‘Parasite’, ‘Atlantics’ and eight other foreign films you should binge-watch while in quarantine

From Kore-eda’s intimate portrait of an impoverished family in ‘Shoplifters’ to Andrey Zvyagintsev’s gut-wrenching portrayal of a disintegrating marriage in ‘Loveless’, here are 10 non-English movies you can catch on Netflix and Amazon Prime

April 02, 2020 05:02 pm | Updated 06:12 pm IST

A still from ‘Parasite’ and ‘Shoplifters’

A still from ‘Parasite’ and ‘Shoplifters’

Let us face it; there is a surge of movies/TV shows available online and it is a laborious task to pick that one great movie or TV show. Ever since the Coronavirus outbreak, there have been scores of comfort movie listings and recommendations. Of course, you can use this quarantine time to watch or revisit some of your favourite movies — whether it is Hollywood or regional. But there are also many international films that you can catch up on OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Here are some suggestions:

Parasite

This is on the top of this list just so that I grab the attention of the masses — like the way the Academy Awards did. The world suddenly woke up to international cinema when Parasite became the first South Korean movie to take home the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, Bong Joon-ho has become the messiah to the urban middle class. Anyway, Parasite can be seen as a spiritual successor to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer , a blazing action drama whose political layers seemed to have lost under Tilda Swinton’s strangely-funny woollen robe. But Parasite is probably the better movie.

Yes, it is primal and primitive. Yes, it is a genre-bending movie. Yes, the title is an allegory. Yes, it presents a superb argument against the class system. Yes, it is neatly structured. Yes, it has terrific performances. Yes, Park So-dam (the actor who plays Kim’s daughter) is cute. Yes, it needed internationalism for it to win the Best Picture Award at the Academy Awards. Above all, it is wildly entertaining.

Parasite is on Prime

Shoplifters

It is a crime if you haven’t watched Hirokazu Kore-eda’s heart-rending drama, wherein he destroys the ideals of what constitutes a ‘family’ in the first half. Known for his penchant for writing family dramas, Shoplifters could be argued as Kore-eda’s best work till date. It follows the story of an impoverished family that survives by shoplifting. In Parasite , a character remarks: “You cannot choose your family, can you?” But this is what Kore-eda does in Shoplifters . A motley group of characters reside in a suitcase-size house, hiding under the blanket of a dysfunctional ‘family’. But none of them are related but are united by poverty. The movie has several little gems and it is better I don’t spoil them for you. In a way, both Shoplifters and Parasite are distant cousins, for they fight a common enemy: capitalism.

Shoplifters is on Netflix

On Body and Soul

 

Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi decided to meditate on a piece of paper and the result was a quiet, meditative exploration of body and soul. It is a slightly arty movie and the narrative is painstakingly slow. But if you manage to sit through the first 20 minutes, you will discover a wonderful piece of art that leaves you with a sense of metaphysical experience. On Body and Soul deals with two workers who discover that they share a common dream, drawing them closer in real life. They get visibly awkward around each other in real life, but somehow forge a strong connection in their dream, wherein they see themselves as a pair of deer. The deer is used as a powerful metaphorical tool to depict their psychological conditions. Ildikó Enyedi treats the characters with remarkable tenderness and what we got was a gentle and moving love story.

On Body and Soul is on Netflix

Atlantics

Atlantics is a quiet movie but makes a rousing political statement. On the surface, it might look like a regular romantic tale of separation between two lovers, Souleiman and Ada, both belonging to lower strata of society. Ada’s parents want her married to Omar, an affluent in the region. Souleiman’s job forces him to leave the country by sea and he promises to return before Ada’s marriage. Due to the unfortunate turn of events, Souleiman and his fellow migrant workers never see the land again while the women wait for them with bated breath. There is a strong sense of magical realism in Mati Diop’s storytelling. Diop’s storytelling offers plenty of scope for magical realism. For, the men return in the form of supernatural beings, to deliver a larger point on class politics and migrant labour. The film’s breath-taking cinematography, which includes beautiful and poignant shots of ocean, empty buildings, streets, addweight to the narrative.

