WATCH THE WORLD

Our goal is to open up the world to everyone through film. Everyone should travel if they can (the world is amazing), but it costs time and money which we don't always have. That's where FilmRoot comes in. We bring the world of films to your couch, so you can travel wherever you want to without the flight fees.

Use our World Map to find the best films from each country, choose a continent below to explore the best films from each continent, or simply scroll down to see our latest posts featuring films from around the world. Or, if you're up for a challenge, work your way up to the top of our Film Difficulty Rankings to become a World Film expert.

Latest Posts

Violence (Colombia)

Violence Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Image result for violencia forero You may have seen the great Netflix show Narcos and believe that you know everything about violence in Colombia. However, to truly experience violence in Colombia, you should watch the aptly named Violence. The film will take you to three parts of Colombia where violence exists. It will introduce you to it’s perpetrators and victims without revealing who they are or to which armed group they belong. Ultimately everyone is part of the violence in Colombia.

Why Watch Violence?

Experience some of the violent conflicts carried out in Colombia.
See the diversity of the Colombian landscape: the jungle, the city, and a small town in the country.
Recognise that all the characters are other beings of flesh and blood – perhaps the key to stop violence.
Learn how to make a violent movie without showing any violence!

The Breakdown

Violence starts in darkness. The only thing you can perceive is the sound of the jungle: the insects, birds, and cracking twigs. Slowly the outlines of plants and trees emerge from the darkness before the camera moves along the ground. The camera moves to the left and reveals a chain tied to a tree. The other end is tied around the neck of a man asleep on the jungle floor. He has blemishes and bug bite marks all over his body.

As daylight emerges, the camera stays in a close-up of the prisoner. All we can see is the prisoner, and some figures dressed in camo walking behind him, out of focus. The camera is restricted to where the prisoner can go, and it never ventures further than the limits of the prisoner’s chain. This shows us the lack of freedom that the prisoner has. We do not venture outside of where he is allowed to go, and everything outside that range is out-of-focus. We experience his captivity.

Whilst part one happens in the jungle, part two occurs in a Colombian city, and part three in the country. Firstly, the three locations showcase the diversity of the Colombian landscape. Secondly, the diversity of the locations show that violence is present everywhere (and not just Colombia). Even though we don’t directly see violence, we can tell it has occurred or will occur. Violence is evident in the character’s uniforms, the character’s actions, the words spoken, and the character’s faces.

Conclusion

Jorge Forero’s film shows the existence of violence of Colombia without showing the causes of it or offering a solution. Instead Ferero’s goal, as explained here (where you can also watch the film for a fee) is to make us recognise every character as human beings of flesh and blood. In doing this, we might just make it harder for another to commit violence against us.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Can anyone ever be above the law? Well this film argues that there are already people who are above the law. It points the finger squarely at the police department of Italy in the 1960s/70s. However, before you get the idea that this film is just a political slow-boiler, read on. This film is a crime thriller like no other. You will be on the edge of your seat repeatedly asking yourself why. Why is no one condemning him? Answer: he’s too damn powerful.

Why Watch Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion?

To find out if there can ever be anyone above the law
It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1970
For a glimpse of Italian society in the late 1960s/early 1970s; a period of violent student/worker uprisings amidst social and political conflict that came to be known as the “years of lead.”
If you like a great satire – one of the best ways to critique

The Breakdown

Quick cutting and camera movement introduce us to a police inspector walking along a black fence. The camera follows his movement and his eyes as he looks up to a lady in an apartment window. They obviously know each other, as their faces are match cut looking at each other. He opens the gate, walks up the stairs, and enters her apartment. “How are you going to kill me this time?” she asks him playfully. “I’m going to slit your throat” he replies sincerely. And sure enough, after brief foreplay and sex, he slits her throat.

The murderer methodically arranges his own crime scene, takes two bottles of champagne, and drives off. He calmly drives to the police station, jumps out of the car and starts to celebrate his promotion. He walks into the office, orders someone to get glasses and sits down at his new desk with a big map of the city behind him. It is obvious that he is in a position of huge power. That he is in a position that is above suspicion.

