foreign films

What are the limits of friendship? The Hunt explores this question when a misinterpretation of facts unleashes a chain of consequences in a small town in Denmark. Lucas, a newly divorced father and kindergarten teacher, is tested to the limits of his emotional endurance as he slowly becomes an object of suspicion and mistrust among his coworkers, the townspeople, and even his closest friends. The plot builds to a level of exquisitely wrought tension that keeps you holding out for some kind of relief as Lucas reaches his edge.

This film has many strengths but what stood out most for me was

If you think that a comedy about religious and ethnic tension is impossible or inappropriate, this movie will prove you wrong! Where Do We Go Now is a satirical fable depicting contemporary life in an isolated unnamed Middle Eastern village where Muslims and Christians coexist in peace. When word spreads that a civil war is engulfing the surrounding country, the people instantly forget about their common bonds and prepare for war. The once peaceful village is slowly drawn into violence, but village women - sick and tired of losing their husbands and sons to senseless warfare - band together to

Trishna gives a new twist to the traditional Bollywood cinema. It is the Tess of the d'Urbervilles transferred to contemporary India.  The viewer is instantly cheering for an unusual relationship between two young people of different social levels, but all along the gut feeling says that in this love story something may go terribly wrong.   The movie presents the changing socio-economic structure of modern India: bustling, congested mega cities contrasted with poor traditional villages. Made by English filmmaker Michael Winterbotton with a full Indian cast, Trishna has beautiful scenery of the

It all started so innocently with a morning shave of a trademark moustache – but, nobody noticed. Nobody.  Neither the wife, nor the boss. All tried to convince him that he never even had a moustache ever before.  All feels like a twilight zone: Is he losing his mind or is it an elaborate group conspiracy against him?  The premise of this movie is rather original and intriguing and one expects this movie to be a comedy, but it turns dark a few fast frames later.  The viewer is kept guessing as the plot is continuously shifting further away from domestic solitude nearing a psychiatric asylum

 Iranian cinema is known for its fine arts movies and the director Majid Majidi is the star. The Willow Tree is a sad, poetic and sentimental movie.  It tells the story of a middle-aged man, Youssef, a professor who lectures on Rumi, who has been blind since childhood. Youssef, under the loving care of his wife, is sent to France for an experimental surgery to possibly help him regain his sight.  While he is in the hospital, recovering from his sight-saving surgery, he strikes up a friendship with a man who is slowly going blind. They helping each other to prepare for the journeys ahead of

This enjoyable Czech comedy concerns an aging man named Fanda, retired from the theater, and his sidekick, who refuse to become emeritus vegetables, living corpses. To stay involved in the world they cook up harebrained schemes that dig them deeper into trouble. By contrast, Fanda’s wife nourishes a petty bourgeois death cult, devoting their pension to saving for a respectable funeral and burial plot. Their spoiled rich son wants to take over his parents’ apartment to house his harem.  The movie features several Czech notable contemporary actors and the plot reflects contemporary life in the

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

It is good to step out of our comfort zone once in a while, and this Iranian movie does just that. It defies the expectations of audiences used to Hollywood cinema as well as European and fine art films. The plot of the movie takes us to an ancient village, where a group of engineers arrive to film a mourning ritual for an old woman who inexplicably keeps staying alive. Only one of the engineers is ever shown on screen, and he is forced to stay behind and participate in the everyday life of the village. The only connection the remote village has to the outside