It was another year in which foreign cinema was essential (although not as great as years past). Three of the nominees for the 2010 Best Foreign Language Oscar were released in the US this year: Incendies , Dogtooth and the Oscar-winning In a Better World. Incendies earned a very prominent spot on my Best Movies of 2011. Joining Incendies on my Best Movies of 2011 are The Artist from France, Poetry from Korea, Carancho from Argentina and Potiche from France. That’s five films – down from ten on my list for 2010 and the lowest number of foreign films on my list ever.
Still, the French had a fine historical drama in Sarah’s Key, the costume epic The Princess of Montpensier, the sexy comedy The Names of Love and the arty head scratcher Certified Copy. Stylized violence characterized both the Japanese gangster film Outrage and the Samurai movie 13 Assassins. There was a sly Mexican dark comedy, Norah’s Will. Attenberg was a better Greek comedy than Dogtooth.
The Polish documentary War Games and the Man Who Stopped Them was excellent. Hungary delivered a small drama, Question in Details. The Aussies gave us a very violent contemporary Western, Red Hill. Germany and Austria produced a contemporary crime drama in The Robber. Even the Bolivians gave us a pretty solid Western: Blackthorn.
Here’s the trailer for Poetry.