New York Film Critics' Circle Awards for Foreign Films (1935-2004) (with links to full reviews)
Feb 15 '05 (Updated Dec 19 '05)
The Bottom Line My 400th Review!
From 1935-2004, the New York Film Critics' Circle (NYFCC) has recognized four foreign films as the Best Film of the year and fifty-five as the Best Foreign Film, for a total of fifty-nine foreign films given the highest of recognition. The distribution by country of origin (counting only the first listed country for co-productions) is twenty-one winners from France, fourteen from Italy, four from China, three each from Sweden and Spain, two each from Japan and Brazil, and one each from the U.K., Canada, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the U.S.S.R., Germany, Denmark, Hong Kong, Iran, and Mexico. France and Italy dominated the NYFCC awards up to 1960, with France taking the first five in a row (1936-40), Italy the first six after the hiatus for World War II (1946-1951), then France again from 1952-3, Italy from 1955-6, and France from 1957-60. The only breakthrough for any other country prior to the sixties was the 1954 award to Japan for Gate of Hell. Even in the sixties, France and Italy took seven out of ten awards. Since the sixties, the competition has been much more diverse, with awards going to a total of seventeen nationalities. I have personally reviewed fifty of the fifty-nine films. Two of the films are not in the Epinions database. I have included links to high quality reviews by some of the other reviewers here at Epinions for five of the films. Two other films are in the database but have no current reviews. You will also find the following additional lists that I've posted useful in identifying foreign films that have been recognized by awards:
Los Angeles Film Critics' Award Winners in the Best Foreign Film Category
National Society of Film Critics' Awards for Non-English Language Films
All Fifty-Six Best Foreign Film Oscar Winners
All Seventy-Seven Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Winners
All Seventy Venice Film Festival Best Film Winners
All One-hundred and Six BAFTA Award-Winning Films
London Critics' Circle Awards for Best Foreign Film
British Films Selected by the London Critics' Circle as Best Film or Best British Film
By the time that the Academy Awards recognized their first foreign film in 1947, the New York film critics had already doled out a half-dozen such awards, in 1936-40, 1942, and 1946. The New York Critics' awards, which originated in 1935, are the oldest significant rival to the Oscars and began as a kind of protest against some dubious selections by the Academy. Nevertheless, the NYFCC awards are often a harbinger of the Oscar winners. The winner of the NYFCC Best Film award has overlapped with the Oscar winner in about 40% of the years in which both were given.
The organization began with the name "New York Film Critics" but added "Circle" to their title in 1973. Originally, the membership of the organization was limited to critics working for the New York daily newspapers and excluded those writing for magazines. That changed when the newspaper strike of 1962 drove many former newspaper critics to take jobs with magazines. When a group of the magazine critics formed a rival "National Society of Film Critics" (NSFC) in 1966, the NYFCC responded to the threat by opening up their membership to the magazine writers. Even now, the membership is limited to critics working in the print media, in contrast to the Los Angeles Film Critics (LAFC) organization that includes radio and television critics as well. The advent of the NSFC also influenced the NYFCC in another way. Up until 1990, the NSFC made no distinction between foreign and American films, picking only one film as "Best Film." From 1966-1974, their choices were far more often foreign than American, but from 1975-1989, that trend sharply reversed. Feeling the pressure of the rival organization's reputation for erudite selections, the NYFCC opted to choose only one "Best Film" from 1969-1977. Both organizations ultimately returned to distinguishing between "Best Film" and "Best Foreign Film," the NYFCC in 1978 and the NSFC in 1990. One of the motivations for returning to the dual system of awards was that their potential influence on the Oscars was diminished in years when they gave only one "Best Film" award. In recent years, the preferences of the NYFCC have generally been less esoteric than those of the NSFC but have also been less responsive to commercial success than the LAFC awards. In the twenty-seven years in which both the NYFCC and the LAFC have picked a "Best Foreign Film," their choices have overlapped only nine times (exactly one-third of the time). In the twenty-four years in which both the NYFCC and the NSFC have given awards to a foreign film, the choices have overlapped eight times (exactly one-third of the time). Certainly these organizations are maintaining some real independence from one another in their selections. In one respect, these organizations can't lose. In years that they pick the ultimate Oscar winner, they can claim to be harbingers and influential; in years they don't, they can claim to have been "courageous in their choices."
