And so, World Cinema month at thedullwoodexperiment is over. The dust has settled, the subtitles have been interpreted to get a better sense of what characters are saying (and mean), the reviews have been posted, and there’s no better way of concluding matters than by thanking everyone who’s visited thedullwoodexperiment during April and put up with my month-long “diversion”.

Those of you with a keen eye and strong mathematical abilities will have noticed that my original plan – thirty different movies from thirty different countries – fell by the wayside at around the halfway stage. Sadly, Life got in the way of blogging, and two movies didn’t make it. Those movies, Once Upon a Time in Vietnam (2013) and The Dance of Reality (2013), will be reviewed at a later date.

As for the other twenty-eight movies, there were some that made the whole thing completely worthwhile – Araya (1959), The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013), Virginity (1937), Wadjda (2012) – and, amazingly, only one that didn’t, the dreadfully pretentious Charlotte for Ever (1986). Making the decision as to which movie from which country to include was sometimes a problem. With countries such as France and Japan producing so many great movies over the years, picking just one often ended up being a case of scrolling down a list and saying, “Right, whatever number eighteen is, that’s the one.” Not the best way to choose a movie to watch and review perhaps, but on this occasion, it provided me with a great selection of movies, most of which I would be happy to watch again and again.

One thing I have learnt over the past month is that I won’t be doing this again! A month was simply too long, and while I don’t regret doing it, a week would have been better. I did watch other movies during April, a small handful of which were reviewed, but by the month’s end I was beginning to feel obliged to watch and review these movies, and a little bit of the enjoyment had gone out of it. Less is more, as they say, and I for one will be following the dictates of that phrase from now on. That’s not to say that foreign language movies will disappear from thedullwoodexperiment, just that they’ll be included as often as possible but not as exclusively as during April.

Again, many thanks to everyone who visited the site during April, and an even bigger Thank You to everyone who pressed the Like button after reading a review. Now, what’s next…?

Looking back over the reviews I’ve posted here on thedullwoodexperiment, it’s not exactly a surprise to discover that the majority of movies I’ve reviewed have been English language movies. English is my native language, I have more access to English language movies, and while I can occasionally convince other people to watch a foreign language movie with me there are often too many considerations to be taken into account to make it worthwhile – “what’s it all about?” being the least of them.

But while English language movies will always remain the staple ingredient of my movie diet, I have too much regard and fondness for foreign language movies to ignore them completely (three of my All-Time Top 10 are movies “not in the English language”), and as often as possible I head for the land of the subtitle and allow myself to be transported to parts of the world, and people, I have little knowledge or awareness of. It’s a learning process, as well as a hopefully entertaining one, and to celebrate my love of foreign language movies I’ve decided that April 2015 will be World Cinema Month at thedullwoodexperiment.

This means that each day there’ll be a review of a foreign language movie from a country where English is not the main language. My aim is to find and review thirty different movies from thirty different countries and highlight just how diverse and yet not too dissimilar movie making is around the globe, and to maybe, just maybe, encourage readers and followers of thedullwoodexperiment to take a chance and follow me on this journey of (further) discovery.

I aim to watch a range of movies from a variety of genres and decades, and where appropriate to give some background information about some of the countries chosen and their movie making history. I’m looking forward to this very much, and hope those who follow thedullwoodexperiment, or who may be just occasional visitors, will be prompted themselves to look further afield, and with a bit of luck, find a movie they’ll come to treasure.

P.S. For those of you who are thinking, “What? No English language movies at all?”, there will still be some of those throughout the month. Watch this space!