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

Son of Saul (Hungary)

Son of Saul Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Are you ready to watch an amazing visual recreation of the Holocaust? You will see it all from the point of view of Saul, a Jew forced to help in the Nazi death camps. The camera shoots the whole film with Saul’s head in close up. We see everything he does, as if we are controlling him in a video game. If you liked the long takes of Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, or Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, you will appreciate this film.

Why Watch Son of Saul?

It won the Foreign Language Academy Award in 2016, beating the equally incredible Embrace of the Serpent
For some amazing long takes that reminded me of Alfonso Cuaron’s Birdman and Children of Men.
For another great, but harrowing Holocaust movie. Son of Saul offers a different aspect to what you have seen in Life is Beautiful and Schindler’s List
Learn about the SonderKommando – groups of Jews who were forced to carry out the Nazi’s dirty work

The Breakdown

The film starts with a blurred image full of green vegetation. You can just about make out two people with their shirts off, digging a hole by a tree. A man approaches the camera and his head comes into focus. The camera sticks to him, always showing his head in close-up focus and everything happening around him out of focus. He herds people onto a train and into the Nazi Death camps where they are frantically stripped and sent to their deaths in the gas chambers.

The man who the camera has stuck to is Saul, a Sonder Kommando. The Sonder Kommando were strong men, usually Jewish, selected by the Nazis to clear the gas chambers. We see them clearing dead bodies, rifling for valuables in the dead’s clothes, and digging burial plots. They were effectively slaves for the Nazis. If they didn’t obey the Nazis, they were shot and replaced. However, like the prisoner in A Man Escaped, there is hope where there is life and always opportunity to rebel and escape.

The director, Lazlo Nemes, chooses to focus on one man, Saul, throughout the film. The camera stays glued to Saul’s face for the whole film. Our view is restricted by Saul’s movement – even the background is rarely in focus. It gives us a unique point of view which immerses us in the horrors of life in the Nazi death camps. However, the blurred background hides a lot of the gore and violence from clear view (even though we know what is happening). I believe the director leaves these blurred to show that Saul has become accustomed to the horror/violence. He knows it is there, but doesn’t want to see it any more, so he blurs it out of his memory.

Conclusion

As hinted at before, Saul blurs out the horror and violence of the Holocaust as he doesn’t want to see it. As a result, his perspective and life retreats into himself as he tries to leave reality. He makes it his duty to ceremonially bury a boy killed by the Nazis who is left for experimentation. He prioritises this over everything else (escape, rebellion, and protection).

“You have failed the living for the dead” – One of the Sonder Kommando to Saul.

Tabu

Tabu Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Are you up for seeing one of the most interesting and unique films of the 21st century? Here’s Tabu. It will introduce you to life in Lisbon and life in the old Portuguese colonies of Africa. It will also get you trying to figure out the film’s meaning whilst you are lulled by the gorgeous black and white cinematography. The best thing to do is to sit back, relax, and let Miguel Gomes tell you this story.

Why Watch Tabu?

It’s one of the greatest Portuguese films of the 21st Century
For a completely different take on colonisation to Embrace of the Serpent
To hear an awesome soundtrack (and a goofy band picture shoot)
Learn about saudade: a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return

The Breakdown

A Portuguese explorer wanders the African wilderness looking for something. He stares into the abyss whilst Africans carry his belongings past him. From the soothing voice of the narrator and the tingling piano we learn that the explorer is searching for an end. Not the end of the world, but an end to his life after his wife died back in Portugal. To end his life, he throws himself into a swamp as prey for the crocodiles. Ever since that moment, locals see apparitions of a woman sitting beside a sad looking crocodile.

Tabu is broken into two parts, following the introduction. The first part, titled ‘A Lost Paradise’ follows a middle aged activist called Pilar. She lives alone in an apartment in Lisbon. The only thing she looked forward to was a visit from a young Polish girl, however, at the airport the girl rejects her whilst posing as someone else. Her only friends are her old neighbour Aurora and Aurora’s assistant, Santa. Pilar is captured perfectly in one shot of her looking out across Lisbon from her balcony at night. Because of the darkness, she merges into the darkness and the city she looks at, connecting her loneliness and melancholy to the city she lives in. Both are full of melancholy and looking for definition.

