Movies of a more arthouse/Black skivvy wanker type of genre

I’ve seen a few more than I expected but still not many. City of Lost children should have gotten a run. ■■■■■■■ awesome film

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I’d have Jean de Florette there.

I notice they skipped Last Year at Marienbad.

Thanks Wim, but it’s not the one, the one I liked is Iranian and was made in the 90’s.

Thanks for mentioning Babbette’s Feast, it was a good movie.

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I watch too many films I think. I have seen 37 of them.

Cinema Paradisio should be 1 for mine.

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Can’t believe Incendies (2010), Head-On (2004) or Departures (2008) weren’t somewhere in there.

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There’s something in Italian movies that goes past me. The Bicycle Thieves is one of the few that have scored abullseye.

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Not surprised to see Kurosawa well represented.

Life is Beautiful - a glaring omission. Akira (anime) & A Touch of Zen worthy of top 100 status.

Edit: Departures (which I recently watched & mentioned a few weeks ago).

l have on DVD or have seen just over 40 of these. I agree with Seven Samurai for #1.

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I’ve seen about 34 over the years. There are a few I think I saw but I can’t be sure. I’d definitely put in Babette’s Feast and quite a few others, starting with Un coeur en hiver (A Heart in Winter) and Round Midnight.

I was surprised it wasn’t on the list. Maybe like me they did not like it.

I would place ‘Life is Beautiful’ in the top 10 on that list. I’m not embarrassed to admit that it was the first movie that left me in a sobbing mess. What didn’t you like about it, @miss_ellie?

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I thought they story was a nice one, but it was silly and I didn’t find it believable even as a fantasy (does that make sense).

I will say though that unfortunately I wasn’t able to watch it with the Italian dialogue (the one I watched was dubbed) may have made a difference.

Like AN says some Italian movies just go past you.

Cheers for your reply.

I actually came to the movie quite late - when my son was still a baby. As such, the movie prolly resonated with me from the perspective of a father’s desire to protect his son from the evils of war - regardless of how fanciful (or ingenious) his method. I won’t go into all the other aspects I enjoyed about it. Art is cool like that - very much a matter of personal taste. Thx again.

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It’s sentimental as ■■■■. I don’t mind the tragic clown trope or even having my heart strings plucked, just not shredded with a metal plectrum.

How did the 3 Colours trilogy fare, that was a fair success in the international market?

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I thought LiB was just tosh! Grotesquely overrated and given credibility because it was yet another holocaust movie.

I thought LiB was actually two films.
And I’d have loved it even without the second part.

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If by ‘Head On’ you mean the German-Turkish ‘Gegen die Wand’ - then I wholeheartedly agree. Amazing film - and suprisingly so, I did not expect it to have such an emotional impact on me.

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Yep - that’s the one.
Intense.

I was in Melbourne for a few days this week so took the opportunity to get my arthouse on by going to Roma down at the Classic in Elsternwick. It’s a Mexican film, made by Alfonso Cuarón, who had a big part, usually as writer, in Gravity, Y Tu Mama and Children of Men.

This was essentially a season of his life over the new year of 1970-71 in Mexico City as one of three children of a Mexican doctor and his wife, who have two maids, Cleo and Adela. The maids tend to talk in an indigenous dialect, while nearly everyone else speaks Spanish (or on occasion English). Quite a few things happen, and despite the humdrum sort of description, things keep happening and the film is never boring.

It’s filmed entirely in black and white and the cinematography of Mexico City of 50 years ago is well done (unless of course, Mexico City is still like that). I also didn’t realise there were such violent protests happening at the time, although of course there were lots of ructions in the US and Europe around that time. See The Dreamers with Eva Green for the student riots in Paris.

Well worth a look for those who enjoy these sorts of film. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

The block where the family lives is interesting. There’s sort of a drive in section which opens into the house and where the dog is kept. One little side feature are the monstrous barkers’ eggs that always seem to be in the area.They often park there, and it’s a trifle squeezy on either side of the car.

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I liked it too. The thing I liked most was the photography. The camera was mounted throughout on a tripod or a dolly (with the possible exception of one scene) and for the most part stationary, and the shots were very carefully composed so that as you looked at different parts of the screen you saw different things happening. The style of the film was simply to observe, without comment. There was no music apart from people listening to the radio and things like that.

I kept being reminded of 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, a Romanian film from about 10 years ago. It had the same completely neutral, observational style. I think it was better than Roma. For all its good points, Roma seemed to me to be just a bit slick.