Gegen die Wand (2004)

Drug addict Cahit decides to end it all by driving into a wall. While in therapy, he meets Sibel, an odd Turkish girl who wants to marry him to escape from her family. 

   I hated this movie. It was everything I dislike about modern German movies: bloody, sexually graphic, and random. The story itself was decent, nothing terribly interesting, but well-written. The problem was the lack of an obvious meaning or message. It was lost in a girl smashing a bottle and shoving it into her arm vein, drug-induced sex, and drunk, sweaty men. Blah. Interesting music, though.

The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008)

Based on a true story, this film details the tragic story of Soraya, a woman in Iran oppressed by a violent husband who arranges her execution by stoning in order to marry a 14-year old girl. 

    This is a powerful film. It makes you want to stand up and scream at the men who push and punch women and who teach their young sons to do the same. There needs to be change and justice. These kind of brutal crimes cannot go unrecognized.

      Shohreh Aghdashloo stars as the aunt of Soraya who tells her story to a journalist passing through. She is beautiful in the role with her strong personality even in a culture that represses women and furious love for her family. If there are women like this in the world, there is hope. Soraya is also good in her stillness, unable to move for fear of being struck, but she also harbors boldness that is punished with death. She is a martyr. 

    This movie is rated R for one scene. The stoning. It is truly brutal and seems to drag on and on. Her cries are absolutely heart-wrenching and the attitude of the crowd is to be abhorred. They will be receive their due in the afterlife, for sure.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Based on the best-selling Swedish book, "Let the Right One In" tells the story of Oskar, a young boy bullied by his classmates, who meets Eli, the mysterious girl next door who is not as innocent as she appears. 

     Best vampire movie ever. Absolutely breath-taking. The atmosphere is dark and chilly and gritty. The gore factor is relatively low for this kind of movie, but seeing beautiful little Eli with clotting blood all over her face is definitely disturbing. The little boy who plays Oskar is gorgeous, his skin is transparent and his hair the whitest of white-blond. It's the perfect contrast to Eli, who has dark hair and almost grayish, blueish skin. Their acting is exceptionally subtle, almost emotionless, which balances out the extreme, horrifying events of the movie. 

    The only flaw is there are lots of unanswered questions. For people who read the book, the movie makes perfect sense, but most of Eli's back-story is not stated in the film itself. This makes several things confusing. 

     This is such a good vampire story. You feel both terrified and enchanted by Eli, she's animal-like in her hunt for blood, but her tenderness towards Oskar is more human than many of the other characters. The movie questions the very nature of evil and innocence. What is a "vampire?"