Foreign

Christopher Nolan’s mesmerizing masterpiece on the vastness of vulnerability; war’s anonymous selection of who shall live and perish; regardless of rank, the process is random, emotionless, arbitrary. Nolan’s brilliant film focuses on a simple, far from extraordinary soldier, whose fate is in the hands of a higher power; “Tommy” (Finn Whitehead) runs through the streets of Dunkirk, searching for the …

Russian writer Nikolai Leskov’s (1831-1895) 1865 novella, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” has inspired an opera by Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), a ballet by Rudolf Brucci (1917-2002); Polish filmmaker, Andrzej Wajda’s (1926-2016) 1962 “Siberian Lady Macbeth” brilliantly wallows in the restricted world of a nineteenth century woman, shunning conventions of the time, making her own rules, inevitably leading to her …

Summer selections in theaters have been puny at best; in desperation and fighting film withdrawal I have turned to Netflix for satisfaction. Director/writer Oriol Paulo’s (“The Body”) “The Invisible Guest” is stunning, riveting in gifting viewers another prescient take on the “Rashomon Effect”; identical scenario told from different perspectives. Brilliantly written and acted, there is a slick, balanced compilation between …

Recently, German films have brazenly analyzed their bleak accountability for WWII; “Labyrinth of Lies” (2014) was outstanding and “13 Minutes” directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel should be seen for a myriad of reasons: cinematography tightly, pristinely anchors the viewers attention to the plot; the acting is superb: Christian Friedel is haunting as young Georg Elser, an apolitical carpenter who devises a …

Focuses on the 2006 St. Andrews Agreement, a monumental step in the elimination of the bloody strife between The Democratic Unionist Party and the I. R. A./Sinn Fein; Ian Paisley(Timothy Spall) and Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney) and the fictionalized, imagined version of how these mortal foes became “The Chuckle Brothers” eventually serving as First Minister and Deputy Minister of Northern …

Wildly witty, charmingly creative, “Michal” (sensational Noa Kooler) is thirty-two, an Orthodox Jew, dumped by her fiancé, she decides to go ahead with the wedding despite being “groomless”; she feels that God will prevail and in thirty days, on the eighth day of Hanukkah she will wed. What transgress is captivatingly unpredictable; Michal, a proprietor of a mobile zoo, is …

Quietly profound slice of life; a moment in time that all who have reached the age of maturity will recognize its veracity, silently stunning emotional upheaval; normalcy interrupted, a catastrophic event severs the complacency of a twenty-five year marriage. Writer/director Mia Hansen-Love partners with inimitable Isabelle Huppert and paints a portrait of time, acceptance, change and openness to “things to …

Last year, on the advice of my sage sister, I binge-watched Britain’s television detective drama, “Foyles’s War” (2002-2015); truly one of the “finest” programs, written by Antony Horowitz, I have ever indulged in; commencing in 1940 the scenario stretches through WWII and beyond; starring Michael Kitchen as detective “Christopher Foyle” and Honeysuckle Weeks as his driver “Samantha Stewart” two of …

Three profoundly poignant, powerful films that idiosyncratically adhere, to one’s memory; permanent, lifelong residents, quiet reminders of youth’s surging, electrifying passion; a love never experienced in the history of mankind; convinced of its uniqueness, permanence, consuming every waking moment, dominating dreams, allowing nothing, or no one, to trespass on its sublimity; its redolence lies in its universality; life’s serendipitous, karmic …

1932-33, between seven and ten million Ukrainians were systematically starved to death because they refused to be part of Josef Stalin’s collectivization; resisting forced relinquishment of their land to state- owned collective farms. “Holodomor” (death by forced starvation), cancerous as the “Holocaust”;  Stalin and Hitler, bunk-mates in Dante’s ninth circle of Hell. “Bitter Harvest” directed by George Mendeluk tackles this …