Lilting (UK, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie Lilting

1. This is a startlingly excellent examination of solitude and connection.

2. Set in England, it's about a young man, Richard, an elderly Cambodian woman, Junn, who speaks no English, and the dead man that ties them together.

3. Junn's son, Kai, recently put his mother in an assisted living home, because he could no longer care for her. Unbeknownst to her, Kai's best friend, Richard, is actually his long time boyfriend.

4. After Kai's sudden death, Richard feels obligated to help out Junn somehow, so he hires a young translator to help the blossoming relationship between Junn and another resident of the home, Allen.

5. As the four begin an awkward journey of getting to know each other, they inadvertently open hidden wounds... and pour salt in others.

6. The acting in the movie is impeccable. It's a small cast, and relatively unknown - at least here in the US. But I'd been waiting to see Ben Whishaw in something again ever since "Perfume" (no, I don't really count "Skyfall")

7. It's really hard to make a movie work when it's almost all talking around tables. The fact that half of it also needs to be verbally translated - on screen - makes it even worse. But I guess first-time director Hong Khaou didn't know this was supposed to be hard. He took this one all the way home.

8. Let's face it - this movie is going to be a hard movie to sell - "No really, it's good! It's about gays and Asians and old people talking to each other!" There's no violence or sex or scandal. There's not even an exciting soundtrack. And it's too bad that many people will miss this movie. It's one of the best depictions of the human experience that I've seen in a long time.

9. This movie is about the varying levels of isolation that people feel, and the intersections of those levels. It's a quiet, poetic, sad, masterpiece.

Beyond the Hills (Romania, 2012)

Nine Things about the Movie Beyond the Hills

1. This movie is based loosely on an actual incident that occurred at a Romanian Orthodox Catholic monastery in 2005.

2. It’s a quiet but gutsy tragedy of faith vs. doubt, of hanging on to your convictions past all reasonable boundaries.

3. It’s about a young woman named Alina. She goes to visit her secret ex-girlfriend, Voichita, who has joined a small convent of nuns that has partially broken away from the Orthodox Catholic Church. Alina is hoping to reconnect with Voichita, and is severely disappointed that Voichita has dedicated her life to the convent.

4. Alina is slightly mentally ill, and during her stay at the convent, she begins to break down. The nuns and the priest, who have deliberately broken most ties with modern society (they don’t even have electricity) aren’t sure what’s going on.

5. Full of religious superstition, they interpret Alina’s anger, broken heart and subsequent breakdown to possession by Satan.

6. The momentum and sense of foreboding slowly builds, and the last 45 minutes is a pretty distressing account of an attempted exorcism of Alina.

7. The cinematography and sound of the film are very well done – you really feel like you are in a little isolated corner of the world, tucked away from modern life.

8. The movie reminds us that when superstition clashes with science, nobody wins.

9. Hollywood likes to remake European movies, but I don’t think they have the guts to do this one. It would offend too many people.