Run, Lola, Run (Lola Rennt 1998; language - German) is a high-octane romp through 20 minutes in the life of Lola, a German girl in the truest punk tradition, portrayed with panache by Franka Potente. Director Tom Tykwer channels Groundhog Day (1993), but with a twist. In this telling and re-telling of a vignette, Tom Tykwer doesn't put the main characters in control of their destiny. Random events of a seemingly minor nature conspire to alter dramatically the outcome of the story each time it is told. Lola has a boyfriend who, through carelessness, runs foul of rather nasty gangsters. He has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 German Marks that he's lost, or his life will likely be over. Lola comes to the rescue, as only she can. And with the amount of running she does in the course of the film, she stays pretty healthy. How does the story end? The director gives several different versions. It's destined to be a true classic: well-paced, occasionally humorous, and ultimately redemptive, Run, Lola, Run is an art-house film with unexpectedly broad appeal. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0130827/)

Black Book (Zwartboek 2006; languages - Dutch and German) from director Paul Verhoeven is a World War II thriller set mainly in The Netherlands. Carice van Houten plays Rachel Stein, a young Jewish girl who narrowly escapes capture and execution by the Germans. To avenge the deaths of her family members, Rachel goes undercover for the Dutch resistance movement and infiltrates the local Gestapo administration posing as Ellis de Vries, a singer. She meets and seduces German officer Ludwig Müntze, played convincingly by Sebastian Koch (Carice van Houten's real-life partner). Through Müntze, de Vries is able to ferret out a traitor in the resistance movement working in the German camp. Müntze discovers her identity as a Jew, but is in love with her and fails to act as he is expected to as a German officer. A series of harrowing manoeuvres ensues, with de Vries escaping Nazi confinement, only later to be branded a traitor by the local Dutch and treated with scorn and abuse. This film has received numerous accolades, and rightly so. Paul Verhoeven knows his way around a thriller (Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992)), and is quite fond of the theme of sex as a tool, but he doesn't shrink from exploring the over-arching themes of war, hatred, suspicion, love, and sacrifice. Black Book is a complete work, and is certain to cement the reputations of Carice van Houten and Sebastian Koch as A-list performers. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0389557/)

La petite Jérusalem (2005; languages - French, with Hebrew and Arabic) from writer/director Karin Albou relates the story of two sisters from an Orthodox Sephardic Jewish family living in a shtetl (a Jewish ghetto) on the outskirts of Paris. Fanny Valette plays Laura, the younger sister, who struggles with her progressive views on religion and the role of women in society. Elsa Zylberstein plays Mathilde, the older sister, married and with several children, who struggles to be an observant Jewish wife and mother while striving to keep her marriage alive and interesting for her occasionally wayward husband. Laura is studying philosophy at a local university. She also works in a facility nearby, and while there, becomes intensely attracted to a young Muslim man. His family insists that she must convert to Islam if they are to be together. Her family, although they do not know of the affair, would be completely mortified if she were to take up with him. All the while, Mathilde continues to exhort Laura to 'look to Hashem' for guidance, even as she herself must ask Him for help and solace. La Petite Jerusalem is relatively slow and atmospheric; there is little action apart from a brief Jew-bashing episode early in the film. What sets the film apart is the way it 'breathes' and lets the viewer absorb the environment of Orthodox Judaism as lived on a daily basis. The whole palette of human emotion is on display, as are the strengths of familial and filial bonds. Fanny Valette and Elsa Zylberstein are both masterful in their performances, as well as being uncommonly lovely and vibrant. This is an outstanding window into a world with which few will ever intersect. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0428965/)

Set Point (Täna öösel me ei maga, 2004; language - Estonian) is a noir film from director Ilmar Taska, set in the streets, alleys and old buildings of the ancient Estonian capital of Tallinn. While not a great film, it is worth watching simply to see the treatment given to this particular genre of film by a director born and raised under Soviet occupation. Suitably dark and oppressive, as befits both the storyline and the locale, Set Point is the story of a murder whose effect circumscribes the lives of four people – Alis, Kristofer, Evelin and Harri. These characters are interconnected in surprising ways, revealed bit by bit through the story. Chance encounters turn out to be anything but. Motivations are murky, and remain so throughout most of the film. If nothing else, Set Point gives a view onto a European capital that is not a frequent stopping point on most itineraries. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0408286/)

