Though Joseph Cedar’s Footnote (original title Hearat Shulayim) is a look at the Israeli academic community’s insularity and hubris, the problems it raises are universal and the film could most likely take place anywhere in the world. One of five nominated films at this year’s Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category, Footnote allows us [...]

The poet Rilke said, “There is only one journey. Going inside yourself. Here something blooms; from out of a silent crevice an unknowing weed emerges singing into existence.” The unknowing weed takes its time to sing but sing it does in director Anh Dung Tran’s film Norwegian Wood, his first since “Vertical Ray of the [...]

In Darkness is aptly titled. This film is incredibly dark, both in a lighting sense and its subject matter. Based on the book, “In the Sewers of Lvov: a Heroic Story of Survival from the Holocaust,” In Darkness joins a long line of films which document Jewish ghettos during World War II. The story follows [...]

According to Japanese anime director Makoto Shinkai, his latest film Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below is a study of “how people are connected” and the relationship between individuals. Although the film is designed primarily for a young audience, adult themes of love and loss abound in its story of mourning lovers attempting [...]

One of the greatest fears of childhood is being abandoned by your parents and left to face the world alone. In A Brand New Life, winner of Best Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival, French director Ounie Lecomte recalls her childhood in South Korea with this sensitively rendered and touching story of [...]

There is a difference between realistic films, such as those made by John Cassavetes, and cinema verité, or films that try to approximate realism. Realistic films know they are fiction, but nonetheless mimic reality for the sake of art, whereas cinema verité attempts to fool viewers into thinking it is real. Matteo Garrone’s 2008, 137 [...]

When men dress up as women in the movies, it is almost always in a comedy or farce; think “Some Like It Hot,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and “Tootsie.” However, when the situation is reversed and the film concerns women dressing up as men, the movie is habitually a drama bordering on tragedy: “Yentl,” [...]

Our society has often been called “death-denying,” one in which grief is suppressed and the inevitability of death ignored. Author John Fowles said, “Death’s rather like a certain kind of lecturer. You don’t really hear what is being said until you’re in the first row.” The children at a primary school in Montreal are definitely [...]

Be careful if you prefer your movies wrapped up in a pleasant little bow with an obvious beginning, middle, end, and with all questions and conflicts answered and sorted out. Certified Copy raises hundreds of absorbing and metaphysical questions, none of which will be answered for you at the end. In fact, the audience is [...]

Based on an actual racial incident in Gothenburg, Sweden in which a group of black teenagers carried out a series of thefts of other children’s personal belongings for a period of two years, Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s Play is about using psychological game playing rather than name-calling, threats, or overt violence to bully your target. [...]

It is rare to see movie walk outs; people will usually stick out rough films until the end because they willingly paid to be there. It is rarer still to see walk outs in an art house theater because the patrons typically have more experienced expectations on contemplative and metaphorical features. The Turin Horse will [...]

It is estimated that there are between 21.4 and 32.1 illegal immigrants or 10-15% of the total of all immigrants in the world. How to deal with illegal immigration has been a source of controversy in most Western countries and raises many complex political, economic and social issues. Le Havre, however, the latest film by [...]

You will enjoy particular films even more if you do not know very much beforehand; think The Sixth Sense or The Crying Game. Previews of movies nowadays give away everything including the set up, the conflict, the climax, and sometimes even the ending all before you go and see it. The preview for The Skin [...]

The Mill and the Cross is a movie inside of a painting, specifically a 1564 painting titled “The Way to Calvary” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Pieter Bruegel (Rutger Hauer) is the main character in the film which takes turns following him as he decides how his painting will take shape and who will be [...]

Rare for a mysterious thriller set in the high stakes business realm, Love Crime is dominated by women with the men relegated to paltry supporting roles. Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is on the fast track to the elite tier of her international business firm as chief of their Paris office. She is confident, sexy, knows [...]

Germain (Gerard Depardieu) is not illiterate. He knows how to read and write, but he really prefers not to. For one, he is not very good at reading — he goes slowly and he uses his finger to follow the lines across the page. However, his comprehension is pretty good, especially when someone reads aloud [...]

The Emperor is dead and next in line to replace him is a woman. Never in the history of China has there been an Empress. As her coronation draws closer, loyalties are tested, schemes are rumored, and when people start to literally burst into flames, the stakes can be no higher for all involved. This [...]

There are four main characters in Happy, Happy because it is about two couples; however, one of them really shines through and becomes such a pleasure to watch that it really does not matter what happens with the plot or any of the other players, she is just stunning. I am talking about Agnes Kittelsen [...]

Mysteries of Lisbon is not so much comprised of mysteries, but instead a series of conversations which always lead to some sort of revelation. These revelations are melodramatic punch lines with interlocking characters continuously finding out who their parents are, where they came from, the results of lost loves, and everything in between. If the [...]

The circumstances which the two girls in Circumstance find themselves struggling against are those created by the oppressive Iranian theocracy. Every single thing which they want to do as teenagers is deemed illegal by the ruling mullahs and enforced by the corrupt morality police. To circumvent the rules, they use secret code words and signals [...]

General Pang Qing Yun (Jet Li) is the sole survivor of his entire battalion; the Ching army he commanded was decimated by the Taiping rebels in Hechuan. Seeking refuge, Pang retreats to a small town and ends up spending the night with a woman named Lian (Jinglei Xu). The next morning, he awakens alone, but [...]

Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry resembles much of what is great about the current cinema coming out of South Korea — for my money, some of the best in the world. With recent films like Oldboy, The Host, Mother and The Good, the Bad, the Weird, South Koreans have proven time after time that genre filmmaking can [...]

The fate of three Korean men changed the day their paths crossed on a train in Manchuria during the 1930s. A plan is put into motion to steal a map riding on that very train that leads to something extremely valuable. Chang-Yi (Byung-hun Lee), the most wanted bandit in Manchuria, is hired to steal the [...]

Ip Man is still the only martial arts film I’ve ever given a perfect score. Similar films usually throw in those silly bits of humor that come off as lame rather than actually being humorous. It probably hits its target overseas audience well, but the difference in culture probably has something to do with how [...]

“Take care of all my children, don’t let ‘em wander and roam. Take care of all of my children for I don’t know when I’m coming back home” – Tom Waits A film most decidedly split in two, Father of My Children brings us a life story of a family. Its initial focus is on [...]

In the early hours of July 17th, 1942, more than 13,000 Jews were taken from their homes in occupied Paris and detained at the Velodrome d’Hiver. They were held there for a few days before being shipped off to a holding site, and finally to the concentration camps, of which only 25 survived. The military [...]

Nominated for an Oscar, winner of a BAFTA, A Prophet tells the story of young Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rehim), jailed for six years, and the amount of growing up he has to do in that time. With an Arabic name, but French allegiance, Malik is alone once inside. He cannot read or write and [...]

His name is Rizwan Khan and he is not a terrorist. However, he’s a Muslim in a post 9/11 America, and not everyone believes him. He must tell the President in the hope that this simple message will filter down through society. The situation is not helped by the fact that Rizwan suffers from Asperger’s [...]

With a name like Tokyo Gore Police, it was simply impossible for me to not want to see this movie. And in some perverse way (locked away deep in the recesses of my mind), I’m glad that I did. The Japanese have singlehandedly fine tuned the art of making freakishly bizarre cult movies that defy [...]

As a lonely child, I gravitated towards Dungeons & Dragons and have always been intrigued with fantasy worlds and the creatures that inhabit them. So finally, after seeing and hearing all the hoopla surrounding Pan’s Labyrinth or should I say El Laberinto del Fauno (real Spanish title), I finally got up the nerve to get [...]