The NYFCC gathers for its annual voting procedure, usually at Sardi's restaurant, in mid-December, a few days after the L.A. Critics announce their choices. For the first ballot, each member lists one choice in each category and any film receiving a majority of votes in a category is declared a winner. For the categories in which no film records a majority vote, a second ballet ensues in which each critic list their top three choices, with three points awarded for each first place selection down to one point for third choices.
All Fifty-Nine Foreign Films Honored by the New York Film Critics' Circle as either Best Film or Best Foreign Film:
1935: No Foreign Film Category
1936 Best Foreign Film Carnival in Flanders Country: France Director Jacques Feyder My Rating: * * *
Françoise Rosay is the Mayor's wife in the village of Boom in Flanders. When the town learns that a Spanish Duke d'Olivarès (Jean Murat) will be passing through town with his troops, the town's four-man army contingent immediately deserts and the Mayor (André Alerme) feigns death. It's up to the feisty women of the town to tame the invaders with their womanly charms.
1937 Best Foreign Film Mayerling Country: France Director Anatole Litvak My Rating: * * * *
Charles Boyer stars as Archduke Rudolph of Austria alongside Danielle Damieux as Marie Vatsera. Their ill-starred romance culminates in a suicide pact or murder/suicide (it was never determined which for certain) that shook the world. The soundtrack is the work of the great Arthur Honegger.
1938 Best Foreign Film Grand Illusion Country: France Director Jean Renoir My Rating: * * * * *
Widely considered among the great films in cinematic history, Grand Illusion stars Jean Gabin as Marechal, a French pilot shot down over Germany in World War I. Erich von Stronheim gives a classic performance as the German commandant who is convinced that escape from his POW camp is impossible. As always, Renoir's images are painterly in composition.
1939 Best Foreign Film Harvest Country: France Director Marcel Pagnol My Rating: * * * * *
Harvest is a simple but beautiful story, adapted from a novel by Jean Giono, about a man who wants to bring a dying village back to life. At a time when all of the young people of Aubignane are abandoning the rural farms for the lure of city life, Panturle dreams of marrying and starting a family farm. When Arsule comes to the village as the beautiful young assistant to a knife grinder, Parturle and Arsule seize the opportunity to enter into their own Garden of Eden.
1940 Best Foreign Film The Baker's Wife Country: France Director Marcel Pagnol My Rating: * * *
Raimu plays Aimable, the new baker in a French village, whose pride in his bread is only equaled by his devotion to his lovely wife, Aurelie (Ginette Leclerc). Unfortunately, Dominique (Charles Moulin), a handsome shepherd, prefers Aurelie to the baker's confections.
1941-5: No Foreign Film Category
1942 Best Film In Which We Serve Country: U.K. Director Noël Coward & David Lean (See j deverchai's Review.) j deverchai's Rating: * *
Noël Coward served not only as co-director for this war film, but also wrote it, composed the music, and performed brilliantly in the lead role of Capt. Kinross, the fatherly commander of the British destroyer Torrin. The Torrin is torpedoed, towed back to England, refitted, and is finally sunk while participating in Dunkirk.
1946 Best Foreign Film Open City Country: Italy Director Roberto Rossellini My Rating: * * * *
Anna Magnani as Pina and Aldo Fabrizi as Don Pietro Pellegrini were the only two professional performers in this landmark film about the resistance operating in Rome near the end of World War II. Open City helped bring Italian Neo-realism to worldwide attention.
