I've really been mulling over the necessity and use of dialogue in films lately and these are on opposite sides of the spectrum.
I really hate dialogue that is superficial and superfluous filler. Talking just for the sake of talking with nothing to say or talking to explain what is happening or has happened or is going to happen in a movie when it could had should have been explained visually — after all, this isn't radio!
I found The Final Combat at the same store where I got Iguana — I struck gold! As far as I know, it's Luc Besson's first film; a beautiful black & white film without one line of dialogue. Set in what appears to be some sort of post-apocalyptic era, I never really questioned to how or why of the situation and was really drawn into the narrative.
A film with no dialogue puts a lot of weight on the other sound — especially the music. This was the only problem I had with Final Combat was Eric Serras' lousy synthesizer music that harkened back to the Casio symphony of Day of the Dead.
Meanwhile, Before Sunrise was the epitome of the "talking film." I went to see this film to hate it as I am not a big Ethan Hawke film and the premise seemed rather stupid. But I was willing to plunk down my $6.75 (yes, I actually paid) just on the chance that I could act like Joel Robinson to my fiance's Tom Servo. Incredibly enough I loved it!
Richard Linklater, the man who was untouched by the Sophomore Slump phenomena went on to his third film and pulled it off with flying colors. Five minutes in I thought, "This is pretty good, Ethan Hawke isn't even bugging me" and half an hour later I thought, "This is really good, they had better not fuck this up by sticking in a plot or anything." And they didn't and I loved it.
What I really loved is that Julie Delpy's character was as well-rounded as Ethan Hawke's. She even appeared to be the stronger of the two characters in that she was graced with being the first one introduced and the last person on screen before the final fade to black. Cool.
I tend to judge stage plays transferred to the screen rather harshly as a lot of writers don't realize that screen dialogue is a lot different than theater dialogue. Death and the Maiden had a few instances of artificial staginess ("I heard the whisper of his clothes") but it sounded a lot more natural than Six Degrees of Separation.
I think the best adaptations of stage plays to film lately have been A Few Good Men, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Oscar — yes, Oscar — I really enjoyed that film (the cast couldn't be beat and Stallone really is a good actor when he's got a good script to work from and any movie that has a tough guy Peter Reigert say "Why I oughta...").
I got really defensive after seeing this — I didn't want to hear anyone say anything that I could construe as negative. It was really powerful and stayed with me all evening. I wouldn't recommend it as a date movie but then again, I wouldn't recommend Bad Lieutenant as a date movie either but I know two people who had great dates because of it — one person getting married, the other getting a hand job.