The 2010 Guardian Film Power 100...

...lists Pedro Almodovar as number 84, saying the following:

"He is one of only a handful of foreign-language directors who can make a dent in the UK box-office op [sic] 10 consistently punching above the weight of nearly all other European film makers".

There is so much wrong with that I'm not sure quite where to begin. I'll attempt to break it down.

• Firstly there is the insinuation that no other European directors are good enough to "make a dent" in the "top 10" in the UK... This, to me, places the blame for the lack of interest shown by the British public in "foreign"(but non-American, of course, because the US isn't a foreign country after all...) films on non-anglophone directors as opposed to on British people and the society as a whole for being anglocentric and linguistically and culturally ignorant and insular. It angers me so much that there is an incredible abundance of wonderful filmic work that never makes it to screens in the UK (and the US)... and that has ramifications for other countries, which tend to show those films that have fared well in the UK/US...
• Secondly, since when does "foreign-language" film equate "European" film? There seems to be a belief that, if we are to watch these strange foreign productions, then the most foreign we can possibly handle in Britain is European work... Let's just discard Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America... after all, there is nothing culturally valuable in any of those vast regions...!
• The derision which "foreign" cinema elicits in the UK appears to be the result of two things. Cultural insularity and linguistic ignorance create a situation in which France is as "foreign" as Malaysia. People simply do not have the knowledge or tools to even distinguish between "foreign" films from different countries and cultures. Despite this, they know that they want to watch films with people who look, act and seem (on the surface) like them; i.e. white Europeans, hence the preference (if you could call it that), among "foreign" offerings for European cinema. The issue is that, watching an Almodovar film, for example, so much is lost in "culture" rather than through language. Because the average British person knows so little about our neighbours, never mind about even more "exotic" countries, cultural meaning, symbolism and references are not understood. We've taken the time to learn about North American society and culture, why not those of our neighbouring nations? That's before we mention that the lack of knowledge of foreign languages along with the utter reluctance of a large part of the population to watch anything with subtitles effectively means that people are trapping themselves in the anglosphere and seriously limiting their intellectual borders. Depressing.
• Number 84?? Really? For one of the most successful (albeit non-American and "foreign") film directors ever? One who has inspired a cult following, consistently enjoying great commercial and critical success...84?
• Where is Von Trier on this list? Like, honestly? Oh, sorry, I forgot, we already had our fill of "foreign" in Almodovar...

The United Kingdom needs to wake up and embrace the world around it. This sort of list highlights just how insular our cultural influences and references are, and it's worrying. So much is lost when you only look inwards, to your own culture and your own language.