BBC Culture issued a list of the ‘100 greatest foreign language films’ and Landscape in the Mist ranks in the final place.
Made by late Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos, the 1988 road movie had won the Silver Lion at the 45th Venice International Film Festival, and was Greece’s official submission to that year’s Academy Awards, not making it to the shortlist. It has also been featured in the Village Voice ‘100 Best Films of the 20th Century‘ list, ranking in the 97th place.
For this list, BBC Culture asked 209 critics from 43 different countries to take part and choose their top-10 non-english-speaking films. The resulting Top-100 films from 67 different directors, from 24 countries, and in 19 languages.
Angelopoulos’ film is featured alongside masterpieces by Andrzei Wajda, Abbas Kiarostami, Ingmar Bergman, Jules Dassin, Alain Resnais, Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, Kenji Mizoguchi, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Wong Kar-Wai, François Truffaut, Yasujirô Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, whose seminal Seven Samurai tops the list, confirming its status as one of the most influential films in the history of cinema.
Landscape in the Mist is a coming-of-age story, centered around two siblings, a teenage girl and her five-year-old brother, leaving their home in search for their father, whom they have never met and who they believe lives in Germany. They are assisted by a young bus driver, who works with a theatre troup. It is considered one of the masterpieces of Angelopoulos, showcasing his trademark poetic use of imaging and symbolism to create a philosophic narrative about the role of individuals and their place in history.
Multi-award-winning Angelopoulos died in a road accident in Piraeus while shooting a film in 2012.