Americans don’t think about foreign films very much. Or perhaps they don’t think very much of foreign films. Yes, we give an Academy Award for best foreign language film, and you can pay $8.50 to see a few at the Lagoon. But in general going to the movies and spending a couple hours reading subtitles ranks up there with throwing a party and inviting friends to work on your math homework with you. But after you’ve seen a lot of movies, and we have, watching only movies made in Hollywood is like getting a box of assorted chocolates – coconut cream, butter rum, maple cream, peanut cluster, dark chocolate truffle, strawberry cream – and only eating the caramels. (And our momma always said: life was like a box of chocolates…).
Most of the negative perception about foreign films is pure horse-pucky and unsubstantiated prejudice. Are foreign films too long? What’s too long? Forrest Gump is 142 minutes. Spider-man 3 is 139 minutes. Troy is 163 ... oh, wait … 201 minutes in the director’s cut. And really, length is a matter of perception. Bad movies seem slow; great movies seem brief. One supposes that if you have to work at a film, like maybe reading subtitles, it might seem longer, but foreign language films compensate in a number of ways.
One important one is narrative variety. We love film because we love stories. The movie theater is just a modern version of the campfire we sat around after the hunt thousands of years ago. One of the frustrating things about Hollywood is how frequently it seems to repackage the same story over and over. A French or Chinese or Spanish or Korean – wow, seen a Korean film lately?! – is going to tell a somewhat different story, with different textures, different pacing, different approaches to narrative.
Would an American film-maker have ended Pan’s Labyrinth, the way Guillermo Del Toro did? (Well, maybe Martin Scorsese.)
Would an American film-maker have rounded off The Lives of Others with multiple dénouments, giving the audience a deeper sense of perspective the way von Donnersmarck did? Nah. Roll the credits.
Would an American film-maker have lingered on the dead face of a usurping emperor, allowing you to realize fully the consequences of his death, the way Feng Xiaogang did in The Banquet. Probably not. Heck, even Zeffirelli didn’t linger long on Mel Gibson’s dead mug in Hamlet. Bring in Fortinbras, and let’s get this thing over with! This is not to say that foreign films are slow (and most of those that are make you love their pace). Most are not. Tonight we’re showing Francis Veber’s La Chevre, a light comedy about two bumbling detectives on a missing persons case, which clocks in at a brisk 91 minutes.
Finally, one of the biggest jokes about the reticence to see foreign film is the hypocrisy. Right now some of the most interesting film-makers in the US making Hollywood films are foreign born: the aforementioned Del Toro (Hellboy), Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Alfonso Cuaron (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Richard Rodriguez (Sin City), Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted), John Woo (Face/Off), etc. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Hollywood frequently turns to foreign talent in order to “bring a fresh eye to shop-worn formula pictures.” So, we ask, why wait for that talent to come here. Why not see it in the original, not only for its “fresh eye” but for its approach to non-shop-worn narratives.
Francis Veber is just such a talent. He’s been writing top-drawer French comedies since 1972 (many of which, including La Cage Aux Folles, have been made in to American films) and directing them since 1976, including The Dinner Game, The Closet and, recently, The Valet. So sit back, and read, and enjoy. Think of it as a rare raspberry cream in a box of otherwise dull caramels.
R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser
No comments:
Post a Comment