by Benjamin Leonard, Managing Editor, Best Boy

Hello film friends! We have just started shipping out the latest issue of the zine, and I thought it’d be fun to tell you all about it. Our topic this time is “Foreign to Me” and it is a look at films made in a language that we aren’t readily able to understand. We kinda see it as travelling around the world through cinema. Where applicable, I’ve included links for where you can find the films featured. 

The first stop on our trip is in Mexico with Santitos, a story of a woman, a saintly visit and the woman’s quest for her daughter (available on DVD). Judson Cade Pedigo tells us about the film and his journey to go see it in the theater. 

Miguel Alejandro Marquez takes us to some tough streets in the French suburbs with his discussion of La Haine. In it, we see race, society and policing through the eyes of three young men with different ethnic backgrounds but a similar anger. Billy Russell looks at the cutsier side of France with Amélie and discusses how watching it feels like a two hour vacation that inspired some stops on his own trip to France. As others enjoy taking in the sights of the  landmarks, Liz Locke would prefer to stare at the dreamy Alain Delon over a drink of her own creation while discussing his films Le Samouraï, The Swimming Pool, Purple Noon, and Diabolically Yours. Closing out our extended stay in France, Gary Kramer tells us of convincing his brother to go to their first foreign film Diva, the punky, operatic thriller, and how it ignited his love of foreign film.

Then we are off to post-war Germany as Ian Hrabe explains Heimat (available on DVD) and how the average German citizen attempted to move on from the horrors they failed to intervene with during WWII.

Ashley Jane Davis explores her roots with the witchy Finlandian tale The White Reindeer, but are those roots Finnish or witchy?

Rosalie Kicks ventures into the land where language doesn’t exist and tells us silent films while discussing the very on-brand carnival film Lonesome by Paul Fejos. Ryan Smillie continues on that theme with his discussion of The Tribe, a teen crime film that takes place at a Ukranian school for the deaf where no subtitles are provided.

Next stop is Russia and Stacey Osbeck’s analysis of The Return. This is an eerie family thriller about a couple boys on a roadtrip with their father that has just shown up after twelve years. 

Ryan Silberstein takes a tough look at the children that were victims of WWII in Russia and then Japan with Ivan's Childhood and Grave of the Fireflies.

Then, we head to India to spend time with family in Monsoon Wedding. Jamie Davis describes how the story and performances give her a familial bond with all of the characters.

Next, we go to the Middle East where Fiona Underhill compares and contrasts a couple of animated films that find the main characters either finding or losing themselves in a violent social climate. Persepolis takes place during the Iranian Cultural Revolution (though it is mostly in French) and Waltz with Bashir deals with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon pieced together many years later in Israel. Jenny Swadosh stays in the area with Roy Dib’s Mondial 2010, the imaginary roadtrip of two gay men from Beirut, Lebanon to Ramallah, Palestine. 

From there, we head to some of the shadier parts of Brazil in City of God and Favela Five Times. Matthew Crump tells us about the connection the two films have (even though they are separated by 40 years) and his personal connection with them.

Finally, Nikk Nelson brings (most of) us back home to the U. S. of A. and tells of the horrors of being stuck in unintelligible conversations about football. His only point of reference? Films, of course! While touching on many titles, special shouts-out to Any Given Sunday, Paterno, Concussion, and The Slaughter Rule.