1947 Best Foreign Film To Live in Peace Country: Italy Director Luigi Zampa (This film is not in the Epinions database.) Rating: Unknown
This tragicomedy is set on an Italian farm during the German occupation. The farm's owner, Tigna (Aldo Fabrizi), gets along with everyone in the village, including his own family members, the parish priest, and even the local Nazi official and fascist mayor, from whom he hides his true beliefs. Two boys of Tigna's family discover two American soldiers hiding in the woods, roasting a piglet, and the family assumes responsibility for hiding and feeding the G.I.'s. Things come to a head when one of the drunken G.I.'s encounters an equally tipsy German soldier.
1948 Best Foreign Film Paisan Country: Italy Director Roberto Rossellini My Rating: * * * *
This collage of six shorts details the relationship between the Italian people and the Allied liberators from the invasion of Sicily in 1943 to the liberation in 1945. Rossellini used nonprofessional performers and newsreel-like techniques to provide a realistic portrait of a nation during wartime.
1949 Best Foreign Film The Bicycle Thief Country: Italy Director Vittoria De Sica My Rating: * * * *
This beloved example of Neo-realism features Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio Ricci, a man whose bicycle is stolen on his first day at a much-needed new job. Using authentic locations, nonprofessional performers, and a gritty style of photography, The Bicycle Thief captures the essence of Neo-realism as well or better than any other film.
1950 Best Foreign Film Ways of Love Country: Italy Director Roberto Rossellini (This film is in the Epinions database at Ways of Love but there are currently no reviews for it.) Rating: * * * *
Ways of Love was actually a compilation of three short films, one each directed by Renoir, Rossellini, and Pagnol, but since only Rossellini is cited for the award, I imagine that the award was given exclusively to Rossellini's segment, called The Miracle (1948). The other two segments were less contemporary. Renoir's segment, A Day in the Country, was made in 1946, but Pagnol's portion, Jofroi, dated from 1933. The Miracle (originally released as one of two segments of L'Amore) is a vehicle for its female star, Anna Magnani, and also features Federico Fellini in his sole acting credit.
1951 Best Foreign Film Miracle in Milan Country: Italy Director Vittorio De Sica My Rating: * * * *
Francesco Golisano stars as Toto (with Branduani Gianni chipping in as Toto at age eleven), a poor young man fresh out of an orphanage, ready to engage the world with innocent optimism. What he encounters is a city wracked by homelessness and obscene class disparities.
1952 Best Foreign Film Forbidden Games Country: France Director René Clement My Rating: * * * * *
Brigette Fossey delivers one of the greatest child performances of cinema as the six-year-old waif, Paulette, who loses her parents and her dog when Nazi planes strafe a column of refugees fleeing from Paris during World War II. Taken in by a local family of farmers, Paulette develops a touching, if sometimes bizarre, relationship with the family's eleven year-old son, Michel (Georges Poujouly).
1953 Best Foreign Film Justice is Done Country: France Director André Cayette (This film is not in the Epinions database.) Rating: Unknown
A trial in a French courtroom provides the opportunity to philosophize about the pros and cons of euthanasia. The defendant is on trial for the mercy killing of a terminally sick man, but the film is an undisguised attack on the French jury system. Cayette and the film's co-scriptwriter, Charles Spaak, both of whom were lawyers, later wrote another film, We Are All Murderers, attacking capital punishment.
1954 Best Foreign Film Gate of Hell Country: Japan Director Teinosuke Kinugasa My Rating: * * * *
This visually sumptuous film was the first Japanese film to use the Eastmancolor process. As a reward for courageous service, a samurai, Oritoh Endo (Kazuo Hasegawa) is offered whatever he might request, but when he asks for the hand of a lovely lady-in-waiting, Kesa (Machiko Kyo) and refuses to withdraw the request upon learning that she is already married to another samurai , Wataru Watanabe (Isao Yamagata), the stage is set for a classic conflict of honor.
