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!

1951 Winner, Rashomon

Rashomon

Director:        Akira Kurosawa

Distributed by:  Toho Studios

Released:  August 1950

Country:  Japan

What is Truth?

Is Truth unchanging law?

We both have truths.

Are mine the same as yours?

--Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ Superstar

Moral relativism is a belief that there is no one truth, that each point of view has a truth is as true as another.  But when you think of it, no one can make a case for relativism with any certainty because to the arguer, it could be just as true that he is dead wrong.  Certainly, it is true, then, that there is one Truth.  It’s in our perceptions and biases, though, that we see and experience this one Truth, and therein lies the problem.  The Academy awarded Rashomon the Best Foreign Film Honorary Award in 1950 for telling a story that examines this concept.

The bandit hamming it up at the tribunal

This was the film that put famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa on the map, and the iconic movie has become part of the culture, lending its name to the “Rashomon effect” concept of perceiving the truth through different lenses.  The story is extremely simple:  A samurai and his wife are traveling through the woods of 12^th century Japan, she on horseback and he walking beside her.  A bandit, played by Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune, comes out of hiding and attacks them for their loot.  The bandit leaves the scene, having taken the samurai’s money and life, and having violated the wife.  He is eventually captured and has to tell what happened to a tribunal who will decide his fate.

Takashi Shimura as the Woodcutter

Here is where the multiple versions of the Truth are put forth.  The bandit and the woman, who is also found, give witness to what they experienced, and their stories are very different.  Oddly, a third version of what happened is given by the dead man through a medium, with all three versions contradicting each other as to who is truly at fault.  A seemingly objective opinion is later told to us by a woodcutter, played by another stock Kurosawa player, Takashi Shimura.  The woodcutter saw everything but never reported his completely different version to the tribunal.  His motive for not providing testimony just might show that his version isn’t quite as objective he would lead us to believe.

Beside the philosophical angle, there is a good reason this film is so well-regarded.  Firstly, Kurosawa is masterful in the way he presents the story.  The story is introduced at a building/gate called Rashomon during a severe downpour (Kurosawa likes rain!), with Shimura’s woodcutter discussing what happened with a Buddhist priest, played by still another Kurosawa regular, Minoru Chiaki.  Kurosawa uses the elements of the rain and sun to illustrate moral peril of the whole concept of there being multiple truths.  The way he paces the film is perfect, with the story told in parts, jumping back and forth from the hazy, muggy grove where the crimes took place to the torrential loudness of rain at the gate.

Machiko Kyō as the wife, testifying

Additionally, the acting performances are as good as it gets.  Mifune’s frequent overacting might be off-putting at first, until you realize that the reason for it is that his persona is being related by another’s perspective.  Shimura, who best shines in 1952’s Ikiru (a personal favorite of mine from Kurosawa), and Chiaki provide a solid base for the film.  But Machiko Kyō, as the wife (and who also appeared in the 1953 winner Gate of Hell), gives perhaps the most impressive performance, or more accurately, performances, with subtle but discernible differences in her character showing up in the different versions of what happened.

Rashomon is the film that got me watching Kurosawa films long ago, and over the years, I would have a hard time sticking to one favorite:  Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, and Ran have all topped my list over time (and Dersu Uzula won Best Foreign Film in 1972). Each has its own greatness and I could make a valid, subjective argument as to why each should be considered Kurosawa’s best.  But objectively speaking, Rashomon was the movie that affected me first and made me want to see the others.  There is no disputing that Truth.

"We both have truths.  Are mine the same as yours?"

The Title: 羅生門  The name comes from a short story by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, and is the name of an actual gate in Tokyo, but the story is adapted from another Akutagawa short story, In a Grove, published in 1922.

The culture:  The setting of the film isn’t as important as the story, which has been told in other forms over the years, including the 1964’s The Outrage, starring Paul Newman as the bandit.  But the “Japanese” element of the film is important to this film, with the juxtaposition of the wealth and status of the samurai and his wife to the ruthless bandit.  There is a falseness to the honor of the higher class characters and a central moral strength in the Buddhist priest.

Agenda danger:  Pope John Paul II wrote, “Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known.”  I think Kurosawa would agree.  The priest in the film laments, “Because men are weak, they lie to deceive themselves.”  It is the central horror of the film that Truth is so malleable.

Best Picture that year:  An American in Paris.

Rating:  German director Werner Herzog called Rashomon “the closest to ‘perfect’ a film can get.”  I don’t disagree.