Flickgrrl

I haven't finalized my ballots (I'm trying to see as many of the eligible films that I haven't before the vote is due), but I doubt anything will topple the film that was No. 1 on my all-time list that included English language films as well: Rules of the Game. I'm working on a lengthy post about it to run around the time of the releasing of the results, so I don't have anything pithy to say about it right now other than I love it more each time I see it.

Edward,

My definition of a great film is one that gets deeper and denser and richer on each subsequent viewing. "Rules of the Game" is one such film. Sometimes I identify with the philandering wife, other times the cuckolded husband, the maid, the aviator with whom the wife flirts. Jean Renoir is masterful at first-person moral perspective. Likewise Max Ophuls, who made "The Earrings of Madame de...," a flawless film (likewise about a romantic triangle) that begins in flirtation and ends in transcendence, set to the strains of Gluck's Orfeo. Danielle Darrieux is the frivolous wife, Charles Boyer the military husband and Vittorio de Sica, passionate and unrequited, as the diplomat whose love alters her from flirt to saint. Through the graceful moves of his gliding camera Ophuls captures the moment of love's crystallization and shows how it deepens Madame de, making the selfish woman selfless. Exquisite.

Where's Life is Beautiful?

Life Is Beautiful only got two votes, one short of making the cut.

Carrie--

Putting together arbitrary lists is strictly anathema to me. It's one of the minor reasons I finally gave up professional reviewing. I got sick of editors asking for weirdly subjective lists. Entertainment Weekly has a lot to answer for.

Nevertheless, I can't say no to you. Among my personal favorites missing in action from Edward's list are:

Jean Renoir's "La Grande illusion"/"The Grand Illusion" (1937)

Marcel Carné's "Les Enfants du paradis"/"Children of Paradise" (1945)

Yasujiro Ozu's "Tôkyô monogatari"/"Tokyo Story" (1953)

Max Ophuls' "Lola Montez" (1955)

Claude Berri's "Le Vieil homme et l'enfant"/"The Two of Us" (1967)

Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda's "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort"/"The Young Girls of Rochefort" (1967)

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Teorema" (1968)

Luis Bunuel's "Tristana" (1970)

Eric Rohmer's "Le Genou de Claire"/"Claire's Knee" (1970)

Claude Lelouch's "Le Voyou"/"The Crook" (1970)

Zhang Yimou's "Da hong deng long gao gao gua"/"Raise the Red Lantern" (1991)

Also Zhang's "Qiu Ju da guan si"/"The Story of Qiu Ju" (1992)

I could go on until tomorrow but won't.

--Joe

Joe:

Totally agree with you about List-omania. I participate in them because it leads readers to titles that they otherwise would not know about. I'm sure that Grand Illusion, Children of Paradise, Tokyo Story, Lola Montez and Raise the Red Lantern are on Ed's list, as they should be. My Night at Maud's is there, but not Claire's Knee. Umbrellas of Cherbourg is there, but not the Young Girls of Rochefort.

To other posters...I want not only your favorite non-English language film, but also why.

Just one more, Carrie: Truffaut's irresistible (and criminally underrated) "Une belle fille comme moi"/"Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me" (1972), starring the sublime Bernadette Lafont. She's reason enough for it to be considered. Her performance in it is my why.

Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me is a movie I've long wanted to see being a big Truffaut fan, but I've never found access to it. Also Joe, Carrie is right: Grand Illusion, Children of Paradise, Tokyo Story, Lola Montes and Raise the Red Lantern are all on the final list.

Ooops! Sorry, Edward. I'm naturally confused. I think I might have somehow missed your original list. I think I inadvertently perused your list of films that DIDN'T make the list. Sorry.

Hmmmm...this one has me thinking, and I'll list them as they come to me, in no particular order...

Of course, no great foreign language movie list is complete without Kurosawa, and my 2 picks out of a rich portfolio of movies would be Dersu Uzala and Ran.

City of God

Battle of Algiers

Amores Perros

Das Boot

Grand Illusion

The Seventh Seal

Raise the Red Lantern

The Grand Illusion

The Conformist

And looking at my picks, I see a lot of European movies dealing with World War II. I think the collective attempt at coming to grips with one of humanity's darkest chapters by those most involved seems to have produced some of cinema's most interesting films.

I had attempted making a list for EC, but I hate lists. My whole life is about lists, either of things to do or buy, at work, at home, at the store. At the computer one would like to remain listless.

If I were to name the one non-English language film that I'd place above all others, it would come from a very select list. The one picture that I've seen the most times, that remains fresh for me every viewing, one with themes and issues that continue to speak to me and not at me, the one that has me rooting for characters while still pondering them, is, without a doubt, Claude Chabrol's La Cérémonie.

I still jump every time that shotgun is fired, and I still feel a strange sense of relief when Sophie walks away into the night. It's an excellent continuation of attitudes and values explored earlier by Buñuel only without the surrealist's brand of humor. Chabrol's humor cuts differently, and makes you wonder if what he just showed you actually happened at all.

Looks like I posted this in the wrong spot. Hope this is the right one. And I left off Aguirre:The Wrath Of God. What the heck was i thinking?

The Pusher Trilogy
City Of God
Karakter
Salaam Bombay
Pepe Le Moko
Touchez Pas Au Grisbi
Diary Of A Chambermaid
Bob Le Flambeur
Artemsia
Shower
Los Olvidados
The Wedding Banquet
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Shall We dansu
Time of The Gypsies
High And Low
La Bandera
The Last Emperor
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
Apocalypto
Le Notti Di Cabiria
Alphaville
The Bicycle Thief
Grand Illusion
Le Bete Humaine
Ninotchka

And Fassbinder, Hezog, Renoir, Fritz Lang,Julien Duvivier, and Gong Li. score for me almost every time out.