1955 Best Foreign Film Umberto D. Country: Italy Director Vittorio De Sica My Rating: * * * * *
Carlo Battisti is Umberto Domenico Ferrari, a retired civil servant and elderly pensioner, about to be evicted from his room because his miserly pension is insufficient to cover even his room and board. With only a pregnant but single maid, Maria (Maria Pia Casillio) and his dog for friends, Umberto is torn between despair and the abandonment of his dog that his suicide would require.
1956 Best Foreign Film La Strada Country: Italy Director Federico Fellini My Rating: * * * *
Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, has the lead role as the innocent Gelsomina, opposite Anthony Quinn as the oafish Zamparo, the strongman for a traveling circus. This film solidified Fellini's international stature and remains one of his most accessible.
1957 Best Foreign Film Gervaise Country: France Director René Clément My Rating: * * * *
Gervaise is a mostly faithful adaptation of a beloved novel by Emile Zola entitled L'Assommoir. In a working class section of Paris, the titular character (played by Maria Schell) struggles to achieve her dream of owning her own laundry shop, but is dragged down by an unfaithful lover and, later, an alcoholic husband.
1958 Best Foreign Film Mon Oncle Country: France Director Jacques Tati My Rating: * * * *
Tati's third feature film was the second featuring the charming Mr. Hulot (played by Tati) and Tati's patented combination of physical humor and ingenious props. Hulot's sister lives with her husband and son, Gerald, in an angular house fully loaded with all of the latest in noisy mechanical gadgets, but Gerald yearns for the simpler ways of his uncle.
1959 Best Foreign Film The 400 Blows Country: France Director François Truffaut My Rating: * * * *
This was Truffaut debut feature film after an inflammatory career as a critic for Cahiers de Cinéma. It was also the first in a series of films starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Truffaut's alter ego, Antoine Doinel. Other films in the series included Antoine and Colette, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, and Love on the Run.
1960 Best Foreign Film Hiroshima Mon Amour Country: France Director Alain Resnais My Rating: * * * *
Hiroshima Mon Amour was originally intended to be a documentary about the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, but evolved into Resnais' first feature film. The film is an endearing love affair involving a French actress played by Emmanuelle Riva and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada), but the necessity of sometimes forgetting the past provides the undercurrent.
1961 Best Foreign Film La Dolce Vita Country: Italy Director Federico Fellini (See thevoid99's Review.) thevoid99's Rating: * * * * *
Marcello Mastroianni stars as Marcello Rubin, a writer for entertainment tabloids, who observes and gets caught up in the terrible decadence and ennui of the idle jet-setters of the Italy of the late fifties. Increasingly adrift, Marcello succumbs to the lure of hollow glamour.
1962: No Awards Due to Newspaper Strike
1963 Best Foreign Film 8 ½ Country: Italy Director Federico Fellini My Rating: * * * * *
Fellini and Mastroianni paired up again for this landmark film in which Mastroianni plays a Fellini-like film director, Guido Anselmi. Guido is exhausted from overwork but finds himself hounded – by a producer, a screenwriter, a mistress, a wife, and would-be actresses – during his recuperation time at a spa, all the while finding his creative energies blocked.
1964 Best Foreign Film That Man from Rio Country: France/Italy Director Philippe De Broca My Rating: * * * *
Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a French air force pilot on leave, planning to visit is girlfriend, Agnès (Françoise Dorléac). He arrives barely in time to witness Agnès being kidnapped by – if you can believe it – South American Indians, who are searching for a treasure for which Agnès unwittingly holds the clues to its location.
1965 Best Foreign Film Juliet of the Spirits Country: Italy Director Federico Fellini My Rating: * * * *
Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife, is back again, this time as Juliet, a married woman who is chafing under the inattention of her successful and busy husband, Giorgio (Mario Pisu). When Juliet discovers an ability to conjure up spirits, she also begins to suspect that her husband may be busy in another way altogether.