Now Everyone Seems to be Happy (Ahora todos parecen contentos, 2007; language - Castellano/Spanish) is a film by Argentine director Gonzalo Tobal. A lone automobile drives on a winding stretch of highway across the Pampas region of Argentina. In the car are two people – the man driving, and a young girl who appears to be his daughter. They make a few stops, to get fuel or to eat, and have desultory conversation. But it's the way she looks at him that gives the impression that their relationship is something far more than father-daughter. This turns out to be true – he is a professor, and she is a teenage girl he has been tutoring who has decided to run away with him. Martina Juncadella is riveting as the girl, investing a simple glance with the sort of longing that a woman twice her age would have difficulty carrying off. Jorge Diez's professor is tormented by the burden he has taken on for himself, both societally and emotionally. The juxtaposition of the movement in the film and the soundtrack interludes is striking, especially in the opening minutes. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt1013882/)

The House of Sand (Casa de Areia, 2005; language - Portugese) by director Andrucha Waddington is an unusual tale of a pregnant woman dragged involuntarily to a desert on the eastern fringe of Brazil by her certifiable husband. After he dies in a local range war, she is left alone with her child to fend for herself and try for many decades to escape her isolation. Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres (wife of the director) play multiple roles as mother, grandmother, and daughter as the film progresses through nearly 60 years from 1910 to 1969. Aurea, the wife, actually has opportunities to escape the 'sea of sand' that surrounds her – the Atlantic Ocean forms the other barrier – through visits from military and scientific expeditions to the region. But she falls in love with a local man, Massu, from a community of former slaves, and her bond to him prevents her from moving on. Her daughter Maria grows up to be wild and dissolute, and eventually makes her way to the big city, visiting her mother only occasionally. The director delivers a morality play, inviting sympathy with Aurea's need for belonging contrasted with her need to be back in a vibrant society. She finds the first with Massu and his family. She forsakes the second, eventually falling so far behind the pace of modern developments (air travel, radio and television) that she is frightened of going back. The House of Sand is a story about the astonishingly strong bonds between mother and daughter. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0373747/)

Priceless (Hors de prix, 2006; language - French) from director Pierre Salvadori is a delightful romp set in the French Riviera. Audrey Tautou (Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) is captivating as Irène, a sexy and wily gold-digger who moves from older lover to older lover to support her shopaholic lifestyle. A chance encounter in a hotel lounge leads her to believe that Jean, played cunningly by Gad Elmaleh, is yet another wealthy man looking for a female plaything. What she doesn't understand at first is that Jean is actually just a bartender and itinerant hospitality worker, who becomes the boy toy of a wealthy widow and doyenne. Irène and Jean have an intense emotional and physical attraction for one another, but she needs more money to 'survive' than he can afford, and he needs the sponsorship of his own mistress to keep himself afloat. How they resolve the entanglements that tear them apart is both amusing and heartwarming. Priceless features a fair smattering of physical humour, mostly from Elmaleh, who is a real find in French cinema. Audrey Tautou is stunning and elegant, and invests her character with an exceptional degree of intelligence. The sparkle in her eyes tells so much about what she is thinking. It's a good date film - with elements that appeal to both men and women, without sacrificing one for the other. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0482088/)

