European Film

Best European Films

From Alfred Hitchcock to Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman to Jean-Luc Godard, Europe has birthed many of film’s greatest innovators. And that’s just to name a few. The more you dig into the world of European film, the more and more gems you find. Scroll down to find the best European films currently reviewed on FilmRoot, or pick a country if you know what you’re after:

Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom

111

Le Pupille – AFI Fest 2022

Le Pupille brings you into a Catholic Orphanage during Christmas in the height of the Second World War. Despite the frugal times and strict Mother Superior, the girls find joy in a few magical scenes reminiscent of the wonder of early cinema.

In the Catholic Orphanage, objects are a scarcity. Unlike the often stuffy materialism of today’s modern world, the girls in Le Pupille live in large rooms with very few things around them. This partly emphasizes the frugality of the war period, and in turn, distinguishing any warm nostalgia for Italian fascism, but it also sets a blank slate for the rare objects included in the movie to star. The radio and the giant red cake are enhanced by the absence around them, making them seem much more luxurious than they should be.

The frugality in front of the camera is also seen in the film’s production. The director, Alice Rohrwacher, shot Le Pupille completely on film, and therefore all of the special effects are completely VFX free. This gives the film a playful magic that feels like the wonder of the Melies’ silent films. In one scene a baby appears out of thin air (from one shot to the next), whilst a freeze-framed shouting Mother Superior conveys shock from what feels like the kids perspective in another. Unlike the seriousness of modern VFX, that often strives for digital realism, the old school special effects used here add wonder and magic to film. It encourages wonder rather than inhibiting it.

It’s this simplicity both in front of the camera (with the limited objects and distractions) and behind the camera (in the production process) that makes this short Christmas film feel so playful and joyful.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.

112

Alcarras – AFI Fest 2022

The Sole family have farmed fields in the small municipality of Alcarras in Catalonia for generations. However, the wealthy landowner that owns the property has found more profitable ways to use his land, which doesn’t involve farming or what the Sole family wants. He’s looking to destroy the orchards that provide the Sole family’s livelihood to install more profitable solar panels.

What Alcarras does brilliantly is tell a very specific local story in order to highlight how capitalism is affecting not just the Sole family, but the local community and many other people around the globe. It’s set completely in one small municipality in Spain centered one family, all played by non-actors from similar backgrounds to the family on screen, living on one farm. Through the film’s run-time, we get to intimately know each member of the Sole family to understand their life on the farm as well as how they are each affected by the threatening eviction. We see why they love the freedom and independence of farming their own land as well as how they’re pulled apart by an uncertain future. Whilst a multi-family or multi-country film might fail to generate sympathy for it’s characters because of it’s broad scope, Alcarras, in spending time with one family in one region, gives the audience more time and closeness to sympathize with not just them, but everyone affected by capitalism around the world.

The hidden message in Alcarras is that the Sole family’s experience is not isolated to Alcarras, nor Spain. The few short scenes showing the community’s labor strikes, which Quimet and his son join, show that the Sole family’s experiences are not isolated. The priority of progress and profit over personal and community happiness is destroying families across the world.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.

113

Boy on the Bridge (Cyprus) – One Kid Finds Trouble and Secrets

Boy on the Bridge Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

If you’re a fan of coming of age films centered around trouble seeking kids, you’ll find a lot of familiar ground in Boy on the Bridge. Set within a now sleepy mediterranean town, 12 year old Socrates forces the community to reckon with secrets in a way that the police and town leaders cannot.

From: Cyprus, Europe
Watch: Trailer, JustWatch
Next: Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret, The Colors of the Mountain, Kings of Mulberry Street

Boy on the Bridge – Breakdown

Boy on the Bridge starts with two 12 year old boys setting off home made firecrackers in the middle of the street to surprise a drunk man as he walks out of his house. The noise they create alerts the local police chief, setting up a bike chase through the town. Socrates, the troublemaking kid, escapes through the forest to the home of an old war vet. His stories of the war, and willingness to give young Socrates advice to advance his bomb-making, makes him one of his role models in the film.