The director, Elio Petri, shows us how power is divided in Italy. The powerful hold control of the media, the public, and the police. The police inspector holds power over all three of these. Each one refuses to follow the clues he gives them. Instead they all follow him blindly, or, in the case of the public, represented by the tin-smith, they renounce their testimony out of fear, as if the inspector is a king, and they are worried of being accused of treason by incriminating him. The film is a parable of the corrupt police force that victimised students and labourers, and put themselves above the law.

Conclusion

In his portrayal of the police inspector, Petri exposes the corruption in the Italian police force. He shows the authoritarian position that the police inspector has and shows that they control everything. The media publish what the police give them, the public are too scared to stand up to the police, and his colleagues are too ‘stupid’ to follow the clues he leaves.

The tension in the film doesn’t come from us asking when he is going to get caught, but how far other people go to vindicate him.

The Lunchbox (India)

The Lunchbox Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

“Sometimes the wrong train gets you to the right station”

Are you looking for a great Indian film that isn’t a musical? Well here’s a good place to start. Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox is a beautiful celebration of Indian culture alongside a warning of the effects of rapid economic development. At the heart of the film is food; what it symbolises and how it can bring people together. For a trip to Mumbai, go watch The Lunchbox available on YouTube and (I think) Netflix – it’s also worth your money – click on the picture for a link to buy.

Why Watch The Lunchbox?

You don’t like musicals, but you want to see a great Indian film.
To see the amazing lunch-box service system in action
Meet ‘Auntie’ the go-to lady for all your questions – also a character that we don’t even see
For Irrfan Khan on top form (you may recognise him from Jurassic World, Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, or Talvar which was reviewed here earlier).

The Breakdown

The Lunchbox starts with a montage of Mumbai. Director, Ritesh Batra, shows us the trains, shoes cleaners, and cars before stopping at the house of Ila. Ila is fussing over her young daughter before she goes to school, telling her be careful. Her daughter disappears and she goes straight to her cooking. She tastes the contents of one of the pots and figures it is missing something. A basket appears at the window with a pot of spices, lowered down by ‘Auntie’. Ila adds the spices and readies the food for collection.

The lunch box prepared by Ila travels through the incredible lunch box system and ends on the desk of Saajan (played by Irrfan Khan) who is seduced by the amazing smells of this unexpected lunchbox.

Food is central to the narrative of this film and also shows us a lot about each of the characters. At home, Saajan eats heated up food from a plastic bag. In comparison with the fresh cooked meals that a family next door eats, his plastic meals are a symbol of his loneliness.

Food also symbolises class. Shaikh, an orphan who becomes Saajan’s apprentice, always brings in two pieces of fruit for lunch, usually two bananas. In comparison with the lunch box that Saajan can afford, a banana is a lunch for the lower class.

In addition, The Lunchbox does not hide the stress of life in Mumbai. Each of the main characters has experienced the death or absence of family. On the news, we hear of a mother jumping off the top of a tall building with her daughter to escape life. Ila blames it on the government that prioritises the GDP over happiness. The country has got caught up striving for a greater economy and forgotten about the importance of happiness.

Conclusion

The Lunchbox cleverly shows the current state of life in Mumbai through a romantic tribute to the lunchbox system. In doing so, it shows us a lot of Indian life: the food, the people, the transport, and relationships. It also subtly depicts the burdens that the Indian people are carrying as the country develops rapidly. This reminded me a lot of the Chinese film A Touch of Sin, which shows the strain of economic growth on people in China. However, in contrast to A Touch of Sin, The Lunchbox is much more upbeat and has plenty to celebrate.

Son of Saul (Hungary)

Son of Saul Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Are you ready to watch an amazing visual recreation of the Holocaust? You will see it all from the point of view of Saul, a Jew forced to help in the Nazi death camps. The camera shoots the whole film with Saul’s head in close up. We see everything he does, as if we are controlling him in a video game. If you liked the long takes of Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, or Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, you will appreciate this film.

Why Watch Son of Saul?

