I’m a fan of old horror movies. “Let the Right One In” transcends the vampire genre in my opinion. And it seems to be the kind of film that, if it hits you, it hits you very hard. I’ve heard the ‘glacial pace’ criticism before, but I never wanted it to end.
I saw that on my last flight back from Germany. It’s an interesting film, but the storyline is a little hard to follow. It’s about the effect of small time mafia influences on life in Naples.
I assume they meant foreign *language *films, or else they sure missed a lot of British cinema.
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I’m with you. I loved the pace of the film and wanted the film to keep going on and on. I saw it 3 times in the theater and would have gone again except that I didn’t discover it until shortly before it left the theater.
Thanks for the information about the DVD.
I’ve only seen 15 of the 25, but 8 of those are in the Top 10*. I don’t agree with some of the placements (Let The Right One In should be higher IMO, switching places with Cache) and I also think Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring should be there somewhere, but overall it’s a good list. They should have just gone ahead and made it 30.
One thing’s for sure, there have been a lot of great foreign-language films in the past decade. But then, there always are, in any decade.
I’ve only seen Pan’s Labyrinth, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, City Of God, Talk To Her, Spirited Away, The Lives of Others, Cache, Amelie, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Paradise Now, Let the Right One In, Volver, Persepolis and Maria Full of Grace.
Good to know. Thanks for this! I’ll keep my eye out.
I’ve only seen Maria Full of Grace, Amelie, and *Pan’s Labyrinth *, and I agree with their standing in relation to each other.
Of the rest, I had about a half dozen already on my Netflix queue, and just added about a dozen more.
I just saw** “Departures”**. Wow! A lovely and touching movie and certainly one of the best non-English language films of the decade.
It’s a good list but I agree that Werkmeister Harmonies and Volver belong there. I think Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi and the Dardenne brothers’ L’Enfant should be included too.
:smack: I totally forgot about L’Enfant–another worthy entry (haven’t seen that Kitano).
Saw it this weekend. Meh.
While it was genuinely scary and suspenseful in parts, there were long stretches of complete dull. Plus, full frontal nudity on a 12-year-old girl just kind of oogs me out, even if it’s in a mainstream movie.
Exactly. In fact, I would say that LTROI is closer to a typical Swedish drama that has somehow been transplanted into the horror genre. The pacing, outlook, themes … well, everything are very typical of Swedish cinema.
I don’t suppose anyone knows if the English subtitles on the Swedish DVD are the better or crap subtitles? I can speak Swedish, but am a native English speaker and had the subtitles on as a guide. I kind of used both.
The nudity was not full frontal.
It was not a 12-year-old girl. What you see, for about one second, is a dummy created to represent a 200 year-old, castrated vampire boy.
The subtitles on the Swedish DVD are the better, theatrical subtitles.
But the redone DVDs with the good theatrical subtitles are starting to show up in stores in the US. Just make sure to check the small box on the back of the packaging for the words, “Theatrical subtitles”.
No reports on whether the re-done BluRay is out yet.
Cheers. Thought it was a long shot asking, but the SDMB has done me proud.
Yeah I caught that when I read more about it, but on first blush (heh), it certainly looked like it was an adolescent girl’s full-frontal.
Personally, I think The Lives of Others runs circles around Let the Right One In. JMHO.
It’s a pretty good list, I think. There are some nominations that I wouldn’t objectively think of as one of the 25 “most essential”, but that I think still deserve a spot on the list based on what achieved. For example, most people I’ve spoken to prefer Lady Vengeance to Old Boy, but Old Boy is the poster film, it’s the provocative piece that got people talking. And while I didn’t think *Amelie *really lived up to the hype (also not a big of Jeunet’s directing style), in 2001 it was *everywhere *in Europe. It was such an indie smash hit that it definitely has a place on the list. Likewise, *Persepolis *is without doubt inferior to the graphic novel (though the production is great), however I see a place for it as a representative of the Middle-East, which I think will continue its impact in the Western world in the next decade. Perhaps Waltz with Bashir would have been a better choice, but oh well.
Of course, 25 nominations cannot possibly justify all of non-English film for a whole decade (making two nominations for Almodovar a bit hard to defend, IMHO). There will have to be omissions any which way you do it. For me personally, I would have loved to see a nomination for Songs from the Seocnd Floor. No, it was not stylistic and accessible like *Amelie *was. No, it didn’t have fancy fighting like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did. But it’s very beautiful, very intelligent and very representative of the Swedish cinematic tradition. Andersson is simply put the best Swedish movie maker since Bergman. He just hasn’t gotten a lot of recognition, which is a terrible shame.