Italy has struggled in recent decades to recapture the film glory of Cinecittà. The infrequency of quality films from the country that once put everyone else to shame with its bold and innovative productions is rather saddening. So when a film like The Sicilian Girl comes along, it really floors you, or at least me anyway since I have something of an obsession with my Italian heritage. But even for those who have no kindred ties to the country, this movie will still affect you in a pointed and incisive way. The ubiquitousness of the mafia in Sicily at this particular time in history is something that everyone should be cognizant of, because factions–and the inescapable hopelessness wrought by those factions–can form anywhere.

The somewhat disturbing promotional poster for La Siciliana Ribelle, indicating how much of what protagonist Rita sees is edited by her mafioso father

The film opens in a choppy, overly edited manner, showing snippets of Rita (Veronica D’Agostino) as she reluctantly gives her father Michele’s (played by Marcello Mazzarella) gun to her brother Carmelo (played by Carmelo Galati) so that he can use it to kill the man responsible for Michele’s death, Don Salvo (I know, everyone has badass names, right?). After this brief introduction, we are taken back seven years to 1985, just before Michele was killed. At this time, Rita is twelve, still naive to the corrupt and crime-ridden world around her, in spite of the fact that Don Michele is at the forefront of this criminal activity. For all of Don Michele’s underhanded dealings, there is no dubiousness about his love and affection for Rita, which is not something that can be said for Rita’s mother, who seems to loathe her even in the innocence of childhood. One example is when Rita writes on one of the sheets that is hanging out to dry on the clothesline with tomato sauce. As Rita’s mother chases after her to give her a beating, her father comes out onto the terrace to interfere. Rita tells him, “I’m learning to write.” Don Michele turns to smile at his wife and say, “That’s a good thing. Do you want her to be as ignorant as we are?”

The most despondent scene of the film: When Rita has to watch her father get shot and witness everyone around turn a blind eye and run inside.

The bond Rita has with her father is cut short after a run-in Don Michele has with another mafioso named Fiorebella, who intimates that the mafia is moving toward crime that is centered around drug trafficking. Even though Don Michele tries to squash that notion by killing Fiorebella in an intricate way that involves some rope, Don Salvo retaliates by having Don Michele killed in a public square of their small town just before Rita’s communion. Rita is the only one who rushes to his side as everyone else retreats into their homes or shops to avoid becoming a party to the conflict. From this moment forward, Rita is consumed with avenging her father’s death.

Rita ultimately turns to the state for help in prosecuting key members of the Sicilian mafia

When Carmelo tells her that Don Salvo is responsible, she yells at him, saying he is a coward for not gunning him down on sight. But Carmelo convinces her that they must bide their time and wait for the right moment. It is at this juncture that the film flashes forward again to 1992. She and Carmelo anxiously sit at the table as their typically subservient mother glides in and out of the kitchen to bring them food. During her absences from the table, Carmelo excitedly tells Rita that the time has finally come: He is close enough to Don Salvo’s clan to make a move. Rita shares his excitement but is uncertain about whether he should jump at such an uncertain chance. Carmelo cannot wait any longer, however, assuring Rita that everything will go as planned. So naturally, it doesn’t. The next morning, Carmelo’s body washes ashore and Rita’s boyfriend Vito (played by Francesco Casisa) has to restrain her from killing Don Salvo on sight. Vito, who is also closely knit to Don Salvo’s clan, betrays Rita by telling Don Salvo that Rita has gone to the chief prosecutor in Palermo to report the incident. To redeem himself though, Vito warns Rita that she must leave Sicily immediately.

On trial in Rome, Rita was one of the only Sicilians in history to break the Omertà, or mafia code of silence

Under the custody of the state, Rita is relocated to Rome under the new name of Silvia. More unsettled and dejected than ever, Rita has no one to turn to or confide in except the chief prosecutor who she risked everything to tell her story to. One of the best moments of Rita’s voiceover occurs during this period of loneliness, when she remarks, “People say time heals your wounds. But it really just gives them time to grow deeper.” Before justice can be administered, more carnage and loss must transpire in the already tragedian life of someone so young (Rita was seventeen years old in 1992).

The anti-mafia magistrate (left) in The Sicilian Girl was based on the real life Paolo Borsellino, whose car was wired to explode by the mafia during the trial

True to the events that happened, writer-director Marco Amenta concludes the film with Rita’s suicide. But before she jumps off the building of her fake apartment that belongs to her fake life under another fake identity (this time the witness protection program changes her name to Elena), she tells Vito, “This time, the mafia loses. This time, I win. Rita wins.” It couldn’t be a better way to state how much she sacrificed to take a stand against the sordid, cruel world of the mafia.