It won the Foreign Language Academy Award in 2016, beating the equally incredible Embrace of the Serpent
For some amazing long takes that reminded me of Alfonso Cuaron’s Birdman and Children of Men.
For another great, but harrowing Holocaust movie. Son of Saul offers a different aspect to what you have seen in Life is Beautiful and Schindler’s List
Learn about the SonderKommando – groups of Jews who were forced to carry out the Nazi’s dirty work

The Breakdown

The film starts with a blurred image full of green vegetation. You can just about make out two people with their shirts off, digging a hole by a tree. A man approaches the camera and his head comes into focus. The camera sticks to him, always showing his head in close-up focus and everything happening around him out of focus. He herds people onto a train and into the Nazi Death camps where they are frantically stripped and sent to their deaths in the gas chambers.

The man who the camera has stuck to is Saul, a Sonder Kommando. The Sonder Kommando were strong men, usually Jewish, selected by the Nazis to clear the gas chambers. We see them clearing dead bodies, rifling for valuables in the dead’s clothes, and digging burial plots. They were effectively slaves for the Nazis. If they didn’t obey the Nazis, they were shot and replaced. However, like the prisoner in A Man Escaped, there is hope where there is life and always opportunity to rebel and escape.

The director, Lazlo Nemes, chooses to focus on one man, Saul, throughout the film. The camera stays glued to Saul’s face for the whole film. Our view is restricted by Saul’s movement – even the background is rarely in focus. It gives us a unique point of view which immerses us in the horrors of life in the Nazi death camps. However, the blurred background hides a lot of the gore and violence from clear view (even though we know what is happening). I believe the director leaves these blurred to show that Saul has become accustomed to the horror/violence. He knows it is there, but doesn’t want to see it any more, so he blurs it out of his memory.

Conclusion

As hinted at before, Saul blurs out the horror and violence of the Holocaust as he doesn’t want to see it. As a result, his perspective and life retreats into himself as he tries to leave reality. He makes it his duty to ceremonially bury a boy killed by the Nazis who is left for experimentation. He prioritises this over everything else (escape, rebellion, and protection).

“You have failed the living for the dead” – One of the Sonder Kommando to Saul.

The Courtyard of Songs (O Patio das Cantigas) – Portugal

The Courtyard of Songs Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Image result for o patio das cantigas

If you’re looking for a bunch of laughs after a long hard day at work, watch this. You have the option of watching the classic original from the Portuguese golden age, or the updated version (which I’ve reviewed here). Either way, watching it is your chance to experience life in Lisbon. You’ll meet a mix of Portuguese stereotypes that you’ll quickly fall in love with.

Why Watch The Courtyard of Songs

To see life in beautiful Lisbon!
For a good, light comedy (a rarity on Film Root, for more comedy check out the German Toni Erdmann)
It’s a great alternative to art-house Portuguese film (such as Tabu or In Vanda’s Room) and the old Portuguese classics (Aniki Bobo)
It was recommended by a Lisboeta (someone from Lisbon)

The Breakdown

The film starts with a view of the neighbourhood. We can see lines of colourful bunting stretched across a courtyard in Lisbon surrounded by houses with balconies. A guy with a slicked back hair and a Mohawk walks out onto his balcony, scratches his balls, and cat calls an attractive woman walking past. The woman acknowledges him (luckily they know each other) and the narrator steps in to introduce us to all of the characters in the neighbourhood.

In this neighbourhood, everyone knows everyone. They are like one big family. They fight, they argue, but they will also support each other when it matters (such as when Amalia sings or when Evaristo bails out his neighbours). On the street, they share their emotions: their life ambitions, their love interests, and their gossip, which travels like wildfire. Gossip is their form of news. People are so eager to be on top of the local news, that they all follow the inspector round to try and solve the crime before him!

In addition, pay attention to the structure of the neighbourhood because it is typically Lisbon. The neighbourhood is divided into two levels: the street level, and the balcony level. People go to their balcony when they want to watch life in the neighbourhood and each character uses it differently. Evaristo uses it to watch out for Rosa, another character uses it to cat call girls, Amalia uses it to showcase her figure, and another uses it for his exercise bike. In contrast, people go to the streets when they want to share their emotions and party.

Conclusion

The Courtyard of Songs is great to watch to get an understanding of neighbourhood dynamics in Lisbon. The film is full of wittiness and laughs, a lot like a good episode of Friends. Watch this if you’re interested in visiting Lisbon, and if you want to go make sure you visit during the June festival!