The second part is titled ‘Paradise’ and focuses on Aurora’s years in Africa. ‘Paradise’ is filmed without dialogue. Instead the director, Gomes, opts for a narrator. Because of this, the whole section becomes a nostalgic ode to the past. It shows saudade (definition in the bullet points above) for the colonial times, a time when Aurora was free to define her life, in contrast to Pilar’s vague life in Lisbon. Whilst Tabu celebrates the freedom of living in a colony, it does not condone colonialism. Instead it offers a critique of the state of contemporary Portuguese society, that it still looks back to an imperial past for self definition.

Conclusion

Tabu is the perfect representation of saudade in film. It offers a nostalgic look at Portuguese colonialism whilst critiquing it. Watch this gem alongside the beautiful Colombian Embrace of the Serpent for an exploration of European colonisation.

(For the more advanced film viewer, I’d also recommend pairing either Elegy to the Visitor from the Revolution or the 7.5 hour Melancholia by Filipino Lav Diaz with the above)

Man Bites Dog (Belgium) – Help Out an ‘Affectionate and Sweet’ Murderer

Man Bites Dog Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

This may well be the darkest comedy there is. You may not agree at first, but you probably will by the end of the film. And you’ll probably feel like a murderer for watching it! This is one of the ultimate mockumentarys!

Why Watch Man Bites Dog?

If you like dark comedies – and when I say dark, I mean it!
If you like docu-fiction films (see Battle of Algiers or Che)
To learn how much ballast you need to sink a corpse
For a murderer’s ode to pigeons – actor Benoit Poelvoorde is crazy

The Breakdown

You’ll get an idea of what kind of a film this is from the opening. It starts with what looks like a normal scene. A man on a train is standing by the window as a woman walks past him along the corridor. However, as the man moves out of the way to let her pass, he rings a rope around her neck, forces her into a cabin and strangles her.

As you’ll quickly realise, this is not a serious film. However, you also won’t be surprised that it was highly controversial when it was released in 1992 (two years before Natural Born Killers).

Straight after the brutal opening scene, we meet Benoit (the murderer) again. This time, he is talking to the camera and telling us how to properly ballast a corpse so it sinks. Remember, ‘you need to ballast a dead body with 3 times it’s body-weight, and 5 times for old people as their bones are even more porous’ (Benoit’s quote, not mine).

The mockumentary style (mock documentary) makes the film even more real. Benoit looks straight at the camera a lot, and therefore straight at us. As a result, we are forced to get close to him and pushed towards identifying with him. The intimacy is stretched even further as we are introduced to his family and friends, who all say what an ‘affectionate and sweet’ person he is. But every time we start to get comfortable with him the director reminds us of his violence. For example, in one scene he starts playing with a few kids in a park making him appear normal, but the director quickly cuts to a montage of him murdering innocent people to remind us that he is a murderer.

Image result for man bites dog

Conclusion

Man Bites Dog is provocative. But it’s also clever. It plays with us throughout the film, encouraging us to get close to a murderer before brutally showing us images that are undeniably wrong and shocking. There’s also a pretty meta commentary on both the moral obligation of the film-makers and the audience. Are the film-makers and us morally wrong for making/watching this film?

Either way, for more, I’d recommend checking out Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (with a young Woody Harrelson leading). Also check out Behind the Mask for a horror movie equivalent.

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (Finland)

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

“It’s nice that you’re modest, but we want a national champion”

Olli Maki is a Finish baker who happens to be a very talented boxer. He is training for the biggest boxing match of his career, a day that will be the ‘happiest day in his life’. But, a few weeks before the match, he falls in love. For an alternative to the typical macho boxing film watch this gorgeously shot film which won awards at Cannes!

Why Watch this Film?

