le greatest foreign language films

[pryor15]

On the film blogs, Edward Copeland over at Edward Copeland on Film has gone to the trouble of organizing a compilation of the best non-English language films. I somehow got on the list of people nominating films. 21 of my 25 made the first cut, sadly Lelouch's un homme et une femme and Menzel's Ostre sledované vlaky didn't make the cut (but are awesome and totally worth checking out). Here, in the interest of full disclosure, is my list as I sent it to Edward (complete with really confusing original language titles):

the deadline for the ballots is 16 September.

1. Dekalog (Kieslowski)
2. Scener ur ett äktenskap (Bergman)
3. The Three Colors Trilogy (Kieslowski)
4. Les Quatre cents coups (Truffaut)
5. Ostre sledované vlaky (Menzel)
6. un homme et une femme (Lelouch)
7. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
8. Les Enfants du Paradis (Carné)
9. Umberto D. (De Sica)
10. Shichinin no samurai (Kurosawa)
11. La Grande illusion (Renoir)
12. La Strada (Fellini)
13. À bout de souffle (Godard)
14. Russkiy kovcheg (Sokurov)
15. Cidade de Deus (Meirelles)
16. Andrey Rublyov (Tarkovsky)
17. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
18. Det Sjunde inseglet (Bergman)
19. Persona (Bergman)
20. Bande à part (Godard)
21. Pyaasa (Dutt)
22. Ugetsu monogatari (Mizoguchi)
23. Tôkyô monogatari (Ozu)
24. Yi yi (Yang)
25. Hable con ella (Almodóvar)


discuss.

[pryor15]

oh, right. guidelines and such.

eligible films had to be foreign productions with primarily foreign language dialogue (so Blow-Up was a no go, for example). No silents. Nothing that premiered later than 2002.

51 people (including David Ansen and Annette Insdorf) were selected to nominate up to 25 films, ranking being meaningless. 3 nominations moves the film onto the next round, where the ballots are weighted (25 points for 1st, etc)

[Blarg]

I think this will be a lot more relatable if you translate the titles.

[pryor15]

good call

1. Dekalog (Kieslowski)
2. scenes from a marriage (bergman)
3. the Three Colors Trilogy (kieslowski)
4. the 400 blows (truffaut)
5. closely watched trains (menzel)
6. a man and a woman (lelouch)
7. 8 1/2 (fellini)
8. children of paradise (Carné)
9. umberto d. (de sica)
10. seven samurai (kurosawa)
11. the grand illusion (renoir)
12. la strada (fellini)
13. breathless (godard)
14. russian ark (Sokurov)
15. city of god (Meirelles)
16. andrei rublev (tarkovsky)
17. rules of the game (renoir)
18. the seventh seal (bergman)
19. persona (bergman)
20. a band apart (godard)
21. pyaasa (dutt)
22. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
23. tokyo story (ozu)
24. yi, yi (a one and a two) (yang)
25. talk to her (almodovar)

better?

[Blarg]

I'm not sure I should be, since I've seen so little of his stuff, but I'm disappointed not to see any Ozu.

I loved Good Morning.

[nick604]

I spy Tokyo Story at 23.

I'm disappointed not to see any Kar Wai Wong tho.

[pryor15]

Blarg,

#23

Late Spring also made the first cut

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
I spy Tokyo Story at 23.

I'm disappointed not to see any Kar Wai Wong tho.

[/ QUOTE ]

25 is a smaller number than you'd think

he's got a couple that made the first cut

[MrMon]

Not that I'm an expert, but surprising omissions:

Rashomon
The Bicycle Thief
Ivan The Terrible
La Dolce Vita

There are a ton more off other top lists, this list seems a bit more skewed to modern films.

[pryor15]

again, this is just the nomination stage and i'm just one of the 51, so like Rashomon i didn't bother nominating in the hopes that i could slip Russian Ark in, etc.

there's another round to come and the master list of nominated films (link up top) has pretty much everything. the only big omission is the films of S. Ray