Film Difficulty 2

To help you ease your way into our world, we have devised a the film difficulty ranking system to rate the difficulty of each film reviewed on our site. The easiest to watch films (the Rom-Coms and Superhero flicks that you watch anyway) will have a rating of 1. Foreign language films automatically add one point, as do black and white films, and films with strange and hard to follow plots. Welcome to Film Difficulty 2.

Film Difficulty Ranking 2: These films are perfect introductions to those new to foreign films. These one’s may have subtitles, or be in black and white, but these films are all easy to follow and enjoy.

For the next step, check out Film Difficulty Ranking 3.

Man Bites Dog (Belgium) – Help Out an ‘Affectionate and Sweet’ Murderer

Man Bites Dog Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

This may well be the darkest comedy there is. You may not agree at first, but you probably will by the end of the film. And you’ll probably feel like a murderer for watching it! This is one of the ultimate mockumentarys!

Why Watch Man Bites Dog?

If you like dark comedies – and when I say dark, I mean it!
If you like docu-fiction films (see Battle of Algiers or Che)
To learn how much ballast you need to sink a corpse
For a murderer’s ode to pigeons – actor Benoit Poelvoorde is crazy

The Breakdown

You’ll get an idea of what kind of a film this is from the opening. It starts with what looks like a normal scene. A man on a train is standing by the window as a woman walks past him along the corridor. However, as the man moves out of the way to let her pass, he rings a rope around her neck, forces her into a cabin and strangles her.

As you’ll quickly realise, this is not a serious film. However, you also won’t be surprised that it was highly controversial when it was released in 1992 (two years before Natural Born Killers).

Straight after the brutal opening scene, we meet Benoit (the murderer) again. This time, he is talking to the camera and telling us how to properly ballast a corpse so it sinks. Remember, ‘you need to ballast a dead body with 3 times it’s body-weight, and 5 times for old people as their bones are even more porous’ (Benoit’s quote, not mine).

The mockumentary style (mock documentary) makes the film even more real. Benoit looks straight at the camera a lot, and therefore straight at us. As a result, we are forced to get close to him and pushed towards identifying with him. The intimacy is stretched even further as we are introduced to his family and friends, who all say what an ‘affectionate and sweet’ person he is. But every time we start to get comfortable with him the director reminds us of his violence. For example, in one scene he starts playing with a few kids in a park making him appear normal, but the director quickly cuts to a montage of him murdering innocent people to remind us that he is a murderer.

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Conclusion

Man Bites Dog is provocative. But it’s also clever. It plays with us throughout the film, encouraging us to get close to a murderer before brutally showing us images that are undeniably wrong and shocking. There’s also a pretty meta commentary on both the moral obligation of the film-makers and the audience. Are the film-makers and us morally wrong for making/watching this film?

Either way, for more, I’d recommend checking out Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (with a young Woody Harrelson leading). Also check out Behind the Mask for a horror movie equivalent.

Not One Less (China) – 13 Year Old Teacher, What Could Go Wrong?

Not One Less Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

What do you do when you mother is dying and you need to find a replacement teacher to do your job whilst you go visit her? You find a 13 year old girl from a neighboring town that hasn’t been to high school to take over from you for a month. What could go wrong? Find out here (buy to watch on Amazon).

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Why Watch Not One Less?

Learn from the world’s youngest substitute teacher – a 13 year old girl from rural China
For a 5 minute teaching masterclass – who needs qualifications?
Experience life as a kid in rural China and see how it contrasts with life as a kid in the city
If you like Italian neo-realism and/or coming of age films

The Breakdown

Not One Less starts with the arrival of the substitute teacher named Wei. She’s only 13 and hasn’t completed high school yet. But as it’s just a month and this rural town has no one else remotely qualified to teach their kids, she seems like a great option.

Before the actual teacher goes, he gives her a 5 minute 101 in teaching. Here are the golden rules:

Let the students go home, when the sunlight reaches this stick
Copy these lessons for the students to write – one a day
Don’t use too much chalk (it’s expensive)
Sing one song a day

It doesn’t sound too hard. As he leaves, he promises to give her 50 Yuan for her month’s work, and an extra 10 if she keeps all the students until he gets back. Just for perspective, a ticket to town on the bus costs around 20 Yuan. The pay is poor, but it’s what drives this 13 year old substitute teacher – she does whatever she can to keep these kids until the teacher returns for that extra 10 Yuan.

