The world film project

[liv]

So jack and I hatched a plan to expand our cultural horizons by watching films from as many different countries as possible. We're working our way down the list of countries from the biggest by population. I don't expect we'll get very far; we don't watch more than half a dozen films in a typical year. But even if we watch films from 20 new countries we wouldn't have seen otherwise, that's still a win.

Of course, we ran into an edge case at the very first step because it turns out that a lot of famous "Chinese" films are in fact made in Taiwan or Hong Kong. And I'm reasonably convinced that Taiwan ought to be defined as a separate country, and HK probably too. We ended up with House of flying daggers, directed by Yimou Zhang, which is at least partly Chinese from China.

I enjoyed House of flying daggers. I loved the stylized and very beautiful martial arts scenes, and the amazing costumes, and the chemistry between Jin and Mei. And I loved the first two thirds of the plot, where everybody is multiply double-crossing everybody else. I particularly liked that Mei gets to be a hyper-competent martial arts fighter, not just a damsel. What I didn't love was the ending where it turns into a stupid love triangle, and Mei ends up sacrificing herself for no particularly meaningful cause, since the jealous man who is in love with her kills her true love anyway and it doesn't particularly help the rebellion.

We plan to watch an Indian film this evening. Does anyone have any favourites to recommend? I have a somewhat low tolerance for explicit onscreen violence, and for a date we'd prefer films that aren't about horribly depressing bits of history. Otherwise, even if it's a really obvious classic there's a pretty high chance I haven't seen it, though jack might have (we didn't pick Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for China, since he's already seen that.) Equally we've left it a bit late to plan, so ideally something we can stream instantly this evening, rather than something we'd need to order from the internet.

(I wouldn't say no to recommendations from the next several large countries. I think we can probably come up with an US American film on our own, but I have no idea what's good from Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan or Nigeria.)

Comments

[wychwood]

I very much enjoyed Krrish, which is an Indian superhero film (it's also a sequel to another film which is apparently a kind of ET/Close Encounters alien thing, but you don't need to have seen that - I hadn't). It was very silly, and entertaining, and had a bunch of fighting (but not very brutal violence) and also song-and-dance Bollywood sequences.

[liv]

Cool, thank you! That sounds really up our alley. jack likes superhero films and I like adaptations of mythology and silliness.

[rysmiel]

I was about to offer the same suggestion for India, for pretty much the same reasons - plus also that it does fascinating things with making superhero tropes make sense from the ground up in a totally different cultural setting.

Also I tried to post a followup here a moment ago and it looks to have disappeared into the ether, so sorry if this turns up as a duplicate.

[shreena]

I would recommend Bobby - it's a real classic of Bollywood cinema. Directed by Raj Kapoor and quite controversial at the time- some implied premarital sex even!

[liv]

Ooh, thank you! I forgot to mention in the post that we were focusing on 21^st century films, because we sort of wanted to experience a bite of culture from different countries on something like equal terms. Also because the further back you go the more confusing it gets to define countries. (India in the 1970s is definitely the same country as modern India, but there are a lot of countries where that isn't really true.) Bobby sounds awesome though, and the preference for 21^st century isn't an absolute rule.

[lilacsigil]

If you want a not depressing Indian film that my dad is an extra in (in the Melbourne scenes), Chak De! India (2007) is a classic sports movie about the Indian women's hockey team. The coach (Shah Rukh Kahn) is a Muslim who failed to score a critical goal against Pakistan in the men's world cup and was considered a traitor, so he's given the dud job of coaching the underfunded, never respected women's team. A team assembles from all across the nation and they have to learn to work together in time to play in the World Cup in Melbourne!

It's super fun but also has great pacing and tension, and a huge cast of women who all had to actually play hockey!

[liv]

I love films about unlikely teams succeeding against the odds, that sounds just my kind of thing. It's cool that you have a family connection with this one, too. Thank you.

[oracne]

Ooh, that sounds terrific! Scrappy underdogs FTW!

[genarti]

I love Chak De! India -- enthusiastically seconded!

[honigfrosch]

And thirded!

[oracne]

What a great project!

Bahubali

[fanf]

I really enjoyed Bahubali which is utterly brilliant and fun. The whole story is in two parts so it's quite long.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2631186/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4849438/

This clip is what made me want to watch it - it comes from the climactic battle towards the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR48a1kLx0w

Re: Bahubali

[jack]

That was the clip I was thinking of :)

Re: Bahubali

[liv]

That clip is really kind of amazing! I'm definitely tempted, thanks for the rec.

[lovingboth]

House of Flying Daggers is one of the most beautifully shot films ever... I liked it more than CTHD.

