What I love about so many Chinese historical epics is how they blend history and myth. Now famed director Hark Tsui, who created the ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA series, brings the real life story of Chinese historical icons Detective Dee and Empress Wu to the screen in a big budget, vfx-driven spectacle that includes spontaneous human combustion, high flying kung fu and a talking deer.

Detective Dee (Andy Lau, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) was exiled after engaging in a revolt against regent Wu (Carina Lau, 2046), who he believed was murdering her way into becoming the first empress of China. On the eve of her coronation, a series of mysterious murders have occurred where people have been bursting into flames. Wu decides to bring back Dee in order to prove that she is not involved and partners him with her top officer Shangguan Jing’er (Bingbing Li, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM).

But he doesn’t know who to trust, so he seeks the advice of the arrogant albino detective Pei Donglai (Chao Deng, ASSEMBLY), who is also a suspect. At the site of one of the murders, the construction site of the giant Buddha created in the likeness of Wu, he meets one of his former conspirators, the foreman Shatuo Zhong (Tony Leung Ka Fai, ELECTION), who leads the investigation into a supernatural direction and adds the powerful and mysterious chaplain into the growing possible murderer list.

Detective Dee uses keen observation like Sherlock Holmes in a movie that has the vibe of a 7th century James Bond flick. If a top sleuth has to have a cool weapon what would be cooler than one that can determine weaknesses? Dee’s mace can find the flaw in an opponent’s weapon and then destroy it. That’s a gadget that 007 never had. Like HERO, this tale has very Chinese themes. Dee is more interested in the greater good than revenge. He is determined to find the murderer, but not if it costs innocent people their lives. As a result he comes off as a noble, selfless figure.

Visually alone this film is worth seeing. The action set pieces, costumes and fight choreography are rich and exciting. The sky-scraper-high Buddha is a magnificent construction. I’d vote for it to be the eighth wonder of the world. The Phantom city is an underground black market where six-armed men play instruments, mechanical puppets attack and boat rides are inspired by the River Styx. Looking at Empress Wu’s elaborate gowns, one wonders how long it takes her to get dressed in the morning. The chaplain’s retreat is guarded by evocative stone statues that suggest movement and a herd of deer that aren’t afraid to use their antlers.

The real Detective Dee was Di Renjie, an official who served in the Chinese Tang Dynasty and Wu Zetian’s Zhou Dynasty and was a key figure in transforming Wu’s reign from terror to honesty. You won’t see the real version of his story here. But when you’re making a fantastical epic detective tale use the legend instead of the truth every time.

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This is not the first AIDS message film to come out of Africa and it probably won’t be that last. It touches on many of the issues that the Oscar nominated African film YESTERDAY tackled. But what makes this film different is its perspective. The innocent children of the pandemic are at the center. It’s tale of struggle and sacrifice works on the audience slowly reaching a power crescendo.

In the first scene, tweenaged Chanda (Khomotso Manyaka) is buying a coffin for her dead infant sister. Her mother Lillian (Lerato Mvelase) is too grief stricken to leave the house. Her stepfather Jonah (Aubrey Poolo) is passed out drunk at a bar with another woman. He has taken all the family’s money so Chandra has to go recover it in order to pay for the funeral. Lillian’s friend Mrs. Tafa (Harriet Lenabe, HOTEL RWANDA) reminds Chanda that the baby died of influenza so no one will talk. No one shall dare say what they think it really was.

AIDS is a stigma that most families cannot bare. If word gets out, the community will drive them out, because they are afraid on a superstitious level. When Lillian gets sick, a medicine woman is called who throws out incense and snakes and says the woman must find her missing part left behind in her birthplace. So on this advice Lillian leaves her children to fend for themselves. But sadly, the spiritual healer is no better than the “doctor” who has an herbal cure for which the plaques on the wall show he is the #1 salesman of for months in a row.

Chanda looks at all this quackery with skepticism greater than any adult she knows. She is not afraid to challenge those in authority, but sadly too many disregard her as just a child. In a world where public opinion seems more important than reality, Chandra would rather risk it all to do what is right. Look at her best friend Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane), a young girl who lives in abject poverty whose parents are no longer in the picture. The young girl sadly needs to sell herself to truckers just to survive.

