Foreign Films

[imjin138]

I go to gun shows pretty regularly and I find the guy who has oddball foreign military films so I buy them some are ok and some aren't. Recently I bought 2 one is titled the 'Baader-Mienhof complex ' about the terrorist group of the 70's it is pretty good, and the other is 'Army of Crime' about the foreign workers in Paris who attacked the nazi officials and tried to help the French resistance.

I have quite a few on the French Algerian war and the war in indo-china as well as some 1950's german films about the war. It is better than what they show on regular TV now a days.

 

[sipowicz]

I always found that subtitled foreign military films made great first date movies!

 

[Bullseye 2620]

I watch a lot of movies, mostly from Netflix. I have seen the Baader-Meinhof movie, and thought it was pretty good.

But, I've gotten interested in movies from other countries too, and want to recommend the following:

Jean d'Florete/Manon of the Spring -- two classic French movies (actually one story, spread across two movies)

Hero -- starring Jet Li, and directed by Zhang Yimou -- the best "Chinese Western" I have ever seen (Chinese)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, a trilogy, based on the novels by Steig Larsson (Swedish)

Defiance, the one starring Daniel Craig, which is the true story of Jewish resistance fighters who successfully fought the Nazis in the forests of what today is Belarus (Polish, as I recall).

There's many more, but I think these will appeal to a lot of members of this Forum.


Bullseye

 

[handejector]

Interesting that the Baader-Mienhof Gang, which basically became the Red Army Faction, is now called "a terrorist org of the 1970's".

In the spring of 1969, I was issued ball ammo for my M-14 for guard duty in an Ordnance Storage Facility (ammo dump)in Germany. All of you who have stood a post with an empty rifle know just how surprising it was to suddenly be issued ammo for guard duty, and actually have the Sgt of the Guard make sure you were locked and loaded when posted.
In the briefing, we were told the Baader-Mienhof Gang had knocked off a German Army ammo dump. All eight personnel present had been tied up and shot in the head.
We were to challenge everyone but the Sgt of the Guard and the Officer of the Guard. If a challenge was not properly responded to, we were told to shoot. Must have been some good stuff in those bunkers!
I did have an opportunity to ask a LtCol to lay his ID card on the ground and step back 15 paces when he and a Capt and a Lt walked up the road into my post.

No rounds fired.

 

[Rule 303]

I recently watch a French Film (subtitle in english) about the Revolution in Algeria. Excellent movie. I also just watched a French Film on the "Resistance" during WWII. Again a good movie.

I find a lot of foriegn war movies are far better than the US Movies. One of the best films you can watch on Vietnam, is the Australian Film, "The Odd Angry Shot" about the SAS Operating in Vietnam. More truth to it than most.

By the way handejector, when I was in Uncle's Army 66-71, stateside the Generals would have issued ammo to the enemy before the regular troops.

Rule 303

 

[S. Hammer]

Downfall. Most of it takes place in Hitler's bunker as the 3rd Reich crumbles. If you've ever seen the Hitler parodies on YouTube, this is the movie they made them from.

 

[rocketdog]

Soldier of Orange (1977) Dutch film, excellent.

 

[Bat Guano]

9th Company (Russian production on Afghanistan). Watched Restrepo as a bookend to it.

Wonder when, and if there will be a movie about the fight at Wanat.

 

[cmort666]

"Harp of Burma" and "Fires on the Plain", two Japanese post-war movies about the War. They show just how desperate the Japanese troops in the field were at the end, up to and including cannibalism.

 

[Chili Vega]

Cross of Iron. Peckinpah directs and James Coburn stars. I believe it was Russo-German collaboration.

 

[Nframecollector]

One of my favorites is a film titled "Seven Beauties"

 

[Coldshooter]

I was really hoping this might be about Catherine Deneuve.

 

[Bat Guano]

Rule 303:

I suspect the movie on Algeria was "Battle of Algiers". It's been used in urban counterinsurgency classes as a classic example.

The Russian movie, "Come And See" is harrowing.

 

[Texas Star]

"Mad Love" (US title) is superb. The Spanish title is, "Juana la Loca" ("Crazy Joan"). It's about the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella who married the Duke of Burgundy, if I have his title right. Been awhile since I saw it, although I own the DVD.

They had a really hot love until she caught him keeping a Moorish dancer on the side and she "lost it" and eventually was locked away in a nunnery. I can't recall the right word for the female equivalent of a monastery. Some Catholic here will probably know. Yes, I know that "nunnery" was slang for a house of ill repute. Aha! A convent.

Anyway, it has authentic period (ca. 1500) means of travel and overall aura, with scenes of opulent luxury in the palaces. The Moorish princess who became a dancer, trying to avoid detection as a Moor (Arab) girl is a cutie, as is the actress who played Juana. (Pilar Lopez de Ayala, I think.)

This won Best Foreign Film for Spain at the Oscar ceremony, and probably deserved to. It is a magnificent historical drama.

It's subtitled in English and French. The spoken language is Castilian Spanish, of course. If you speak Spanish, you can have fun comparing the words to the subtitled summary.

If you have a wife or girlfriend, she will probably like this, but it isn't just a chick flick. Tell her that the Duke (who became King of Castile and Leon, I think) looks like that guy Fabio who used to pose for the covers of romance novels. She'll watch....

I really need to dig this DVD out and watch it again.

 

[Teddydog]

This thread brought two good films to mind, but I find my recollection was faulty and NEITHER is actually foreign. They were both limited releases originally and most of you have probably not seen either one.

1988's "The Beast" (sometimes titled "The Beast of War") is about a Soviet T-55 tank and crew separated from their unit in Afghanistan.

1992's "A Midnight Clear" is about a group of intellegence "scouts" at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. I saw this one in the theater in my senior year of College and I have it on DVD.

Rob

 

[JcMack]

"Flame and Citron" About two Danish resistance fighters. Pretty good.
"The well diggers daughters" About a French WWI era widower, well digger with a bunch of daughters. Witty, touching, I cried.

 

[Texas Star]

Juana la loca - Trailer Español - YouTube

Here's a trailer in English about the movie I mentioned above, "Juana la Loca", sold here as, "Mad Love." I just wish the trailer was as sharp and colorful as the actual film. It is a wonderful, sweeping epic of its sort, with superb actors.

 

[the ringo kid]

Cross of Iron. Peckinpah directs and James Coburn stars. I believe it was Russo-German collaboration.

My all time most favorite movie:

Sorry for the pink quality but these are prints made from actual film cells. I have more than these but these are the best of the lot:
This one was accidentally printed backwards:

 

[the ringo kid]

A few foreign movies I like are: Stalingrad--as well as the original version made in the 1950s. In English its called: Stalingrad: Dogs Do You Want To Live Forever. Another of the many good ones are a few Russian made movies like: Brest Fortress, Battleship Potemkin, the German made: Downfall, but some of the best are the Finnish made war movies and they do use the real weapons and machinery.

 

[BearBio]

I agree with several I have seen:
Soldier of Orange=true srtory.
Citron and the Flame+ also true
Das Boot
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, a trilogy, based on the novels by Steig Larsson (Swedish)=I watched the American version and the Swedish versions after reading the trilogy. They both (Dragon Tattoo) tell the same story about the same character but with a different "perspective"? The main character is autistic/Aspergers and both bring out different aspects of the condition quite well.

One advantage of getting old(er) is that our hearing is getting progressively worse, so we have gotten used to subtitles, often with local dialectics (i,e, Duck Dynasty)