My roommate in college started my interest in foreign movies. He was from Hong Kong, but he didn't care much for Chow Yung Fat, John Woo, or Jackie Chan. He preferred movies from around the world.
We saw quite a handful of movies. Many were enjoyable, while one or two seemed random or boring. We agreed that in those cases, you had to understand the culture.
What I appreciated then and now was the patience of these movies. They had stories, but they were primarily about the people in them. They didn't seem as insecure as many popular American films are.
I live in Korea, and "foreign" films has a new meaning. Many of those are American, and they're anything but patient. Whatever is the most popular gets released, and that reflects a noisy, often violent, impatience. I once asked Koreans if they thought every American has a gun because of movies. Some get that impression. It's even more disconcerting when we realize many consider America a Christian nation.
There are many interesting American movies I have to wait to see. I'll go ahead and plug them:
The King of Kong
Into Great Silence
Young@Heart
These are difficult to find anywhere these days. They're movies about people. There are others as well, and some find a great balance (The Dark Knight is the best movie ever). But we usually choose noise over excellence.
I recently read an article about watching movies with subtitles. Americans don't like to read their movies, but when we watch movies from other countries, we see a perspective different from our own. These are our neighbors, and this could be a good start towards intelligent conversation with them.
I'm still waiting for good movies. I guess I need to be patient.
No comments:
Post a Comment