Manyaka gives a strong performance as a young girl thrust into a terrible position by circumstance. Her bond with her mother is stronger than social norms or the opinions of adults. Her mother was a outcast because she married her father for love, rejecting an arranged marriage. When her husband died, she remarried poorly, making her status in her family’s eyes even worse. Her mother tells her that her baby’s death is what she gets for the life she has lead. And these are the people she goes back to when she is sick? We fear this cannot turn out well.

Chandra’s journey to find her mother is truly touching. She has given up so much, but for those she loves she doesn’t hesitate to give more. Chandra’s strength and defiance is inspiring to those around her and the audience. She is the hope of an Africa ruled by education not fear. The same song opens and closes the film. In the beginning it’s a dirge. In the end, it’s a chorus.

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This Norwegian fantasy thriller is Norwegian at its core and that is the best thing about it. On its surface, the film takes from found footage pictures such as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. A group of students set out to make a film and get more than they wished for. But in this case there aren’t witches, but trolls.

The students originally set out to chronicle bear poaching. They follow the gruff mountain man Hans (Otto Jespersen), whose Land Rover looks like it’s had a few run ins with some big “bears.” But the filmmakers find out quickly that Hans isn’t after bears, but trolls. He’s part of a secret government agency set out to keep the existence of the giant creatures secret. With incidents getting deadlier and more frequent, he decides to bring the students along with him to get the truth out.

When I say this film is Norwegian at its core I mean that its mythology is Norwegian. The plot borrows from mythology we know like trolls being able to smell the blood of a Christian men and the fact that sunlight turns trolls to stone. But it expands on those myths with modern weapons and science. Hans uses UV guns to make the trolls explode. The reason they turn to stone, we are told, because sunlight makes their bodies calcify. We discover all sorts of trolls such as Tosserlads, Ringlefinchs and Jotnars.

Writer/director Andre Ovredal mines a great deal of interest from his original world. Hans tells the students that they have to rub foul-smelling troll stench on their clothes in order to come along with him. This little fact provides great humor when a secret Christian starts feverishly covering himself with the stuff. The excuses that the government comes up with for troll attacks make swamp gas and weather balloons seem way more plausible.

It’s taken me this long to even mention the names of the students, because they are part of the film’s chief problem. They are just there to serve the plot. Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud) is the nerdy interviewer. Johanna (Johanna Morck) is the perpetually scared-face sound recorder. Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) is the guy behind the camera. That’s about it. Hans is by far the most interesting, but he is one dimensional at best. He’s a superhero, like if Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K from MEN IN BLACK was more like a Norwegian Swamp Hunter.

The next big flaw is that when you’ve seen one troll, you’ve seen them all. After the first two sightings, the film seems to be going through the motions to show us what cool CG troll the can come up with next. Also the cover-up seems implausible. These trolls are stories high, so wouldn’t someone see them coming from miles away? How do you cover up a walking skyscraper? This mockumentary is more of a curiosity than compelling. By the end I was like Fee! Fie! Ho! Hum!

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This film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is from Thailand and the story deals with a dying man recollecting his life. This includes living, dead and missing relatives and past lives that include a shepherd, futuristic soldiers, pet apes, a princess and a frisky catfish. The whimsical title fits the mood of this surprisingly touching and humorous film.

Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) is suffering from kidney disease and has a Lao nurse caring for him. His sister-in-law Jen (Jenjira Pongpas) and nephew Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) come to visit and help out around his farm. Boonmee proposes that if he dies Jen could leave the city and take over the farm, but she’s scared of wild animals and all those smelly foreigners in the area. As we get to know them, we find that despite his health problems Boonmee is eternally optimistic, while Jen is nervous and caring. Then one night out of the blue during dinner, the ghost of Boonmee’s dead wife Huay (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk) appears. And this will be the least strange appearance of the evening.

The handling of the supernatural events is unique. There is shock to begin with, but shock in the way an unexpected guest surprises. Ghosts of all kinds are believed to be part of the world as naturally as the living. Some are more unusual than others. The monkey ghosts are like black-haired Big Foots with glowing red eyes. They creep around corners and through the jungle like slowly moving shadows. Huay comes back exactly as Boonmee remembered her when she died, while his long lost son Boonsong (Geerasak Kulhong) comes back completely different.