However, as you’ll see, this extra clause is a harder than it might seem. Firstly, as expected, she’s not a great teacher. She doesn’t ‘teach’ the kids, as she just writes on the board, tells the kids to copy it down, and sits outside the exit to block anyone from escaping early. Secondly, her students are poor. One is moved to an athletic school under the promise that her life might be better elsewhere, and another is taken out of school to go work in the city. So what does she do? She turns her lessons into a mission to get them back to school encouraging the students to help her in her quest. If it weren’t for the promise of money, she would be the most caring teacher in the world.

Conclusion and What to Watch Next

Wei learns a lot in this film, and so do we. We learn about the Chinese education system, poverty, work, local politics, salesmanship, marketing, the consequences of cheating, and more. Even though this film is about teaching, it shows us that the most valuable lessons are learned outside the classroom in life itself. To learn about China and life in general, go watch this film!

For more great Chinese film, check out the following:

The Road Home: for another film from Zhang Yimou – this one’s an emotional romance
A Touch of Sin: a bleak, politically charged portrayal of contemporary Chinese society
The Assassin: An art-house Martial Arts film with beautiful cinematography and choregraphy

Or, if you’re looking for more coming-of-age films in which kids are forced to grow up quickly, check out Mustang from Turkey and Abouna from Chad. I’d even recommend watching the heartwarming Kikujiro from Takeshi Kitano as well!

The Insult (Lebanon) – Words Can Start Wars

The Insult Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

The Insult demonstrates just how powerful words can be. The trials between the Tony the Lebanese Christian and Yasser the Palestinian refugee are like the OJ Simpson trials on steroids.

From: Lebanon, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Amazon Prime, Rent on Amazon, Buy on Amazon
Next: OJ Simpson: Made in America, Silvered Water, Ajami

Mustang (Turkey) – Sisterhood vs. the Turkish Patriarchy

Mustang Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

If you love coming-of-age films like I do then you will love this film. It has all the qualities of a classic family film but with a bit more grit. You’ll learn about the fierce patriarchy in Turkey and the freedom that girls lose when they become women. A nominee at Cannes and the Academy Awards go watch this – it’s on Amazon Prime.

As with most trailers, you’ll get spoilers after the first 30 secs.

Why Watch Mustang?

To experience what it is like growing up as a young girl in a patriarchy
It’s another great coming-of-age film (for more great coming of age films check out Colours of the Mountain, Kikujiro, or Girlhood)
If you have young kids or plan to have kids
Learn how important football is!

The Breakdown

“It’s like everything changed in the blink of an eye. One moment we were fine, then everything turned to shit”

In the blink of an eye, 5 sisters living in rural Turkey transformed from innocent kids into guardians of their families honour.

After school, instead of getting on the bus home, all of the sisters went to the beach with some of their fellow classmates. They all played together in the sea and had shoulder fights then stole some apples from a nearby orchard. A bunch of innocent fun. They are free.

But their freedom is curtailed by a gossiping neighbour who tells the girl’s grandma that they were rubbing their private parts on boys necks in the sea. And with that, their innocence is lost forever.

Conclusion

Mustang reminds me of the great kids films such as The Little Princess which keep you emotionally invested until the end of the film. However, this contains a bit more political weight. Director Deniz Gamze Erguven’s intention was to uncover to women issue in Turkey. A must watch!

Sweet Sixteen – One Teenager’s Quest to Find his Lost Childhood

Sweet Sixteen Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

What were you doing on your sixteenth birthday? Hopefully something better than Liam. Sweet Sixteen came out three years before MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen and shows a semi-orphaned teenager waiting for his mum to get released from prison. It’s another brilliantly bleak depiction of working class youth in the U.K. from Ken Loach and a perfect reality check to the super rich spoiled kids which took over MTV screens a few years later.

From: U.K., Europe
Watch: Trailer, Tubi, Amazon Prime
Next: Trainspotting, Girlhood, This is England

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