National Society of Film Critics' Awards for Non-English Language Films (with links to full reviews)
Mar 26 '05 (Updated Dec 19 '05)
The Bottom Line The National Society of Film Critics has sometimes made daring picks with the non-English language winners of its Best Film or Best Foreign Film awards.
The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) came into existence because the policy of the New York Film Critics' Circle limited membership to critics associated with daily newspapers. Joe Morgenstern and some other restive members left the New York based critics group and founded the NSFC in 1966. The choices of the NSFC tend to be more quirky and esoteric than those of either the New York Critics' Circle (See New York Film Critics' Circle Awards for Foreign Films (1935-2004)) or the Los Angeles Critics (See Los Angeles Film Critics' Award Winners in the Best Foreign Film Category). Whether for better or for worse, the NSFC seems least cognizant of the commercial success of films. The NSFC also has a particular propensity for going back to the same directors more than once. With just twenty-five awards given to foreign film, five directors have nevertheless received more than one top award from the NSFC. Ingmar Bergman is the only director to have won three top awards from the NSFC for non-English language films. In terms of the national origin of winners, the NSFC has proven itself broadly eclectic, having favored films from eleven different countries. Nine of their awards have gone to films made in France (although two of those were made by a Polish director), four went to Chinese films (including one made in Hong Kong), three to Swedish films (all Bergman), and two to Finnish films (both directed by Aki Kaurismäki).
From 1966 to 1989, the NSFC gave only one overall film award for Best Film. During those twenty-four years, ten of the awards went to non-English language films. Seven of the first ten awards went to non-English language films but only three of the last fourteen. Beginning in 1990, the NSFC presented separate awards for Best Film and Best Foreign Film. There have thus far been fifteen such awards for Best Foreign Film. Added to the ten foreign films chosen as the Best Film prior to 1990, there have been a total of twenty-five foreign films recognized with a top award by the NSFC. I've personally reviewed twenty-three of those films. I've provided links to my reviews for those twenty-three as well as links to reviews by other Epinionators for the remaining two.
You will also find the following additional posted lists useful in identifying foreign films that have been recognized by awards:
Los Angeles Film Critics' Award Winners in the Best Foreign Film Category
New York Film Critics' Circle Awards for Foreign Films (1935-2004)
All Fifty-Six Best Foreign Film Oscar Winners
All Seventy-Seven Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Winners
All Seventy Venice Film Festival Best Film Winners
All One-hundred and Six BAFTA Award-Winning Films
London Critics' Circle Awards for Best Foreign Film
British Films Selected by the London Critics' Circle as Best Film or Best British Film
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Non-English Language Films Winning the Best Film Award of the NSFC (1966-1989):
1967 Persona Country: Sweden Director Ingmar Bergman My Rating: * * * * *
Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann provide amazing performances in this film about the blending of identities. When a stage actress (Ullmann) suddenly stops speaking altogether, her psychiatrist recommends rest and relaxation in a remote cottage under the supervision of a nurse (Andersson). The nurse must do all of the talking for both of them, yet it is she who begins to find her own personality being overwhelmed by that of her patient.
1968 The Shame Country: Sweden Director Ingmar Bergman My Rating: * * * *
Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow star in this antiwar film as a pair of apolitical retired concert violinists who have moved to a small island in hopes of escaping an impending civil war on the mainland. They would prefer to simply tend their greenhouses, but war has a way of seeking people out, whatever their proclivities.
1969 Z Country: Algeria Director Constantin Costa-Gavras My Rating: * * * * *
Yves Montand and Jean-Louis Trintignant are the headliners in this effective political film based on the real life assassination of Gregorios Lambrakis in Greece. After the murder of a popular leftist leader (Montand), the rightwing government appoints an Examining Magistrate (Trintignant) to oversee what they expect to be a show trial to clear the government of wrongdoing. Trintignant proves surprisingly conscientious, however, following the evidence wherever it may lead.
