While Friday Night Films is on hiatus until the Darien Library building reopens, we have scheduled some events with Susie and Jane to discuss films that you can watch from the comfort of your home. There is an event tomorrow and then film historian Max Alvarez will join them next week to discuss "Guys and Dolls."
Jane has also selected some of her favorite foreign films which you'll find below. These movies are available to view online. If you don't have a Darien Library card, many of our neighboring libraries also provide access to Hoopla Digital, so use your hometown library card to access the films.
We miss you and hope you are doing well.
Italian Language Pick
Now seems like a great time to kick back and watch something heartwarming and uplifting.
One of our favorites is "Life is Beautiful" directed by Roberto Benigni. Guido – a charming waiter with a colorful imagination and an irresistible sense of humor – has created a beautiful life for his young family. When that life is threatened by WWII, he must rely on those strengths to save them from an unthinkable fate.
French Language Pick
If you're in the mood for something that will keep you on the edge of your seat, then "Tell No One" is a great choice.
The movie is based on Harlan Coben’s thriller about pediatrician Alex Beck who still grieves the murder of his wife eight years on. When two bodies are found near the scene of the crime, Alex becomes a suspect. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous email suggesting that his wife Margot is somehow still alive.
Spanish Language Pick
The bestselling book is a Library favorite, and the movie doesn't disappoint.
One of the highest grossing foreign films of its time, "Like Water for Chocolate" is directed by Alfonso Arau. Unable to marry, Tita expresses her passion for her beloved Pedro through food. Ordinary spices become a recipe for passion and her creations bring on tears of longing, heated desire, or chronic pain in those who eat them.
Great Picks in Other Languages
Hindi:"Monsoon Wedding" is an exhilarating film Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer calls "a banquet for the heart."
Korean:"Barking Dogs Never Bite" is the tale of an unemployed grad student with an expectant wife who is driven to distraction by a yapping dog somewhere in his large apartment complex.
Ukrainian:"The Babushkas Of Chernobyl" is about survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 who refuse to leave their homes.
Mandarin:"How Long Will I love U" is about a man and a woman living in the same apartment nearly twenty years apart who wake one day to find their timelines have merged.
