Foreign

Periodically there’s a film that resonates long after viewing; marinating in one’s memory for days, oftentimes forever. Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s (“A Separation”) “The Past” is such a movie; simplicity balloons to complex; ambiguities, seemingly clarified, become murky; empathy, fickly flows from one character to another as “the past’ is sporadically revealed. Bernice Bejo as “Marie” is astounding as a …

“Jep Gambardella” (Toni Servillo) is a voyeur, flaneur gliding through life, observing, perpetually longing for “the great beauty” to accost him; a muse of inspiration capable of igniting the creative transformation he yearns for. Director Paolo Sorrentino’s homage to glorious Rome, its hedonistic lifestyle, commences with “Jep’s” sixty-fifth birthday party; freakishly beautiful members of Rome’s elite, sinuously writhing, frenetically dancing …

Judi Dench ignites the screen with her performance as “Philomena Lee”; the true story a young, Catholic, Irish girl, who has a son out of wedlock in 1952;  orphaned herself, she is housed in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roscrea, Ireland; where her son, at age three, is torn from her,  adopted by an American family. For forty-seven …

Director Abdellatif Kechiche depicts an achingly profound portrait of isolation, loneliness, separateness, love. “Adele” is seventeen, intelligent, inquisitive, conflicted; plagued by untoward fantasies; living with parents, ignorant of their complex progeny. It is the twenty- first century, the parameters between naivety, childhood and carnal knowledge have shrunk, intimacy is the norm, expected, practiced by all over 16; dissected in flagrantly …

Overwhelmingly, the most exceptional film festival to date; due to the prescient insights and monumental dedication of founder Michael Kutza and profoundly committed programming director, Mimi Plauche. By following Mini’s recommendations I was able to plunder the emotional vicissitudes of troubled, challenged marriages: “Le-Weekend”, “With You Without You”, “A Thousand Times Good Night”; women fighting an intransigent, male-governed sphere: “Trapped”, …

CHASING FIREFLIES (COLOMBIA:ENGLISH SUBTITLES) A film that unveils the fine line between being alone and loneliness. In a desolate Colombian salt mine, “Manrique” , a simple man, cares for the property; his sole companion, a dog “chasing fireflies”, defines his comfortable isolation until a young, sprite “Valeria” trespasses on his turf and irrevocably, magnificently changes his existence. Director Roberto Flores …

MY SWEET PEPPER LAND: (IRAQ, FRANCE, GERMANY:ENGLISH SUBTITLES) Scintillating blend of contemporary and archaic spheres in a destitute Kurdish village after the death of Saddam Hussein. “Govend” a gorgeous, idealistic educator convinces her father and seven brothers to allow her to return to her teaching position in this testosterone-driven village;  she meets “Baran” the police commissioner, a fearless war veteran, …

At this point of total emersion, I will address, in mini -synopsis, the requests for my favorites: A THOUSAND TIMES GOOD NIGHT (Norway: In English) Juliette Binoche, pulls out all the stops and gives one the most brilliant performances of her career; as photographer “Rebecca” she treads where only the fearless venture; commencing with the conversion of a woman as …

Never has cruelty been showcased in such a ravishing landscape; blackness of human nature set in luscious loveliness, a Bordeaux vineyard run by obsessive, perfectionist “Paul de Marseul” (brilliant interpretation by Niels Arestrup); a Beelzebub, with a Faustian tongue whose “grapes” reap more respect than any man. Director/writer Gilles Legrande paints a portrait of evil, so profound, overwhelmingly egregious, it …

Watching this remarkable film by Saudi director Haifaa al-Mansour (first full- length movie filmed in Saudi Arabia) realizing we are almost fourteen years into the twenty-first century and that millions of women live in restricted, reduced environments: individuality denied, erased, censored by scripted clothing; unable to vote, drive or control their finances; divorced by simple sentences; birthing vessels, castoff when …