Category: Non-English Film

In 1996, an order of peaceful monks who provided support and medical care for an Algerian community came under attack from an Islamic terrorist organization. Much of the film simply follows the monks as they go about their days, living humbly and piously. As the threat grows closer, the tension becomes stronger as even amongst the monks there is disagreement on how to best serve their vocation when facing great risk from the outside world. A beautifully shot film, it provides insight to what religion can offer to individuals and communities through a real life instance that shows the positives and negatives.

Though three separate films, as an entity these incorporate the Apu Trilogy, following the life of the title character from his birth in a rural Indian village to adulthood when he has a son himself. The one that most resonates for me is the third, focusing on the struggles of adulthood, but it is stronger because of the films and history that came before. As a whole they present a realistic and beautifully presented rendering of the experience of a young man growing up in India. The one reliable experience through it all is death and loss.

Almost immediately it is obvious that the Japanese version of the first Godzilla film is far superior to the bastardized American one. Paleontologist Takashi Shimura is called to investigate mass destruction on Odo Island, only to be among a number of witnesses to the Godzilla monster taking land. Meanwhile, after falling in love with ship captain Akira Takarada, Shimura’s daughter Momoko Kōchi goes to break her engagement with doctor Akihiko Hirata, only to find he may have discovered something that could take care of the Godzilla menace. While the trouble with Godzilla is center stage, his existence is completely put in the context of post-World War II Japan with a populace recovering from the devastation of the war, especially the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while even more recently dealing with fallout from nearby American hydrogen bomb testing, facts completely excised from the American version. Even beyond the resonant social commentary, the film has some enjoyable special effects, especially of Godzilla rampaging miniaturized sets.    

Young nurse Bibi Andersson temporarily moves to a seaside cottage with Liv Ullmann, an actress who has suddenly stopped speaking, whom she has been charged to care for. While residing there, the two women’s personalities merge in explicable ways. Beyond that explanation, I cannot sincerely explain anything else about the film. The casting of these two actresses is brilliant as they carry enough resemblance to make the twisting of their identities much more eerie.

Unlike the other films in Rossellini’s war trilogy, this last one is set in Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In war-ruined Berlin, twelve year old Edmund Moeschke lives with his sick father and two adult siblings in an assigned apartment house, all struggling to find their next meal and ways out of a desperate situation. A strong indictment on the wreckage left behind by war, the young Moeschke wanders the streets of the city, too young and innocent to be treated as an adult but old enough to experience the same hardships of the adults and make devastating choices because of it.