His other role model, his respectable dad, generously forgives him for his trouble-making. He’s positioned as the benevolent character in this film through his role as community mediator (as seen in a scene in which he gathers community leaders to confront a domestic violence incident), his leniency with Socrates, and his position as a doctor (an always respectable occupation). However, his benevolent character is a front to disguise the secrets he keeps from his family, which inevitably, the curious Socrates uncovers. His secrets, not his benevolence, are shown to be what binds the community together.

Like other films that feature boys getting into trouble, Boy on the Bridge shows that trouble often leads to discovering hidden secrets. Whilst the secrets that Socrates uncovers are less fantastic than the hidden treasure in The Goonies, its humble community murder mystery make it an engaging enough watch.

What to Watch Next

For more similar movies featuring boys getting into trouble, check out Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret from Mozambique and Kings of Mulberry Street from South Africa. There’s also the more serious The Colors of the Mountain from Colombia.

Or if you’re looking for more films focusing on community in small towns on the Mediterranean, try The Black Pin from Montenegro and Simshar from Malta.

114

Clashing Differences – Outfest Los Angeles 2023

In Clashing Differences an international women’s rights group based in Germany changes its original white-women led panel to avoid being ‘cancelled’. The updated panel however sees through their attempts to fulfill the diversity checklist in this satirical comedy.

It’s hard to get a satire right, especially when you’re satirizing topics that you can easily get wrong (such as racism), whilst keeping the tone light enough to maintain the comedy. Clashing Differences doesn’t get everything ‘right,’ but it is a pretty good attempt. The fourth-wall-breaking monologues from each character all pack a punch whilst conveying a wide range of experiences. It also always feels like the film is told from a multi-cultural perspective, by centering the non-White characters (bar-one) over white characters. That being said, the film does feel like it falls into its own trap. In trying to expose the tokenization of the multicultural characters it almost tokenizes the same characters. Each one of the characters covers a different multicultural reaction to their own tokenization.

However, the larger problem with Clashing Differences is the relationships between the characters. None of them get along through the majority of the film’s run time, clashing because of past relationships, and not just their ideas for confronting the international women’s group they’re there for. The only thing that ultimately brings them together are literal Nazis which gives viewers an out for thinking about all of the more subtle racism that the characters talk about beforehand (as Nazis always surpasses more subtle racism). It also feels like a tool to help end the film too.

Despite the convenient ending, Clashing Differences is still worth a watch. You’ll likely get some enjoyment from the satire of well-wishing white-led feminist groups and the drama fired up by conflicting views.

115

The Fabulous Ones – Outfest Los Angeles 2023

The Fabulous Ones is a warm home-made story featuring real friends reuniting to relive their memories from 30 years ago. The drama comes from a fictionalized will of one of their old friends, but the personal, real stories provide the substance for this docufiction.

From the tone of the film, it feels like most of this film is a documentary. The characters all get along too closely for it to feel fictionalized. However, the director uses different film types to blur the past and present, and also reality and fiction. Sepia-tinted film makes some shots feel old – as if shot 30 years ago in the character’s past – and these are edited alongside clearer shots to indicate the present. Some scenes also alternate between these two types of film to make it unclear what is fictionalized and true to reality, such as the seance and re-enactment of their ‘dead’ friend. The blurring of reality and fiction and past and present through the type of film also fictionalizes their pre-transition lives. Home footage and photos of the characters pre-transition, look like the scenes of the seance, making their pasts feel less real than the present.

Whilst their pre-transition lives are made to feel like the fictionalized parts of this documentary, The Fabulous Ones doesn’t shy away from sharing the characters’ real experiences as Trans-women. Throughout their reunion, the camera focuses on each character to hear their queer coming of age experience and how their individual families and the society around them reacted. These scenes draws you closer to the characters by sharing their more intimate experiences, and in doing so, holds the film back from going full happy-dream with the fictionalized elements of the film. These moments ground the film in the unfortunate reality that not everyone is able to be who they are without prejudice.

If you’re looking for a quirky docufiction that lightly explores some heavy personal experiences through a fictionalized will left by a ‘dead’ friend, this film is for you.