Baraka. Gorgeous cinematography, haunting score, and absolutely zero dialogue. There are depictions of natural beauty and ugliness, as well as uniquely human beauty and ugliness.
I rented it many years ago, and a couple of years ago bought the DVD. Last fall it was re-released on Blu-Ray, and by all accounts is absolutely stunning. I’ll be buying that just as soon as we switch to HDTV.
another vote for
Tampopo
Primer
Book of Life
and 2 contributions for Oz
Children of the Revolution, a funny, quircky bit starring the underappreciated Judy Davis as a true communist believer who has Stalins love child.
The Interview a cat a mouse psycho drama between a cop and a suspect who might be a serial killer but might be joe smoe, stars a pre-matrix Hugo Weaving
Hope and Glory–one of my favorite films…John Boorman’s autobiographical film about his experiences living in London during WWII…stars Sarah Miles…Sammi Davis, who plays the teenage daughter steals every scene she’s in.
“Suna no onna (Woman in the dunes)” - “An amateur entomologist searching for insects by the sea is trapped by local villagers into living with a mysterious woman who spends almost all her time preventing her home from being swallowed up by advancing sand dunes. The woman and the trapped man begin a strange and erotic relationship that stretches over years, as the man’s hope for escape dims.”
Caché - A married couple is terrorized by a series of videotapes planted on its front porch that may be the direct result from an event from years ago.
I’ll also second the recommendation for Oldboy, which is one of my favourite films, though not for the faint-hearted.
Bumping this thread because I’ve recently watched a couple of good movies that I had never heard of before.
**Matewan **- I don’t know how well-known this one is (it was nominated for an Oscar for cinematography in 1988), but I was unfamiliar with it. I was scanning through my cable guide to see what was coming up on HDNet Movies (awesome channel by the way) and the cast for this movie caught my eye: Chris Cooper, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones, and David Strathairn. I had to watch this. Then I see in the opening credits that it’s directed by John Sayles–even better. It’s about a West Virginia coal-mining town in the 20’s, where the miners are forming a union and the mining company brings in some heavies to bust things up. Cooper and McDonnell are–as always–terrific and there is a lot of conflict and intrigue among the characters. Excellent movie.
Keeping Mum - my dad put me on to this one. It’s a dark comedy from a few years ago starring **Rowan Atkinson **as the underappreciated vicar of a small village in the English countryside, **Kristin Scott Thomas **as his neglected wife, the great **Maggie Smith **as their new housekeeper (with a dark past), and **Patrick Swayze **as a lecherous playboy with his eyes on the vicar’s wife (Swayze shows up in the oddest places, doesn’t he?). The movie is a trifle, but an entertaining one. Smith plays sort of the anti-Mary Poppins and Atkinson plays his role fairly low-key. The whole thing is played pretty straight, and I kept thinking, “Wait–I shouldn’t be laughing at this!” It’s a charming little movie with a macabre sense of humor. Give it a watch!
The Jackal of Nahueltoro, 1969.
Probably the finest Chilean film ever (ahem!).
An itinerant murders a woman who befriended him, plus her family, in a drunken rage (watch for how he disposes of the baby in the basket). He gets picked up by the police (he’s too drunk even to think of escaping) and processed through the courts. Once he’s put in prison, they start reforming him: they cut his hair, shave his beard, teach him how to read and write; they’ve got him playing football with the other inmates. For the first time in his pathetic existence, he’s almost happy. They’ve turned him from a monster into into a passably good citizen. But then …
I saw it on TV in the early 70s and it has stayed with me ever since.
I went to see that three times in one weekend during an ice storm. I went to a Saturday matinee, then went back Saturday night, then back to a Sunday matinee. It was just incredible.
We loved that one and bought it. Atkinson in a straight role, but no less delightful. Swayze played a great sleaze, he really brought it. And a great ending.
Hey, is it too late to recommend ‘Beautiful Dreamers’? It’s a real gem, a 1992 movie about Walt Whitman’s stay in London, Ontario, and how he and Dr. Maurice Bucke influenced each other, particularly on the subject of mental illnesses and their treatment.
There are a lot of really good performances, but one of the outstanding people is Rip Torn as Walt Whitman. A wonderful film.
If you have Netflix, you can watch this movie instantly. I just added it and a few others from this thread to my queue.
My contribution is the French film Ponette. It stars the 4 year old Victoire Thivisol (who was later in Chocolat) as a child who lost her mother and whose father is on the road for work, so the child is trying to deal with her loss on her own. One of the most heartbreaking movies I’ve ever seen, but very well done and worth the box of Kleenex you’ll use watching it. You won’t believe the acting job that Thivisol gives in her first role, at the tender age of 4.
L’argent, Bresson’s best film, I think. (Based on the Tolstoy story The Forged Coupon) about how a counterfeit franc note affects the various people amongst whom it gets passed.
Bresson didn’t allow his performers to “act,” (he didn’t use professionals) instead using photography and economy of sound to convey effect.
Yes, a great film, but it doesn’t really satisfy the OP’s request for films “no one else has seen,” (though obviously an overstatement), as Oldboy won the Palm d’or at Cannes.
Personally, I prefer the last film in the same trilogy by the same director, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (친절한 금자씨).
I have Cheap Trick’s Born to Raise Hell on my iPod! Love that movie!
John Sayles’s films are an obvious choice, but I still gotta stand up and heartily recommend Lone Star.
I’m always amazed at how few people have seen that great film!
And I’ve gotta put in a plug for *Life on a String*. That’s a really beautiful movie.
The Lucky Ones (from 2008), a charming road trip story about three soldiers on leave, played by Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, and Michael Peña. Engaging characters that I wanted to meet. I’ve seen it twice this year and wouldn’t mind doing it again.
Took me a while to remember, but yeah, I’ve seen this flick and it was really great mystery. That kid was an amazing actor and tragically he died before the movie was released.
Did anyone see Quid Pro Quo with the lovely Vera Farmiga? It’s the story of a wheel chair bound writer (Nick Stahl in a very compelling performance) who meets a gal with a serious kink resulting in some pretty odd twists.
Debauchery Castle, I wrote the music for it. You can only get a DVD from me until we sell the rights to a major studio (which ain’t happening anytime soon)
I Served the King of England, a quirky Czech film. It starts with an old man getting out of prison, then flashes back and forth between his life after prison and his life before WWII, when he worked as a waiter in the finest hotel in Prague. Leisurely paced, with long sections of minimal dialogue, it’s visually rich and has a quiet humor to it. Also lots of naked women (which was more of a selling point to the friend I was watching it with than it was to me).
And, yes, you do eventually find out why he went to prison.
Kenny, an Australian movie about a really nice guy in the Porta-loo business who gets no respect from anybody. It’s filmed like a documentary, and it’s sweet and funny and surprisingly not very crude at all. Although my 13-yr-old son laughed like a loon at every candid reference to shit.
Lies My Father Told Me - wonderful film about a kid growing up Jewish in Montreal in the 20’s. The grandfather character in particular is one for the ages.
Agnes Varda’s best known movie is Cleo from 5 to 7, which is recommended in itself, but I think that Vagabond and Happiness are possibly better. Vagabond is a movie about a homeless woman. It is episodic, with no real plot. A character study. They show you ending at the beginning, too. People argue whether the title Happiness is ironic. I would argue that it is. It’s about a married man who has an affair.
I also recently saw Celebration. Although the movie takes place around a man’s 60th birthday party, the title is most definitely ironic. I believe it was the first Dogme 95 movie.
All four movies are foreign language with English subtitles. Also, none of the movies are feel good, happy ending flicks really, except maybe Cleo.