Danny Boyle’s new crowd-pleasing film Slumdog Millionaire was originally intended to be shot entirely in English, but apparently due to the preferences of a casting director, about a third of the movie is in Hindi. While this fraction may not be enough to call it a foreign-language film, it could have been enough to turn off subtitle-fearing audiences were the movie not so otherwise accessible due to its feel-good, “Hollywood-style” story involving star-crossed romance, destiny and an ultimate “love conquers all” message. Also, the movie breaks free from one off-putting foreign film tradition by following Man on Fire, Night Watch and TV’s Heroes into the realm of non-traditional subtitling.
Slumdog received a standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival, where it won the People’s Choice Award, and it could very well extend its popularity in the direction of the multiplex crowd. If it’s a hit with moviegoers who aren’t typically open to world cinema, this could be the chance for similarly feel-good foreign films to cross over and reach a wider audience, whether they be upcoming releases like the Sundance-winning Captain Abu Raed or titles from the past that could always use more Netflix-queue love.
And so, in the hopes that Slumdog could help open the door to further foreign film consumption, SpoutBlog presents this guide to the most accessible world cinema titles from the past ten years. For every entry-level film on the list, we name a couple of more intermediate titled in the same vein — just in case you get hooked.
Captain Abu Raed, the first film to come out of Jordan in over 50 years, tells the story of an airport janitor who befriends children by telling them he’s an airline pilot. In this interview writer/director Amin Matalqa and stars Nadim Sawalha and Rana Sultan talk about the range of styles that influenced the film and the serendipitous events that led to the casting of the two lead roles.
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Chris offers his thoughts on the Captain Abu Raed trailer.
Here I am again with one of the few trailers available for films screening at Sundance this week. It’s for a Jordanian film titled Captain Abu Raed, and it comes with the prestige of having already won a Best Actor Award at the 2007 Dubai International Film Festival for Nadim Sawalha, who plays the title character. It also comes with a heartwarming plot involving an airport janitor and the group of young boys who mistake him for a pilot. Yes, we could say this kind of story is a generic one in world cinema, but there’s no denying the appeal of an old man imparting hope and wisdom on a new generation. There’s good reason the theme continues to be reworked time and time again.
As I previously touched on when reviewing the trailer for The King of Ping Pong, regardless of how mainstream a foreign film may seem to me, I’d rather check out something like Captain Abu Raed at Sundance than any of the star-studded American films on display. This particular film’s universal appeal makes it possible that some distributor could one day give it a release in my neck of the woods, but I’d rather not chance it. As much as I hate that it takes so long for American indies to go from Sundance to the local movie theater, I find it more worthwhile to look for gems that might never make it at all. If you’re at least curious about Captain Abu Raed, then visit the film’s website and writer-director-producer Amin Matalga’s blog detailing his “journey” through the making of film.
Captain Abu Raed has its Sundance premiere this evening at 6 PM at the Egyptian Theatre. It plays again at Holiday Village tomorrow morning at 9:15 AM, at the Library on Friday evening at 5:30 PM and at the Sundance Resort Screening Room on Saturday at noon.
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We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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