As the living interact with the dead, we get to look into the thoughts of Boonmee and the way he lived his life. When Huay died, he followed through with a promise to start a bee farm in her honor. While he hasn’t shown grief over her passing, he has missed her dearly and wonders if he dies whether they will be together in heaven. She tells him that heaven is boring because there is nothing there. Boonmee tells of how much he searched for Boonsong after he disappeared, but his son had to follow his heart. In the end, Boonmee travels to a cave where the rock sparkles in the sunlight. It looks like a womb he says and remembers being born there in one of his lives. Like so many of this film, it is otherworldly and captivating.

This dramedy presents a life, blending reality and illusion. An epilogue helps define the line a bit more for the audience. What is real or not is of no matter because it is real enough for Boonmee. It is the way he sees the world and we can forgive the indulgences of a dying man. Watch how he sees people differently then they are. Is it a skewed perception, a dream or a wish? In seeing his life unfold for us, we look at our own loves and losses and wonder how many truths in our lives are based on spirits or hopes.

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When the title comes up on the screen it appears next to the dead body of a teenage girl floating in a river. A poetry teacher in the film describes poetry as the search for beauty. The juxtaposition of the tragic and the beautiful is a current that runs through this Korean drama. It seems that sadness and beauty go together in life more than we think.

Mija (Jeong-hie Yun, TWO FLAGS) is a 60-something maid who takes care of her grandson Wook (Da-wit Lee, THE FRONT LINE). Her daughter has dumped him on her and the grandmother doesn’t like telling her child anything that might be going wrong. The old woman is feeling tingling in her arm and starting to forget words. Wook is a lazy slob who is running with a bad crowd who get him deep in severe trouble. Mija works for a lecherous old man who has suffered a stroke and needs her to bathe him. She has a hard time dealing with any of these problems directly. Her mind seems completely consumed with the poetry class she is taking at the cultural center.

As a young girl, she was told that she would be a poet one day. It has taken her to now to start. The writing process is difficult for her and she seeks out open mic poetry readings for inspiration. One poet there tells her to just write down her thoughts because it is the closest she will get to the truth. At some of the most emotionally crushing moments, we see her pulling out her notebook and writing as a way to escape.

For her one problem builds upon another and her inability to deal with them only makes matters worse. She is a proper woman who dresses up in conservative clothes you expect a grandmother to wear. She comes off naive, but she will surprise you on what she is capable of when she needs to act. She does things that nice old grandmothers do not do.

Yun’s performance is full of rich subtlety. She communicates her feelings in looks and the timing of her actions. Mija says more in what she doesn’t do than in what she does. The poetry class is difficult for her because she has a hard time opening up. She’s ashamed to deal with the feelings that she is having.

Peppered throughout the film are scenes from Mija and her classmates answering the question about their most beautiful moment. All generate tears. Beauty seems to be fleeting. It comes too early. It comes too late. It comes in the simple things in life that make the person feel happy, but make the listeners feel sad for them. The fate of the dead teen from the opening shot and how it connects to Mija brings together the tragic and the beautiful. To write a poem, Mija will have to confront the truth of her life.

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What if upon your mother’s death you learned that your father was still alive and that you had a brother you never knew about? Then you were asked to find them. Through the process you learn shocking details of your mother’s past. What if the woman that always seemed a little weird was actually a legend in her native country?

Jeanne (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin, TAKING THE PLUNGE) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette, CHEECH) are faced with these questions when their mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal, PARADISE NOW) passes away suddenly. He doesn’t want anything to do with his mother’s surprising last request, but Jeanne knows that she will be haunted by it if she doesn’t go looking for her father. As details, she will pull her brother into the search, simply because it is too emotional to do it on her own.

Nawal grew up in a fictional Middle East country that is not far of from Lebanon. She was a Christian and made the mistake of falling in love with a Muslim. The rest of the details of her journey that led to her to move with her twin children to Canada I will leave  secret. What she experiences through war will test her faith and beliefs. She will endure torture and rape to the extents her children couldn’t imagine. But she comes through it with a surprising perspective.

Some of the revelations might be seen as lurid, but they actually work profoundly in support of the grander theme. Director Denis Villeneuve shows the cycle of violence that radicalizes generation have generation in the war torn parts of the Middle East. In setting the action in a fictional place the story envelopes the entire region in the message. Violence breeds violence. But it’s hatred for those different than you and your family that really starts it all. Any action can be justified if it’s being conducted by your side.