1966 Best Foreign Film Shop on Main Street Country: Czechoslovakia Director Jan Kadar & Elmar Klos My Rating: * * * * *
Ida Kaminska delivered an award-winning performance as Rozalie Lautmann, an elderly Jewish widow and shopkeeper in Czechoslovakia, as the Nazis have moved in. When Rozalie is forced to accede to the oversight of an Aryan comptroller, Tono Brtko (Jozef Kroner), the two develop an unlikely respect for and attachment to one another, but both are doomed by the circumstances of the times.
1967 Best Foreign Film La Guerre est Finie Country: France Director Alain Resnais My Rating: * * * *
Yves Montand stars as Diego, a longtime revolutionary working against the Fascist government of Spain out of a base of operations in Paris. Diego barely eludes capture in Madrid. In Paris, Diego juggles two love affairs and must contend with the indifference of the Parisian leaders of his organization to the plight of his colleagues back in Spain.
1968 Best Foreign Film War and Peace Country: U.S.S.R. Director Sergei Bondarchuk My Rating: * * * * *
Bondarchuk's faithful adaptation of the novel is long and, at times, tedious, but the best scenes of the film (including an epic battle and a ballroom dance) stand out as among the most lavish in film history. Lyudmila Savelyeva is Natasha Rostova and Vyacheslav Tikhonov is Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, but Bondarchuk himself steals the show as Pierre Bezuhov.
1969-1977: No Foreign Film Category
1969 Best Film Z Country: France/Algeria Director Constantin Costa-Gavras My Rating: * * * *
Even competing against the Hollywood entires, Z got the nod for Best Film. Yves Montand stars as the ill-fated Deputy (a stand-in for Gregorios Lambrakis, who was assassinated in real life in 1963) and Jean-Louis Trintignant as The Examining Magistrate, who throws a monkey-wrench into the politics of Greece by overseeing an unexpectedly honest investigation of the assassination.
1972 Best Film Cries and Whispers Country: Sweden Director Ingmar Bergman My Rating: * * * *
Ingmar Bergman had a cast to die for with Ingrid Thulin as Karin, Liv Ullmann as both Maria and her mother, Harriet Andersson as Agnes, Kari Sylwan as Anna,and Erland Josephson as the Doctor. In an intense look at death and grieving, Bergman uses the four lead women to represent the different ways that people respond to the impending death of a loved one.
1973 Best Film Day for Night Country: France Director François Truffaut My Rating: * *
Truffaut plays a director making a film, called "I Want You to Meet Pamela," for which the performers include Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Valentina Cortese, and Jean-Pierre Aumont, each strange in his or her own peculiar way. Though I have little use for this film myself, Day for Night is widely considered one of the best films about the filmmaking process.
1974 Best Film Amarcord Country: Italy Director Federico Fellini My Rating: * * * * *
Fellini set out, with this film, to paint a picture of his remembrances of his childhood through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. The result was an insightful examination of life in rural Italy, from family life to sex, education, and politics. Magali Noel stars as the idolized Gradisca – every adolescent boy's fantasy woman.
1978 Best Foreign Film Bread and Chocolate Country: Italy Director Franco Brusati (See vicfar's Review.) vicfar's Rating: * * * *
In Bread and Chocolate, Brusati examines an extended version of racism – racism based on skin tone rather than genuine racial distinctions. Nino Manfredi stars as Nino Garofalo.
1979 Best Foreign Film The Tree of Wooden Clogs Country: Italy Director Ermanno Olmi My Rating: * * * *
With his background in ethnological documentaries, Olmi was ideally suited to direction of this naturalistic portrayal of the life of rural Italian peasants. By the bonds of community, the poor people on this country manor scrape by while the absentee landowners life a high life of comfort and cultural refinement.
1980 Best Foreign Film Mon Oncle d’Amerique Country: France Director Alain Resnais My Rating: * * * *
Resnais uses this film to explore the behavioral theories of Henri Laborit in relation to the actions of his three protagonists. Gerard Depardieu plays Rene Ragueneau, a man who must contend with an occupational setback. Nicole Garcia is Janine and Roger Pierre plays Jean.
