foreign films
Along with having a goal of going on more dates this year, Russ and I also have a goal to use dates to get more cultured . . . so we're going to try to go on one date per month that is somehow cultural--whether that means we learn about a different culture, or just do activities that we don't normally do (and maybe don't even normally like) in order to broaden our horizons and our hobbies.
Well, it was our last opportunity to go on a cultural date in January, and it was my turn to plan, so I chose the easy and free route: International Cinema.
In case you don't go to BYU and have no clue what that is, it's basically a small movie theater on campus that shows three different foreign or cultural films per week. If the films are in a foreign language, there are English subtitles.
Russ took German in high school, so I picked the German film, called Shultze gets the Blues.
It's about a man who recently retired from coal mining and ends up traveling to America to play music on his accordion. Sounds like it could maybe be interesting, right? Maybe even inspiring--like maybe he fulfills a dream or two in America.
Nope. Not. It was nearly two full hours of no background music, a main character with virtually no personality, and confusion about what the point of the story was and why certain things were happening. Maybe you have to be German to really understand it, because subtitles weren't enough for me. Definitely nothing like an American film.
As for what cultural things I learned . . . well, they drank alcohol in every scene. So I guess beer is pretty important to those Germans haha :)
Moral of the story? Maybe the International Cinema is not for me. Maybe we'll try again in a few months, though, to be sure :)
Have you ever seen any foreign films that you liked? Life is Beautiful is pretty amazing and I highly recommend it, but that's really my only good experience with a foreign film :)
**ashleynicole
Well, it was our last opportunity to go on a cultural date in January, and it was my turn to plan, so I chose the easy and free route: International Cinema.
In case you don't go to BYU and have no clue what that is, it's basically a small movie theater on campus that shows three different foreign or cultural films per week. If the films are in a foreign language, there are English subtitles.
Russ took German in high school, so I picked the German film, called Shultze gets the Blues.
It's about a man who recently retired from coal mining and ends up traveling to America to play music on his accordion. Sounds like it could maybe be interesting, right? Maybe even inspiring--like maybe he fulfills a dream or two in America.
Nope. Not. It was nearly two full hours of no background music, a main character with virtually no personality, and confusion about what the point of the story was and why certain things were happening. Maybe you have to be German to really understand it, because subtitles weren't enough for me. Definitely nothing like an American film.
As for what cultural things I learned . . . well, they drank alcohol in every scene. So I guess beer is pretty important to those Germans haha :)
Moral of the story? Maybe the International Cinema is not for me. Maybe we'll try again in a few months, though, to be sure :)
Have you ever seen any foreign films that you liked? Life is Beautiful is pretty amazing and I highly recommend it, but that's really my only good experience with a foreign film :)
**ashleynicole
Haha! Your first problem? You saw a German film. They're all like that. I had to watch one every week in the last German class I took. Ya . . . that was depressing. I like your goal though! I made a goal when we got married to cook cultural food every Thursday. I'm not very good at it, but it's fun!
ReplyDeleteWoah that's so awesome! How often does that actually happen? Once a week is a tall order haha :)
DeleteAlmost all the French films I have seen are great. One of my favorites is He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not with Audrey Tautou. Also, you should ask Jessie for some recommendations. She does have a degree in film studies and she can help you avoid the bad ones. Never go into your first foreign films blind...
ReplyDeleteHaha well it's too late for that! But yeah, I thought of Jessie after the awful film. But I actually wondered if maybe she likes that sort of thing ha :) Thanks for the recommendation! Maybe we'll have to try that in a few months :)
DeleteI actually took a German Cinema class a couple semesters ago (and it's by far my favorite class ever!) but German films are typically VERY different from Hollywood films. Most of the ones my non-German-major friends have enjoyed involve WWII in some way! Try Der Untergang (Downfall), Die Welle (The Wave), Rosenstrasse, Nowhere in Africa, or Nordwand (Northface). They're some of my favorite more current German films. There are tons of really old ones too, some of the first ever films which are always fun to watch. I think the first "full-length" film was the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. I've heard Metropolis was really quite good. Nosferatu was awesome! And the best part is that almost all of these are on Netflix...
ReplyDeleteWow you sure know your German films! Maybe we'll have to check some of those out once we get over this one haha :)
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