My BFF Wrap-Up: My Ranking

Starting in June 2016, I watched and reviewed every winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, or in short, Best Foreign Film (BFF), in reverse chronological order from the 2015 entry to the awards inception in 1947 (watching the 2016 winner at the end).  Part of the experiment was to see how many of these I would be able to find.  In most cases, I was able to borrow the DVD of each film from the Cuyahoga County Library system (a consistently top rated system in Northeast Ohio), and as things went further back in time, that meant using the inter-library systems CCL employs, SearchOhio and OhioLINK.  I did have to watch a couple on the dusty old VCR.  On two or three occasions when I couldn’t find the movie through the CCL system, I was able to get DVDs from the Cleveland Public Library.  Once I paid $2 to watch a movie on Amazon, and that was the grand total of money I spent on this project.  I did find a couple rare films online, having exhausted every other possibility.  Only once was I not able to find a film at all, at least with English subtitles, and that was 1950’s The Walls of Malapaga.  I watched it only in French with Portuguese subtitles, and decided to review it anyway.

My reviews were intended for people who don’t normally watch foreign films, a group that included me not all that long ago.  I found a lot of the movies worth watching, not just ones you might see at an art house, but movies I am convinced would have been mainstream American favorites had they been in English.  I also sat through a lot of tedious, self-admiring crap that got awards for having the right political or social view to the voters of the Academy.  But enough about The Sea Inside.  My goal was to make the reviews be entertaining, especially when the movie wasn't, and to give American viewer something they could relate to.

The list here is my amateurish attempt to rank what is perhaps the unrankable.  There are a variety of genres and so many different cultures represented here that it is almost unfair to compare them against each other.  But I did anyway, and the films are listed below from best to worst.  Click any movie title to read the review.  You can follow me on Twitter at @hawley5150.   

Enjoy!

1989, Cinema Paradiso, Italy

2006, The Lives of Others, Germany

1951, Rashomon, Japan

1998, Life Is Beautiful, Italy

1957, La Strada, Italy

1949, The Bicycle Thief, Italy

2011, A Separation, Iran

1975, Dersu Uzala, Soviet Union

1967, Closely Watched Trains, Czechoslovakia

1947, Shoeshine, Italy

1964, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Italy

1963, 8½, Italy

2009, The Secret in Their Eyes, Argentina

1972, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, France

1983, Fanny and Alexander, Sweden

1962, Sundays and Cybele, France

1965, The Shop on Main Street, Czechoslovakia

1986, The Assault, The Netherlands

2000, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Taiwan

1987, Babette's Feast, France

1960, The Virgin Spring, Sweden

2002 Nowhere in Africa, Germany

1958, My Uncle, France

1971, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Italy

1968, War and Peace, Soviet Union

1957, Nights of Cabiria, Italy

2007, The Counterfeiters, Austria

1974, Amarcord, Italy

1952, Forbidden Games, France

 
1961, Through a Glass Darkly, Sweden

2014, Ida, Poland

2016, The Salesman, Iran

1948, Monsieur Vincent, France

2008, Departures, Japan

2015, Son of Saul, Hungary

1970, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Italy

1985, The Official Story, Argentina

1969, Z, Algeria

1966, A Man and a Woman, France

1973, Day for Night, France

1990, Journey of Hope, Switzerland

1980, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, Soviet Union

1982, Begin the Beguine, Spain

1993, Belle Époque, Spain

1959, Black Orpheus, France

1992, Indochine, France

1988, Pelle the Conqueror, Denmark

2005, Tsotsi, South Africa

1977, Madame Rosa, France

1981, Mephisto, Hungary

1954, Gate of Hell, Japan

2010, In a Better World, Denmark

1955, Samurai, The Legend of Musashi, Japan

2001, No Man's Land, Bosnia and Herzegovina

1976, Black and White and in Color, Ivory Coast

1979, The Tin Drum, West Germany

1996, Kolya, Czech Republic

1994,  Burnt by the Sun, Russia

1978, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, France

2012, Amour, France

2013, The Great Beauty, Italy

1997, Character, Netherlands

2014, The Sea Inside, Spain

1995, Antonia's Line, Netherlands

2003, The Barbarian Invasions, Canada

1991, Mediterraneo, Italy

1984, Dangerous Moves, France

1999, All About My Mother, Spain

1950, The Walls of Malapaga, France/Italy (not ranked)

FINE!

