***

Barbara- sp This is the 2012 entry from Germany in the Oscar race for best foreign film. It is a throwback to the 1980s and a view of East Germany a little less than 10 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The story revolves around Barbara (Nina Hoss) a doctor who has been sent to the boonies ( a small hospital in the countryside of East Germany.) Her wish and her goal is to escape from this oppressive country and she has a plan to do it. However, she is constantly under the watchful scrutiny of the secret police as well as that of her colleague Andre (Ronald Fehrfeld).

She also has a keen awareness of the hardship and cruelty which the government causes the people around her especially a few of the young patients at her hospital who we have a chance to meet. This is the 5^th movie that Nina Hoss has made with Director Christian Pelzold and the most successful one in Germany. Hoss’ intense depiction of the emotions of her character is done with few words. The storyline is slow to develop but the suspense and the drama are very well done. (2012)

***

The Deep- sp

It is easy to see why this movie is  currently the  #1 film in Iceland and is that country’s entry for the best foreign film. It is a fairly authentic depiction of the frigid North Atlantic Ocean and a man’s survival in it for 6 freezing hours. This true story is well known to inhabitants of this country and especially  those from the off shore island from where this  ill fated fishing trawler departed. It is here that we meet the small crew the night before as they get ready to leave their friends, families and, for some, the usual night out on the town. The viewer is lulled into the boring routine of another fishing excursion in the brutal cold water trawling the nets for fish. Without warning we are thrown into the water with Gulli (Olafur Darri Olafsson) as he creates with the help of director Baltasar Kormakur the journey which defied medical science. Kormakur did not have CGI effects or a large bathtub to film this picture and actually used the real sea, huge waves and all. Credit should go to this team for the realism which they achieved (even though we felt that it  looked like the hero  was treading water most of the time rather than swimming a distance which was documented  (although his rescuers and doctors said they could  not believe was true.) Nevertheless, the overall effect was quite dramatic and knowing that it was a true story, we shared the awe that the doctors had after extensively examining this man after this feat. ( 2012)

****

Intouchables:  rm– (In French with subtitles)  It may be hard to believe that you can watch a movie about Phillippe (Francois Cluzot), a quadriplegic man who can’t move his arms or legs  and come away feeling optimistic about life and his future. The story is about this but more about a relationship between a very wealthy man who became completely incapacitated in an accident and in his search for a caretaker encounters a most unlikely person, Driss (Omary Sy). They become buddies and this becomes one of the best buddy films that has been around in a long time. You get a sense of where Driss is coming from – low income overcrowded housing in some adopted family arrangement and Phillppe – a deceased wife, a big beautiful mansion and very likely old money. It would have been nice to have a little bit more back story on each of them but the universality of two people being able to understand and care about each other makes this movie work. Speaking of rising above it all, there is one such scene in the movie which is worth the price of admission. It is a  magnificent  paragliding experience  where we  join the characters as they soar above above a beautiful countryside with mountains and valleys. It is  not a only a metaphor for this story but a reminder how we often get caught up in the details and neglect the big picture. Don’t neglect this one. (2012)

***

Where Do We Go Now? sp—It could have been New York City and the gang war between the Jets and the Sharks as seen in Westside Story. Or perhaps it could be the Bloods and the Crypts  who in reality  have an uneasy truce in Los Angeles which usually prevents them from killing each other. However this movie takes us to small village in Lebanon (although the name of the country is never mentioned to suggest a certain universality to the theme). In this case there are two factions Muslims and Christians with their respective houses of worship being literally facing each other. They live side by side in this small village but all too often friction occurs and the men are at each other and young men die. It is not this way with the women of this village who are friends and share their mourning and grief as they periodically bury their men. Second time Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki who wrote, directed and starred in this movie was inspired to create this movie shortly after she had her first child and was in anguish over a political rift in her country during which men were fighting in the street. She was moved to consider how horrible it must be to raise your son in this environment. She wrote a screenplay of what might happen if the women of this village were to get together and conspire to stop this senseless killing of the boys and men. The result is a poignant and comedic fable, which reminds us what women can do when they work together to try to protect their families. Ms. Labaki is not only inspired but is very talented. She created this movie using mostly non-actors, who often worked from the concept of a scene rather than following a tight script. Nevertheless there were some particularly authentic dramatic moments, which were done quite well. It did take a little while for us to get completely oriented to the storyline and the 100 minutes running time could have been edited more tightly. The theme partially echoes an  Albanian film The Forgiveness of Blood where ancient traditions of mediation are used to try to prevent the feuds but in the current film Ms Labaki‘s  instincts clearly focuses on the power of women. (2012)  

