[ INTERNATIONAL CINEMA VS. ENGLISH SOCIETY ]

International cinema is a funny mistress, many successful actors/directors who find their creative incent in the countries birth language and rise to fame domestically soon seek to broaden their artistic ability and their pay checks to our western society’s English speaking culture as the unavoidable fact remains. With our modern ideals and mass-marketed forms of entertainment we are indeed the most entertainment desperate society on this planet. Our take-away, work in an office all day lives have taken away our need of primitive survival instincts and instead replaced them with a boring contempt of self-loathing or insignificance.

And to that end we seek to fill our loneliness with an ideal greater than ourselves, one that we can find of epic quests, true love and inspirational meaning. But while as America and the broadening Australian cinema continues to pour out big-budgeted, ill-conceived and seldomly well-written and original stories for an increasingly love-desperate audience, the general audience refuses to accept foreign masterpieces into the local cinema because of subtitles. Thats right, subtitles. Readers of this magazine are probably accustomed to the simplistic method of reading a movie as all-most all the movies reviewed in “Review” demand to be watched with subtitles.

But it never ceases to amaze me how narrow-minded the bulk of our society is this, the dawn of the new millennium. My family alone renches at the thought of watching subtitles and would rather jump off a cliff than indure it. But when I purchase some foreign titles in the new format of DVD (God bless it) I can get them to watch some movies dubbed to English, such as this month’s reviewed ‘Run Lola Run’ and they come away in awe of such a well-plotted masterpiece.

Unfortunately viewing a title dubbed causes the lip-sync of the characters to appear like Monkey, Piggsy and Sandy out of ‘Monkey Magic’ which, in such an example, helped give the series its cult identity but when placed with serious drama can give an undesired comic look in an important, heart-breaking scene. (More on DVD’s influence on world cinema and anime will come next issue). Despite this however it seems to be the only possible way to bring the unique story-telling talents of the world to our ‘watch-what-your-told’ existence.

In no means am I criticizing any specific movie, person or production company as many, many talented people and successful films have made it to the big time through their skills alone, utilizing the best of our culture’s film history and bringing their own taste and flavor to the genre. But we are missing out on such a rich tapestry of oriental, European, Russian, African and foreign delight, denied to us by public opinion, or is it a few men worried of lose in profits from foreign invasion. Whichever it is, an ignorant audience or an overseeing superpower hammering us with new world sensibilities and ideals I am not here to debate. But hopefully breath a breath of fresh air your way by informing you of the largely unexplored territories of foreign cinema by English enthusiasts and hopefully brighten your day with a fresh, invigorating and original story from the world around us!