David Rousseau (Jean-Paul Rouve) is a successful mystery writer who’s come to the coldest place in France for the reading of his uncle’s will. The 400-mile drive seems at first to have been in vain as his only inheritance is a stuffed dog named Toby, but when a beautiful blonde is discovered dead in the snow, Rousseau finds a more compelling reason to stay in town. Candice Lecoeur (Sophie Quinton) was a local celebrity who dreamed of bigger things but found her greatest success as a frequently nude spokesmodel for a popular cheese company. Her death sparks Rousseau’s curiosity with the hope that it might also help him break through his writer’s block, and as he reads her journals the film flashes back to reveal a woman in flux. Lecoeur modeled the last few years of her life on an infamous blonde bombshell with whom she felt great affinity, and as Rousseau digs deeper he suspects her death may have followed suit. Nobody Else But You is an alternately fun, suspenseful and sad mystery, but it’s interested in more than simply who may or may not have had a hand in Lecoeur’s demise. It’s about the paths we choose and the ones life chooses for us. Who we are and who we want to be are rarely the same thing, and the divide between them is sometimes filled with regret, a loss of identity and naked firemen.

My mom awoke one pre-dawn morning in 1985 and noticed a sliver of light beneath my older sister’s door. Knowing that none of her three kids were morning people she lightly knocked before turning the knob to find her firstborn laying unconscious on the floor, dark red blood seeping from her wrists and soaking into the carpet. She immediately went to compress the wounds while yelling for my father to call 911. An ambulance arrived, and my sister was rushed to the hospital. I slept through all of it one floor below. The depression that led to my sister’s suicide attempt and that continued to haunt my family for years to come was little more than a frustrating embarrassment for my preteen self heading into the most formative, socially judgmental time of my life. I didn’t understand what she was experiencing and instead saw it as selfish, spiteful behavior on her part. I was an indifferent asshole who alternately blamed her for future family troubles or ignored her wholesale as if I was still asleep to her difficulties. It was valuable time lost that should have been spent being a better brother. Those events have surfaced in my memories now and again over the past two decades, but it took a movie for me to come as close as possible to understanding what she was going through all those years ago. Oslo, August 31st, and in particular its powerfully affecting lead performance by Anders Danielsen Lie, explores with devastating effect

The romantic comedy is a genre represented most frequently by stale, generic films that follow a paint-by-numbers formula devoid of personality and charm. To be sure, even the best examples follow a well established structure, but they also manage to make their characters endearing and likeable in situations both entertaining and recognizable. That recognition factor is important, so it’s rare to find a rom-com willing to take chances with its setup and subvert expectations along the way. Julio (Julián Villagrán) awakens in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar apartment with a vaguely familiar woman. He sees Julia (Michelle Jenner) walking about clad only in a t-shirt, but whatever magic worked the night before to earn him an invite back to her place is apparently in short supply the morning after. She hurries him along, hustling him on his way, but they’re interrupted by Julia’s nosy neighbor, Angel (Carlos Areces). Angel has a crush on his beautiful neighbor and is immediately jealous of Julio’s presence. Further complicating matters is the arrival of a man named Carlos (Raul Cimas)… Julia’s live-in boyfriend. The remainder of writer/director Nacho Vigalondo‘s film, set mostly in and around the apartment, sees the quartet dodging and weaving with the best of their rom-com brethren. Julio and Julia flirt (and fornicate!) beneath Carlos’ nose while he occupies an odd amalgamated role that’s part cuckold and part catalyst for third act drama. Angel meanwhile becomes a thorn in the cheating lovers’ sides as he threatens to blow their secret

The goal of this column has always been to explore international cinema from all around the globe. To that end I’ve been an inconsistent tour guide as our destinations haven’t been as evenly spread about as they could have been. My own preferences lean towards traditional Asian, Western European and South American cinema which means Foreign Objects explores places like Africa, Eastern Europe or India very rarely. Russia is a huge country with a long-standing film community, but in our 131 installments we’ve only visited there twice… first for the abysmal Philosophy of a Knife and then for the mediocre Alien Girl. Which probably explains why it took so damn long for me to return… Elena is a fifty-something house wife to a well-off retiree named Vladimir. Together just two years, their relationship is more an extension of how they met than a true marriage. She was a nurse, he was a patient, and now her caregiver role continues. She sleeps on a couch, wakes early, keeps the high rise apartment clean and prepares Vladimir’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. Both have grown children from previous marriages, both of them irresponsible in their own ways, but while Vladimir has a soft spot for his daughter he harbors nothing but disdain for Elena’s son. A heart attack sidelines the old man, and with callous forethought he informs Elena that he’s going to change his will to make his daughter sole inheritor. What’s a mother with a son and infant grandson in need

