foreign films

Hollywood has dipped its toes into board game movies a handful of times over the past few years, but in Malaysia this was a novelty, until brothers Viknes and Thanesh Perrabu drew inspiration from an ancient Snake and Ladder board game. The game originated in India many centuries ago and was called “Paramapatham”.

Conscience (Conciencia’) stars Ruben Zamora, Carla Nieto and Barbara De Regil.  It is Sergio Peña’s opera prima, and it narrates the intimate story of a writer who finds himself in a deep state of emotional confusion and, while he is starting a new relationship, he continues to fight and be tormented by memories of a past love affair.

One of the benefits and pleasures of watching films from foreign lands is the invitation to visit the unique stories, vistas, languages and traditions of unfamiliar places and cultures. The Hater, the current film by Jan Komasa, does not provide this.

If you have ever experienced the deep serenity and powerful joy of hugging a tree, this movie might be for you. More than that, Toorbos is a brilliant film that takes you to the South Africa’s Knysna forest of the 1930s; an unusual and rarely shown landscape and time in the life of the African nation.

The Legend of the White Snake is one of the Four Great Folktales in Chinese literature. It is about a beautiful snake spirit who falls in love with a human named Xu Xian.

Giorgio Diritti's Hidden Away (Volevo nascondermi) is about Italian visionary artist Antonio Ligabue, one of the most important “naif” artists of the 20th century. Born in 1899 (he died in 1965), Ligabue started painting and sculpting in the early 1920s, while supported by the City Hospice for Beggars in Reggio Emilia and the region of the Po river delta, on the banks of which he often lived.

When Valia, whose funeral is the opening scene of The Father, suddenly calls a family member, Vassil (Ivan Savov) is sure: Valia, his wife, is still here. His son Pavel (Ivan Barnev) tries to bring him to his senses, but Vassil sees broken vases and electric light turning on as a sign that his wife tries to speak to him.

Three women. Three settings.

Nearly half a century since The Exorcist won four Golden Globe awards, including Best Director and Best Motion Picture - Drama, and then also went on to became the first horror movie nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, the horror genre still has a certain “black sheep” reputation in too many cinema circles. It’s been embraced and explored by undeniable auteurs, from Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski to Stanley Kubrick and Darren Aronofsky, but too many critics have a reductive view of the genre’s narrative trappings, often seeing only literalism rather than, in its most interesting presentations, a way to metaphorically explore both innate human fears as well as various problems and issues informing societal unease.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a Best Picture Golden Globe and Oscar winner in 1976, made such an indelible impression on viewers that for decades since its release, it has colored an audience’s view of both mental institutions and movies that take place within them. Based on a true story, A State of Madness slowly and subtly upends some of those expectations, using its setting as a means by which to explore the larger moral rot of the system that surrounds it.