I Serve The King Of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, 2006; languages - Czech, with some German). Director Jirí Menzel delivers a sumptuous board of fare in this film, both figuratively and literally - political and social satire in its highest form. Ivan Barnev and Oldrich Kaiser portray Jan Díte, young and old versions respectively, a short-of-stature-but-long-of-ambition Czech nebbish who works his way through various hotels and hostelries in Prague from the 1930s through World War II and beyond. Jan is always looking for the next best thing that will make him a millionaire. He is exceptionally astute and observant, and his narration throughout the story serves notice that his trenchant wit is the servant of his sometimes cynical, sometimes hopeful world view. As an old man, he has been released from prison (a four-year sentence, with three months taken off 'for good behavior') and sent into the Bohemian woodlands to work and live in a house abandoned by ethnic Germans who once lived there. While working, he meets Líza, a lovely young woman played by Julia Jentsch (The Last Days of Sophie Scholl), whom he befriends. Líza reminds him of numerous intoxicating woman he has met and bedded through his life, remembered through frequent lengthy flashbacks. Each episode of Jan's life is a mixture of absurdist situations and complications, as well as fabulist indoctrination into the way money is made and spent. The director seems to imply that sex, food and money somehow work in equivalence among each other: each phase of Jan's life features all three of these elements in abundance. From the lifestyles depicted in this film, it would be easy to see why the adjective 'bohemian' has been co-opted from the proper name Bohemian. I Serve The King Of England is an intelligent and thought-provoking look at Bohemian life and times, mixed with a healthy dose of humour and poignance. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0284363/)

The next three films have a common theme – music. Each deals with a style of music, the lifestyles and characters which inform it - and which the music, in turn, informs:

'Round Midnight (1986; language - English), from director Bertrand Tavernier, follows the latter life of tenor sax player Dale Turner, as he makes his way through the club circuit in Paris in one last shot at redemption. He is befriended by Francis, a jazz groupie and hanger-on who has been a huge fan of Turner from Turner's earlier days in the New York jazz scene. Turner is losing his battle with alcoholism and his disconnection from his family, and has come to Paris by the invitation of an old friend to make a final stand for the music he loves and represents. Francis and his young daughter give Dale the will to try and clean up his act, though he has unfortunately already gone beyond the point of no return. But the music is what redeems him, and what binds him to all of the family he still has – his fellow musicians, and the fans who experience his humanity through his music, even as his personal curtain falls. Legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon plays Dale Turner, which mirrors the story of real-life pianist Bud Powell in the last years of his tortured life. Legendary pianist Herbie Hancock appears briefly in the film and composed the original score. It's a smoky, atmospheric film, great for jazz fans and not. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0090557/)

La Vie En Rose (La môme 2007; language - French). The brilliant Marion Cotillard plays real-life French singer Edith Piaf, the famous 'little sparrow' of Paris, for the bulk of her abbreviated lifespan. The film moves from the squalor of a street corner in a rough arrondissement in Paris, where she was born under a street lamp as Edith Gassion; through her early years singing for food for herself and her family; and on into her early adult years where she is taken under the wing of a producer who changes her name to Piaf, Parisian argot for sparrow. Though constantly exploited, self-abusive and wildly moody, Edith Piaf somehow brings it together when she steps to the microphone. She had the quintessential Parisian chanteuse sound from the 1940s and '50s, and her music is still widely enjoyed. Marion Cotillard does great credit to the role, portraying Edith Piaf's emotional vulnerability as well as her paradoxical toughness with amazing skill. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0450188/)

Once (2006; language - English, Czech), stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova as two itinerant musicians whose lives intersect for one magical week in Dublin. Glen Hansard portrays a street busker, scraping out a living with his music while living with his father, a small-appliance repairman. One day he encounters Marketa Irglova's recent immigrant from the Czech Republic now living with her mother and young daughter in Dublin. She is a keyboard player and he is a guitarist. They strike up a friendship, very tentatively at first, and it deepens to the most remarkable expression of platonic love imaginable. They spend a week together, composing, performing, and eventually recording music which, in its own oblique way, chronicles their 'love story'. In the end, what they make of their relationship and how they parse their feelings for each other are secondary to the miracle of the honest music they make. There's a fine original song Falling Slowly. Once demonstrates that music is indeed the food of love. In a predictable cinematic conceit, neither of the principal characters has a name – they are listed in the film credits as Boy and Girl, and they never call each other by name. This reflects the transcendence of the music over the particulars of their story. (for credits see www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/)

END

(c) Kevin Gillette 28 April 2009

Kevin Gillette is Fringe Report's correspondent in Dallas, USA

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