1981 Best Foreign Film Pixote Country: Brazil Director Hector Babenco My Rating: * * * * *
This grim portrayal of the life of street waifs in Sao Paulo, Brazil was fact-based and utilized genuine poverty-ridden children of Brazil. Fernando Ramos da Silva gives a riveting performance and was later shot down, in real life, as an adolescent by Brazilian police.
1982 Best Foreign Film Time Stands Still Country: Hungary Director Péter Gothár (This film is in the Epinions database at Time Stands Still but there are presently no reviews for it.) Rating: Unknown
This Hungarian film stars István Znarmenák as Dini, an adolescent in high school in Budapest in the early sixties. Dini's mother struggles to raise her two sons, Dini and his brother, because their father had to flee Hungary after the uprising of 1956. The boys are anything but pleased when a friend of their father, newly released from prison, moves into the household. This is basically a coming-of-age film, Hungarian style.
1983 Best Foreign Film Fanny and Alexander Country: Sweden Director Ingmar Bergman My Rating: * * * *
Two children, sister Fanny (Permilla Alwin) and brother Alexander (Bertil Guve), must confront a major change in lifestyle when their father (Allan Edwall) suddenly dies and their mother (Ewa Fröling) remarries to a strict and austere clergyman (Jan Malmsjoe). Torn from the warmth of a bawdy extended family, the pair find themselves tormented and abused by a cruel man whom they suspect of having killed his previous wife.
1984 Best Foreign Film A Sunday in the Country Country: France Director Bertrand Tavenier My Rating: * * * * *
With all the look of an impressionist painting, A Sunday in the Country details a day in the life of a family gathered together on a Sunday at the home of the widowed father, Monsieur Ladmiral (Louis Ducreux), where the two grown children spent their childhoods. Though Ladmiral enjoys the company of his son, Edouard (Michel Aumont) and his wife and three children, it is his prodigal daughter, Irene (Sabine Azéma), who lights up his life, with her irrepressible joie de vie.
1985 Best Foreign Film Ran Country: Japanh Director Akira Kurosawa My Rating: * * * * *
Tatsuya Nakadai is Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, who, in his old age, wants to divide up his extensive kingdom among his three sons. While is two elder sons thank him for his generosity, the youngest one insults his father by questioning the wisdom and viability of his decision. When the older sons each later betray their father, the youngest son's understanding proves prescient. Ran features some of the most elaborate and brilliant battle scenes in film history.
1986 Best Foreign Film The Decline of the American Empire Country: Canada Director Denys Arcand My Rating: * * * *
Swapping tales of sexual conquests and escapades is a dangerous business. Four men, Pierre (Pierre Curzi), Remy (Remy Girard), Claude (Yves Jacques), and Alain (Daniel Briere) do so while preparing a gourmet feast. Four women, Dominique (Dominique Michel), Diane (Louise Portal), Louise (Dorothee Berryman), and Danielle (Genevieve Rioux) do the same while working out at a gym, but when the two groups join together for dinner, some of the double-dealing is uncomfortably exposed.
1987 Best Foreign Film My Life as a Dog Country: Sweden Director Lasse Hallstrom (See kmhinman's Review.) kmhinman's Rating: * * *
Anton Glanzelius stars as 12-year-old Ingemar Johansson in this tragicomic depiction of early adolescence. Ingemar identifies with the spacedog Laika that starved to death in a Soviet spacecraft. At home, Ingemar must contend with an abusive brother and a terminally ill mother, but a summer away with relatives in a rural village opens his eyes to another way of life.
1988 Best Foreign Film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Country: Spain Director Pedro Almodóvar My Rating:
Carmen Maura stars as Pepa with an able supporting contribution from Antonio Banderas as Carlos. When Pepa is suddenly abandoned by her longtime lover, Ivan (Fernando Guillen), she tries desperately to track him down, triggering a series of revelations and slapstick situations, including a batch of gazpacho laced with barbiturates.