Azabal gives a heart wrenching performance as a woman who sings to free herself from her hardships. Through everything, her will is strong, partly fueled by a quiet rage. Only late in life does she find unexpected closure and ultimately forgiveness. A chance encounter makes her rethink how we are connected to all humans even our enemies. Her character might be dead from the start, but this is her story.

Desormeaux-Poulin and Gaudette are given witness roles. But their journey to discover their mother’s past and fulfill her final wish adds mystery and tension to the story. The more they learn the more we wonder if it is safe to continue. Villeneuve does a brilliant job letting the audience in on a bit of information before the characters to make us fearful for them, but keeps back the big bombshells so we witness the explosions with the characters. In the end, it makes us wonder how much do we really know our parents? What secrets do they plan to take to their graves? Who in the world knows these secrets and how different is their view of your parent from yours?

The Canadian film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The darker material must have been a turn off compared to the easier humanistic message of winner IN A BETTER WORLD. That film is a more conventional Hollywood drama while this film has more in common with a Korean shocker. Though it was nominated last year, it didn’t get a U.S. release until this year. So now it gets to be a 2010 Oscar nominee and one of the very best films of 2011.

At the core of the story, the film argues that anyone, due to their circumstances, can be driven to hate and violence. At some point someone has to break the cycle. Many people who hate have mothers that love them.

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This political statement was the last film of Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema. He tackles the issue of female circumcision with a skilled touch. This isn’t a story fueled by melodrama, but life. There is actually a great deal of humor as well as pain in this tale of empowerment.

In the film’s Burkina Faso village, girls are taken by the elder woman to have their clitoris removed. Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly) doesn’t want her daughter Amasatou (Salimata Traore) to go through the procedure, which often makes sex painful for a woman. As a result of her stance, four girls about to have the procedure flee to her house and ask for protection. As part of their customs, Colle calls a moolaade, a protection spell over her house symbolized by a colorful rope across her doorway that forbids anyone from coming into her compound to take the girls.

Colle’s defiance is seen as her being hard headed at first, but as time goes by pressure builds. The mothers of the four girls want the procedure because without it they may not be able to get married. Amasatou even requests to have it done — afraid that her arranged fiancée Ibrahima (Theophile Sowie) would not marry her otherwise. Colle has faith that the French educated man will not stand by such barbaric customs.

As more time goes by, Colle’s husband gets increasing pressure from the elder men. But he has little pull in a family of three wives, where the other two support Colle. But the town won’t let this stand. The modern world must be influencing these defiant women. So the men round up all the radios and burn them in a pile in the middle of the town. As things get rough for Colle and her sister wives, tension builds between them as well. Their husband is not a dogmatic man, but he bends to pressure easily and is frustrated by how it seems that he cannot control his women.

Ibrahima serves as the non-African audience’s window into the world. He finds the circumcisions awful. However, his father, the village chief, wants him to denounce his engagement to Amasatou and marry his 11-year-old circumcised cousin. The son boldly rejects the idea. His father blames European influences for his son’s impertinence and then his son reminds him of the European influences that have provided his family with TVs and other modern luxuries.

Another key character is Mercenaire (Dominique T. Zeida), a womanizing merchant. He brings in items the village needs and sells them at exorbitant prices. Batteries are essential in a town with no electricity. He’s taking advantage of these simple people and doesn’t care one bit. He looks down on their backwards lifestyle, but has no problem exploiting it. It is a testament to Sembene that he makes even this character dimensional.

Through the story, he also transports us into this village. It’s such a unique place, especially to a Western audience that it’s mesmerizing. The reddish orange clay buildings are like something from STAR WARS. The town mosque looks like a porcupine. The townsfolk’s clothing is vibrantly colored. There isolation influences their lives in almost every aspect. How would they know how much batteries really cost? What other options do they have? They stick to tradition because it’s they way things have always been done and they don’t have a chance to even witness an alternative.

Sembene is clearly outraged. In a harrowing scene, Colle bites her ring during sex in order to just get through it. Two girls drown themselves in order to avoid the circumcision. The procedure is not gratuitously shown, but just seeing the small hooked knife used is cringe inducing enough. Sadly Sembene’s films are not seen on his home continent. He is more famous outside of Africa, even though he told soulful African stories.

