Foreign Film Series
The Foreign Film Series provides the Cedarville community an opportunity to view interesting and challenging films from around the world. The series allows viewers to peer into often unfamiliar cultures through the eyes of the cultures themselves.
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In This Corner of the World
Japan/Anime/Drama
Date and location: February 8th, 6:00 and 9:00 p.m., BTS 104
Description: Based on the award-winning manga by Fumiyo Kouno, In This Corner of the World, depicts Suzu, a young girl from Hiroshima, who has just become a bride in the nearby city of Kure during World War II. Living with her husband’s family, Suzu has to adjust to her new life, which is made especially difficult by regular air raids. However, Suzu, through the help of her new family and neighbors, begins to discover the joys of everyday life in Kure. Much is gained in Kure, but with war, many things cherished are also lost.
Director: Sunao Katabuchi
Performers: Rena Nōnen, Yoshimasa Hosoya, Natsuki Inaba, Minori Omi
Reviews:
Perfectly animated, emotionally pure, In This Corner of the World is an outright marvel. –Sarah Michelle Fetters, MovieFreak.com
An elegant reminder that we can never forget what life during wartime does to the human soul. –Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
[Suzu’s] life is treated as thoroughly unexceptional . . . except, of course, it isn’t. Besides a heart full of (hesitant) love and a soul full of (bashful) virtue, she has the artist’s drive to capture the passing world. –Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader
The painterly beauty of anime detaches the viewer from the terrible events depicted, but it also makes these cataclysms more accessible to the imagination. –Peter Keough, Boston Globe
The quietly revealing tale from the director Sunao Katabuchi follows the childhood and arranged marriage of Suzu, an “ordinary,” but utterly resilient girl, who also has a talent for drawing. –Kate Muir, (Times (UK)
Director and writer Sunao Katabuchi brings us a profound and overwhelming tale that is nothing short of heartbreakingly beautiful. –Gloria Daniels-Moss, HeyUGuys
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Suzume
Japan/Anime/Drama
Date and Location: March 21st, 6:00 and 8:45 p.m., BTS 104
Description: Suzume’s journey begins when she meets a young man looking for a door. Following him, she finds one and reaches for the knob. Doors open across Japan, unleashing destruction. Now Suzume must close them to prevent further disaster.
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Performers: Nanona Hara, Hokuto Matsumura, Eri Fukatsu
Reviews:
Shinkai Makoto’s supernatural fantasy is a whirlwind of tentacled monsters, interdimensional portals and talking chairs, but the film is at its strongest when grounded in everyday life. –Jessica Kiang, Sight & Sound
Suzume is Shinkai’s biggest and possibly most complex movie, and parts of it feel more personal due to the invocation of real history. –Sam Barsanti, AV Club
A fascinating, frustrating film. –Maya Phillips, New York Times
It is an absorbing, intriguing, bewildering work: often spectacular and beautiful, like a sci-fi supernatural disaster movie or an essay on nature and politics, but shot through with distinctive elements of fey and whimsical comedy. –Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
It is a work of art which reflects on the loss of collective memory and the oblivion of the history of places, as well as on the complex relationship between nature and humanity. –Nicolás Medina, Montevideo Portal
There is a poignancy to how the film depicts these abandoned spaces and how the means of bringing order out of chaos is to “hear” the past and remember all who once called them home. –Isabel Ong, Christianity Today
Suzume's plot is a testament to the power of storytelling and remains a beautifully crafted film that speaks to the human experience of grappling with grief and the possibility of healing. –Abhishek Srivastava, The India Times
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Golda
United Kingdom/United States/Israel/Drama
Date and location: April 11th, 6:00 and 8:30 p.m., BTS 104
Description: A ticking-clock thriller set during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet, and a complex relationship with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with millions of lives in the balance. Her tough leadership and compassion would ultimately decide the fate of Israel.
Director: Guy Nattiv
Performers: Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, Camille Cottin, Rami Heuberger
Reviews:
There is no trace of Helen Mirren in Golda, and that’s the way it ought to be. To say that she becomes the fabled Israeli Prime Minister is a mild understatement, and it should come as no surprise that she delivers a great performance. –Leonard Maltin, leonardmaltin.com
Perceptions may be colored by revisionist political opinions of Meir, but Mirren embodies a complex character of conscience and empathy, who feels deeply and acts decisively to preserve an independent state even as she herself is disappearing. A gem. –Thelma Adams, Movies for Grownups
Mirren portrays Meir in her darkest days at the height of the 1973 Yom Kippur War with empathy and loving subtlety. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing it better, and this is territory that was once mined by Ingrid Bergman. –G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
The film itself describes Golda as a hero outside of Israel and controversial in her own land, and it does well enough in embodying that very same controversy. –Savina Petkova, A Good Movie to Watch
Ultimately, Golda is an essential piece of cinematic contemplation on the value of war. –Benjamin Franz, Film Threat
Helen Mirren astounds as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in a tense dramatization of the Yom Kippur War. The film juxtaposes her debilitating cancer treatments with the fortitude to make life and death decisions under extraordinary circumstances. –Julian Roman, MovieWeb