthy because of its language. You trust a German film about Hitler more so than a U.S made one, the slums of Brasil come so much more alive in the fluidity of the Portuguese (City of God), and you learn about the different cultures and histories of other countries, and to me this is what is truly important about World Cinema.
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