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[/amazon_link]- Fargo (USA, 1996): I’ve watched this film a couple of times; it is an impeccable Coen brothers film. Frances Dormand is absolutely fantastic as pregnant Sheriff Marge Gunderson of Brainerd, Minnesota. William H. Macy is Jerry Lundegaard who is the manager of his overbearing father-in-laws’s car dealership. Jerry is in some financial trouble and all his attempts to extract money from the old man have proved futile. It’s too bad the police are involved now.
– 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (“4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile”, Romania, 2007) : This is a gut-wrenching film about Gabita, a young pregnant woman who wants an abortion.
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[/amazon_link]The film is situated in Romania of the 1980s, under the Ceausescu regime, so abortions are illegal. Gabita’s roommate and friend Otilia helps her find an abortinist, a quack who warns and threatens, offers no guarantees and finally demands outrageous forms of payment for performing the illegal procedure.
This is a pretty stark film about the desperation of women who have been shorn of their reproductive choices, a bleak lesson to those of us who would want to suppress women’s rights in the name of religion. This excellent film won among others, the Palme d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
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[/amazon_link]- Cairo Time (Canada, 2009) : This wistful romantic drama stars the luminous and graceful Patricia Clarkson as Juliette Grant, visiting her husband in Cairo. As her husband is embroiled in some emergency or other, away from Cairo, Juliette is shepherded through town by her husband’s friend, Egyptian native Tareq Khalifa.
American Juliette, unused to the jostling, staring men on the streets and the spaces reserved exclusively for men, finds comfort in Tareq’s erudite company and he comes to value hers.
This is a slow paced, delicate film, wonderfully wrought.
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[/amazon_link]- My Worst Nightmare (“Mon pire cauchemar”, France, 2011) : I could almost see this as a Bollywood masala film, since this was a trifle outlandish, but overall fun film. Agathe’s son is great friends with the son of uncouth oddjob-man Patrick. When her husband (Andre Dussolier) hires Patrick to do some longstanding repairs at their home, Agathe (Isabelle Huppert) finds him constantly underfoot, butting in with his opinion and unwanted advice.
This unusual romance has humor and the very French quirkiness I’ve remarked on before. Do watch.
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[/amazon_link]- Udaan (India, 2010) : This is one of the few remarkable films to come out of India, and I’ve seen it more than once. It is about a father-son relationship, the father rigid and harsh and unyielding and his teenaged son, home from boarding school, on the cusp of youth, hopeful and tentative and wanting his father’s affection.
Great performances all around, and some very slick direction make this moving, poignant film stand out. Here is the detailed review, and here are clips of the wonderful poetry featured in the film.
