Nick's Top Picks: foreign films to help you flee

By Nick Norman

With the stressful uncertainty of graduation approaching, an escape at the movies might be just what the doctor ordered.

But why escape to the predictable, familiar world of Hollywood cinema? An exotic world of foreign delights awaits the brave traveler (or procrastinator); one need only seek the oasis of the foreign section of the video store.

That's right, the one with all the risqué covers and hairy text.

These films offer the originality needed to keep the film medium fresh. In a sense, they supply the Hollywood system with the new ideas needed to keep the celluloid rolling.

Plus, they're downright entertaining. Whether you need something cheerful or something a bit darker, these have it all.

1. "Ta'm e Guilass" (A Taste of Cherry)

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami captures the solitude of a man preparing for his own suicide. As he meanders the hills outside Tehran, he searches for someone willing to help him end his life. He tells strangers to come by his grave in the morning.

If I'm dead, bury me. If I'm alive, help me out of the hole.

Kiarostami uses non-professional actors in all of his films. Furthermore, he never writes lines for his actors, he merely suggests the purpose of the scene and lets the camera roll.

The resulting dream-like films tread a very thin line between reality and staged action.

Most importantly, he possesses a rare ability to capture deeply poetic stories. The frames drift by, plucking human emotions like enigmatic stanzas.

2. "Mein Liebster Fiend" (My Best Fiend)

Most moviegoers will recognize Werner Herzog from his most recent film, "Grizzly Man." Yet beyond Timothy Treadwell becoming bear food, Herzog has directed over 50 documentary and feature productions. Amongst his best is this film that illustrates his relationship with actor Klaus Kinski.

To call Kinski insane would be benign. To call their relationship benign would be insane.

Archival footage, interviews and constant riveting narration keep this nostalgic piece chugging forward. Werner's calming, grandfatherly tones betray his own lunacy when he retells Kinski's exploits: slashing actors with swords, declaring himself Jesus Christ, even attempting to murder Herzog himself.

This film captures the joy of true connection between humans, even if the means is constant conflict.

3. "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"

Two drag queens and a transsexual travel to the center of Australia to perform a drag act. Witty one-liners, satirical performances and self-deprecating humor make this the all-time greatest drag queen flick ever.

The true skill of director and writer Stephan Elliott shows as he transforms a controversial subject into a universal story of searching for one's family.

Look carefully and you'll spot Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving behind all the glitter and mascara.

Before Weaving chased Keanu Reeves through the "Matrix" or Pearce lost his memory in "Memento," they sang ABBA on a big pink bus while dressed in women's clothing and drunk on vodka gimlets.

4. "Roma, Città Aperta" (Rome, Open City)

Set in Nazi-occupied Rome, this dark film tells the short tale of a small group of Italian Resistance fighters. In 1945, Director Roberto Rossellini, much like the contemporary director Kiarostami, developed what we now regard as the Italian Neo-Realist movement. Using non-professional actors and minute budgets, he told tales of human resilience and the joy of living a free life.

Filmed during the Nazi occupation, he worked around abusive police, curfews and disappearances of his friends.

The actors themselves lived the reality they portrayed as fiction. The stories behind this film seep through every scene.

5. "Elling"

This Norwegian film will make you laugh and want to weep at the same time.

Agoraphobic, obsessive-compulsive, oedipal Elling lives with his sex-obsessed friend Kjell Bjarne in an apartment for mentally handicapped adults. He wears sweater vests and quotes poetry but cant seem to muster the courage to leave the apartment.

Humanity disgusts him until Bjarne forces him to leave. They make friends, find girlfriends and even go on a road trip. The smallest of triumphs will make you cheer, and the slightest disappointment will coax a tear.

This film is so uplifting you'll smile months later just thinking of Elling and Kjell Bjarne.

6. "Fucking �mål" (Show Me Love)

As the longest-running movie to ever be released in Sweden, this teen movie follows the coming-out process of a middle school girl. As she becomes aware of her homosexuality, she rebels in the silliest of ways.

Yet, we sympathize: she deals with a heavy burden in the half-juvenile half-worldly manner of confused teenagers.

Most of all, her homosexuality takes backseat to her struggle to define herself. Like her classmates, she is happy as long as she's not embarrassed or stands out from the crowd.

The hysterical script highlights the ridiculousness of teenage years but never ignores the seriousness of budding self-accountability.

7. "Caché" (Hidden) and "La Pianiste" (The Piano Teacher)

In the mood for some disturbing images and creepy abuse? Writer/director Michael Haneke is your man.

He fabricates visions of the haunting magnitude only German directors are capable of producing. He tells disturbingly touching tales with subtle, yet intense drama and sinister insight into the human fascination with power.

In "Cache," a family receives anonymous packages containing videotapes showing their house under surveillance. The resulting paranoia brings latent secrets to the surface and violence to the mind.

After seeing "Caché" you'll keep your blinds permanently shut and your doors constantly locked.

As for "La Pianiste," the plot revolves around a piano teacher who falls for her younger student and manipulates him into her web of sexual repression and self-abusing behavior.

"La Pianiste" will touch your soul with its clammy, twitching hands as they grope for sexual fulfillment.

And none of these films will remind you even remotely of schoolwork or other real-world concerns.

Contact Nick Norman at (408) 551-1918 or npnorman@scu.edu.