It’s a feel good film – it will put a smile on your face 🙂
To learn what makes a successful sportsman and a happy person
If you’re tired of macho boxing films
Experience a Finnish wedding!
For some beautiful black and white cinematography. There’s one pretty epic shot of Olli Maki wading naked into a pristine lake like Hercules.

The Breakdown

The first thing you notice is the grainy black and white footage as Olli Maki walks down a train and takes a seat in an empty carriage. He sits alone and looks out of the window in the carriage door, his brow furrowed. Is he concerned? Nervous? Or just shy and introverted?

It turns out that he’s just a modest man from a humble background. He is the Finnish baker battling for the boxing world title. You can tell he’s a humble guy from the first 10 minutes of the film. His creaky car breaks down, so he cycles to the wedding he is in town for. He plays with the kids at the wedding instead of chatting with the adults. But most of all, his modesty is shown in his facial expressions. His furrowed brow, his wide eyed look, and his smiles make it easy for us to sympathise with him. And the actor pulls of the face perfectly throughout the film!

Also pay attention to the beautiful cinematography. The filmmakers use grainy black and white footage with a lot of hand held shots to make it look like a 60s home movie. This style heightens the film’s happy moments as we associate home movie footage with happy nostalgia (think kids playing, funny faces, and days out). The style also takes nothing away from Olli Maki’s modesty. In contrast to the vivid colours and strong lighting of a Rocky film, Olli Maki is not brought out of the film artificially.

Conclusion

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki is a welcome alternative to the many macho boxing films, such as Raging Bull and Rocky. Olli Maki will help you find what is important in your life. As a bonus, the film also explores class and patriotism in Finland whilst remaining an easy to watch feel-good film.

Song of the Sea

Song of the Sea Film Difficulty Ranking: 1

Are you looking for a beautiful animation that carries an important, digestible message? Well you’ve come to the right place. Song of the Sea is Europe’s answer to Studio Ghibli and Pixar. It is a beautiful kids movie that adults will enjoy more because of it’s great storytelling. It is an ode to a disappearing culture, that only we can preserve.

Why Watch Song of the Sea?

If you like Miyazaki’s fantastic animated films
For an introduction to Irish Mythology
You like seals
So you can listen to some Irish!
For a commentary on Religion, Culture, and language – you didn’t think this was just a pretty little animation did you?

The Breakdown

Come away our human child, to the waters and the wild.

The opening lines of Song of the Sea set the scene for a mythology covered film. Up in a lighthouse on a craggy island rock a mum and her son paint the walls of a room. They are painting it for the new baby, and they paint the walls with scenes from Irish myths. As a present for his efforts, the mum gives her son a musical shell which carries the song of the sea…

There is so much to see and interpret from Song of the Sea that you could write a few essays on what how you make sense of it. One thing I noticed was the subtle contrasting portrayals of Christianity and Irish Culture. The contrast is shown through the lighthouse on a remote island by the coast, and in the grandma’s house in the city. Whilst the walls of the Lighthouse are painted with scenes from Irish mythology, the walls of grandma’s house are covered with pictures of family and images of Jesus and the Cross. In the lighthouse, the mother and son sing in Irish, whilst in the city, the grandmother listens to dull ballads.

Likewise the city is shown as oppressive and dirty compared to the freedom of the country. Whilst the cars of the city spew black smoke and almost run over the kids, there are no cars to ruin the picturesque island in the sea. In addition, all the rocks, trees, and fields in the country are beautifully patterned with spirals and circles (Irish patterns which appear a lot in the film), to contrast with the rigid straight lines of the city. The city’s inhabitants have forgotten about Ireland, and only the kids from the country can revitalise Irish culture by singing in Irish and embracing Irish culture.

Conclusion

In the same way as a Miyazaki film, Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea stretches the creative boundaries of animation. However, Song of the Sea is not just a beautiful kids movie, it is an ode to Irish Culture. It holds the Irish language, song, and mythology. It shows us the importance of culture and our role in preserving it (see Embrace of the Serpent). So help out Irish culture and watch this film.