6. A Little Princess (1995, Alfonso Cuaron)
Film prior: Sólo con tu pareja (1991)
Language: Spanish
Based on the character and novels by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 7-year old Sara Crewe (Liesel Matthews) arrives at a boarding school run by Miss Minchin (Eleanor Bron) when her father, Capt. Crewe (Liam Cunningham) must serve the British during WWI. For four years, life for Sara is fine despite her situation, until word is received that her father had died from jungle fever in India. Unable to find a source to cover Sara’s boarding, her life darkens when she must earn her stay as a servant and work under a woman who despised her from the start.
Alfonso Cuaron’s English-speaking debut is sandwiched between Sólo con tu pareja and Great Expectations, two adult films centered around romantic male leads. Yet, the timing of A Little Princess doesn’t seem that odd when considered other live-action kids films such as Jumanji or Casper coming out around the same time. Yet, it’s Cuaron’s film that surprisingly has deep emotional stakes.
The “magical realism” of the film grounds the story and characters in a relatable way. One might not connect to the specific plight of young Sara, but many will understand her emotional state due to Cuaron’s direction. A scene that shows Sarah mopping the floor is something that will always stick with me — universal in its frustration. Cuaron is a filmmaker that grows with each film.
A Little Princess would not only go one to leave a print in his following films (even Great Expectations), but without this, audiences would probably never have gotten the Harry Potter films that they love today. While far from his masterpiece (Children of Men), A Little Princess is a fantastic live-action children’s film, but also a solid English-speaking debut.
5. Sense and Sensibility (1995, Ang Lee)
Film prior: Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
Language: Mandarin
Based on Jane Austen’s popular novel, Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the Dashwood sisters following the death of their father. When Mr. Dashwood dies, the rules of inheritance leave nothing for his second wife and her three daughters Elinor (Emma Thompson), Marianne (Kate Winslet), and Margaret (Emilie Francois). The story follows Elinor and Marianne, as the sisters navigate through relationships, class, jealousy — all the while trying to keep their less than desired situation stable.
Ang Lee is a versatile filmmaker. With the exception of something like Hulk, his films are dramatic, human pieces, but the man can move seamlessly move the story to a different time and place without losing any emotional resonance with the audience. The director was indeed taken back when he first received the script for Sense and Sensibility, thinking it was odd to send something so British and refined to a Taiwanese director known for romantic comedies at the time. As he got further in the script, he realized the connections between this and Eat Drink Man Woman.
Despite taking place in a different country, language, culture, and time period, Lee still found similarities between as both sets of sisters struggle to find their own paths in a world that has seemingly has plans for them. But Sense and Sensibility is technically a completely different film. It’s shot and presented with an attention to detail that’s almost required for British, period-piece productions. It’s a gorgeous looking film. While it’s a bit heavy in the melodrama, Lee doesn’t hold back in those scenes, romanticizing the moment in the best way possible.
4. 21 Grams (2003, Alejandro González Iñárittu)
Film prior: Amores Perros (2000)
Language: Spanish
Three separate stories converge into one intense drama by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárittu. Paul (Sean Penn) has a fatal heart condition and needs a new a heart. Jack (Benicio del Toro) is a reformed convict who found the faith, using his newfound outlook to aid troubled youths. Christina (Naomi Watts) is a housewife and a mother of two kids. When Jack commits a tragic crime, these three characters will face each other and their demons as they struggle to recover from the incident.
Amores Perros — and Babel, much later — also presented multiple character arcs in similar fashion, in which a seemingly unrelated group of characters interact through an inciting incident of some sort. Aside from being his English-language debut, fans of his first film should find much to like in this time around. However, 21 Grams takes things a step further by telling the story in non-chronological order.
So while one may be watching an expository scene in the beginning, the will immediately film jump to a blood-soaked scenario with the same character, but minus the context. In an interview with Virgin Media in 2004, the director claimed that he made the narrative that way for the audience to be “active” in engaging the plot and edits. Whether or not he succeeded, it’s safe to say that his style is not for everyone, and it can feel distracting. But with great performances and an interesting structure makes this worth watching.
3. Breaking the Waves (1996, Lars Von Trier)
Film prior: Europa (1991)
Language: German/English
Bess McNeill (Emily Watson) is a cute Scottish woman who marries an oil rigger named Jan (Stellan Skarsgård). Her religious community instructs against it, but Bess’s heart and slight naivety propels her forward, since the two really love each other. When Jan gets gravely injured and is physically paralyzed, they’re intimacy looks over, destroying both of them emotionally. However, Jan has a request: he wants Bess to go sleep with other men, and describe the experience to him in vivid detail, hoping it’ll revitalize their relationship after the accident. Bess struggles with the idea (on top of a history of mental illness), but she reluctantly agrees.
