Name that country

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VinegarBob
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Name that country

Post by VinegarBob »

What do the following films all have in common?

Ran (1985)
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
8½ (1963)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Through the Olive Trees (1994)
The Man Without a Past (2002)
You, the Living (2007)
City of God (2003)


It's a tricky one, isn't it?

I just watched The Wailing - a South Korean film. It was pretty good. I've watched a few films from South Korea, but not in a while. I wondered how many films from there I'd seen so far, and thanks to Criticker's handy filter system I was able to find out that The Wailing was the 82nd South Korean film I'd seen. I then wondered which foreign country I'd seen more films from than South Korea. France I thought - got to be France or Japan. So I checked and according to Criticker I've seen 453 films from France. That was a surprisingly high number, but on closer inspection many of the films listed are not what I would consider 'French'. Not at all. The list above is a small selection of films I plucked off the list of 453 'French' films, according to Criticker. If I were sorting those films into countries I'd find it quite straightforward:

Ran (1985) - JAPAN
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) - HUNGARY
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - USA
8½ (1963) - ITALY
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) - GERMANY
In the Mood for Love (2000) - CHINA (HONG KONG)
Through the Olive Trees (1994) - IRAN
The Man Without a Past (2002) - FINLAND
You, the Living (2007) - SWEDEN
City of God (2003) - BRAZIL

It seems like Criticker is sorting these into countries by something to do with financing or production company or something. Whatever it is I would tentatively suggest that it's not very helpful. Certainly not for finding out how many French films you've seen, at any rate. I'm willing to bet that if anyone who'd seen the above ten films were presented with the list and asked to put the appropriate country beside each entry they'd come up with the same countries as I did. I doubt France would get a mention, even among people who knew that some of the films were co-productions.

So what do you think of when you think of, for example a French film? Is it a film directed by a French person? Is it the predominant language spoken in the film? Is it where the film is set? Is it the country that the companies who financed the film are based?

How would you decide how Criticker categorises films by country if you were in charge of the database?

Oh, and am I maybe missing some way to further categorise films so that only what most people would consider to be French films come up?

dunbar
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Re: Name that country

Post by dunbar »

Interesting thought. I especially liked the way you set about making your point, as I got reeled in like a fish with those film titles.

Being absolutely no authority on the matter, having no background or education in film, or knowledge of how accreditation is given I nevertheless am happy to share my "common sense" approach which I thought about for at least 15 seconds...

...and let's not even bother with that because my wife walked into the room, she works for Film Victoria - Australia and her timing was excellent for me and unfortunate for herself because I decided to bombard her with questions. :)

Long story short, and she's no expert on the matter either, but film accreditation boils down to the production company. Or at least that's the case when there's one production company involved. I'm guessing that has to do with intellectual property or some other legal mumbo jumbo. But as that's the case you can have an Australian production company film on location in Spain, with entirely Spanish cast and crew, be speaking only Spanish in the film and even taking siestas between scenes along with a big fiesta when filming wraps and it would still be an Australian film.

However, with multiple production companies the waters probably get a bit muddied and that's where my wife started heading into the "don't know for sure" territory and was wishing she never walked into the room in the first place.

For example in the case of Terminator 2 Criticker lists it as France, USA. IMDb says USA, France. Wikipedia under Country says only United States. Now the production companies for Terminator 2, of which there are 4, plus an uncredited 5th enigmatically called T2 Productions include Canal+. Or, to paraphrase IMDB: presented in association with Canal+, as Le Studio Canal+ S.A. So there is a French production company on board, but then that begs the question what makes this film French? Which I guess boils down to that word "association" and probably some boring legal mumbo jumbo regarding intellectual property, rights to the script, the film rights etc.

So in the case of Terminator 2 is Wikipedia wrong to list only United States? Or, if we're looking at it another way, half right (the kind of right we all agree with because we're all like "Terminator 2? That's America Fuck Yeah all the way")? Is Criticker and IMDb technically correct (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hou0lU8WMgo)?

Now, as a brief side note, there are films that credit multiple countries and in those cases that's where there are multiple production companies from different countries who set out to collaborate together to produce a film. But if there are films out there where there's an "association" with a production company or companies from elsewhere and then we end up with multiple accreditation then, yeah, I fully get where the head scratching is coming from. We're not in Paris anymore Toto. :?

djross
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Re: Name that country

Post by djross »

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td888
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Re: Name that country

Post by td888 »

This problem has been discussed before
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4766&p

One of the solutions offered was introducing a new tag 'language'

djross
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Re: Name that country

Post by djross »

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td888
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Re: Name that country

Post by td888 »

The problem is the category 'country' is filled with 'corrupt' data. So trying to find south Korean movies based on this category will not show the movies that are marked as French. Using a category 'language' will give much better results. If they speak Korean in the movie, it's pretty sure its a Korean movie. So it sounds like a good solution to me.

As others have said, what does country mean in the current context anyway? Where the movie is shot, where it is located, who paid for the movie? It is too ambiguous.

Some have made collections to go around this situation by creating collections 'Set in...', e.g. 'Set in France'. But I consider this a workaround, not a solution.

90sCoffee
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Re: Name that country

Post by 90sCoffee »

djross wrote:
td888 wrote:This problem has been discussed before
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4766&p

One of the solutions offered was introducing a new tag 'language'


Not really a solution, just a different category.


That solution works for me. I was interested in looking up Italian films made in the past 20 or so years but when I search Italy, I get a bunch of Hollywood films. I ended up using the imdb advanced search which splits by both language and country.

djross
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Re: Name that country

Post by djross »

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dunbar
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Re: Name that country

Post by dunbar »

Can you take your scorn and miserable attitude somewhere else, djross?

Honestly I am at a complete loss to understand how someone can spend their time being so self righteous.

djross
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Re: Name that country

Post by djross »

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