The Wages of Fear is screening at the SF Film Society Cinema from June 8th-14th with a new print from a recent HD digital restoration completed by the Criterion Collection. I once drove a U-Haul truck from New York to Florida, and it was easily one of the most tension-filled, large vehicle-related experiences anyone has ever experienced ever. Part way through Tennessee, as I took a mildly tight on-ramp in a light rain, the truck began to fishtail. If you’ve ever been in a car when this happens you know how frightening it can be, but now imagine that sensation in a large truck with your girlfriend by your side and all of your earthly belongings packed into the back. I recovered control after what felt like several minutes (but was actually less than ten seconds) and calmly exited the freeway in search of a parking lot…at which point my fingers had to be pried away from the steering wheel. Friends who were driving behind us came running over excitedly to let us know that at one point during the event the left-side tires were all off the ground. I think about that experience occasionally, but watching Henri-Georges Clouzet‘s The Wages of Fear recently marked the first time I actually felt those memories again. The film spends its first half introducing a fairly unlikeable group of unemployed immigrants in a small South American town before devoting the second hour to a treacherous 300-mile drive across rough terrain in trucks loaded

The beaches of Normandy were most likely filled with many surprises on D-Day, but one of the most unexpected had to have been US soldiers finding a Korean man surrendering to them while wearing a German uniform. His footnote in history forms the basis of the most expensive Korean film ever made, My Way. Kim Jun-shik is a Korean farmer’s son who even as a young boy is known for his love of running. The late twenties saw Japan invade and retain control of Korea, and when a new Japanese headmaster arrives Jun-shik immediately forms a rivalry with the man’s spoiled son, Tatsuo Hasegawa. The two boys compete through their teen years and carry that battle of wills into WWII when Jun-shik and many other Koreans are conscripted to fight for the Japanese against the Allies. The film follows Jun-shik through a deadly series of explosive adventures and sadistic nightmares that eventually lands him in German fabric firing a machine gun at the encroaching Americans. It’s director Kang Je-kyu’s first film in seven years and sees him return to the genre that gave him his last triumph, Tae Guk Gi: Brotherhood. This time he’s moved from the battlefields of the Korean war to the international landscape of World War II, and the result is even more bombastic, brutal and epic. But what Kang gains in scope and graphic detail he loses in nuance, character and honest emotion. The result is a visual feast that leaves the eyes and ears satiated but

Laura (Stephanie Sigman) is a tall, long-limbed beauty who feels trapped and unappreciated in her small town outside Mexico City, so she leaves and follows the bright lights and promises of stardom by entering a pageant. The goal is simple. Represent her community, win, and then watch as her life changes for the better. A single poor decision finds her at a local bar with her girlfriend on the night a group of armed thugs sneak in and mow down most of the party goers. Laura witnesses the assault, and the lead attacker witnesses her. She attempts to report the incident (in a round about way), but she chooses a dirty cop who hands her over to the gang leader, Lino (Noe Hernandez). And just like that her life is no longer her own. Lino forces her to take part in a crime, but he then rewards her by pulling some strings to get her a spot in the pageant. And so it goes. She’s abused, assaulted and used, again and again, with little in the way of effort to fight back or escape her new fate. She’s a victim, a cog in the bloody wheels of criminal progress, and there’s no turning back.

Cyril is looking for his dad. The boy was dropped off at a state-run foster home by his father and told it was just a temporary thing while the man got his act together financially. But the days became weeks, and now when Cyril tries calling he gets a recording that the line has been disconnected. He runs away from the home eventually making his way back to where he used to live. But his father is long gone. The Kid With a Bike offers up a sad story, but it avoids melodrama through honest writing, beautiful acting and Cyril’s sheer force of will. The boy refuses to accept his abandonment at face value and pursues the truth regardless of the walls erected in his way. It’s alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, and it’s never less than engaging. Most surprising for a simple drama, the movie is easily one of the year’s most suspenseful as Cyril’s fate and future hang precariously in the balance.