***

The Deep Blue Sea- rm-  This movie is set in about the 1950s in post World War II London. It focuses on the troubled personality of Hester Collyer   (magnificently nuanced performance by Rachel Weisz) who is unhappily married to a much older but caring British judge, Sir William Collyer (Simon Russel). After a chance meeting with Freddie Page, dashing former RAF pilot, (Tom Hiddleston) Hester moves out of her passionless, childless marriage to live with this new lover. She soon realizes that between his drinking and his self-centeredness, he has very little to offer her. On the other hand it becomes clear that she is obsessed with her neediness and passion for him. She is caught between a marriage that doesn’t work for her and an attraction and dependency that is equally doomed. This would seem to leave her with tremendous emptiness and a tumble towards a suicidal despair, which is emotionally enhanced by Barbe’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra op 14.  The story is based on a play by Terrence Rattigan and is written and directed by Terrence Davies who uses various flashbacks to try to fill in the back-story. Any student of a psychological drama such as this one yearns to know the determinants of this troubled character. We are only told that her father was a Church Vicar who was quite demanding of her. We are also shown that she was a young woman of wartime London and all the insecurities that must have brought to her.  One poignant scene in the subway during a bombing attack during the war and another of children playing in the rubble give us hints of what may have added up to her tremendous neediness and the fleeting attraction to this war hero. Even if all our intellectual understanding of this character were not fully satisfied, Rachel Weisz conveyed the emotional substance with which we could identify and by which we could be moved. (2012)

***

Monsieur Lazhar– sp  (French with English subtitles) This film was the Canadian nomination for the best foreign film in the 2011 Oscar race. The opening scene takes place in a middle school that is the setting for most of the movie. We see a young student peeking into an empty classroom where he sees his teaching dangling from a rope where she has hanged herself. Starting with this violent event the movie progresses with an examination of the emotional meaning to the young students and to the replacement teacher Monsieur Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag ) an immigrant from Algiers, where he had his own secret  tragedies. The movie is a remarkable accomplishment in that it is mostly these children who are expressing in a subtle manner what this experience has meant to them as well as the nuances of the storyline (which one must follow carefully through the subtitles). Fellag was imported from France for this role, which he handles with great sensitivity and believability. He is able to synchronize the working of his own emotions with those of the children. Much of the credit belongs to writer and director Phillipe Falardeau  who adapted this story which he originally saw as a one person play. He concludes the film with the antithesis of how he began it. (2012)

***

The Harmonists – nf  This German film with English subtitles was originally titled the Comedic Harmonists which is the name of one of the most famous vocal groups to ever perform in Germany. This film is the story of  how Harry Frommermann, (Ulrich Noethen) originally pulled together this sextet in Germany during the depression from 4 other  talented singers and a piano player who were barely getting by in those hard times. They rehearsed for many months honing their style of syncopated but soothing harmony mostly choosing popular classics frequently with humorous lyrics. They became immensely popular in Germany. The story line shows how they came together as a group and also depicts some of their romantic connections. This is all based on a true story and the music that we hear is the actual music of the Comedic Harmonists of the 1930s.  However as we all know something else was going on in Germany during this period. Harry Frommermann and two other members of this group were Jewish. As we follow the now successful group  and perhaps identify with their joy in realizing their hopes and dreams, we also  begin to appreciate what was happening all around them. Some of the scenes  remind us  of the denial of so many proud older German Jews who couldn’t accept that they were slowly but surely being rejected by their beloved country. The Harmonists briefly perform in the United States and Harry has a conflict whether he should return to Germany. Each time we read a book or see a movie about this period of history we develop an iota more of insight into the plight of the Jewish people of that time and also of what can happen to any of us (Jews or not) when people are led to hate one group or another. The power of music to tap into our  emotions no doubt will help to embed this piece of history and this film into the viewers psyche. (1997)  