1971 Claire's Knee Country: France Director Eric Rohmer My Rating: * * * *
Widely seen as among the best of Rohmer's efforts, this film features the usual Rohmer qualities and themes. Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy), a soon-to-be married man on vacation alone, toys with one last fling at youthful romance when he is challenged by an old girlfriend to seduce sixteen-year-old Laura, who has a crush on him. When Laura a proves disinterested in casual sex, Jerome's attention turns to her eighteen-year-old sister, Claire, and he becomes especially fascinated with her knee. Will Jerome get his last dose of bed-hopping or does there inevitably come a time in life when even handsome bachelors start to strike out.
1972 The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Country: France Director Luis Buñuel My Rating: * *
An all-star cast including Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stephane Audran, and Michel Piccoli highlight this film that explores the absurdity of the conventions that dictate the social life of the bourgeoisie. Seamlessly integrating reality and dream sequences, Buñuel leaves viewers guessing when we're watching real events and when the dreams or daydreams of the characters.
1973 Day for Night Country: France Director François Truffaut My Rating: * *
Truffaut himself stars as the director of the film-within-a film, called Meet Pamela. Day for Night is often described as the best film ever made about the film-making process, but that assumes, among other things, that Fellini's 8 ½ is about “the creative process” rather than film-making. Here, Truffaut follows the soap-opera-like intrigues of a cast and crew that includes Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Valentina Cortese, and Jean-Pierre Aumont, revealing some of the myriad problems that plague film productions.
1974 Scenes from a Marriage Country: Sweden Director Ingmar Bergman My Rating: * * * *
This harrowing glimpse at the travails of marriage was originally made for Swedish television as a six-part series, totaling 300 minutes. The version usually seen in America is a trimmed down 168 minutes version. Either way, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, and Bibi Andersson are in fine form. Bergman uses close-up shots almost exclusively to provide an intimate reflection on marriage and personal identity.
1978 Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Country: France Director Bertrand Blier My Rating: * * *
This hilarious comedy is far from politically correct, featuring, among other things, seduction of an underage lad. Gérard Depardieu is a young married man whose wife (Carole Laure) is constantly in the doldrums. Frustrated by his inability to make her smile, he tries to interest her in an affair with a man (Patrick Dewaere) whom he picks almost at random from the patrons at a café. The lover is also too much man for her (or is it too little), as things develop. Only the 13-year-old genius (Riton) at a boys' summer camp, where they all take jobs, proves to possess the ability to lift the unhappy woman's spirits.
1983 The Night of the Shooting Stars Country: Italy Director Paolo and Vittorio Taviani My Rating: * * * *
In wartime Italy, in 1944, some of the citizens of the small village of San Martino decide to flee to the south in order to avoid last-minute Nazi reprisals as the Allies push north along the boot of Italy. Their journey is fraught with peril, as they encounter fascist brown-shirts, but it is the Night of the Feast of St. Lawrence, when falling stars grant wishes. The film focuses more on the survival struggles of refuges than on war itself.
1985 Ran Country: Japan Director Akira Kurosawa My Rating: * * * * *
Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) divides his extensive kingdom among his three sons, an arrangement to which only the youngest objects. The two elder sons dutifully express their gratitude for his generosity while the youngest one questions the wisdom and viability of his decision, insulting him in the process. Later, however, it is the older sons who each betray their father, as the youngest son's predictions prove prescient. Ran boasts some of the most elaborate and brilliantly colored battle scenes in film history.
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Non-English Language Films Winning the Best Foreign Film Award of the NSFC (1990-2004):
1990 Ariel Country: Finland Director Aki Kaurismäki My Rating: * * * * *
Finnish independent director Aki Kaurismäki makes iconoclastic films that feature deadpan acting matched to the taciturn Finnish character, focusing on the absurdities of human society through low-key ironic observational humor. In this film, Taisto Kasurinen (Turo Pajala) heads south looking for work after his old job disappears in a mill shutdown. Along the way, he is assaulted and robbed of his life savings. When he later meets up with one of the muggers and assaults him, Taisto gets sentenced to prison. His life's downward spiral is checked only by his blossoming romance with a metermaid (Susanna Haavisto), who is a single mother. Can they find their piece of the good life, somewhere over a rainbow?
