Anyone watch foreign films?

[Az]

I mean recently made ones.

We watch a lot. I have noticed that of those that take a political view of things they seem to be coming down against the US heavily lately.

What got me thinking about this was a movie called Battle Royale II. Its a Japanese film. Full of violence and such. Definately something you have to be acclimated to.

But in this film they read off a long list of nations. The thing they all have in common are they have all been attacked, bombed, or been invaded by the US.

The US is cast as the McGuffin in this movie. For those that are unfamiliar with the term its one coined by Hitchcock and means the thing that drives the plot. You don't actually have to know what the McGuffin is. It just has to be the thing that drives the rest of the plot forward.

The US's threat to bomb anyone that is percieved as harboring terrorists is the McGuffin of this film. In the name of appeasing us horrendous actions are forced on some.

It is clear from this and other movies that others are not seeing the US as the good neighbor. Does anyone else have anything of this sort that they have experienced or seen in the movies or arts?

[Richardo]

1. The latest one I saw was 'The Triplets of Belleville'

Great flick. :thumbsup:

[Stop_the_War]

2. I watch foreign films too n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Huge foreign film fan

I wish I were in Portland right now for their International Film Festival, which is always wonderful.

However, I can still look forward to the Twin Cities Int'l Film Festival in April. :-)

My most recent foreign film was The Lizard, from Iran. It was the highest grossing film in that country until the government banned it for its satirical attitude toward the Islamic establishment. (It's about a prison lifer who escapes in the guise of a mullah and ends up in a village that is expecting a new mullah.)

Banned or not, it seemed less uptight than earlier Iranian films I've seen. For example, in previous films, the women were always completely clad in black with no hair showing. In this one, they wore colorful clothes and had their scarves pulled back so that the front of their hair showed.