Atlantics is on Netflix

Loveless

61st BFI London Film Festival - Official Competition, First Feature Competition and Documentary Competition

61st BFI London Film Festival - Official Competition, First Feature Competition and Documentary Competition

Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story , which was nominated for the Academy Awards for various categories, showed a couple in a disintegrating marriage. Marriage Story was still a soft take and focused primarily on the cruelty of the legal system. Baumbach painted his characters with an air of dignity, sometimes making you question if they were designed for an ideal world. Which is why Russian film Loveless seems more natural, more raw and close to reality, and is an excellent companion piece to Marriage Story . Andrey Zvyagintsev’s screenplay eschews vanilla-ness and shows no mercy in treating his characters with shades of black. Like its title, the movie offers a terrifying commentary on the loveless nature of a couple seeking for divorce. They spit on each other’s mugs (not literally, but you get it, right?) and want each other dead. It is usually the child who bears the brunt of divorce, right? Here, it is their meek son whose silent cries aren’t paid heed to by either of the parents. If you like Loveless , do check out the director’s The Return .

Loveless is on Netflix

A Twelve-Year Night

 

It is sad that this terrific Uruguayan survival drama by Alvaro Brechner never got its due even in the international circuit. Based on the real life of the former Uruguay President Jose Mujica, the movie tracks the lives of three political prisoners during the country’s military dictatorship in the ‘70s. It examines the mind state of the prisoners, showing the extent of human resilience under dark times. In a way, A Twelve-Year Night is both Shawshank Redemption and The Count of Monte Cristo in terms of its treatment. I caught this at the Chennai International Film Festival (2018) and it was a visceral experience to say the least, especially for its last hour. If you are planning to watch A Twelve-Year Night , I suggest you finish it in one sitting since it is not a leisure watch.

A Twelve-Year Night is on Netflix

Thelma

If you are looking for something less ‘serious’ and want to have fun, then do watch the Norweigan movie Thelma . At the outset, it is about Thelma and the feelings she develops with her friend. Having lived all her life with her parents, who are practising Christians, Thelma moves to Oslo for her graduation programme. She finds herself isolated from the rest for the most part and discovers psychokinetic powers when she falls for her friend, a woman, in college. To an extent that every time she tries to get physical with her friend, she begins to have seizures, writhes in pain and gets tormented by random, disorienting images. Does this have to do with her childhood? Does it have to do with religion? Thelma is as much a thriller as it is a horror. And I assure you, it will take you on a ‘writhing’ experience.

Thelma is on Netflix

Okja

This is my least favourite in Bong Joon-ho’s oeuvre starting with the procedural investigative thriller, Memories of Murder . Nevertheless, Okja is a cute movie that is also stunningly shot. Okja is the name of an animal, which looks like a cross-bred between an elephant and a pig, raised and sheltered by a young girl Mija in South Korea. The plot begins to heat up when Okja lands up in the laboratory of a corporate giant, where the animal is bred with another pig. What starts as a heart-warming drama turns into a mockumentary, espousing the ugly sides of animal cruelty. Packed by a powerhouse of talent, Okja makes a case for a light-hearted adventure movie and not to be taken seriously.

Okja is on Netflix

Train to Busan

It is a good entry point to South Korean movies and its filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho’s wild and absurd — both in a good way — brand of cinema. There have been countless zombie movies both inside and outside of South Korea, but Train to Busan was a revelation because of the way it reinvents the tropes associated with this genre. The premise is quite simple: a father and his daughter board a train to Busan to spend the latter’s birthday with his estranged wife. But soon, they realise there is a zombie invasion. The movie takes a leaf out of Bong Joon-ho’s first English movie Snowpiercer . For, the entire drama takes inside a moving train. Train to Busan , in other words, is madly entertaining.

Train to Busan is on Netflix

Roma

There has been a lot written about Alfonso Cuaron’s deeply personal family drama, a semi biographical portrait of his own upbringing in the ‘70s in Mexico. Roma leaves you with a mix bag of emotions; it is both tragedy and comedy in parts. There were some criticisms upon its release for the black-and-white effect. Alfonso Cuaron later gave an interview on why he was specific about the monochromatic tone of the movie. “I wanted to do a modern film that looks into the past,” Cuaron was quoted as saying by The Guardian . The cinematography (by Alfonso Cuaron) is stunning and offers rich textural details that otherwise might have been missed in colour. All of which is to say that you have to watch Roma . If it helps, the movie won three Academy Awards in 2019.

Roma is on Netflix

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