A typical German movie I think: “Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”(The fat years are over) - two young anti-society protesters break into the houses of rich people not to steal, but to re-arrange furniture and send a message. But when they start falling in love with a girl, and when during one of their aktions, the owner comes home early, things start snowballing out of control.
I liked it, not only for the topic, but also for the nice scenes of the mountains in the later part. 
The only reason that I would be reluctant to recommend films like the ones that contanze recommends (as good as they may be) is that they were hardly shown at all in the U.S. and may not be available on DVD.
Together - directed by Chen Kaige, who is known for Farewell my Concubine
The Last Metro - directed by Francois Truffaut and starring Catherine Deneuve & Gerard Depardieu
Raise the Red Lantern (dir. Zhang Yimou) starring Chinese actress Gong Li
Clean (dir. Olivier Assayas) starring HK actress Maggie Cheung
Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud (dir Claude Sautet), starring the lovely Emmanuelle Beart
Perhaps Love (dir. Peter Chan) starring Takeshi Kaneshiro & Zhou Xun - not really my cup of tea, but you may like it if you enjoy musicals.
(With apologies for the lack of links: at work, can’t access imdb)
What constanze said. Abre los ojos is Amenábar’s second movie: his first one, Tesis, is a very scary and very well-done suspense film. My brother is still mad at me because I was in stitches watching it… the scary guy could be the twin of one of my best friends, up to an including body language and the level of freak they’ve got going on (my friend doesn’t have the moolah for a house like that, though).
If anybody isn’t tired of hearing me mention him yet, I like to a greater or lesser degree every Fernando Trueba movie I’ve seen, including Oscar-winner comedy Belle Epoque and come-drama La niña de tus ojos.
I also loved Volavérunt, Bigas Luna’s biopic of Goya.
And if you’re willing to take something extremely, extremely absurd, the kind of movie that leaves you feeling like you should cut down on the magic 'shrooms even if you don’t partake of them at all, try Acción Mutante, the first movie from Álex de la Iglesia.
AFAIK, amazon.co.uk and amazon.de also ship over the big ocean, though it costs more. While I haven’t looked in each case, at least those movies that were blockbusters I’d expect English subtitles. Unless the producers thought that the jokes were too cultural-centered, and therefore not accessible to foreign audiences, and saved themselves the money. But subtitling is cheaper than dubbing, and makes the movie more accessible, thus raising sales.
Maybe you under-estimate the amount of learning necessary to understand a foreign culture, and thus a movie from it? After all, I watch regularly movies (and series) from a foreign culture* and I know how many things are different, and how many references I don’t get. Even if I look on the internet later to understand a Simpson reference to some popular actor, I can’t relate in the same way.
Can you honestly relate to what a Dr. Who reference means to an UK person, who grew up with it for 40 years running - something that spans two or more generations? I know I can’t.
To take an easy reference question from Goodbye Lenin: at the beginning, when the narrator /protagonist is at a demo, what are he and the others demonstrating for - capitalism (bananas), re-unification or the socalist system?
the socialist system. They wanted to keep their own state, not loose it, and they didn’t want the unhindered greed of capitalism. They wanted the existing socialist state changed with more freedom, less Stasi but not the western system.
For that matter, how much can the difference between “Wir sind das Volk” (We are the people) and “Wir sind ein Volk” (We are one people) be translated into english? How much was the difference between both slogans made explicit for a foreigner without knowledge about the background?
- the US, and sometimes, we even get UK series. And despite the influence of Hollywood clichees through all those movies, it’s still different cultures.
constanze, there’s a difference between most of the films that have been recommended in this thread and the ones that you recommend. I go to, read the schedules of, and read reviews of the films shown in the theaters that do foreign and American independent films in the U.S., and I thus know a little about what’s available. Films like the following (mentioned by other people) are quite likely to be available to an American wanting to educate himself about foreign and American independent films:
The Last Metro
Raise the Red Lantern
City of God
Amelie
Goodbye Lenin!
Night Watch
The Lives of Others
Tampopo
Russian Ark
Withnail and I
Blood Simple
Diner
Lars and the Real Girl
Chungking Express
Mystery Train
Dogville
Drugstore Cowboy
Brick
Dancer in the Dark
Ghost World
These all got American releases (if not very big ones) and are available on DVD. The ones that you mention though:
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei
Der Schuh des Manitou
(T)raumschiff Surprise Periode 1
Der bewegte Mann
Kondom des Grauens
may be big hits in Germany and may be great films, but they are virtually unknown in the U.S. I suspect that they got no or little American release and they may be unavailable on DVD in the U.S. (Remember, it’s has to be a Region 1 DVD, since most Americans can’t play those from other regions.) I’m a little reluctant to recommend such films to an American wanting to be educated on film, since they may find it impossible to see them.