On the heels of the Audrey Tautou biopic about Coco Chanel, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky strives for a somewhat uncharted approach to tackling the career-oriented portion of Coco Chanel’s life. Based on the 2003 novel by Chris Greenhalgh, the film focuses so comprehensively on the affair between Chanel and Stravinsky that the nuances are almost unfathomable.

Promotional poster for Coco & Igor

The opening night to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” in 1913 Paris is a categorical failure (and to be honest, I’d be a little belligerent too if I was one of the Parisians who had to suffer through its creepiness). One of the few members of the audience that can appreciate the esoteric nature of the work is Coco Chanel. At the time, Chanel was still deeply in love with Boy Capel, a well-known English polo player who met Chanel while she was still acting as the mistress for a wealthy Frenchman named Etienne Balsan. Thus, her brief attraction to Stravinsky is ignored until seven years later, when they meet again in the wake of Boy’s death.

The beginnings of a lurid affair

Coco, never one to mince words or desires, tells Igor he should bring his family (including an ailing wife and a fucking gaggle of children) with him to her villa and work for the summer. When you’re Russian, the choice is obviously: “Yeah, I think I will stay in France, what with Vladimir Lenin running my homeland right now.” And so Igor and his family set up camp in La Maison de Chanel, where their feelings are forced to boil to the surface in such close proximity to one another.

J'adore l'amour

It should be mentioned that the visual transitions and segues designed to reveal each new component of the plot are often times cunningly subtle, never flat out delivering a distinctive scene change (except for the almost pornographic sex scenes between Mads Mikkelsen and Anna Mouglalis). This well-crafted technique by director Jan Kounen mirrors just how covertly the affair between Coco and Igor began and persisted.

Coco & Igor stars striking a pose

Apart from being mildly tainted by the recent release of Coco Avant Chanel, Coco & Igor doesn’t really invite any comparisons to that particular biopic because its story tells a vastly different account of another period in Chanel’s life. And, in truth, the couturier probably needs about four separate movies to unravel the varied stages of her existence. More than anything, Coco & Igor is a visual triumph with a paucity of words. Its sole error in relying on what is observed by the eye is when, at the end of the film, Chris Greenhalgh (who managed to snag the role of screenwriter instead of being relegated to literary limbo) takes things in an extremely bathetic direction, flashing forward to when Coco and Igor are both one cigarette away from a collapsed lung; Igor holed up at the Essex House in New York (though, mind you, it is well-documented that he preferred Los Angeles and lived there for the majority of his latter years) and Coco rotting in one of her infamous Chanel suits in Paris. I think we all know they didn’t romanticize the affair half as much as the movie does.

There are secrets in a lot of people’s eyes, but the one thing that isn’t a secret in the eyes of the Academy members that select the Oscar winners is that they love maudlin shit. I went to see The Secret in Their Eyes with average expectations, unsure of how much I’ve trusted Argentina since Eva Peron kicked the bucket, but lately, it is a country that seems to be beating its chest, what with their World Cup dominance and winning an Academy Award for best foreign film. What I got in exchange for my neutral outlook was something vaguely resembling a telenovela. And if I wanted that, I could just watch Univision or Ugly Betty.

Promotional poster for El Secreto de sus Ojos

The story begins, like so many stories, in the present. Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) is a recently retired investigator for the court in Buenos Aires. With all of his newly acquired free time, he finds himself dwelling on a case that began in 1974, and never truly resolved itself. Plagued by what is referred to as the Morales case, Esposito decides to sit down and write a book about it. He finds himself unable to stick with an introduction until he talks with his old boss and the love of his life, Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil). Writer-director Juan José Campanella weaves the present with the past rather effortlessly, and somehow makes the 1970s look like a fairly dynomite time to live in (in spite of the existence of catch phrases like dynomite and the whole stagflation thing taking the world by storm).

Forbidden love and shit

Esposito essentially falls in love with Irene the moment he sees her, and his affection for her is only partially deterred when a homicide/rape case crops up involving a woman named Liliana Colotto (Carla Quevedo). When Esposito informs her husband, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), of what befell his wife, it is as though they have an immediate personal connection, Esposito all too aware of being consumed by love for a woman who has been taken from him. Unfortunately, in what is the norm for South American justice, the police are more concerned with pinning the crime on anyone rather than actually solving it. This leads Esposito to enlist the help of his alcoholic and, accordingly, ribald friend, Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella).

From left: Bottle, Ricardo Darin as Esposito, and Guillermo Francella as Pablo Sandoval, getting crunk with it.

