Arts & Life, Film & Television

A whole world of film

Whether you’re trying to learn a new language or just trying to escape the American-centric lens of domestic blockbusters, exploring the cinematic oeuvre of other cultures will certainly broaden your horizons. Here are four flicks from far-flung lands to get your feet wet in the world of foreign film.

BETTY BLUE

Betty Blue (Director’s Cut) (1986):
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix

Almost Shakespearean in its tragedy, this French drama is a three-hour-long emotional gouge-fest. The film is centered on free-spirited Betty (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and would-be writer Zorg (Béatrice Dalle), two star-crossed lovers whose idyllic relationship slowly descends into a psychotic maelstrom of pain and chaos.

Behind Betty’s charmingly reckless personality is a raging self-destructive depression that spares no one. Mental illness and love collide in “Betty Blue,” becoming indistinguishable in their intensity and violent irrationality.

This haunting film evokes a deeply visceral sense of love’s screwed-up machinations, leaving a tight knot in your throat by the end credits.

7 BOXES

7 Boxes (2012)
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Director: Juan Carlos Maneglia, Tana Schémbori

The Paraguayan thriller is pretty much one long chase to the death. Set in a sprawling bazaar, Victor (Celso Franco), a young pushcart porter obsessed with celebrity and money, is asked to transport seven boxes of unknown contents away from a butcher shop.

The butcher is clearly an unscrupulous character, but Victor, looking to buy his first cell phone, accepts the job. It soon becomes clear that the boxes contain something nefarious, but Victor’s love of expensive gadgets negates any moral dilemma.

The tension is constantly throttled up as Victor runs into cops, a desperate rival looking to take over the job, and a whole gang of people hired to hunt him down. “7 Boxes” is a wild ride through a world of dog-eat-dog poverty with underlying themes pointing to the effects of encroaching Western ideals on impoverished nations.

Delicatessen

Delicatessen (1991)
MPAA rating: R
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro

Deliciously dark and demented, but at the same time whimsical and surreal, “Delicatessen” verges on a social experiment gone awry. Set in a decrepit apartment building in post-apocalyptical France where food is scarce and grain is the currency of the day, Louison (Dominique Pinon), a former circus performer, shows up answering an ad for a room. The rubber-faced landlord and butcher who operates on the ground floor (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) quickly offers him a room in the building.

But something grotesque is afoot, something rather cannibalistic. In a more sinister version of drifter-checks-in-but-never-checks-out, Louison has unwittingly become the next piece of meat on the butcher’s block, and everyone is in on it.

The dark comedy’s troupe of idiosyncratic characters keep the film outrageous and unpredictable. Aesthetically, the film’s faded yellow atmosphere adds an unsettling fog-of-dreams effect that keeps you pinching yourself until the movie is over.

breathless

Breathless (2008)

MPAA rating: Unrated
Director: Ik-Joon Yang

Sang-Hoon (Ik-Joon Yang) is a hard-knuckled, foul-mouthed small-time debt-collector who sees everyone as a walking punching bag. He deploys violence at the slightest hint of unwillingness to pay down a debt. Witness to the domestic violence his father unleashed on his mother and sister, Sang-Hoon’s entire life has been a long history of violence.

After encountering high school girl Yeon-Hue (Kkobbi Kim), who doesn’t shrink away after Sang-Hoon spits on her skirt, they strike up an unlikely and unconventional relationship. Not quite friendship but never romantic, their relationship is nonetheless cathartic, cemented by their unspoken and shared experiences with brutal fathers.

Underneath all the on-screen violence, this raw and brooding South Korean film is about forgiveness, redemption and the vicious cycle of patriarchal violence.

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