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Foreign Films New to View - March
March 2010 Vol. 4, No. 3
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.
Coco Before Chanel
directed by Anne Fontaine
(In French, with English subtitles)
Years after being abandoned by her father, Gabrielle Chanel finds a job in a tailor shop where she meets and soon begins an affair with French millionaire Etienne Balsan. Through Baron Balsan, she is introduced into French society and given the opportunity to design her own style of hats. Though her career takes off, her personal life becomes more complicated when she falls in love with Balsan's former best friend, Arthur Capel.
Lorna's Silence
directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
(In French, with English subtitles)
Lorna is a young Albanian woman, who dreams of opening up her own shop with her boyfriend. Without money, however, she finds herself entwined in a vicious plan devised by a mobster. Her current marriage to the drug addict Claudy gives her marginally legal status, with possible Belgian citizenship. Matters begin to turn murky, however, when her organized-crime sponsors now expect her to hurry along Claudy's death through a drug overdose in order that she may in turn marry a Russian Mafioso, also looking for Belgian identity papers. What happens, though, when the drug addict decides to clean himself up, calling on Lorna to help him achieve his goal? Lorna's conscience clicks into gear, and matters do not seem so cut and dried, nor easily defined.
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
directed by Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai
(In Thai, with English subtitles; also English dubbing available)
Outside of the action-packed format of the film and the actor playing the main character, this film has little to do with Ong Bak. While Ong Bak had a contemporary setting, Ong Bak 2 is more of an epic from a distant, even mythical, past. A young boy born into nobility has his accustomed life stripped from him after the murder of his family. Taken into a band of outlaws, he grows up, training with them in the martial arts. He must learn to fight in order to exact his revenge against evil slave traders as well as the man responsible for his parents' death.
Rashevski's Tango
directed by Sam Garbarski
(In French and Hebrew, with English subtitles)
What does it mean to be Jewish? Three generations of the Rashevski family grapple with the question, after the death of Rose, the secular matriarch who believed that the tango would make all troubles disappear. The characters confront issues of relationships, family, religion, love, romance, and interfaith marriage, all the while trying to define just what a mensch is.
Revanche
directed by Gotz Spielmann
(In German, with English subtitles)
A ex-con falls in loves with a prostitute after becoming an assistant in a brothel, where the two of them make plans to escape and start a new life together. When events go horribly wrong, Alex, the petty, small-time grifter, must hide out in the country while the heat cools off a bit. There he waits for his lover, trying to stay occupied and out of trouble
The Song of Sparrows
directed by Majid Majidi
(In Farsi, with English subtitles)
From the director of Baran, Children of Heaven , and The Willow Tree, this film takes viewers through a series of episodic misadventures that involve Karim, the film's protagonist, a poor farmer, who is led away from his spiritual roots into a kind of hell. The image of the city as center and source of evil is an old one, and Karim's journey to Tehran to get his daughter's hearing aid repaired presents an image no different. Once there, Karim begins to carry castoffs, pieces of Tehran, back to his rural village, as if he were trying to bring the very city to his doorstep. Perhaps only the intervention of God...or an accident...will awaken Karim to his spiritual loss and folly.
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.
Coco Before Chanel
directed by Anne Fontaine
(In French, with English subtitles)
Years after being abandoned by her father, Gabrielle Chanel finds a job in a tailor shop where she meets and soon begins an affair with French millionaire Etienne Balsan. Through Baron Balsan, she is introduced into French society and given the opportunity to design her own style of hats. Though her career takes off, her personal life becomes more complicated when she falls in love with Balsan's former best friend, Arthur Capel.
Lorna's Silence
directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
(In French, with English subtitles)
Lorna is a young Albanian woman, who dreams of opening up her own shop with her boyfriend. Without money, however, she finds herself entwined in a vicious plan devised by a mobster. Her current marriage to the drug addict Claudy gives her marginally legal status, with possible Belgian citizenship. Matters begin to turn murky, however, when her organized-crime sponsors now expect her to hurry along Claudy's death through a drug overdose in order that she may in turn marry a Russian Mafioso, also looking for Belgian identity papers. What happens, though, when the drug addict decides to clean himself up, calling on Lorna to help him achieve his goal? Lorna's conscience clicks into gear, and matters do not seem so cut and dried, nor easily defined.
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
directed by Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai
(In Thai, with English subtitles; also English dubbing available)
Outside of the action-packed format of the film and the actor playing the main character, this film has little to do with Ong Bak. While Ong Bak had a contemporary setting, Ong Bak 2 is more of an epic from a distant, even mythical, past. A young boy born into nobility has his accustomed life stripped from him after the murder of his family. Taken into a band of outlaws, he grows up, training with them in the martial arts. He must learn to fight in order to exact his revenge against evil slave traders as well as the man responsible for his parents' death.
Rashevski's Tango
directed by Sam Garbarski
(In French and Hebrew, with English subtitles)
What does it mean to be Jewish? Three generations of the Rashevski family grapple with the question, after the death of Rose, the secular matriarch who believed that the tango would make all troubles disappear. The characters confront issues of relationships, family, religion, love, romance, and interfaith marriage, all the while trying to define just what a mensch is.
Revanche
directed by Gotz Spielmann
(In German, with English subtitles)
A ex-con falls in loves with a prostitute after becoming an assistant in a brothel, where the two of them make plans to escape and start a new life together. When events go horribly wrong, Alex, the petty, small-time grifter, must hide out in the country while the heat cools off a bit. There he waits for his lover, trying to stay occupied and out of trouble
The Song of Sparrows
directed by Majid Majidi
(In Farsi, with English subtitles)
From the director of Baran, Children of Heaven , and The Willow Tree, this film takes viewers through a series of episodic misadventures that involve Karim, the film's protagonist, a poor farmer, who is led away from his spiritual roots into a kind of hell. The image of the city as center and source of evil is an old one, and Karim's journey to Tehran to get his daughter's hearing aid repaired presents an image no different. Once there, Karim begins to carry castoffs, pieces of Tehran, back to his rural village, as if he were trying to bring the very city to his doorstep. Perhaps only the intervention of God...or an accident...will awaken Karim to his spiritual loss and folly.
Labels: foreign films
posted by Tom Fuji on 3/03/2010