1989 Best Foreign Film Story of Women Country: France Director Claude Chabrol My Rating: * * * *
Loosely based on the real-life story of Marie-Louise Giraud, one of the last women to be executed in France, Marie (Isabelle Huppert) struggles to support herself and two children during the German occupation and even the return of her war-disabled and poorly motivated husband is of little benefit. Marie accidentally discovers that she can make quick cash by performing abortions and renting out spare rooms to her prostitute friends – until the authorities get wind of her activities.
1990 Best Foreign Film The Nasty Girl Country: Germany Director Michael Verhoeven My Rating: * * * *
Sonja (Lena Stolze), a bright student in the Catholic girls' school in the Bavarian town of Pfilzing, gains the admiration of her entire hometown by winning first place in a national essay contest on the topic of "Freedom in Europe." The next year, when she again enters the contest and chooses the topic "My Hometown During the Third Reich," she is suddenly persona non grata and meets with endless stonewalling and obstructionism. Though she misses the deadline for the essay contest, Sonja's curiosity has been aroused and she won't be easily deterred.
1991 Best Foreign Film Europa Europa Country: France/Germany Director Agnieszka Holland My Rating: * * * *
This is an amazing fact-based story of a Jew who survived both the Soviet occupation of Poland and the subsequent Nazi invasion by his wits and chameleon-like ability to fit in with a variety of people and circumstances. Marco Hofschneider stars as the young Solomon Perel.
1992 Best Foreign Film Raise the Red Lantern Country: China Director Zhang Yimou My Rating: * * * *
Zhang Yimou and Gong Li teamed up to produce a classic film about a Chinese household to which nineteen-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) is added as "fourth wife," giving up her university studies for the life of a concubine. What she encounters is perverse competition among the wives for the favor of the master and the privileges that go with it.
1993 Best Foreign Film Farewell My Concubine Country: China Director Chen Kaige My Rating: * * * *
This adaptation of a novel by Lilian Lee, spans more than fifty years of Chinese history from the vantage point of a trio of characters torn apart by an unusual kind of love triangle. Duan Xialou (Zhang Fengyi) and Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) have been best friends since their days together as abandoned young children in the Peking Opera Academy, but Cheng's homosexual interest in Duan is not reciprocated. Duan is drawn instead to the prostitute Juxian (Gong Li). Betrayals play out in the context of turbulent political changes that include the Communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution.
1994 Best Foreign Film Red (See Three Colors.) Country: France/Poland Director Krzysztof Kiéslowski My Rating: * * * * *
Red provided the conclusion to Kieslowski's great "Three Colors Trilogy," tying the three films together in a dramatic and clever ending. Valentine (Irene Jacob), a young model nursing doubts about her boyfriend, accidentally hits a dog with her car and dutifully returns the injured animal to its owner, a retired judge, Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant). A Platonic relationship between the uncertain Valentine and the lonely and cynical older man becomes a source of inspiration to both parties.
1995 Best Foreign Film Shanghai Triad Country: China Director Zhang Yimou My Rating: * * * *
This beautifully filmed but brutal gangster film pits the gang boss, Tang (Li Baotian), against a rival gangster, a traitor among his associates, and a pampered moll and would-be singer (Gong Li). The action is illuminated from the vantage point of Shuisheng (Wang Xiaoxiao), a boy recently from the country who has become a mobster's apprentice.
1996 Best Foreign Film The White Balloon Country: Iran Director Jafar Panahi My Rating: * * * * *
Aida Mohammadkhani is the endearing seven-year-old who plays Razieh in this sensitive Iranian film about a single-minded little girl who wants nothing more than a plump goldfish with four tails fins before the shops in Iran close for the New Year holidays. With the help of her brother, Ali (Mohsen Kafili), she wheedles her mother's last 500-toman note and then heads off on her own, in violation of her mother's rules, into the adult world on the streets of Tehran. Twice losing her money, the remainder of the film uses the vehicle of Razieh's determined efforts to recover her lost note to explore a child's perspective on the strange ways of adults.
