Foreign

Jerzy Kosinski’s 1965 novel of the same name, translates into a horrific, bestial, brilliant visual experience; not for the squeamish or feint sensitivities; there are scenes seared permanently in my memory; moral turpitude on an unimaginable scale; cruelty practiced by a religious populace. Crimes perpetrated upon a young boy seeking safety, sanity in Eastern Europe, during WWII. He is Jewish, …

Most of us have had it with homeland incarceration; abiding by authoritative regulations, our relationship with the outside world, revolve around our television/computer. Here are a few to view or shun: “GRANDCHESTER”: a British detective series  (PBS, AMAZON PRIME) in its fifth season, surviving the loss of magnetic James Norton (does an about face, from saint to sinner in “Happy …

Unerringly poignant, sublimely sensitive, an exquisite story within a story directed by Hirokazu Koreeda (“The Shoplifters”); actors Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, imposingly comfortable in their craft are commanding as a mother/daughter team, with unresolved issues; Deneuve, “Fabienne” at the nadir of her career as a scion of the film industry, struggling with memory deficiency, has written a fabricated autobiography; Binoche, is her daughter, “Lumir”, …

This fine Australian film, won prizes at many 2019 film festivals; without sensationalism it splays to the core a family’s horrifying pain of watching their teenage daughter’s loosing battle with intransigent cancer. Director Shannon Murphy (screenplay: Rita Kalnejais) in tandem with an extraordinary cast emotionally sear viewers with a revelatory, insightful vision of coping with the unimaginable. Eliza Scanlen’s, “Milla” …

It is baffling that I missed this profusely profound historical film based on a man, possessing Olympian attributes and daunting, divine courage; Hemingway defines courage as grace under pressure; Jan Baalsrud’s (1917-1988) paranormal, formidable fortitude led to his escape from the Nazi’s in the spring of 1943, Norway; a magnificent testament, celebration of man’s will to transcend normalcy, inhabit the …

Panned by critics when released in 2019; audiences ignored the “panners” and relished its scandalous scenario; an Italian thriller with enough twists to hook one’s attention for the entirety of its eight episodes; coated with an aura of scintillating sleaze, inimitable of Italian and French filmmakers, delicious to ingest and imbibe; superb acting transcends any plot shortcomings: Vittoria Puccini, as …

Benjamin Ree’s idiosyncratic portrait of two disparate individuals whose karmic, destined paths collided and blended into an unlikely love story; a documentary revolving around the theft of two paintings by Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova, cautiously removed from a gallery wall in Oslo, and one of the captured thieves, drug addicted Karl-Bertil Norland; as a painter Barbora looks beyond the surface; non-judgmental, …

An Australian psychological thriller,  inventively twisted, freakishly fabulous, starring Aden Young as driven, compulsive detective, “Mike Serrato”; his lust for the capture of a serial killer, a fiend with a tattoo fetish (he excises his victims tattoos), creepy in spades; creepier is that detective Serrato has replications of these scarrings tattooed on his body, as reminders of the slaughtered women; …

When it comes to detectives, it is all about style; the crime solver has to be more fascinating than the crime; we savor their repeated series, lapping up their techniques, uniquely indigenous to each detective: Sherlock, Poirot, Morse, Foyle, Mrs. Fisher, Fletcher, Luther, Bosch (see past reviews, my avidity for master sleuths is staggering); “Bordertown’s” “Kari Sorjonen” is a detective, …

From time’s commencement man has perpetually sought a deity or deities beyond his limitations; a force, willingly recognized as a power to be emulated, worshipped, lauded on a plane mortals can only aspire to; many who attained divine status were men among men: Buddha, Jesus. “Herrens Veje” is one of the finest series I have viewed in recent years; pulsating …