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FILM COMMENT
July/August 1997
top 150 unreleased foreign language films of the nineties
By Gavin Smith
photo: Nouvelle Vague
Why a poll? Is this just another excuse for a bunch of film festival circuit elitists and arthouse ivory tower cinesnobs to indulge in the oneupmanship of esoteric taste and soapbox on behalf of ever more obscure pet auteurs? Well, imagine it's thirty years ago and none of the films of Godard, Antonioni, Ray, and Ozu are in distribution. Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Wong Kar-wai are the filmmakers of our time as surely as those filmmakers were in theirs, but there are no contemporary equivalents for Truffaut, Fellini, Bergman, or Kurosawa --filmmakers whose dependable popularity made audiences receptive to more challenging, difficult work by less accessible filmmakers. The only arthouse filmmakers today who can be said to have a popular following are Pedro Almodóvar and Zhang Yimou, whose entire filmographies are in U.S. distribution. Like the earlier generation, their work combines pleasing entertainment values, colorful, sexy trappings, and recurring star/icons and repertory companies. But neither has the productivity of Truffaut or Bergman, whose fans could count on an annual fix. Instead we have the preponderance for "feel-good fare," as poll participant Todd McCarthy put it, where the emphasis is inevitably on formula ("Quick, let's find another Cinema Paradiso or Like Water for Chocolate") rather than auteur. This is but one facet of the decline of foreign film distribution on the one hand and filmgoing on the other.
You can use this chart as a hit list of foreign-language films to see at all costs. The 25 directors from eleven countries who made the 30 top-scoring films comprise veteran arthouse masters and their contemporary heirs. As such, the poll also maps the main hotspots of Nineties World Cinema: four countries --France, Hong Kong, Iran, and Taiwan --account for 20 of the tip-of-the-iceberg top 30. And if you check out the other 120 titles in the survey, you'll find a lot more of the same, plus strong showings from China, Spain, Portugal, and Argentina. (That said, one sector of world cinema noticeably neglected in this poll is Africa.) Sadly, despite the efforts of this magazine, and the 83 critics, festival programmers, exhibitors, and curators who took part in this poll, if you don't happen to live in New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, or Boston, or in range of a good cinematheque, your chances of seeing any of the films in this poll is remote. Even if you do, if you missed them when they played at a festival or retrospective, or ran for a week at an indie arthouse, don't hold your breath waiting for another pass.
There are a number of reasons why the films on this list aren't available theatrically or even on homevideo in the U.S. (excepting Kiarostami's And Life Goes On in the latter case), but the obvious and overriding one is that the distributors specializing in foreign-language films simply don't believe they can make a profit on them. (In Cannes this year, one distributor stated that the best film in the festival was Kiarostami's The Taste of Cherry --but he wouldn't be buying it.) But blaming the distributor is too facile a verdict. Certainly some of the films on this list are "uncommercial," which could mean anything from loss-making to insufficiently profitable. Still, just for a second, let's do the unthinkable and credit distributors with knowing their business. After all, with the exception of France (or more accurately, Paris), foreign film distribution is no better in most European countries.
John Powers puts it well: "I'm driven crazy when critics try to personalize what's obviously a systemic problem by aiming at fat targets like Miramax. Now, there's no denying that Bob and Harvey have done their bit to befoul the distribution of 'specialty' films by driving up prices, filling the screens with Euro-rubbish (The Horseman on the Roof) and stiffing major filmmakers --an ape could have marketed Through the Olive Trees and Chungking Express with more intelligence and conviction. But having said this, it's fatuous to suggest that Miramax is the real problem here; it's only the symptom. After all, Harvey spent insane amounts trying to convince Americans they wanted to see movies by Kieslowski, and people still didn't want to see Red, White, or Blue, let alone either of Véronique's lives."
A start has to be made on reframing the whole question of foreign film's predicament. Richard Peña points out in his response to the poll that "for now the problem lies in exhibition: there certainly aren't enough cinemas for all the films that are out there, and the former art houses are now largely dedicated to showing U.S. so-called independent films and other English language fare." Todd McCarthy offers a solution: "a more consistent policy by theater chains of devoting one or two screens per big multiplex to such [foreign film] fare on a permanent basis, to cultivate a taste and regular interest in it, to build an audience in places other than the biggest dozen or so markets." Castro Theater exhibitor Anita Monga usefully commented: "My impression is that foreign producers are often dazzled by the possibility of big bucks and don't want to go smaller scale."
She's right to pull focus to the other side of the transaction. The fact is that French production and sales mammoth CiBY 2000 would only sell Miramax Muriel's Wedding if they also bought Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees --a film the Weinsteins otherwise would not have picked up. Such cramdown tactics do everyone a disservice. David Sterritt offers another perspective that we do well to bear in mind when we curse the distributors: "Most thoughtful film critics I know are constantly at war with their editors, who have little interest in coverage of movies not under their readers' noses at the moment. This leads to the Catch-22 of movies going unreleased because there's not enough public interest, whereas there's no public interest because the films haven't been released and therefore written about."
That said, we can at least hope this poll will make some of the major specialized distributors reconsider --or, more likely, spur the small ones to step up to the plate. Case in point: filmmaker Rob Tregenza's Baltimore-based Cinema Parallel (410 442-1752) distributes titles that would otherwise have been sure things in the Top 30 --Bela Tarr's eight-hour Sátántangó, Godard's Hélas pour moi and JLG/JLG, Rivette's Haut/bas/fragile. We also salute the efforts of International Film Circuit (212 691-0770), Noon Films (212 254-4118), Rim Films (310 203-8182), Arab Film Distribution (206 547-4687), World Artists (213 933-7057), and Northern Arts (413 268-9301), which, along with Strand, New Yorker, Kino, Milestone, and Zeitgeist, have all saved many great foreign language films from oblivion.