1955 Winner, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Director:        Hiroshi Inagaki

Distributed by:  Toho Studios

Released:  November 1955 (U.S.)

Country:  Japan

From an American perspective, there are few well-known actors who don’t speak English as their primary language.  Americans know folks like Max von Sydow, Gerard Depardieu, and Sophia Loren, but mostly because we have seen them in American films.  Yes, Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune did a few American projects—Grand Prix (1966), Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), and the miniseries Shogun (1981 come to mind—but he is a star for his Japanese work, especially with the great director Akira Kurosawa.  Mifune is truly a special actor, as anyone who has seen The Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), or Yojimbo (1961) knows, but from 1954 to 1956, Mifune worked with Director Hiroshi Inagaki to make the highly-regarded Samurai Trilogy, the first of which, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, was awarded a Special/Honorary Academy Award for outstanding foreign film, the last time the award was given non-competitively.

Mifune not buying the damsel-in-distress bit

The story starts with the end of a battle.  Takezo, played by Mifune, and his buddy Matahachi are young up-and-comers, ambitious warriors who want to make names for themselves.  Unfortunately for them, they are on the losing side of the Battle of Sekigahara, a real battle that took place in 1600 Japan.  Being on the losing side means they are on the run, hiding from the victors.  They take up with a mother and daughter who are somehow mixed up with a gang of thieves.  Takezo fights off the bad guys, protecting these two damsels-in-distress. 

Only these women aren’t quite as innocent as they seem.  Almost right away the daughter hits on Takezo, but he resists his urges because of his samurai code, not wanting to dishonor himself.  So now with the daughter rejected, her widowed mother decides to take a crack at him.  Takezo essentially tells the mother that he didn’t want the daughter, so why would he want her, and what’s the deal with all the horny women around here?  In this case, the spurned woman takes things personally, and tells everyone, including Matahachi, that Takezo sexually assaulted her.  Matahachi has a serious girl, Otsu, back home waiting for him, but has had his eye on the daughter and is willing to be less honorable with her when she shifts her interests to him.  He takes the women’s side against his friend, and Takezo, now on the run, thinks his chum has turned on him.  This eventually leads to Takezo being justified in setting his sights on Otsu.  I mean, she's fair game now, right?  As for Matahachi, before long he is wishing he had kept his proverbial samurai sword sheathed.  He has to marry the annoying girl and deal with a nagging mother-in-law.

Yojimbo:  Mifune is much more fun to watch as a ronin

As the title indicates, Samurai I is the first film, and so the story is going to be left unfinished.  The film is entertaining enough as a set-up, but I left unsatisfied, waiting for another time to catch Parts I and II.  Watching Mifune act is always a pleasure, but it seems to me his potential is untapped in this film, admittedly allowing for growth of the character in the next two films.  Samurai I is a good-looking film, with colorful fight scenes and good photography, and the trilogy was an influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies (2003-4).  With the caveat of only having seen the first film, I couldn’t help but think it didn’t compare well to Kurosawa’s samurai films, even though the ones with Mifune are all black and white. Color cannot take the place of masterful direction.

The Title:  宮本武蔵.  The trilogy is based on a Japanese novel from the 1930’s. The titular character, Musashi Miyamoto, who goes by Takezo in this film, was a real person.  He identified himself as Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Harunobu in his own book, The Book of Five Rings, written about 1645.  Miyamoto is considered Japan’s most famous and greatest swordsman, probably because he wrote a book about it.  Marketing is everything, even in feudal era Japan.

The culture:  The philosophy of the Samurai is on full display, before the modernization of Japanese society and Western influence.  Incidentally, a “ronin” is a samurai without a master, and is really what the Mifune characters in Seven Samurai and Yojimbo are.

Agenda danger:  Takezo and his pal Matahachi definitely get the short end of the stick in regards to their dealings with the sneaky mother/daughter combo they help.  The false rape accusation doesn’t put the women in the greatest of lights, but Otsu balances out any misogyny the viewer may feel coming on, by being an all-around Japanese girl you’d want to bring home to your mama-san.

Best Picture that year:  Marty.  Ma!  I'm ugly, Ma!

Rating:  I feel like I have to give this one an I for Incomplete.  I’m not sure why the Academy chose to honor this film with the series just getting started—imagine Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring winning Best Picture and not The Return of the King.  Still, if you are looking for some violence with a little romance thrown in and some great acting (like say, From Here to Eternity), you’ll enjoy this one.