Delicacy begins with a subtle nod to When a Man Loves a Woman‘s opening as a young man named Francois watches a beautiful woman enter and sit down. As the waiter approaches her Francois makes a mental prediction as to her order, and if he gets it right he promises himself that he’ll work up the courage to approach and talk to her. He does, and soon the two are embracing outside. They were simply re-enacting their meeting, playing the roles of strangers on the cusp of a romance, but in reality they’re already deeply in love. Their parents occasionally pester them for grandchildren, but Francois (Pio Marmai) and Nathalie (Audrey Tautou) put plans for a baby on hold “for when they’re talked out.” They’re happy and content and looking forward to a full future. But when he’s struck and killed by a car, Nathalie is forced to continue on without him. Or at least try to. She blocks out friendly attempts to help her, throws his belongings into the trash and rushes back to work sooner than expected. Her career becomes her sole focus, and a few years later she’s heading up large projects at work and still romantically unattached despite the best efforts of her impassioned but somewhat smarmy boss. And then the giant Swede walks through the door.

Last week’s installment of Foreign Objects took a look at the third film in Dario Argento’s so-called “animal trilogy,” Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Why start with the third film and not the first? No reason. But today we’re continuing with the theme and covering the second film, The Cat o’ Nine Tails. Don’t worry about continuity though as the three movies are in no way related. A burglary at a local genetics institute catches the eye ear of a blind retiree, and when people associated with the incident start dropping dead he teams up with a reporter to try to crack the case. The duo discovers an elaborate chain of events surrounding the lab’s recent discovery of a genetic marker that may indicate criminal tendencies and a drug that may cure it. Is someone killing to protect the discovery… or are they killing to hide the fact that they’re a killer?

I’ve spoken before about the highs of Dario Argento’s early career and how it sits in direct contrast to the abysmally depressing filmmaker he’s become in the last two decades. But his filmography doesn’t have a timeline clearly separating the good from the bad. His best work remains the five features he made from 1975 to 1985 with everything before and after that period being a major mixed bag. And that includes 1971′s Four Flies on Grey Velvet. A rock drummer finds himself stalked by a masked killer out to frame him and make his life miserable, but who’s doing it and why? And more importantly, how will it affect the sales of his upcoming album?

There are few things in life as devastating and traumatic as having to watch your child confront a life-threatening illness. I assume so anyway. My own kids were booted out of the house at the age of seven in the hopes that they would go make something of themselves, so they may have already kicked the bucket for all I know. But from what I understand a deathly ill child is an all around terrible experience. Romeo and Juliette learn this first hand after they meet, make sweet love, give birth to their son Adam nine months later, and soon begin to take serious notice of his behavior. He’s vomiting more than would be considered normal, his head has a constant tilt, and one side of his face seems slightly swollen. Upon their first meeting they joked incredulously about their names commenting that they’re most likely doomed to a terrible fate, but their child’s health is not a tragedy they had considered. Now the two twenty-somethings who signed up for little beyond a casual but loving relationship find themselves in the trenches of a fight for their son’s life. But unlike most films on the subject Declaration of War is uninterested in a melodramatic or treacly narrative. This is a film about hope, optimism and the unwavering love of a parent for their child. This is war.

If you took a random poll asking people to name the most mysterious place on Earth the answers you’d receive would be fairly widespread. Some would say The North Pole, others Madagascar, and Robert Fure would reply with a woman’s g-spot. But surely someone, somewhere would answer correctly. And that correct answer lay beneath the surface of the Earth’s oceans. Hollywood is well aware of this fact and has explored and exploited our fear of the unknown in films both great and small, from The Abyss to Sphere, with stops at all levels of quality in between. Two such movies released in 1989, Deepstar Six and Leviathan, bypassed subtlety and any real sense of mystery in favor of creature feature thrills, chills and at least a modicum of fun. Both are worth watching on late night cable, but Leviathan is the better of the two thanks in large part to the presence of Peter Weller. And now twenty two years later South Korea has jumped into the bloody pool with Sector 7, but unlike the films above its efforts to (intentionally) entertain come up dry.

A man and a woman sit before a judge discussing the dissolution of their marriage. Simin wants to move out of the country with her husband and daughter in tow, but Nader refuses as he needs to stay and care for his ill and elderly father. She can go, he says, but she cannot take their daughter. The judge agrees, and the two are dismissed back to the turmoil of their private lives. This simple setup could be the start of any number of familiar dramas in most countries around the globe, but Simin and Nader are a modern day Iranian couple which puts an unusual and rarely seen spin on the story that follows. What starts as a straight forward tale of one couple’s split becomes an exploration into the many divisions in their life. The separation between them is simply the first step into the gap between parent and child, male and female, right and wrong, and truth and fiction. A Separation is a mesmerizing journey into the everyday, but it’s an everyday that has remained foreign to much of the Western world.

