Too American


Seriously, if I watch a foreign film is because I want to see something different than what you would see in the US. The last 3 films I watched were all Belgian and I could clearly see a transition from 'original masterpiece' to 'pass the popcorn'

I started with Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, then Loft (pretty Hollywood-esque but still remained quite original and thrilling) and now this thing full of poor dialogs, ridiculous punch lines ("I don't drink on the job" meh) and an always-present score. You might say the cinema of Wallonia is different from that of Vlaams but I've seen other movies like Ex-Drummer and De Helaasheid der Dinge which were pretty original.

Really sad how Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries try to imitate our culture, because they're not only leaving a beautiful part of them, but they're trying to pursue an insipid, capitalistic culture like ours.

it's only enough to listen to Dutch music which is 90% in English, probably to sell more albums abroad (even though only in extremely rare cases did English-language foreign music score hits in English-speaking countries). But they lose a LOT of originality, plus, the lyrics are almost always nonsensycal and stupid. But if you listen to that other 10% like Doe Maar or Aroma di Amore from Belgium, the lyrics are pretty sweet! (even though I barely speak Dutch, I always sing "De Bom" or "Voor de Dood" when I'm in the shower!).

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It`s not like the US holds, or should hold, some kind of monopoly over crime thrillers; looking at the history, it was the German Fritz Lang who in the early 1920`s laid the basic groundwork for the genre with his Dr Mabuse pictures. Film noir took it from there... and then French Jean-Pierre Melville appeared, took a bite of noir and proceeded to build a filmography that ended up a massive influence on American crime/action directors emerging in the 1970`s/1980`s. It`s always been a give and take between Europe and Hollywood. Plus this one here is a remarkably "artsy" thriller, anyway. Didn`t feel that terribly Hollywoodish to me at least.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

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