 ***

Footnote – sp  Imagine a father and son both working in the same scholarly professional  field.  The son receives wide recognition that has always eluded the father. One day the father receives a phone call telling him that he has finally been awarded the countries top award for work. in his field. The son receives a frantic phone call to come to a special meeting where he was told that his father was mistakenly notified by the person who made the call who thought she was calling the son. This is part of the original premise of this screenplay by Joesph Cedar who also directed the movie  and earned for this Israeli entry one of the five nominations for best foreign films in this year’s Oscar race.  This film examines the father (Sholomo Bar Aha)  son (Lior Ashkenazi ) relationship in the context where the father does not respect the academic work of the son . The movie is set in the esoteric world of Talmudic scholars specializing in philology (which is the study of language in written historical documents), which in this case takes place at an academic department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Bar Aha who is a well known television and stage actor in Israel,  has very few lines in the film which he dominates with his presence and his ultimate dilemma . The unique plot is riveting at times and while there are universal conflicts embedded in the story, some of the lack of empathy that father has for son and son has for his own son will be difficult to identify with by most of the audience. You will leave the film, stimulated and provoked, but not likely very satisfied.(2011),

***

The Forgiveness of Blood- sp  This  film takes us  to a place in northern Albania about which we know very little. We see people living in a rural setting filled with horse drawn carts and pickup trucks but yet homes with satellite TV and the Internet as well as teenagers going to school and hanging out with cell phones. Then we are introduced to the existence of  a practice that has been in existence for at least a half of a millennium  of blood feuds that occur when someone has killed a person and revenge is exacted on the members of the murderers family by the dead person’s family.  This means that the males of the targeted family must stay hidden at home away from work or school or risk being killed. This leaves the wife and the daughters with the task of going to work. Although this form of justice takes place outside the nascent legal system of this former communist country, it can be modified by mutually agreed upon  mediator with a besa  (or truce) being arranged all under guidelines of some ancient set of oral rules passed down through the many generations. The story of how this phenomena was recognized by an American filmmaker who started off with no special connection to Albania and was turned into a script and then a movie is almost as interesting as the film  itself. Joshua Marston (director and writer of Maria Full of Grace) after hearing about these feuds decided to travel to Albania and try to make a movie about it. He made a connection with Andamion Murataj, an Albanian filmmaker living and working in New York for the past 15 years. They traveled to Albania, visiting as many people, families and schools to understand this widespread situation which has been still estimated to effect thousands of people in the last 20 years. They wrote a screenplay which shows their story through the eyes of an 18 year old boy who is  caught in the middle of such a feud when his father kills another man in a fight over the right to drive his horse pulled delivery truck over another man’s property. Many of the actors  especially the teenagers and younger siblings were chosen from improvised casting sessions in local schools. The resultant film is a very professional, realistic depiction  of the painful impact on the families of the  blood feud, especially on the children. The filmmakers tendency to linger on the experience that the targeted  family members were going through made you appreciate their despair although at times it seems that we were living through it in real time. Nevertheless, you come away from this movie moved and informed about an ancient practice that continues in modern times in a distant land. (2011)

***

A Separation –sp (with subtitles )   One of the remarkable things about this movie is that Iran chose it be it’s Oscar nominee for the best international film. It shows the conflicting values in Iran today. The focus of the film is on two families who find themselves in a major disagreement. The story addresses Iranian life in regard to divorce, child custody, carrying for an Alzheimer parent, fundamentalism, oppression of women as well as the economic problems and the legal system of this country. It also raises the question of whether given a choice might a family there choose to emigrate to another country. The movie  obviously generated a great deal of interest in Iran as it is on it’s way to being one of the most successful homegrown movies ever made there. The film is written, produced and directed by experienced filmmaker  Ashgar  Farhadi. American filmgoers can identify with particularly the dilemma Termeh, the daughter of one of the couples, who agonizes over what is the truth of  the disagreements between these families and most importantly with which one of her divorcing parents she would choice to live. This key role is played by Sarina Farhadi , daughter of the filmmaker, who was a preteen when the movie was produced. The acting all around was quite good. It is a dialogue driven movie so you must become immersed in the subtitles. You certainly get a feel of what everyday life might be like in an urban city in Iran. You also get an insight into what may be  similarities and  differences of this family crisis in a country about which most of us know very little .