Sembene’s common sense approach is infinitely more effective than if he ramped up the drama. He understands that tradition doesn’t change over night. He looks at those in support of the circumcision not has evil butchers, but as unbendingly bound to tradition. The controversial issue is at the core of what is ultimately a tale of old traditions clashing with the modern world. He argues the practical pros of modernity and simply extends that to the circumcision issue. In the process, he not only creates an important statement, but a fully realized portrait of life in this village. For many it will be like taking a trip to another beautiful and sometimes dangerous planet.

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The original Danish title is directly translated as “The Revenge.” I feel the American title is more fitting in that it encapsulates the humanistic ideals the film portrays. However, the original title reflects the real world that we live in. Director Susanne Bier puts her main character’s ideals up against the harsh realities that he is forced to deal with.

Anton (Mikael Persbrandt, EVERLASTING MOMENTS) is a Swedish doctor who works in a war torn African country. He is confronted with the horrors of Big Man (Odiege Matthew), a warlord who on bets cuts open pregnant women just to see what the sex of their babies are. Back in Denmark where he lives, his son Elias (Markus Rygaard) is being constantly picked on by a bully and his followers. Then Christian (William Johnk Nielsen) moves to his area. His mother has recently died and he is an angry boy who doesn’t think the world is fair. He savagely beats the bully. When his well-meaning, but lost, father Claus (Ulrich Thomsen, BROTHERS) asks him why he’d do such a thing, he says, “No one will ever dare touch me now.”

Elias and Christian become friends. When Anton comes home on a break, he takes the boys on a boating trip. An altercation on the playground leads Anton to be hit by Lars (Kim Bodnia, PUSHER), an aggressive jerk. Christian doesn’t like Anton’s non-confrontational approach, believing that Lars has gotten the upper hand and it’s not fair because he wrong. From Christian’s influence, Elias begins to think that his dad is a coward, so Anton takes the boys back to confront Lars. This learning moment leads to the opposite effect Anton intended.

Bier, working again with screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen, makes a film that conjures up a lot of questions. On the surface Anton’s philosophy of non-violence seems compassionate, idealistic and a strong display of self-control. But Christian’s idea of hit hard right from the start and you’ll never get hit again seems to be a more successful solution. But there will be people that get hit hard who will hit back and in the end we’re all hitters. Where do we draw the line? When do good intentions get hit in the face with the way the world is? Violence is a vicious cycle. Nothing is black or white.

Some have complained that the scenes in Africa are too overtly parabolic. I agree they are used in that way, but they also give more depth to Anton. He isn’t just a walking philosophy, but a good, but flawed, man trying to do his best. This also comes out in his relationship with his estranged wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm, THE CELEBRATION). It’s ironic that such a humanistic man would not recognize the emotional damage an affair would cause on his marriage. Once again, ideals crack under the pressures of reality.

For me the most interesting relationship is that of Elias and Christian. The latter is especially intriguing because he’s the kind of character that so easily could been made into a cliché. But he’s not a typical bully and yet he has some of those tendencies, despite the fact that he hates bullies. Elias is a kind, honest and impressionable kid who just wants a friend. It’s easy for Christian to lead him into trouble. It seems Christian has taken on some of the bitterness his mother felt when she was dying. The sick woman told Claus that the boy would come to hate him. Christian just hates everything.

The film won the 2011 Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. It beat out strong contenders like BIUTIFUL, DOGTOOTH and INCENDIES. In many ways it has an easier and tidier message than those films, which appeals to the Academy. But I also think it was it’s sense of hope. If more people just tried to act like Anton, the world would be a better place. However, for Anton, in the hellish parts of Africa, he learns when his ideals just don’t make sense. For Elias and Christian, it takes their own mistakes to learn from what he tried to teach them. If Anton never tried at all, they wouldn’t know any other way was possible.

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I’m not the first person to draw the parallel between this Israeli film and the German classic DAS BOOT. Instead of a submarine, the story takes place inside a tank. The claustrophobic environment creates tension by limiting our view of the horrors going on outside. While its use is more as a gimmick than DAS BOOT, it certainly makes for an engaging experience.

