Brief Encounter

A respectful period romance which, however, doesn’t give us as much of the period as it does of the romance

If you’ve seen The Lost Embrace (El Abrazo Partido) of 2004 by the young Argentine director Daniel Burman, your first reaction to his new film, Family Law (Derecho de Familia), is likely to be that we have been there, done that. Like the earlier picture, this one is about the troubled relationship between a Jewish…

Another slick product of the contemporary movie business’s propaganda arm

The Franco-German director Dominik Moll’s new film is called Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut du Bien, which means, “Harry, a friend who only wants the best for you.” For its American release it has been given the slightly misleading English title of With A Friend Like Harry. . ., but in other English-speaking countries…

What art can there be in the portrayal of that which we have no business witnessing?

The Inheritors written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, is a curious anachronism, borrowing its story (so it might seem) from some Communist propaganda tract of the 1930s—when it is ostensibly set. It tells the story of a group of Austrian peasants whose master, when he is murdered, is found to have willed his farm to…