Indeed, Emir Kusturica's Underground had already scored 166 points when news came that New Yorker had acquired it. Similarly, Theo Angelopoulos's Ulysses' Gaze had a cume of 163 when its video distributor Fox Lorber confirmed that it now distributes a print through its theatrical division; and World Artist's video-driven limited theatrical distribution also knocked Mexican director Arturo Ripstein's three-hour 1993 film The Beginning and the End out of the running. Takeshi Kitano's 1993 film Sonatine would doubtless have been another high scorer, but Miramax has been sitting on it for a year or more. It should be noted that "unavailability" itself is a flexible term, especially when it comes to Hong Kong titles. John Woo's Bullet in the Head has been booked often enough around the country over the years, but its presumed distributor, L.A.-based Hong Kong specialist Rim Films, initially stated it no longer distributed Woo's best film. A few days later it allowed that its distribution rights were due to expire in September.... We finally deemed Bullet eligible because its availability seems to fall below a reasonable threshold.
Other eligibility criteria: Tom Luddy rightly objected that the poll excluded many worthy English-language foreign films --and there were several votes for Peter Greenaway's Baby of Mâcon --but I maintain that the last sector of world cinema that needs support is English-language specialist film; a few voted for videos, notably Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma series and Chris Marker's The Last Bolshevik, which have been excluded because neither will ever be transferred to film, and videotape distribution (through organizations like Electronic Arts Intermix) is outside the framework of the poll; films that have only surfaced in late 1996-97 do not qualify on the grounds that they have not yet had enough time to be passed over by potential U.S. distributors; the 1990 cut-off date admittedly now seems arbitrary compared to a more generous ten-year span, particularly given that several participants tried to bend time to include the 1989 Hou Hsiao-hsien film City of Sadness, and the even earlier Kieslowski Decalog, which Kenneth Turan dubbed "easily the best unreleased film of our time," while Terrence Rafferty spoke up in similar terms for Antonioni's Identification of a Woman. (The Pacific Film Archive's Edith Kramer counter-proposed a poll of foreign films that should never have been distributed. Anyone?)
Votes were cast for nearly 300 eligible films . Voters selected up to 20 titles, ideally ranked in order of preference. The final result was obtained through a points system by which a first choice received 20 points and a 20th choice received one point. Where voters declined or omitted to rank their choices, as many did, each title received an average score of 10.5. The film receiving the most first-choice places was Les Amants du Pont Neuf, which 6 voters made their number one pick; and the director with the most votes overall was, by a long chalk, Abbas Kiarostami. My thanks to all who took the time to take part. --Gavin Smith
PARTICIPANTS: Andrea Alsberg, UCLA Film Archive; John Anderson, Newsday; David Ansen, Newsweek; Ed Arentz, Cinema Village; Paul Arthur; Mike Atkinson, SPIN; Pat Aufderheidfe; Dennis Bartok, Los Angeles Cinematheque; Sheila Benson, Microsoft Cinemania; David Bordwell, University of Wisconsin; Peter Broderick; Georgia Brown; Fred Camper, Chicago Reader; Fabiano Canosa, Anthology Film Archives; Jay Carr, Boston Globe; Chris Chang, Microsoft Cinema; Richard Corliss, Time; Mary Corliss, Museum of Modern Art; Gary Crowdus, Cineaste; Manohla Dargis, LA Weekly; Roger Ebert; David Ehrenstein; Jim Emerson, Microsoft Cinemania; Kathy Geritz, Pacific Film Archive; John Gianvito, Harvard Film Archive; Geoff Gilmore, Sundance Film Festival; Robert Haller, Anthology Film Archives; Piers Handling, Toronto Film Festival; John Hartl, Seattle Times; Molly Haskell; J. Hoberman, Village Voice; Bill Horrigan, The Wexner Center; Robert Horton; Jytte Jensen, Museum of Modern Art; Kent Jones; Larry Kardish, Museum of Modern Art; Dave Kehr, Daily News; Ed Kelleher, Film Journal; Wendy Keys, New York Film Festival; Stuart Klawans, The Nation; Edith Kramer, Pacific Film Archive; Kevin Lally, Film Journal; Irina Lembacher, San Francisco Cinematheque; Emanuel Levy, Variety; Phillip Lopate; Tom Luddy, Zoetrope; Darryl Macdonald, Seattle International Film Festival; Marie-Pierre Macia, San Francisco Film Festival; Adrienne Mancia, Museum of Modern Art; Janet Maslin, New York Times; Todd McCarthy, Variety; Mark McElhatten; Ralph McKay, Rotterdam Film Festival; Myron Meisel, Film Journal; Anita Monga, Castro Theater; Richard Pena, New York Film Festival; John Powers, Vogue; Leonard Quart, Cineaste; Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker; Peter Rainer, LA New Times; Berenice Reynaud, Cahiers du cinema; Carrie Rickey; Rachel Rosen, San Francisco Film Festival; Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader; Andrew Sarris, New York Observer; Peter Scarlett, San Francisco Film Festival; Barbara Scharres, Chicago Film Center; David Schwartz, American Museum of the Moving Image; Joel Shepard, San Francisco Cinematheque; Alissa Simon, Chicago Film Center; Robert Sklar, New York University Cinema Studies; Gavin Smith, Film Comment; Elliott Stein, Village Voice; Chuck Stephens, San Francisco Bay Guardian; David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor; Amy Taubin, Village Voice; Laura Thielan, Aspen Film Festival; Kenneth Turan, LA Times; Amos Vogel, NYU; Armond White, New York Press; Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune; Michael Wilson, Positif; Ken Wlashin, American Film Institute; Matthew Yokobosky, Whitney Museum of American Art