1991 The Double Life of Veronique Country: France Director Krzysztof Kieslowski My Rating: * * * *
This is a film about strange coincidences. Two girls (both played by Irene Jacob) are born on the same day, one in France and one in Poland, one named Veronique and the other Veronika. Both are attracted to nature and music. When the two girls grow into young women, they are almost identical in appearance. Veronique has a persistent feeling of existing concurrently in two different places in the world. One day while traveling in Poland, Veronique inadvertently snaps a photograph of a group of young women that includes her doppelganger, Veronika. Later, an equally strange primordial attraction draws Veronique into the orbit of a puppeteer, Alexandre Fabbri (Phillippe Volter). When they become lovers, Alexandre draws Veronique's attention to the picture of Veronika, who he has mistaken for Veronique, seemingly confirming Veronique's long held suspicion.
1992 Raise the Red Lantern Country: China Director Zhang Yimou My Rating: * * * *
Director Zhang Yimou and his then companion, actress Gong Li, teamed up to create this classic film about a Chinese household where nineteen-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy man, giving up her university studies for the life of a concubine. As it turns out, she has sacrificed her independence. She encounters a perverse household in which the wives compete for the favors of the master and the privileges that go with it.
1993 The Story of Qiu Ju Country: China Director Zhang Yimou My Rating: * * *
Zhang Yimou and Gong Li scored two years in a row with the NSFC. In this film, Gong Li is a very pregnant but also very determined young wife, Qui ju, living in a small rural village of China. When the village Chief kicks her husband, one day, “down there where it counts,” Gong Li demands that the Chief apologize, but the Chief stubbornly refuses, fearing that he'll lose face by kowtowing to a mere woman. The equally stubborn Qui ju begins an ill-advised crusade for justice, despite her condition, traveling long distances on foot to visit the local magistrate in a neighboring village and, later, by bus, to the regional city where she has to cope with a bureaucratic labyrinth during the appeals process.
1994 Red (See Three Colors.) Country: France Director Krzysztof Kieslowski My Rating: * * * * *
Red is the concluding segment of Kieslowski's "Three Colors Trilogy." It works as a stand-alone film but is especially effective when seen as the finale that ties together the three films in a dramatic and clever conclusion. Valentine (Irene Jacob) is a young, idealistic model who harbors doubts about her current boyfriend. When she accidentally hits a dog in the street with her car, she dutifully returns the injured animal to its owner, a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The Platonic but subtly romantic relationship that develops between the uncertain Valentine and the lonely and cynical older man ultimately impacts both of their lives.
1995 Wild Reeds Country: France Director André Téchiné My Rating: * * * *
In the France of 1962, young people were as much affected by the Algerian War as young Americans were by the Vietnam War. In this touching French coming-of-age story, the relationships among a group of college students are shaped by their political viewpoints, experiences with personal loss, and their sexual orientations. The film features beautiful photography in the rural countryside of Provence and a soundtrack that ranges from Chubby Checkers to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.
1996 La Cérémonie Country: France Director Claude Chabrol My Rating: * * * * *
Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire), a humorless young woman, takes a job as a domestic for the Lelievre family, a pleasant bourgeois family of four. Sophie is so ashamed of her dyslexia and illiteracy that she is at great pains to hide her limitations from others, at any cost. That's not easy, because her inability to read is a frequent impediment to performance of her duties. Trouble begins to brew when Sophie makes the acquaintance of Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), a postal clerk in this small village who dislikes the Lelievres.
1997 La Promesse (See DavidMac's Review.) Country: Belgium Director Jean-Pierre Dardenne DavidMac's Rating: * * * *
The loyalty of a son to his father is powerfully pitted against the boy's emerging sense of right and wrong. Igor, a fifteen-year-old boy, lives with a father who exploits illegal immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe. When the father tries to cover-up the accidental death of one of the illegal aliens, Igor has to choose between betraying a promise he made to a dying man and revealing the truth about his father's activities.
