Opinion Battles Round 24
Favourite European Subtitles Film
World cinema is often over looked at the cinema so today we are going to look at our favorite European Subtitled film.
If you want to take part in the next round we will be picking our favorite Star Wars character and you will need to send your choice to [email protected] by 11th December 2016
Darren – Movie Reviews 101
The Hunt
The Hunt follows a mild mannered teacher who gets falsely accused of exposing himself to one of his young students where we see the whole town turn on him as he tries to prove his innocence to the accusation. Mads Mikkelen is amazing in the leading role in a film which gives us the audience a chance to look at how we could act if it was our own child.
Cinema Paradiso
My favorite movie with European subtitles is the 1988 Italian film Cinema Paradiso. I love a lot of foreign movies but, as a film lover, Cinema Paradiso means a lot to me as it’s a celebration of the love of film. I highly recommend it to all fellow movie bloggers who haven’t seen it. It has one of my all-time favorite endings, it has characters who love movies as much as I do, and it clearly inspired the name of my blog. Cinema Paradiso is a beautiful film that deserves as much recognition as possible.🙂
Emma – Emma Explains It All
Pan’s Labyrinth
I’d go as far to say that Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my favorite films anyway. One of those ones that you love from the first time you watch it.
I’m not usually a huge fan of the ‘fantasy’ genre as such, but Pan’s Labyrinth is such a rich, interesting film. The blend of dark, twisted fairy tale mixed with the real life violence of the Spanish Civil War is clever I think – and makes the film far more memorable than if it had just been based on one or the other. There’s some great characters too and though he plays a small part, the Doctor is one of my favourites.
But the fantasy part is great too. Just thinking about it makes me wants to watch it now! The faun, the toad, the squirming root baby and of course the terrible child eater who helps create one of the film’s tensest and scariest scenes.
It also has a beautiful score. Fantastic movie all round.
Tom – Plain Simple Tom Reviews
The 400 Blows
Surely a staple for film students everywhere, Truffaut’s semi-autobiographical classic features a great performance from the young Jean Pierre Laud and is a perfect selection from the French New Wave.
Well written, great direction and shot in glorious black and white, it is a classic of European cinema.
Gavin – mini media reviews
Let the Right One In
In a classic Scandinavian style, this film has a minimalist style. Atmospheric scenes of snow and isolation appear throughout as we follow the story of lonely Oskar as he is picked on and bullied by his classmates. But then he finds a friend in Eli, a vampire who looks his own age. This is a dark but wonderfully emotive film, a great take on the vampire genre.
S.G. Liput – Rhyme and Reason
Life IS Beautiful
While I’m trying to see more foreign films, only one so far has been able to crack my personal Top 100 Movies with its brilliant combination of slapstick comedy and bittersweet tragedy. The Italian Life Is Beautiful could easily have gone off the rails into tasteless territory as it tries to inject humor into the Holocaust, but actor/director Roberto Benigni knew when to make the audience laugh and when to make them cry. As a silly Jewish book store owner forced to shield his young son from the horrors of a concentration camp, Benigni earned a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar. Few films match the range of emotions of Life Is Beautiful
J – Film & Nuance
Force Majeure
Force Majeure is unlike most other films anyone has ever seen. A family goes on a skiing trip and settles in a ski resort in the alps of Sweden. Director Ruben Ostlund allows dramatic tension to develop from the most mundane and simplest of things. The gears of conflict are set in motion when the father immediately darts away upon witnessing an oncoming avalanche,leaving his kids and wife in the lurch. What happens in the aftermath is a slow uncomfortable exploration of expectation, gender roles, hypocrisy, guilt, and human nature. The great thing about force majeure is its ability to take close hard looks at normal human interaction, and break down the flaws that make us human. In the end, this stylishly understated film confronts us with the way we treat others who have made mistakes, our hypocrite nature, survival instincts and the inherent failures of man. Perhaps the most important point in the movie is…can we accept that? A beautiful landscape of wintery landscapes is accompanied by a realistic examination of relationships and the human condition.
Take Our Poll
