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September 2008
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Forei gn Films
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New to View
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Vol. 2, No. 9 |
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The Foreign Films New to View newsletter is a monthly publication designed to keep you up to date on some of HCPL's latest foreign films on DVD. The selections in this newsletter are just a sample of the rich variety of films available to you through your library. Use the sign-up box above to have this newsletter sent directly to your e-mail every month, with new, recommended movies for you to view. See Foreign Films Archive.
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Ballad of Narayama, directed by Shohei Imamura
(in Japanese, with English subtitle)
Orin is one of the village's matriarchs, but she is now about to die. No, she is not ill. She happens to be almost 70, the age at which the elderly are taken to a mountain top and left to die. It is the way of the village, the way things are done. Orin will go to her fate, but first she has some scores to settle.
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Band of Outsiders, directed by Jean Luc-Godard
(in French, with English subtitles)
While American film companies were producing Kiss Me, Stupid and 2000 Maniacs, Jean-Luc Godard was creating Band of Outsiders, the New Wave film of three young ne’er-do-wells, who attempt a burglary. The black-and-white cinematography, incongruous background sounds, and occasional digressions with characters reading aloud news items from tabloids of murder and mayhem all point to bold experimentation in film making. American viewers may be particularly struck with the coolly intellectual bent of this film, as when the three protagonists engage in a complicated line dance while making existential musings.
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Band's Visit, directed by Eran Kolirin
(in Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles)
A ceremonial band of police officers is on its way to a music engagement in Israel, when the members find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere. With a night to kill before the next bus out of town, they meet the local Israeli residents and find that maybe, with just a little effort, they can all just get along after all.
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Caramel, directed by Nadine Labaki
(in Arabic, with English subtitles)
A salon in contemporary Beirut offers a setting where women may mingle, despite their class differences, and share their concerns and fears, joys and sorrows, while having their hair done. Multiple plots weave through the film, connecting and interconnecting, while the customers of Si Belle beauty shop find some advice, comfort, and respite in each other's company.
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The Counterfeiters, directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky
(in German, with English subtitles)
Winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar of the 2008 Academy Awards, this film explores the conflict two men face, who are part of a larger Nazi plot to produce enourmous sums of counterfeit funds. While Salomon Sorowitsch uses the scheme to save his own life in a concentration camp, Adolf Burger, another camp prisoner, wants to sabotage it before the Nazis can benefit from it. Sorowitsch must consider his own moral dilemma - that of saving himself or furthering the Nazi cause.
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Future of Emily, directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms
(in German, with English subtitles)
An actress but also a mother, Isabelle visits her parents, who are caring for her daughter. Family tensions rise to the surface and threaten to shake the foundations of their relationship, with her parents objecting to her lifestyle and Isabelle determined to maintain it.
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The Man who Copied, directed by Jorge Furtado
(in Portuguese, with English subtitles)
André works as a photcopier, a job that offers little in the way of wages or intellectual stimulation, and so when he falls in love with his neighbor Silvia, he thinks maybe his best way to bring himself to her attention is through making counterfeit money that he can use to shop in the higher-end store where she works.
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Masculin Féminin, directed by Jean-Luc Godard
(in French, with English subtitles)
Godard called the young adults of the 1960's the "children of Marx and Coca-Cola"; we think of them as members of the youth culture. In what has been called Godard's most humane film, Paul is young, idealistic, and a hopeless romantic, who is in love with the indifferent pop singer Madeleine. Radical politics and bold film making techniques make this a Godard classic.
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My Brother Is an Only Child, directed by Daniele Luchetti
(in Italian, with English subtitles)
Written by the same writers of The Best of Youth, this film also focuses on two brothers, but with a mix of humor and tragedy set during the turbulent 1960s. Manrico is very much a man of the people. He works in a factory, organizes the employees, stages protests and strikes, and generally supports the masses. Accio, his younger brother, strikes out in another direction, leaning heavily towards the lingering fascism of the day and its followers. Not until Accio witnesses the brutality of the Black Shirt wannabees does he realize that maybe there is a less hostile middle ground where if not justice then at least some peace may be found.
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Strangers, directed by Aanand L. Rai
(in Hindi, with English subtitles)
Similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, in this film, two Indians traveling in England meet on a train and tell each other secrets about their lives they should not be sharing. One takes the secrets to heart, with suspenseful consequences. |
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