If You Like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", You Will Love...

3 Idiots – India (2009)

3 Idiots is the Indian equivalent of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in terms of storyline and comedy (although there is no principal or headmaster in any movie who will probably live up to Rooney). The movie starts where two of the three idiots are thinking back to their days at engineering school. They have a friend, the third idiot, who went to engineering school because of his father’s wishes, but really wanted to pursue photography. From his first appearance in school, he smart mouths the teachers and challenges every little thing they challenge him on, making the other students think in a new way. 

This movie plays on the idea that I’ve seen in a lot of Bollywood movies where the modern generation is challenging the older generations on career aspirations and other personal values. And this one does it in a way that will keep you laughing for two hours.

Plus, there is a very catchy song, “Aal Izz Well,” and the whistling in it will be stuck in your head for days.

No Man's Land

Directed by Danis Tanović (2001) 

Bosnia-Herzegovina (Slovenia, Italy, France, Belgium, and the UK too)

No Man’s Land swept the foreign language film categories in the United States in both the Oscars and the Golden Globes in back in 2001 and won 40 additional film awards, but somehow, this is a movie I would have never come across if I wasn’t researching titles for this blog.

 

The film takes place in the middle of the Bosnia War that occurred from 1992 until 1995 in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia. A Bosnian man, Ciki, finds himself wounded & stuck in no man’s land and eventually in the trenches of the Bosnian Serb forces. While in the trenches, he overhears an enemy soldier’s plan on how to best trick the enemy; his ruse is to place the bodies of the enemy onto landmines so that when their fellow soldiers try to move or retrieve the bodies, they will set off a landmine. This angers Ciki, and he shoots Nino, one of the enemy soldiers. While both suffering from injuries, a third soldier lying in the trench, a Bosnian named Cera, comes to consciousness, but he cannot move because he is one of the unfortunate casualties placed on top of a land mine.

No Man’s Land takes place within a series of wars driven by territorial and ethnic disputes that resulted in thousands of casualties, many of whom were victims of war crimes. When Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s (1992 to be exact), the government in Belgrade (modern Serbia) wanted to prevent the country from breaking up. This led to a series of wars between the different ethnic groups of the country and the eventual independence of six nations, taking Yugoslavia off the map and putting it into the history books.

This film, produced not too many years after the conflict, confronts the Bosnian War in a way that you don’t feel like you are watching a full-on war film, but rather one that shows how conflict can or cannot be resolved amongst opposing soldiers and peacekeepers.

For Your Consideration… International Co-Productions

In general, when you watch a foreign film, if you look at the DVD case or the online description of the movie, it will generally say that the movie is French or Indian or Spanish, etc. But in reality, a lot of foreign movies being made now are not only the product of one country, but multiple countries' resources being combined. When you watch some European films, for example, they actually have been produced by multiple nations.

In recent years, there have been an increase in the number of international co-productions. In these international co-productions, two or more nations pull together resources (money, production crew, etc) in order to pull together one final product. This blend can be interesting when you have two countries that have often been in conflict with each other, such as France and Germany, make a movie about a mutual conflict, such as during World War I. There are also many films I’ve come across that have been released in the United States that are not just American films, but co-productions between Canada, Mexico, or other countries.
   

In Europe, there is a program run by the European Union’s Council of Europe called Eurimages. This program provides support to a select number of films a year that are produced by two or more member nations that exemplify common European values. If you watch many European movies, you will see a stamp that indicates it was supported by the Eurimages funds.
 
In Asia, China has just signed two international co-production agreements, one with India and the other with South Korea. This is significant as China has a 20-foreign-film-per-year limit on movies that can be imported into the country. In addition, India also signed an agreement with Spain in order to increase film collaboration there.

While many films are co-productions, they still get nominated for awards, making it appear like the film was only produced in one country. In some cases, like the Academy Awards, the nomination is based on the spoken language in the film. Usually, the country whose language is used in that film will apply to be nominated for the award. In the case of the next featured film in this blog, No Man’s Land, this film was produced by many nations, but the credit is mostly given to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Co-productions are a great way for film companies from different countries to work together, plus it helps smaller film industries to be seen by more people. And it’s further proof of how the world is smaller than you would think it is.

If You Like "I Love You, Man", You Will Love...

My Best Friend (Mon meilleur ami) – France (2006)

If you like the storyline of I Love You, Man, you will like this comedy.

This French comedy features an art dealer named François who runs a gallery with a business partner; he is a divorced with a daughter he doesn’t really get along with, and he has no friends. He has so few friends that his business partner makes a bet with him that he cannot find a best friend within 30 days, otherwise, it will cost him a valuable Greco-Roman vase he bought for his own personal collection. François starts to form a friendship, and doesn’t even realize it, with his taxi driver, Bruno, who he will eventually have to prove his budding friendship to.

This movie seems somewhat simple: guy has no friends, guy goes and makes friend, guy has to go and prove his friendship to friend. Yes, it is simple, but it is the French sense of irony in film, like so many other French comedies that makes this one so good… I would love to fill in more of the blanks, but I don't want to spoil anything for anyone!