Beyond the Multiplex

Foreign-Language Film

"After the Wedding" This is the only real outsider among the nominees, and the only film that has yet to be released. It's also the category's biggest surprise, a marvelously crafted family melodrama, with elements of thriller, from a European director whose big international breakthrough is still to come. Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier has become a buzzed-over name thanks to her earlier films "Open Hearts" and "Brothers." This lively, engrossing story of a 40ish Danish man's ambiguous homecoming, after many years in India, makes it clear why. Mads Mikkelsen (the arch-villain in "Casino Royale") plays Jacob, who is summoned back to Copenhagen from the Indian orphanage where he works by a self-made zillionaire who apparently wants to give him money. But why is the garrulous Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) suddenly interested in Jacob's do-gooder projects? At Jorgen's daughter's wedding, Jacob comes face to face with someone from his past, and the plot thickens. Just a terrific blend of classic European film and Hollywood-friendly storytelling, with emotion to burn. It's no surprise that Bier is now working on her first American film, the forthcoming "Things We Lost in the Fire," with Halle Berry and Benicio del Toro.

"Days of Glory" This classic World War II flick from Algerian-French director Rachid Bouchareb caused a big stir at Cannes last year, and provoked a major social self-examination in France. It won't have the same effect on Americans, of course, but it's still a moving, bloody saga of sacrifice and discrimination. Charles de Gaulle's "free French" army was established in North Africa to fight the Nazis, first there and later in Europe, and recruited heavily among the Arab, Berber and black populations of the French colonies. They signed up by the thousands, believing that the republican promise of liberty, equality and fraternity might actually apply across racial and religious lines. Bouchareb tells the story of a small group of Arab and Berber soldiers who fight their way through Morocco, Italy and finally France, killing and dying to liberate a "motherland" none of them has ever seen before. Nothing in "Days of Glory" -- the original title is "Indigènes," or "Natives" -- is especially surprising, including the systematic racism of the French authorities, during and after the war. But if you're in the mood for a sobering, terrifying journey back to the last so-called Good War, I preferred this to the gloomy cave-dwelling saga of Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima."

"The Lives of Others" Everyone had been telling him for weeks, says director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (is that the best name in world cinema, or what?), that his terrific film about life in the East German police state, "The Lives of Others," was a shoo-in Oscar nominee. So it was a relief to get it behind him. "Even though it was totally out of my hands," he says, "I would have felt that I was letting down all kinds of people in Germany who were really hoping that it would happen. So I almost feel happier for them than for myself."

Being nominated was exciting, says Donnersmarck, and he's gratified that the film has clicked with big-city American audiences so far, despite its highly specific historical setting. He doesn't kid himself that he's likely to be up there with that little golden dude on Sunday night. "I don't really expect to win, being up against Guillermo del Toro's film ['Pan's Labyrinth']. But Guillermo is such a great guy, it's pretty hard to feel bad about it." (This may be movie-industry caution, but it's also true that del Toro is a friendly, unpretentious guy, well liked in the business.)

"The Lives of Others" resulted from years of meticulous study of East German history and first-person research, but it also had roots in Donnersmarck's childhood. "My parents are both from the East, and came over [to West Germany] in the aftermath of the war, before the Berlin Wall was built. So I had been to the East, and I heard a lot about the Stasi and the way they operated. I mean, the movie is based on history; it's not based on my experiences. But without those experiences, I might never have had the idea, or gotten interested in the first place. It planted the seed."

Next page: And then there's "Pan's Labyrinth"