Foreign Films My Dad Might Like

Original Title: Foreign Movies You Might Like
Original Date Sent: May 3rd, 2011
Sent to: Dear Old Dad
Context: I turned my parents on to Netflix because my dad likes to watch movies. Whenever I go home to visit, I'm amazed that they are not taking any advantage of it whatsoever beyond watching hundred of SVU episodes a week. So I wrote this email. To my knowledge, my dad has only watched one of these movies in the time since then.

I am sick of seeing you have four movies on your Netflix list. You don't have to watch any of these, but you'd be missing out. So here are some movies in other languages that you may find tolerable.

Yojimbo (1961) Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Closest Parallel: Fistful of Dollars
A crusty, mean guy wanders into town and plays two rival gangs against each other. The dusty streets and rickety buildings inspired many of the Westerns that came after it. This also pioneered the idea of the snivelling little bad guy with superior firepower. One scene is directly copied in The Warriors.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Sanjuro, which is the sequel. Not quite as good, but has an incredible (and shocking) ending.

Seven Samurai (1954) Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Closest Parallel: Dirty Dozen
This was remade as The Magnificent Seven, but structurally and characterwise it's much closer to the Dirty Dozen. A poor town hires a wandering samurai to help protect their town from bandits. He in turn puts together a team. They train the villagers and put up defenses while awaiting the attack. Usually cited as being the first true action movie and one of the most influential movies ever. You still see most of these character types in any movie where a group is being put together for any kind of goal or quest.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Throne of Blood, another Kurosawa epic with a bloody ending.

Ran (1985) Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Closest Parallel: Lord of the Rings
I guess I just can't think of a real parallel for this. Every shot of the movie looks like something out of a painting. Just absolutely perfect. A feudal lord has decided to retire and divide his land amongst his three sons. Only the sons don't get along and things quickly devolve into a three-way Civil War. There's a chance that it's too slow paced for you, but the battle scenes (with the bright colors of each army) are like nothing you've ever seen before.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Kagemusha, which was made by Kurosawa a few years before as a dress rehearsal for Ran.

Black Book (2006) Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Closest Parallel: Basic Instinct
You know the name Paul Verhoeven from Robocop and Total Recall. Before he started making awesome action movies, he was making psychological thrillers in the Netherlands. After spending two decades in Hollywood, he returned home to make this movie about a woman who joins the Dutch Resistance movement and falls in love with a Nazi. I picked it primarily because it has tons of nudity that you can hoot and holler over.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: The Fourth Man, also full of nudity and quite violent. Made before Verhoeven came to America.

I Saw the Devil (2010) Dir. Kim Ji-woon
Closest Parallel: Silence of the Lambs
Graphically violent but also very funny. A Korean Secret Service agent's wife is tortured and killed by a serial killer. The agent then vows to make the killer's life a living hell. Along the way, both of them happen upon other colorful serial killers roaming around Korea. One of the death scenes will surely be stolen by a mainstream director within the next couple years.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Oldboy, a Korean movie in the similar vein (I'm not a fan, but most people tend to like it).

The Great Silence (1968) Dir. Sergio Corbucci
Closest Parallel: Jeremiah Johnson
This one is kind of a cheat. It's like Jeremiah Johnson in that it takes place during the winter, has long periods without dialogue, and has a bleak worldview. Also, it's a Spaghetti Western, so it's dubbed into English. However, the cast is made of of European actors so I doubt you'd have seen this otherwise.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Django, also a violent Spaghetti Western starring Europeans that has a cult following.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) Dir. Werner Herzog
Closest Parallel: Apocalypse Now
A German movie about a group of Conquistadors branching off on their own private mission to find the golden city of El Dorado. It devolves into a surreal, brutal journey down the Amazon River filled with natural disasters, Indian attacks, and betrayals among the Spanish. Contains what is probably the most intense acting performance of all time (the apocryphal story is that the director forced him to act at gunpoint; he actually just threatened to kill him while holding a gun one time). Shot on the Amazon and all the hardships that come with it. The opening shot alone is some of the most incredible stuff caught on film.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Cobra Verde, same director and same star only this time it's about a slave trader who ends up being stranded in Africa.

Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) Dir. Werner Herzog
Closest Parallel: Eraserhead
Like every David Lynch nightmare come true. The cast is made up entirely of midgets. The loose story is that the inmates of a mental asylum have taken over and laid siege on the office of the warden. Meanwhile, they devolve into chaos, much of it involving animal cruelty and mocking the crippled. One of the most disturbing movies you'll ever see. I will almost guarantee that you will have nightmares after seeing this.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Salo: a 100 of Sodom, which is an Italian movie about a bunch of fascist bureaucrats who kidnap a group of kids, rape them, and force them to eat their own shit. Fun for the whole family!