Lars Von Trier is a polarizing filmmaker. The Danish director has been subject to controversy even when his films receive love and praise. When Breaking the Waves was released, Von Trier and filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg started the “Dogme 95” movement in filmmaking. While it’s mainly seen more as an exercise for film students today, several films have been made under those conditions.
With Breaking the Waves, Von Trier didn’t completely stick with the rules, but he took a few to make an unflinching, hard drama about love. The digital look and the hand-held camera intimately places audiences in the same literal space as Bess, as we and the camera follow her trying to do the “right” thing despite the film, supporting characters, and herself stating otherwise. There’s a shot of Bess near the end as she’s dressed like a prostitute as she frustratedly screams is tragic, and quite haunting in the way it plays out. Much like his following film Dancer in the Dark, the heroine simply didn’t stand a chance in her world.
Funny fact, even though Von Trier’s previous feature was Europa, he took a break as a director after that to produce tv and porn before returning to features with this. Breaking the Waves is not an easy watch, but it’s absolutely devastating in its realism, a style that Von Trier would be notorious for in oncoming years.
2. Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski)
Film prior: Knife in the Water (1962)
Language: Polish
Carol (Catherine Deneuve) and her older sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) are Belgian sisters that live in London. Helen is outgoing, having an affair with a married Michael (Ian Hendry) and unashamed to express it. Carol, however, is deathly different. Reclusive, shy, and distant, Carol is constantly lost in thought or daydreaming.
She is also visibly upset at the presence of Michael, or even the tenacious suitor Colin (John Fraser), suggesting something much deeper that makes her different from the other women in her life. When Helen and Michael go on vacation, leaving Carol alone, her unease and discomfort spirals into paranoia and fear, as the walls of her home and psyche crumble around her.
Even though Repulsion is almost half a century old, Roman Polanski’s film mostly holds up. Aside from a slower pacing and the slightly stilted acting, Repulsion can still provide the unease and tension better than most thrillers today. It actually feels a bit like Stoker, similar as we follow a young woman’s perspective as she navigates through a world that is clearly undesirable through her eyes, especially when her home begins to affect her.
It’s also similar in the way Polanski uses the sound and framing to heighten the emotional state of Carol. His film prior to this was a tight little thriller called Knife in the Water, and despite the difference in setting and tone, there are similarities. They both utilize one setting, and milk the tension from people in trapped, isolated areas. Whereas Knife in the Water was about two men fighting over class, Repulsion is Carol’s battle against the pervasiveness of the outside, masculine world. But aside from all that, Repulsion is a damn good classic and debut that still scares and unsettles to this day. Shoot, it even has a jump scare that’s effective and not at all cheap.
1. Blow-up (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Film prior: Red Desert (1964)
Language: Italian/German
A successful London photographer (Thomas Higgins) shoots models when he’s not partying and immersing himself with the youth culture. One day at Maryon Park, he photographs a couple, only to be caught by the furious woman (Vanessa Redgrave). After refusing to give her the camera roll, he goes back to his studio to reproduce his prints. When he finds an unusual look from her photo, he enlarges that photo to uncover what could be a possible murder taking place, especially after blowing up negatives and rearranging them in a way that makes sense. Curious, the photographer uses what he has as a basis for an investigation.
Blow-up is a wild film, and plenty has already been said about this seminal film. Antonioni’s English-language debut is as carefree and uninhibited as the characters that make up his cool, hip, and sexy London youth culture. Antonioni also spends much time the photography itself, that even the casual shooters might be lost at the process on display. Even though the film has a murder-mystery bend to it, it doesn’t focus on that element as sharply as Brian de Palma would do in Blow Out.
Instead, Antonioni is concerned with playing with the film’s reality, asking his protagonist and the audience whether or not this murder may or may not have taken place. And while Antonioni might not provide the most satisfying, clear-cut reveal as to the what actually happened, his resolution is quite profound in what he has the photographer do at the end of the film. Blow-up is just a seminal art film that’s all over the place like the protagonist that inhabits it.
Author Bio: Hanajun Chung is a geek and struggling writer. Once he got his degree, he found work mainly in post-production. But after studying journalism, he gained a newfound appreciation in writing about the things I love, such as action flicks and South Korean cinema.