The Bollywood awards are fairly reliable in terms of what's worth seeing from Hindi cinema. I'm reliant on seeing what gets any sort of international release for the other languages.

For Indonesia, The Raid is a candidate for the best action film of the century, but it's one fight scene after another. Amongst the things I like about it is that the list of medical staff in the credits is vastly longer than the number for CGI: the vast bulk of what you see is real. Lovely Man is a very good drama with LGBT content.

For Brazil, there's City of God (but the violence may be too much) or Loveling (drama).

For Pakistan, Bol (drama, LGBT content, some distressing) or Zinda Bhaag (drama).

For Nigeria, see The Figurine (Araromire) (thriller) or The Wedding Party (comedy).

[liv]

Oh wow, thank you so much for sharing your extensive film knowledge. I'm really impressed that one person can rec things for all of the five biggest countries. I think I'm probably more drawn to the drama ones than the action ones, but we can have a look and I'll see what jack thinks.

[lovingboth]

Not so much a wasted youth watching films, but a wasted adulthood too :)

[wildeabandon]

Omkara is a brilliant Bollywood retelling of Othello. If memory serves correctly there's some violence, but not loads, and what there is isn't particularly gory.

[liv]

Bollywood... Othello. Wow. And yeah, that is obviously a story about a murder but I can cope with most adaptations of the Shakespeare.

[anais_pf]

When you get to Iran, I highly recommend A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. You might even want to skip ahead and watch it close to Halloween.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2326554/

[honigfrosch]

I watch a lot of horror movies, so I suppose that rules out a sizeable number of my possible suggestions due to violence. But there's still a few I can think of, even though they are further down on your list. I hope that's okay?

Argentina: Plan B (guy tries to win back his ex-girlfriend, becomes attracted to her boyfriend)

France: BPM - 120 Beats Per Minute (about the AIDS crisis, specifically ACT UP and the activism around it. Following one gay couple in particular. Content warning: people die, there's also one short scene of a teacher sleeping with one of his underage pupils and the movie doesn't question it. Does have its moments of beauty, love and righteous anger, but obviously not a feel-good movie.)

Norway: Thelma, which I am counting as Norwegian because that's its original language, even though some other countries had their hands in it, so to speak. Dark superhero movie about a lesbian college student with extraordinary abilities fighting loneliness and breaking free (at times violently) from her oppressive upbringing.

Australia: Mary and Max, an (at times) very sad but also (mostly) heartwarming story about the unlikely friendship between an autistic man in New York and a lonely little girl in Melbourne. It's an amazing achievement technically (stop-motion), has very dark humor, but also some wise words that will make you feel grateful to be alive. This review consists of just a quote, but it makes fairly obvious where the strength of the movie lies. I'd say it's emotionally taxing, but I'm glad I saw it.

[lovingboth]

Oh, when you get to Denmark: The Guilty ("Den Skyldige").

CW: abuse theme, but none of it is shown on screen - I wouldn't have been surprised to be told it was originally a play with a single set, a police call centre.

It's going to have an American remake, and that's not going to be as good as the original.

[lovingboth]

Oh2, it's easy to find French films, but..

.. a romantic comedy that I actually liked enough to see twice: Return of the Hero.

[nou]

ewan’s Letterboxed profile is a good place to look for carefully-categorised film recommendations, though they may not all be extremely easily available since he goes to a lot of film festivals. But you might find something suitable: Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria.

When you get to South Korea and Uganda, I can thoroughly recommend Little Forest and Queen of Katwe respectively.

[rysmiel]

I am relatively poorly educated on the cinema of many countries you will come to any time soon, I am afraid; and sorry to have not got to this post in a timely fashion for the actual evening of course.

When you get to Argentina, I would offer a high recommendation for Nine Queens, which is a very clever conman master/apprentice story that I recommend approaching with as little foreknowledge as possible (and should also note that there is a US remake called Criminal, which is not bad but a lot less good than the original, and faithful enough that it is also worth avoiding spoilers for.)

When you get to Canada, I am sure I have already enthused about Jesus de Montreal in your direction and would definitely do so again (five young actors putting on a Passion play and having their lives strongly affected and shaped by the experience, probably the single film I would pick if I had to select one favourite); and since it feels like it would be only fair to include a new recommendation also, there is a film called Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, a version of a First Nations folktale made by a group of First Nations people in a small village way up north, which is an immersion in a really different cultural context that also feels like an outgroup even to some of the visible commonalities across Western and Asian cinema.

Oh, and you will get to Japan well before either of those, and I am going to say The Seven Samurai; while it does depict violence it is at the "hit someone with a sword and they fall over" level, and it has amazing and sometimes surprisingly adorable acting.