Sword of Doom (1966) Dir. Kakachi Okamoto
Closest Parallel: Hondo
Hondo is the most senselessly violent John Wayne movie (and maybe pre-Wild Bunch Western, for that matter) and this is the most senselessly violent of the Japanese Samurai movies. Wall to wall action. Literally. It ends mid-sword swing. Also features a battle between the two icons of the genre (which is more extended than the other times they clashed in Yojimbo and Sanjuro).
If You Like This You Might Also Like: District B13, a ridiculous French action movie based around the concept of parkour (free-walking) in a futuristic Paris slum.

The Battle of Algiers (1966) Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
Closest Parallel: The Hurt Locker
This movie is regularly screened in the Pentagon as a counter-insurgency guide. Tells the story of the French war with Algeria from both sides. Touches on things we still deal with in wars today such as the ethics of torture, the cost of civilian casualties, and the role of Western powers in developing Muslim nations. It also works as a kickass war movie. Another movie with sequences that have been copied over and over again.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Army of Shadows, a much slower movie about French Resistance fighters during WW2. Certainly touches on the same issues and also serves as a companion piece since many of the French officers in Algiers had been members of the earlier resistance movement against the Nazis and had used similar tactics.

The Wages of Fear (1953) Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Closest Parallel: North By Northwest
Hitchcock wishes he was Clouzot. Really, he does. They often competed over scripts and Hitchcock spent much of his time in the 50's trying to outdo his French rival. The story is simple. A group of down-and-out European emigres in South America is hired to drive two trucks full of nitroglycerin to an oil well that has caught on fire. Along the way, they must prevent the trucks from rocking too much on the winding mountain roads for fear of them exploding. Whoever survives gets a cash prize. And that's the whole movie: try not to get blown up.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Diabolique, which Hitchcock desperately tried to get the rights to. This movie did for bathtubs in Europe what Psycho did for showers here.

M (1933) Dir. Fritz Lang
Closest Parallel: Citizen Kane
Not thematically the same as Citizen Kane, but in the sense of it being an aspect of cinema mastered for the first time. Sound had just been introduced, and this was the first film to really use it (especially music cues) effectively. Peter Lorre plays a child molester stalking the streets. When his criminal activity forces a police crackdown, the city's crime syndicate hunts him down. This is thought of by some as the best movie ever made outside the English language.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Lang's last German movie, which depicts a fascist police force committing assassinations. Not exactly a proper topic in Germany at that time.

Virgin Spring (1960) Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Closest Parallel: Last House on the Left
Bergman is one of the world's most important directors, but I felt like you wouldn't be able to sit through most of his stuff. Then I remembered that Wes Craven had remade one of his movies and didn't really have to change much. Just fast forward a couple hundred years and add just a tad more blood.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: The Seventh Seal, Bergman's most iconic movie. This is best known for the Crusader having a chess game with death.

Battleship Potemkin (1925) Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Closest Parallel: The Untouchables
You may wonder why a silent Soviet propaganda film has anything to do with The Untouchables. Well, not much. Except for the fact that most of the action scenes in the latter movie are lifted from the infamous Odessa Steps sequence. DePalma, though, has never been shy about borrowing from other movies. Also, this was supposedly Charlie Chaplin's favorite movie.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Ivan the Terrible, a two-parter about the rise to power and subsequent infamy of the Russian tsar.

City of God (2002) Dir. Fernando Meirelles
Closest Parallel: Goodfellas
Movies at their most exciting. This was one of those movies that really rocked the boat when it came out (along the lines of Pan's Labyrinth). The director has gone on to do mainstream movies and will surely continue to do so. The story is about the violent drug wars waged mostly by teenagers in the streets of Brazil. Equally fun and disturbing and easily one of the best movies of the last decade.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Amores Peros, which has three storylines of which only one I really liked. But it's about dog-fighting and that aspect is really well-done.

Un Prophete (2009) Dir. Jacques Audiard
Closest Parallel: The Godfather Part II
A meek French-Algerian kid is sent to prison where a Corsican mob boss unwittingly molds him into a criminal mastermind. Tense from beginning to end with several brutally violent interludes. This was compared to the DeNiro scenes of Godfather II when it came out and it fits both in the structural arc and in the powerful & multi-lingual performance by the lead actor.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong movie that The Departed was based on. Has a similar energy and theme of young men growing into their roles while living a lie.

Come and See (1985) Dir. Elem Klimov
Closest Parallel: Saving Private Ryan
I could have also said Schindler's List or any other time Spielberg has tried to be a serious filmmaker in the past twenty years. Basically, a young kid in Belarus joins the resistance movement against the Nazi invasion. And then he experiences the war. And it is so terrifying and brutal in a way that no other movie has ever been able to touch.
If You Like This You Might Also Like: No Man's Land, which is not the same as the Charlie Sheen Porsche-stealing movie. It's about two Eastern Europeans on the opposite sides of the Serbian War caught in a foxhole together.

That's all I can think of for now. Enjoy!

Mike