It started with a conversation I was having with my friend Robert about Salo. You’d be surprised how many ideas for articles arise from discussing this film. Not so many dinner plans, though. Makes sense for a film subtitled 120 Days of Sodom. Anyway, being avid film lovers, we agreed Salo was a film we were glad we had seen despite the inability to ever be able to “unwatch” it. We love film, and we love the notion we could sit through and appreciate a movie like Salo despite the graphic imagery therein. This spiraled the conversation into other films that our desensitized minds could handle, films we could observe from a film-lover or even a critical perspective even though they had imagery that could not be unseen. An hour later, we had disgusted ourselves to the point of seppuku, we went our merry separate ways, but a lingering idea was stuck in my head. Amidst all the onerous images I had conjured back into my mind from years and years of watching whatever whenever, a nugget of a question remained. It was basically this: As a film connoisseur, can you desensitize yourself for the sake of cinematic appreciation?

As part of our epic, two week long Decade in Review, master of the Foreign Objects Rob Hunter lays down his picks of the best foreign language films of the decade.

Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves slinging hash and pouring stout at The Slaughtered Lamb. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs. This week we take a look at a couple furry manimals, some suspense from abroad, and a mother who covers her kitchen floor with warm milk fresh from the source (and I don’t mean a cow).

From Twelve Drummers Drumming to Nine Ladies Dancing to a Partridge in a Pear Tree, we take a look at Twelve Films that should have been sung about.