FOREIGN FILMS TO TAKE YOU AWAY
World cinema offers tantalising glimpses into the lives, cultures and social realities — present and past — of countries far away. Tymon Smith recommends a few favourites, which one can actually (and legally) access in SA
SUSPIRIA
– Germany
Italian director Luca Guadagnino resets the action of Dario Argento’s cult 1977 classic horror film in Cold War-era-divided Berlin. Starring Tilda Swinton, Chloë Grace Moretz and Dakota Johnson, it’s a creepy, violent psychological horror set in a Berlin dance school located next to the Berlin Wall. With a suitably moody score by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, disturbing performances from its cast and a sombre visual aesthetic, it’s a film that takes you on an uneasy but intriguing journey to a place and time you’ll be thankful you can’t experience any more. Watch it on
Amazon Prime Video.
THE HOST
— South Korea
Long before this year’s Oscar win for Parasite, director Bong Joon-Ho made his name in his native South Korea with this creature-horror blockbuster. It’s a film that reflects, through its darkly comic good-guys-vs-bad-guys lens, a concern with global economic relations in the modern era. When pollution from a US military base creates a huge amphibian monster that’s mad as hell, it’s up to a rag-tag group of Seoul locals to save the day. It’s good, scary fun but it’s also a cunning exploration of the tough questions facing a young democracy in the era of globalisation. Netflix
ROMA
— Mexico
Seventeen years after his erotic road-trip drama Y Tu Mamá También, director Alfonso Cuarón returned to his birthplace in 2018 with this intimate and wistful portrait of life in Mexico City in the 1970s. Exquisitely shot in black and white, it’s the story of a maid and the middle-class family she works for, which expertly pits the various domestic dramas of these socially stratified lives against the backdrop of the political turmoil enveloping the country. Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director Oscars in 2018, it’s a provocative and moving examination of the power of memory. Netflix
THE SLINGSHOT
— Sweden
Take a trip to 1920s Stockholm in this 1993 coming-of-age comedy about a poor, beleaguered misfit to whom life has thrown a few curveballs. His father is a committed socialist, his mother’s a Russian expat Jew and young Roland seems to be good at little except getting caned by his schoolmaster. With help from a trusty slingshot, a box of condoms and a little ingenuity Roland manages to earn himself a little respect and a place in reform school. It’s good-hearted and entertaining period fun that shines a light for outsiders on some of the lesser-known aspects of early 20th-century Swedish society. Rent it on iTunes
FIXEUR
– Romania
A strong example of New Romanian cinema, Adrian Sitaru’s dramatic examination of the struggle between the scoop and ethics in the age of digital journalism offers a bleak but perceptive glimpse into post-Cold War Bucharest. Centred on a sex scandal involving an underage girl, it offers observations of the life and landscape of the country while never shying away from the tough, universally relatable moral dilemma at its core. Mubi.com
ATLANTICS
– Senegal
Mati Diop’s feature-film debut won the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Set in Dakar, it explores the plight of the women and girls left behind by the men who risk their lives to find work overseas. Through a star-crossed-lovers-style story, it blends a realistic portrayal of the daily life of young Senegalese with fantasy elements that draw on rich, age-held traditions and beliefs.
This is a moving portrait of an Africa negotiating the difficult bridge between modernity and tradition, which explores issues ranging from the social expectations placed on women to the struggles of workers in a globalised economy and the push-andpull factors that lead to the desperation and tragedy of the search for a better life in Europe. Netflix.