Movies: Foreign Language Film-o-rama

Our library down here has a pretty extensive selection of foreign films. Most of them are plodding and talky, but a select few are engaging enough to be worth your time. Here are my picks:

The Counterfeiters

Sometimes it seems like the quickest way to get an Oscar nod is to set your film during the Holocaust/WWII-era ("Life is Beautiful," "Schindler's List," etc.). The cynical part of me says this is because many of Hollywood's biggest producers, actors, and directors are Jewish, but, even when viewed objectively, there is indeed plenty of drama to be mined out of that miserable time. "The Counterfeiters" leverages its brutal concentration camp setting to the fullest:



A group of prisoners is enlisted to help the Germans counterfeit the English pound in order to destablize their economy. In exchange, they are given better beds, better meals, and a better chance at survival. Director Stefan Ruzowitsky does a decent job in portraying the bleak Holocaust atmosphere, but he takes few risks (the movie has the same washed out, desaturated look you've come to expect from WWII films).

Thankfully, the actors pick up the slack, lending their characters the mix of quiet determination, guilty gratitude, and naked fear that comes with their position as cogs in the German war effort. Karl Markovics is the lead counterfeiter, a conman who quickly gains the sympathies of the audience. My personal favorite, though, was Devid Striesow's spot-on portrayal of Sturmbannführer Herzog, the calculating, ruthless, and ultimately pathetic SS commander in charge of the operation.

Rating: 8/10

Nobody Knows

Japan is infamous for two things - overpopulation, and the overwhelming feelings of social isolation that can occur in spite of that overcrowding. "Nobody Knows," a film by Hirokazu Koreeda, explores that duality:



Loosely based on a true story, "Nobody Knows" follows four siblings who live in a small apartment with their habitually absent mother. As the mother starts to disappear for longer and longer periods of time, the kids face a desperate struggle for survival.

Koreeda directed the surreal "After Life" in 1998, and it's clear he knows a lot about getting the most out of an ensemble cast, even one composed of teenagers and children. The slow pace of the movie gives full effect to the gradual transformation of the children's cramped world; the viewer can almost smell the rotting garbage in the apartment. When the credits finally do roll, it feels like a relief.

Rating: 7/10

The Lives of Others

"The Lives of Others" tells a story set in East Germany, years before the Berlin Wall fell. The year is, appropriately, 1984:



The movie has elements of romance and political thriller, but it's ultimately a character drama about two men, Wiesler and Dreyman. Both of them initially believe in East German socialism, even though they witness the heavyhanded way it is implemented (stark police controls and political corruption).

I heard "The Lives of Others" was a little controversial in Germany (it's hard to shake the lingering division caused by the Iron Curtain), but it's really a good film that explores the symbiotic relationship between an author and his or her audience. The movie has a message that is the direct opposite of Orwell's seminal novel: even in a cheerless, grey Communist "republic," the creative spirit is hard to kill.

Rating: 9/10