1998 Taste of Cherry Country: Iran Director Abbas Kiarostami My Rating: * * * * *
Kiarostami chose a subject for his film, suicide, strictly forbidden by the Koran and something of a taboo subject in Iran, but got away with it because then President Khatami was intent on demonstrating a relaxation of censorship. The Iranian protagonist, Mr. Badii, drives about Tehran looking for a man who will help out with his intended suicide for the generous sum of 200,000 cash rials. Badii's plan is to overdose on sleeping pills and then lie down in the grave he has already dug. All the accomplice has to do is cover him with twenty shovels of sand in the morning if he is, in fact, dead. Finding a willing accomplice proves more difficult than one might suspect.
1999 Autumn Tale Country: France Director Eric Rohmer My Rating: * * * *
In this game of romance and matchmaking, everyone, it seems, wants to marry off Magali (Béatrice Romand). She's a middle-aged widow with grown children and a vineyard to operate. She's still attractive and perky and admits to wishing for a man in her life, but she's just too darn busy to do anything about it. When two different friends undertake matchmaking efforts simultaneously, Magali suddenly finds herself with two would-be suitors in one farcical afternoon. This film is a welcome change of pace for Rohmer, who usually concentrates almost exclusively on the romantic intrigues of younger women.
2000 Best Film Yi Yi Country: China Director Edward Yang My Rating: * * * * *
Yang provides a touching portrait of modern life in Taipei, focusing on a troubled family in which each member is dealing with difficult issues. The father (Wu Nienjen) is sorting out conflicting feelings about his wife and an old flame. The mother (Elaine Jin) is coping with grief at the prospect of losing her mother and seeks comfort in a spiritual retreat. The teenage daughter (Kelly Lee) is discovering the first throes and disappointments of love, while the eight-year-old son (Jonathan Chang) struggles with just what all this turmoil we call life means.
2001 In the Mood for Love Country: Hong Kong Director Kar Wai Wong My Rating: * * * * *
Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) have discovered that his wife and her husband are having an affair. In their mutual despair, they find comfort in each other's company. As they struggle to understand the infidelities of their respective spouses, they role play the parts of the adulterers and find themselves more and more in the mood for love, themselves. Will they give into the impulse and, if so, will they be guilty of the same infidelity as their spouses?
2002 Y Tu Mamá También Country: Mexico Director Alfonso Cuarón My Rating: * * * *
Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) are best friends, despite belonging to different social classes. They have just graduated from high school and are at loose ends, for the summer, because their respective girlfriends are traveling. They're looking for some action and it comes their way when a gorgeous married woman in her twenties agrees to go on a road trip with the two boys to a remote beach. This raunchy Mexican teen comedy has some real thematic bite, exploring such issues of homoeroticism, the allure of an experienced woman, and unbridled passions.
2003 The Man Without a Past Country: Finland Director Aki Kaurismäki My Rating: * * * * *
Kaurismäki received his second Best Foreign Film award from the NSFC for this film about another down-on-his-luck, taciturn Finnish man. After being assaulted on his first day in Helsinki, the bloody and battered man, identified simply as "M" (Markku Peltola), looses his memory. He slowly recovers and makes a new identify for himself with the help of the poor residents of a makeshift, freight-container shantytown. He pieces his life back together and even finds love in the form of Irma (Kati Outinen), a Salvation Army worker. When the discovery of M's old identity reveals that he is already married, what will become of his newfound relationship with Irma? Outinen won a Best Actress award from Cannes for her performance in this film.
2004 Moolaadé (See vonschiller's Review.) Country: Senegal Director Ousmane Sembene vonschiller's Rating: * * * *
In a small village in Senegal, girls are subjected to ritual "purification" that takes the form of genital mutilation (clitorectomy). To escape the procedure, six girls seek out protectors, in accordance with moolaadé (a prayer of protection). Four find their way to the home of Collé, who is infamous in the village for having refused to let her daughter be subjected to the same ritual. Collé gains unanticipated support for her act of defiance against tradition from her daughter's financé, who is French educated and irate when his father cancels his marriage to the bilakoro (impure daughter). The film is as much about the conflict between progress and tradition as about abuse per se.
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