Other Recommended Movies
These movies are all well-written, well-acted and well-directed, and are therefore highly recommended. However, each for a different reason, they are placed here rather than on the main page "Film". The reasons are given in their descriptions.
I Am David
2003
Among others, Joan Plowright David, a 12-year-old, escapes from a Communist concentration camp of post-war Bulgaria with little more than a compass, a sealed letter, a loaf of bread, and instructions to carry the letter to Copenhagen, Denmark. David is thrust into the free world for the first time in his young life as he travels across Europe. This is a spiritual voyage of discovery, where David slowly loses his instinctive mistrust of humanity and begins to smile, share, trust and ultimately, to love. This film addresses the cruelties, politics, and suffering of warfare while celebrating the resilience of youth and the unbreakable spirit of a child. [Description taken from Imdb.] This film is slightly underproduced but catches its stride when Joan Plowright's character enters. The Celebration [Festen]
1998 Danish w/subtitles
This is a grim movie with bizarre plot elements -- a fitting reflection of the family dynamics spawned by the patriarch. At a large party, the oldest son makes public that the father is guilty of having repeatedly raped his children. The son is discounted, harassed and humiliated for this, which speaks to the integrity and courage required to reveal it. Ultimately the father is ostracized. I would put the movie on the main page if it were more uplifting; only a few will find it so, and for them the outcome will be sweet, even if too lenient. The film's title will be ironic to all but those who are ready to look squarely at the devastation of incestual rape and the need stop giving perpetrators protection through silence. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
1993
Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio Directed by Lasse Hallstrom While there is no exceptional example of consistent integrity in this movie, Gilbert is devoted to his mentally handicapped younger brother to the point of staying in a stultifying small town when he could leave and find more opportunities. Also, the four children in the family find a dignified way to handle the corpse of their very obese mother so as to avoid humiliation and ridicule by the townspeople. |
Fateless
2006
Based on the Nobel Prize (2002) winning book Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. As in the autobiographical novel, the end of the movie includes a brief discussion between the boy who survived the camps and some elderly Jews still in Budapest who were never taken to one. The boy argues (gently and briefly) that there were many occasions when the round-ups could have gone differently, while the older Jews argue it was "fate". Because this could potentially be interpreted to be an argument that the Jews were complicit in the Holocaust, I place the movie here rather than on the main DVD page so as not to provoke controversy and not to create skepticism about the other movies selected. Kertesz himself is Jewish and a survivor, and I don't believe he is making a blanket (that is to say, an un-nuanced) statement about complicity, nor does the boy-character even state it in those terms. He is pointing to the fact that individuals have -- and indeed are making -- choices every second, every hour, and that therefore the concept of fate, for anybody in any situation, needs to be questioned. Stand By Me
2006
River Phoenix Directed by Rob Reiner The boyhood relationship between the two main characters is typical of 13- year-olds, until the end. The way they support each other in being authentic to themselves, and to their best future selves, is quite poignant. This movie is fun to watch and is well-written and acted, but other than the dynamic just mentioned, is not focussed on portraying integrity. |