FOREIGN FILMS: “Tangerines.” / “Mesrine” / “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything.”

“Tangerines” (2013, Plex) Estonian–Georgian drama film written, produced, and directed by Zaza Urushadze. Set during the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia, the film's themes span conflict and war, reconciliation, and pacifism.



       This movie was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film award at the 87th Academy Awards and the 72nd Golden Globe Awards. and won several awards in Europe.

       “Tangerines” can be categorized as a war feature but we don't see a lot of armed hostilities, faces covered in blood, or cadavers strewn all over the place. No bloated rage, crying and weeping, and all the obligatories of war cinema.

       Just four men talking. Yet the impact is huge, the noise is thunderous, and the redemption in the end--inspiring. 🎥👍📽


“Mesrine” (2008, Plex) French biographical crime film on the life of French gangster Jacques Mesrine. The first part, “L'instinct de mort,” was based on Mr Mesrine's autobiographical book (same title), while the second part, “L'ennemi public No 1,” detailed the man's criminal career. 



       Director Jean-Francois Richet and writer Abdul Raoul Dafri (with Mr Richet) mainly angled the story on the gangster, leaving the detectives’ backstories as merely backdrops. 

       This movie, however, is all about Vincent Cassel, in the title role. When it comes to bad guys, Vincent is truly good. 🎥💻📽


<>“Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” (2023, Tubi) German drama film. It is the summer of 1990, the Berlin Wall has fallen and it is the last summer in the GDR before reunification. Based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Daniela Krien, this indie is set in 1990 in the former East Germany. The storyline follows a young woman who begins a relationship with a farmer twice her age.



       Although the plot is woven in the background of the East/West pre-reunification and tensions are projected in a middle/lower income family in a small village, the neatly-crafted screenplay by Ms Krien and (director) Emily Atef is focused on the hidden romance of bored and confused 19-year old Maria, and Henner, a lonely farmer who is twice the age of the girl. Essayed by Marlene Burow and Felix Kramer, these characters glow amidst the darkness of a precarious era and the futility of their relationship. 🎥💻📽


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