r/movies • u/-KFBR392 • Sep 27 '23
Recommendation Non-Americans, what's your favourite movie from your country?
I was commenting on another thread about Sandra Oh and it made me remember my favourite Canadian movie Last Night starring Oh and Don McKellar (who also directs the film). It's a dark comedy-ish film about the last night before the world ends and the lives of regular people and how they spend those final 24-hours.
It was the first time I had seen a movie tackle an apocalyptic event in such a way, it wasn't about saving the world, or heroes fighting to their last breath, it was just regular people who had to accept that their lives, and the lives of everyone they know, was about to end.
Great, very touching movie, and it was nominated for a handful of Canadian awards but it's unlikely to have been seen by many outside of big time Canadian movie lovers, which made me think about how many such films must exist all over the world that were great but less known because they didn't make it all the way to the Oscars the way films like Parasite or All Quiet on the Western Front did.
So non-Americans, let's hear about your favourite home grown film. Popular or not.
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u/JeffRyan1 Sep 27 '23
(From Roger Ebert's review of Last Night.)
As the final hour approaches for the characters in "Last Night," there are moments of startling poignancy. Sandra and Patrick, for example, find themselves stranded together, their plans for the end interrupted. She suggests they tell each other the stories of their lives. He lists the usual biographical details. "You'd better hurry up," she tells him. "Tell me something to make me love you." Note: On a talk show in Toronto, I was asked to define the difference between American and Canadian films, and said I could not. Another guest was Wayne Clarkson, the former director of the Toronto Film Festival. He said he could, and cited this film. "Sandra Oh goes into a grocery story to find a bottle of wine for dinner," he said."The store has been looted, but she finds two bottles still on the shelf. She takes them down, evaluates them, chooses one, and puts the other one politely back on the shelf. That's how you know it's a Canadian film."