1997 Best Foreign Film Ponette Country: France Director Jacques Doillon My Rating: * * * *
Grieving is never easy, but when you lose your mother at just four years of age and get little help in dealing with it from the remaining adults in your life, the "help" that you're offered by your peers is likely to derive from some rather bizarre misunderstandings of adult mythologies. Victoire Thivisol, as Ponette, gives one of the most incredible child performances ever filmed, thanks in large measure to Doillon's ingenious approach to the making of this film.
1998 Best Foreign Film Celebration Country: Denmark Director /Thomas Vinterberg My Rating: * * * * *
Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), the eldest son of his family, uses the occasion of his father's sixtieth birthday to announce to the assembled group of relatives and friends that his father had repeatedly raped himself and his twin sister (who committed suicide within the past year) when they were mere toddlers. The superbly constructed script for this film succeeds partly because of and partly despite the film's adherence to the principles of Dogme 95, a manifesto developed by Vinterberg in conjunction with Lars von Trier and two other Danish directors.
1999 Best Foreign Film All About My Mother Country: Spain Director Pedro Almodóvar My Rating: * * * *
When a devoted mother, Manuela (Cecilia Roth), suddenly loses her beloved son, Esteban (Eloy Azorin), in a tragic accident, she sets out to honor his last wish to know about his father, despite the fact that she'll need to turn back the clock twenty years and return to a world of prostitutes, transvestites, and stage actors that she had abandoned in order to raise her son in a more suitable environment. Back on the streets of Barcelona, Manuela discovers unlimited opportunities to manifest her thwarted maternal instincts.
2000 Best Foreign Film Yi Yi Country: China Director Edward Yang My Rating: * * * * *
This portrait of the life of a modern family of Taipei follows their troubled lives. While the father (Wu Nienjen) sorts out his feelings about an old flame, the mother (Elaine Jin) seeks comfort through a spiritual retreat, the teenaged daughter (Kelly Lee) discovers first love, and the eight-year-old son (Jonathan Chang) struggles with what it all means.
2001 Best Foreign Film In the Mood for Love Country: Hong Kong Director Wong Kar-wai My Rating: * * * * *
Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) are in the mood for love because they have inadvertently discovered that his wife is cheating with her husband. A relationship that begins with mutual commiseration, expands to role playing the adulterers as a means of trying to understand and come to grips with the behavior of their respective spouses.
2002 Best Foreign Film Y Tu Mamá También Country: Mexico Director Alfonso Cuaron My Rating: * * * *
Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal), fresh out of high school, are good friends despite coming from different social classes. At loose ends when their respective girlfriends go away for the summer, their lives pick up quickly when a gorgeous married woman in her twenties agrees to a road trip with the two boys to a remote beach. This raunchy Mexican teen comedy has some real thematic bite, exploring issues of homoeroticism, the allure of an experienced woman, and unbridled passions.
2003 Best Foreign Film City of God Country: Brazil Director My Rating: * * * * *
Rio's "City of God" is truly more of a godless and lawless slum teeming with gangs of homeless delinquents and desperate adults. Sixteen-year-old Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), who dreams of escaping the ghetto life and becoming a photographer, gets his opportunity as a photojournalist because of his ability to move around the City of God, which no white journalist would dare set foot in, but Rocket risks getting caught between the murderous gang leader, Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino da Hora) and the equally corrupt police force.
2004 Best Foreign Film Bad Education Country: Spain Director Pedro Almodóvar (See Stephen Murray's Review.) Stephen Murray's Rating: * * * * *
Ignacio (Nacho Pérez) and Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro), two boys in a Catholic school in the sixties, are caught in a bathroom stall together, but that's minor in relation to the sexual abuse they suffer at the hands of Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho). Later, an adult Enrique (Fele Martínez) has become a movie director when Ignacio, who now goes by "Ángel" (Gael García Bernal), shows up with a screenplay based on their lives as boys.
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Epinions.com ID:
metalluk
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Location: Saunderstown, RI, USA
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