Foreign Films

this film made talkies acceptable to critics, or so my film instructor says. it really sucks they've lost eight minutes of this movie forever, and i'm pretty sure it's from the end. speaking of eight minutes, the first eight minutes of this film are absolutely dead on perfect. someone should remake this movie. now. i'll do it if you give me the money.

a true testament to creative passion

i found this film extremely thought provoking, especially because a lot of the themes in this film are present in the scripts i am writing. i did not agree with some of the cinematographic touches, most obviously a tacky and flagrant display of a momento mori and a six minute close up of a woman reading a letter as if she is saying it to your face. but this is a truly great script and a film that features some great performances.

dreyer is very quickly becoming one of my favorite directors because of the potent themes he writes about and his artistry in depicting them. however this film is not one that will be enjoyed by all. and i'm not just referring to religious people. the acting in this movie is extremely stilted. especially by the two romantic leads. you are dealing with a silent film director here. the dialogue is very play-like, with directly metaphorical conversations dominating the screen time. also if you don't like pans, don't watch this movie. after only two films i can tell a dreyer from anything else because he pans the hell out of everything all the time. don't expect the sets to be great, either. at a couple of points i swear i saw 15 year old sets for the passion of joan of arc. if you can handle a subtly anti-religion, purely intellectual morality play, you will love and appreciate day of wrath. if those things don't appeal to you, don't see anything by this director.

ah yes, the movie that created the points-of-view template followed by films from hero to hoodwinked! for those uninitiated, every critic loves this movie. if that afi list included foreign films, this would probably be in their top twenty. i found it enjoyable enough, and philosophical enough, and original enough, but not overly exceptional in any of those three categories. however, the director does a great job of letting the drama build as it goes, leading to a powerful resolution. i put this in the pile for solid cinema that manages not to screw up a good idea. perhaps i lessen it because it is dated. but that doesn't mean i don't think it's a very good movie.

do not watch if you can't handle suicides. there's about a hundred of them, by both sexes, of all ages, throughout the film. it's always lovely to watch a teenage girl tell her boyfriend to shoot her. aside from all the suicides, this is your standard awards-bait art film with a masterful performance by bruno ganz.

artful. sweeping. delicate. meticulous. all great words to describe this relatively simple movie. a word of warning to television viewers, though. this movie adapts horribly to dubbing. buy the dvd.

beautifully shot but not the deepest of epics. one repeated technique i noticed was a reversal of the cac method in that bodrov consistently starts with a closeup and widens the shot. this is a good premise and a very well crafted film, but the script was middling at best. mongol reminds me a lot of lesser actioners like 300 and 10,000 BC melded with a quality western. temudgin's relationship with his wife i found idealized, and those with his other associates i found pretty stock.

not too interesting until the final half. the first half is iterations of the same forbidden city set. not for those who want something fast paced.

this film definitely does not live up to the plug on the back of the case. it's a slow, dry, contemplative piece which does manage to make you try to guess what's going to happen next, but i was never really scared by anything that went on. besides the obvious shock value shots involving majid, the only shot i found mildly disturbing was the last one. then again, i never found anything by hitchcock to be too great, so perhaps my opinion is bigoted and ignorant.

marriage is like running over an algerian hooker and when she gets out of her coma, helping her to destroy the prostitution and heroin ring that had destroyed her already crappy life beset by poverty and overbearance.... wait....