Of course it depends on one’s overall background. And there will always be some things that are missed by someone who has not been immersed in the milieu of the movie’s setting all of his life.
But I, at least, am well aware of the history of communism in central Europe. My parents are from Hungary; they spent much of their life under communism. My dad worked as a chemical engineer for a while in Halle, in what was then East Germany.
So the tone I’m getting in your message that as an American I have no connection with that period of European history and so know nothing about it is both wrong and not appreciated.
First, sorry, I did not intende any insult.
However, too often I’ve heard/read the attitude of Americans (other than you, obviously) that they understand foreign films because “everybody is just like us”, which is obviously wrong.
Now, if you mean that you with a second cultural background in addition to the average whitebread American, are “typical” for Americans who watch foreign films - if you mean that the standard whitebread Americans who can’t find other countries on a map don’t even watch foreign films, and thus anybody who’s interested in them is already self-selected to have an interest in, and a knowledge of, that foreign cultures will be different - than I withdraw my point.
My impression so far however*was that most Americans have a parochial view of other cultures.
- maybe it’s a question of “loudness”: the ones with a wider background and knowledge who “get” a foreign movie stay silent, only the ones who don’t get it complain.
IIRC it was Paul Watzlawick who once said that a German /European and an American have different approaches to not-understanding:
The European, if not getting a book/ movie etc., says “I don’t get that, what’s wrong with me?” (As in: what knowledge do I need to acquire to understand this?)
The American says “I don’t get this, what’s wrong with it?” (As in: If I don’t get it, it’s pretentious art snobbery, because nothing can be wrong with me)
Um, first, my impression was that the OP wanted other than the normal stuff, aside from the beaten track. Stuff that’s shown in normal cinemas, he wouldn’t need recommendations for, he can figure that out himself.
If the OP meant different, then I don’t have a lot to offer.
Secondly, it’s very difficult to figure out from this side of the pond what’s available how easily in the US. The most definite indicator would be Oscar winners and nominations - but those are already not obscure anymore.
Sometimes, our media mentions that a movie became a hit in the US - but this is always treated as surprise, because European moviemakers don’t generally try to appeal to US audiences (unless they are working for US studios), they first try to appeal to their own home audiences, and it’s difficult to predict what will appeal and be accessible to US audiences if it’s based on special cultural idiosyncrasies.
For that matter, the OP wanted indie films, too. How easy are those to access? Do you still have arts cinemas in bigger cities which show art and indie movies, or have they all died out in favour of the multiplexes which show Hollywood Blockbusters?
constanze, Stauderhorse in his OP said that he mostly watched Hollywood blockbusters and that he would like to watch some foreign and American independent films. I took that as meaning that he knew very little about foreign and American independent films and really needed to start almost from scratch in viewing them. Most of the films mentioned in this thread would be the sort that an average American could probably see somewhere. He might find them in a video rental place. He might see them in a theater that did classic films. He might see them on some of the channels available on cable in the U.S. that do classic films. If none of those opportunities were available, he would certainly be able to order all of them from an online DVD sales website.
The films that you mentioned though got almost no release in the U.S. I suspect that they would be very hard to find. This isn’t to criticize their quality. They very well might be utterly brilliant films. I would be a little reluctant to recommend such films to Stauderhorse, since he might try to look for them and after failing to find any of them decide that trying to see anything except Hollywood blockbusters was hopeless. Also, as I said, although it’s undoubtedly true that one can order the films you mention from Germany, they wouldn’t be Region 1 DVD’s.
Yes, there are a few movie theaters in most big American cities that specialize in showing non-blockbusters, which are mostly the sort of foreign and American independent films that Stauderhorse wants to see.
Pssssst, Wendell! Stauderhorse is not a dude; she is a (very attractive) young lady.
mmm
If you’ve seen Pan’s Labyrinth, you may also be aware of the two other movies that came out around then by two other directors who were also in film school at the same time as del Toro (I think). Children of Men and Babel.
I really liked Kontroll, a Hungarian movie about a guy who works in the subway, and can’t seem to escape his demons.
Also, if you like samurai movies at all, you might be interested in some that portray the regular, day to day life and hardships of a poor samurai. Many samurai were little more than bookkeepers, and rarely fought. Check out Twilight Samurai, Hidden Blade, and When the Last Sword is Drawn. Twilight Samurai and Hidden Blade are both from the same director.
ETA: Oh, and there’s a Korean film about a lesbian relationship in a high school called Memento Mori. A bit surreal.