Where We Are:  Austria
wikipedia

What We Watched:


Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters)
Year of Release: 2007
Directed By: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Starring: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Martin Brambach, August Zirner
Genre: Drama, War

Overview:
Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film, The Counterfeiters tells the true story of Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a swindler who made a name for himself as Berlin's "King of the Counterfeiters." However, his life of women and easy money is cut short when he's arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp.

With the German army on the verge of bankruptcy, Sorowitsch makes a sobering deal with his captors: in exchange for a comfortable bed, good food and fair treatment, Sorowitsch, along with the other hand-picked specialists, must counterfeit bank notes to fund the Nazi war effort. If he does as they say, he lives another day. If he rebels, he faces the same fate as the rest of the camp's prisoners. But if he lives, will he be able to live with himself?

My Thoughts:
This is an excellent film.  The performances are uniformly excellent, the setting and cinematography appropriately bleak, and the story is a compelling one based on actual events.  The center of the film, however, are the moral questions.  What must one do to survive?  What is your life worth?  What is your death worth?  If you would sacrifice your life for something worthy, can you choose to do so of others lives?  If you look out for yourself can you also look out for others?  What truly makes a man a hero?

This is the sort of film that will stay with you, that you will remember, and as such garners the highest recommendation. 

Bechdel Test: Fail

Overall: 5/5

Where We Are: Macedonia
wikipedia

What We Watched:


Jas sum od Titov Veles (I Am From Titov Veles)
Year of Release: 2007
Directed By: Teona Strugar
Starring: Labina Mitevska, Ana Kostovska, Nikolina Kujaca, Xhevdet Jashari
Genre: Drama

Overview:
Set in the quaint but scarred town of Veles, three sisters long to escape the suffocating environment of their dying community.  Burdened by memories of their late father, each chooses a different path:  Sapho struggles to secure a visa to Greece, Slavica desperately searches for a rich husband, and Afrodita harbors hopes for love and children.  In this contemporary story of urban decay, director Teona Strugar Mitevska blends stark realism with memorable performances to create a vivid landscape of life and longing in post-communist Macedonia.

My Thoughts:
Watching this film, I am reminded of coal country - eastern Kentucky, West Virginia - except instead of coal, here we have a factory that brings jobs and poisons the land and people.  We have a bleak crumbling infrastructure people are desperate to escape from - into dreams, drugs, sex, or to actually grasp the ability to leave for better opportunity.  This was a really well done character study, both of the sisters themselves and the character of the place.  You can feel the despair and the hopelessness roil off the screen.  If that didn't say it - this isn't a happy story, and it doesn't have a happy ending.  But it has something to say about life and living, and that always makes for a film worth seeing.

Bechdel Test:  Pass

Overall: 3.5/5

Where We Are: Australia
wikipedia

What We Watched:  


The Last Wave
Year of Release: 1977
Directed By: Peter Weir
Starring: Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, Gulpilil, Nandjiwarra Amagula
Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Fantasy

Overview:
Richard Chamberlain stars as Australian lawyer David Burton, who takes on the defense of a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their own. He suspects the victim has been killed for violating a tribal taboo, but the defendants deny any tribal association. Burton, plagued by apocalyptic visions of water, slowly realizes his own involvement with the aborigines...and their prophecies.

My Thoughts
Richard Chamberlain has long been one of my favorite actors. He might have the distinction of being the first actor I would have said was a favorite. I had such a crush on him in the 80's. It's thirty years later, now, but he's still a favorite of mine, and movies like this show why.

This is a really interesting film. It's very slow moving, which doesn't work for a lot of people, but to me helps build the growing atmosphere of mystery, and the pervading feeling of impending doom.

Doom here is the future that David (Chamberlain) foresees, but does not believe in his own power. Mystery here is meant as in religious mysteries, the mysteries that the aborigines Chris and Charlie hint at to David, and that David's dream-visions open to him.

Spirituality is the heart of the film. David comes from a completely secular background, even though his dad is a minister. Discovering there is more to the world than he has been taught, he feels betrayed and lashes out at his dad with "Why didn't you tell me there were mysteries?" When his dad says that his whole life has been dealing with them as a priest, David retorts that he stood at the pulpit and explained them all away.

This is, to me, what Chris & Charlie mean when they say that David has forgotten what dreams are. He - we - have lost the mystical in the world, the mysteries of life that surround us.

It also has something to say about what white attitude toward aboriginal peoples, especially in how David's colleagues are so quick to dismiss the idea that city-dwelling aborigines may not have held onto their culture, that they are just like 'poor whites.' Maybe they are, and David is being romantic with his ideas about tribal peoples, and maybe they aren't, but who are we, as outsiders, to decide either way.

Vastly interesting film, very well done, for all of me. Both Moira and I enjoyed it immensely.

Bechdel Test: Fail

Overall: 4/5