Shmulik (Yoav Donat) is the new gunner brought into the tank. It’s his first taste of combat and he is scared out of his mind. Assi (Itay Tiran, BEAUFORT) is the commanding officer in the tank, but he is weak and his nerves are rattled. Hertzel (Oshri Cohen, AGORA) is the loader who questions every decision that Assi makes and only thinks about getting out of the war. Yigal (Michael Moshonov, LATE MARRIAGE) is the young driver who just wants his mother to know he is okay. Riding them every chance he gets is the commanding officer on the ground Jamil (Zohar Shtrauss, BEAUFORT), who makes it abundantly clear that the lives of the ground troupes are in the hands of the tank crew.

What is supposed to be a simple mission turns into a nightmare when the soldiers end up in the wrong area, which is controlled by a Syrian commando. A Syrian prisoner (Dudu Tassa) fighting for the Lebanese is stowed away in the tank. If he gets hostile, the tank crew is informed to give him morphine to calm him down. Word comes in that two Phalangists, Arab Christians fighting with the Israelis, will help them get out of the city. The Phalangist leader (Ashraf Barhom, CLASH OF THE TITANS) doesn’t even seem to be able to read the map and after he talks to the prisoner morphine is certainly needed.

Director/writer Samuel Maoz, basing the film on his own experience in the Lebanon War in 1982, puts the viewer in the tank and into the POV of the crew at times. When they look out the scope, we see what they see. When a BMW comes racing toward them, Shmulik has a hard time firing because he can actually see the whites of the driver’s eyes. At one point a Lebanese mother (Reymond Amsalem, RENDITION) stares directing into the scope and it puts chill over the scene, especially after the harrowing experience we just witnessed her go through.

Driven by a bombastic soundtrack, this war film doesn’t really enlighten the audience on what it takes to operate a tank, but what it is like to be a scared young man stuck in one. Where DAS BOOT watched men doing their jobs, LEBANON watches men trying to simply attempt their job. They might be inside an armored vehicle, but it really doesn’t make it any less frightening. Death can still come from anywhere. It’s fitting that on the inside wall of the tank is painted this phrase — “Man is steel. The tank is only iron.”

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Alain Resnais has always been an enigmatic filmmaker. This film is him whether you love it or hate it. The criticisms of his work, even his most acclaimed work like LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, call his films style without substance and lacking real human emotion. Same could be said about this film. His films are more philosophy, especially the philosophy of cinema. While I became more and more baffled by this film as it went along, I still found myself captivated.

Marguerite Muir (Sabine Azema, SAME OLD SONG) goes shopping for a particular pair of shoes. On the way out of the store, her purse is snatched. Georges Palet (Andre Dussollier, AMIELE) finds her wallet in the parking lot. He takes it to the police and leaves his number for Marguerite to call if she wants to. When she calls he is rude to her and then he becomes obsessed with her, writing and calling constantly.

Resnais seems to be mashing up various conventions of the thriller and romantic comedy genres. Both types of films are driven by passions. Georges is an odd man who becomes obsessed with this woman he has never met before. Is he a romantic or something more sinister? His father was obsessed with flying, but never fulfilled his dream, and Marguerite is a pilot. Through a narrator and voice over, we get the thoughts of the characters. Georges should keep some of his thoughts to himself.

The film builds real tension in the vein of a FATAL ATTRACTION type of suspense film, then Resnais turns that plotting in an instant to an ironic romcom. There are even gags that seem lifted from sitcoms. The director even toys with conventions right up until the end. Using the title card Fin to make us laugh and scratch our heads.

At 88, Resnais is still experimenting. He intrigues the viewer with a story we cannot guess where it is going, but leaves us scrounging for his point in the end. He hints at a dark past for Georges, but never explains it. Marguerite becomes friendly with Georges beautiful wife Suzanne (Anne Consigny, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY), who we wish would express something about her husband’s passions and stop being so accepting and French about it all. Then we have Marguerite’s friend Josepha (Emmanuelle Devos, READ MY LIPS), who hates Georges one moment and loves him the next. And who knows anathema last scene has to do with any of it. Resnais and cats.

Resnais fans will find the filmmaker still pushing boundaries and expectations. Simple lovers of cinema will see a filmmaker clearly in control of his craft in a provocative way. Whether it works is another question entirely. I guess it depends on your own passions.

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