Why do you choose to watch French films rather than just US/UK prod.?

Sorry, I forgot to mention this is from a US/UK perspective. French productions as foreign films.

The films on my 'watch list' so i haven't see it yet.
But i can answer the other question.

i tend to get a bit fed up with Hollywood films, they look all the same and what Hollywood does with 60 million France can do in 10.. lol

Another thing to note.. and this might have changed but Fantasy style films were never popular in France, the audience would prefer films based in real life for example so theses types of films in France are far and few between and become a real treat.. hopefully over the years this has changed with films

Noting that you haven't had many responses, maybe you need to rethink your questions. "Instead of..." is an assumption that the few responders have already rendered irrelevant. I doubt that anyone watches a particular genre or movies from a particular nation "instead of..." "Is there anything that you enjoy about French films that you would expect all of them to have?" Are all French films alike? This is a fantasy-adventure film. Should we compare it to something by Godard, perhaps, and have the same expectations for both?

Maybe you should go back to your Media Studies and learn a bit more before you ask questions.

I'm Swiss so for me US/UK productions are foreign as well per definition ;) the only difference is that I watch English productions without subtitles whereas I need them for every other language (apart from German obviously)

To your questions:
I think the main appeal of european productions (not just French but also e.g. there are some awesome Danish films) is that they tend to be qualitatively better than the average Hollywood production. Don't get me wrong, there are some great Hollywood movies out there but there is also soo much crap nowadays. The french produce far less pictures which I think raises the quality.

I don't think you can generalize French films, you could rather group them by director/storywriter or something like that. I for one love almost every movie Luc Besson was involved with, I wouldn't say I love French cinema in general.

I think I saw Le pacte des loups the first time at a friends' but I really can't remember properly.

I liked that the story was intricate and the viewer was left guessing until the end. What I didn't really like was the portrayal of the beast, they should have shown less of it and left that part to the imagination of the viewer.

I especially liked Mark Dacascos' and Vincent Cassel's characters.

My favourite scene is the one with the wolf hunt where they find themselves in the burnt down house in the forest, the atmosphere was amazing.

I choose to watch French films because American productions are so uninspired. It seems that everything coming out of Hollywood is a remake. Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, The Uninvited, Nightmare On Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes- everything seems to be devoid of any originality, whereas with French films they still come along and do something different. They don't have to appeal to mass numbers of people and they don't try to. Films like Brotherhood of the Wolf and Martyrs and Inside still do something completely different, giving that much needed creativity I have so longed for.

There's nothing I would expect every French film to have except for creativity. The dull repetition of a remake, something we've all seen before, doesn't seem to pervade in French filns.

I watched Brotherhood Of The Wolf for the first time after I saw Silent Hill and wanted to see more of Christophe Gans' work and I loved it.

The story was fascinating because it was multi-level. There was a love story, there was a horror story, there was a political drama- there was just so much to the story to love.

The characters were all so grounded, so real. The actors seemed to become these characters and really brought them to life.

I can't pick two favorite scenes because every scene in that film is a favorite of mine.

Being Canadian, and having a mosaic of a cultural identity, I suppose I apply the same philosophy to selecting films. I tend to watch quite a few films in French mainly because I can speak and understand it fairly well, however I certainly don't see fit to limit myself to France when it comes to choosing foreign films.

A previous poster stated that he likes the way the French filmmakers (but really this applies to filmmakers of all nationalities, even American) can make the same quality of film for less money.

Also I like that if not specifically for the techniques applied in the film, we as an audience are exposed to a whole new back log of history and characters and ideas. This film is set during the back drop of the French Revolution (if I am not mistaken), which is something one would not see as often in an English or American film set during the same time, with similar subject manner.

Writers write what they know, and I reckon if a French filmmaker went to school in France, he likely knows a thing or two about his country's history as well as some of it's significant historical figures.

It's a nice change from the American Revolution, or Victorian England or any of the major English or American conflicts of the last several hundred years.

With regards to different ideals, in France, the economic system is different, politically speaking, France is much further left than America or England - this can influences the way people think and do things. (Same applies for any country anywhere else).

I happened upon the film because Vincent Cassel is in it. It's been a while since I've seen it so I'm not sure how much I can comment on the story or the characters. A fight scene in the rain jumps to mind immediately as something I enjoyed, whilst the climax comes to mind as something I didn't enjoy as much as the rest of the film.

What I liked about the first fight scene was that the rain seemed to make the percussion of the blows being exchanged much more intense. (And it was just really cool to have the two heros fighting in the rain with their faces obscurred by the collars of their cloaks).

Hopefully that helps.

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I like UK films, even though they're trying to emulate Hollywood more with each passing year. French cinema ranks high on my list, though, simply because of their penchant for making films that are so detached from reality and from the boring everyday life. I love the flamboyancy and the over-the-top character that most French films have. At some point Hollywood must have forgotten what films were really all about - fun. I must add that I also love Scandinavian films, the oddity that surrounds them is unlike anything else in the world.