The doors of Norway’s Bastoy Residential School remained open from 1900 to 1953, and in that half century hundreds of wayward boys called it home. They found themselves there for crimes big and small, but the goal was the same for all of them. Find the “honorable, humble, useful, Christian boy” inside the criminal, and then return them to society. But while this small chunk of rock adrift just south of Oslo was a home it was never meant to feel like one. A biting cold pervaded the place, inside and out, and it was as prevalent as the rigid discipline, hard labor and overall oppressiveness that was the school’s daily routine. And as inescapable as the island itself. King of Devil’s Island is based on the true story of a student uprising that occurred at Bastoy in 1915. An incident triggered by sexual abuse but fueled by pent-up rage led to the boys overthrowing their guardians and rioting until a unit of the Norwegian army arrived to quell the situation. The film is an affecting drama that mostly overcomes a familiar story with strong acting by Stellan Skarsgard and others, atmospheric cinematography and a core message of integrity and solidarity.

The title of this post is pretty self explanatory, so no introduction is really needed here. But… I do feel compelled to point out the same thing I point out every year. Nailing foreign releases down to a particular year isn’t an exact science. Obviously every film has an actual date of initial release, but most foreign titles don’t hit our shores until the following year, if at all. I try to go by original release date whenever possible though which means some of my choices have yet to be screened in the US outside of film festivals and import DVDs. That said, here’s a list of my eleven favorite foreign films for 2011 in alphabetical order. (Be sure to check out my lists from 2010, 2009 and 2008 too.) And because I know someone will ask, yes, I did see Certified Copy.

The global recession we currently find ourselves in has many causes, but one of the more obvious ones has to do with the machinations and maneuverings of the men and women who work in the financial market. Movies like the recent Margin Call and Wall Street sequel used this environment for fast paced financial drama (with varying success), but that’s not the only genre the crisis can intrude upon. Perhaps there’s a bit of romance and a few laughs to be found amidst the greed, depression, and suffering too. That was apparently the hope anyway with the new French film, My Piece of the Pie, but the end results are anything but humorous or romantic. They’re not even all that dramatic. Hell, the ending isn’t even an ending.

Sion Sono’s films have never really been aimed at a wide audience, but few directors are as capable as he is of making the ugliest things beautiful. Case in point is his latest film, Guilty of Romance. Izumi is the docile wife of a successful romance novelist who saves all of his energy and emotion for his books and readers. Her entire life is in service to him as her daily duties include making sure his shoes are ready for him at the door and his meals are ready for him at dinnertime. She’s also expected to compliment his naked body even though he’s never interested in sharing it with her in any meaningful way. Seriously, the scene where he shows her his penis, fishing for reassuring words, and then tells her she can touch it if she wants is just awkward and painful to watch. But when she steps out of her normal life to get a job and find her own worth she discovers a deviance she never expected… both outside her home and inside herself. She meets Mitsuko, a professor by day who moonlights as a prostitute, and the two of them descend into a very dark hole together. And that’s not a euphemism. Okay, maybe it is.

In honor of The Muppets and our ongoing Muppet coverage this week’s Foreign Objects is sticking with the puppet theme in our own special way. But the Muppets are an American sensation, so while they’ve traveled the world they’ve always done so in American movies. Non-Muppet puppet movies are few and far between, and most of them are still US productions (Team America: World Police, Puppet Master, Let My Puppets Come) with only a handful of foreign titles like Legend of the Sacred Stone and Kooky. But I couldn’t find either of those. So we’ll be taking a look at Peter Jackson’s 1989 release from New Zealand, Meet the Feebles. It’s like The Muppets, but with more sex, drugs, murder and sticky white fluids…

Chhaya and Arvind are living a borderline middle-class life in modern day India, but circumstances are sliding them lower. Arvind (Alekh Sangal) can’t catch a break at his job managing a construction crew where he’s consistently pressured by his boss to speed things up and do more with less. Sitting across from the balding man with the crude 9/11 sculpture on his desk Arvind is forced to swallow his pride and accept the mistreatment if he wants to hang on to his job. Chhaya (Rasika Dugal) meanwhile spends her days at home doing chores, shopping for groceries, and falling quickly and quietly into depression. At least until an accident of questionable intervention leads her to find a sculpture of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, that “even God couldn’t make more beautiful.” The statue sits in a young boy’s shop where he claims to be the sculptor and sets a very high price for it, but the financial cost doesn’t phase her. She becomes convinced that her and her husband need the sculpture to make everything better, to make everything right, and to give her another chance at having children. Her desire becomes an obsession, and soon the better life they were hoping for begins slipping through their fingers faster than they could have imagined. The result is an engaging and beautifully rendered drama about the dangers of compulsion and the lengths we’ll go to be happy.