A Few Foreign Films

This is by no means a comprehensive series of foreign films worth seeing (I myself still need to see Amelie, which has been on my to-do list since my sophomore year of college), but after seeing Lust, Caution last week, I decided that it's time to at least bring up a few of my favorites.

I will do overviews of at least four films, each of a different language. Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish), The Lives of Others (German), Persepolis (French), and Lust, Caution (Chinese). I may add in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (Japanese), but I am still deciding whether or not to do so, since (1) I already did a series on Cowboy Bebop (though in retrospect, it wasn't my best, and I didn't really touch on the film) and (2) I have never actually watched the film in Japanese. Of the little anime that I've seen, Bebop is the only one with a truly spectacular English dub.

These are all films that are incredibly good, but I have a reason for writing about them aside from my enjoyment of them. Foreign films aren't mainstream in America, and while it is not exactly rare to meet someone else who has seen these films (especially Pan's Labyrinth, which is probably one of the most talked-about foreign films to come along in a while), there are people who refuse to watch movies with subtitles. I hope that this series will change their minds.

Up next: El Laberinto del Fauno...