After some highly precise detective work that involves poring through most of Morales’ photo albums, Esposito notices one man in particular that keeps giving Liliana a “rape face” (you know, staring, wide eyes, tongue sticking out, that type of thing. Walk down Crenshaw in booty shorts if you can’t picture it). The man in question, Isidoro Gomez (Javier Godino) is actually apprehended within a year, but then released early instead of carrying out his life sentence due to the handiwork of a nemesis of Esposito’s seeking retaliation. The plot sort of drags on from there, detailing the power and energizing effects of avengement and unfulfilled desire. I’ll leave it at this though: The ending has the same eeriness of discovering Norman Bates’ dead mother rotting in the basement at the conclusion of Psycho.

Micmacs à Tire-Larigot, which translates to “Non-stop Shenanigans,” doesn’t quite live up to the title or the typical amazingness of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet movie. While it follows a similar formula to that of Jeunet fan favorites Amélie and Delicatessen, it is possibly for that very reason that there seems to be something overly stylized, overly conventional (for Jeunet) about this addition to his directorial repertoire.

Promotional poster for Micmacs

Our introduction to Bazil (Dany Boon) is vaguely reminiscent of the one in Amélie, wherein we are shown a childhood shrouded in tragedy. In this case, Bazil’s father is killed by the war artillery manufactured by two major weapon companies, one specializing in bullets and the other in land mines. The tragedy does not end there for Bazil, and no, it’s not just because he grows up to work in a video store and repeat the dialogue to The Big Sleep to himself while waiting for a customer to come in. A random shooting outside of the video store results in catastrophe when the gun falls onto the floor, goes off, and hits Bazil right in the forehead. The sadness could’ve ended there, but no, Bazil had to survive.

Bazil and co.

After spending a bit of time in the hospital, Bazil reemerges into the world to find that his apartment has been leased and his job has been given to someone else. And yeah, it does represent how every cog in the wheel can be ruthlessly replaced. But unlike others, who might be inclined to jump into the Seine, Bazil hangs out and uses cardboard boxes as blankets. One day, while dancing in the street for money, Bazil is found by another guttersnipe called Placard who offers him refuge in the comfort of a group of other misfits and societal rejects.

Bazil's lady friend, because film school tells us that every great movie needs a love story

Bazil quickly grows close with his adopted family, particularly with the blonde contortionist (quelle surprise). But Bazil’s gratitude is temporarily trumped by the discovery that the man responsible for manufacturing the bullet that is lodged in his head works in a building directly across from the man responsible for manufacturing the land mine that killed his father during the war (which war, I don’t know, there’s too fucking many to choose from). It is then and there that a plan is hatched in Bazil’s bulleted brain: Pit these two men against each other until their desire for vengeance destroys them.

It is after a few rather insignificant attempts at sabotage that Bazil realizes he could use the help of his ragtag gang. Hilarity ensues, etc., etc. and presumably there is an underlying message about arms dealing, but Micmacs is something of a disappointment after waiting for five years for Jeunet to direct a new movie. I’m not saying he should have stopped at A Very Long Engagement, but I might if the next effort doesn’t bowl me over.

It doesn’t matter what Spain does or, more accurately, doesn’t do. Its unapologetic economic languishment is irrelevant as long as they’ve still got a filmically productive Pedro Almodovar. With the auteur’s most recent emotionally wrought effort, Broken Embraces, the country’s state of atrophy is more than forgivable. Employing his muse for the fourth time, Penelope Cruz stars as the tragic character of Lena, an aspiring actress who occasionally falls victim to the monetary temptations of hooking, but generally works as a secretary for a Spanish mogul named Ernesto Martel.

Promotional poster for Los Abrazos Rotos

Although Lena is determined to live honestly in her quest to make it as an actress, her father is unexpectedly diagnosed with stomach cancer and her family cannot afford the medical expenses of a sympathetic doctor. Enter an eager Ernesto, just waiting to pounce on the opportunity to make Lena feel indebted. At first she tries to go back to the bordello (under the pseudonym Severine), but Ernesto already knows about her alternate occupation and calls her as soon as she reenlists. This foils her plans completely, forcing her to ask Ernesto for the money as a secretary, not a prostitute.

She works hard for the money: Lena becomes the mistress of the wealthy Ernesto Martel because, let's face it, having money is much better than not having money, regardless of having to let an old man lie on top of you

The other side of the coin in this story is writer-director Mateo Blanco, who we are introduced to as Harry Caine, a blind scriptwriter who picks up women that offer to help him cross the street. Initially, Almodovar does not weave the two plots together; in fact, it seems like each story could be its own separate film. Mateo’s agent, Judit (Volver’s Blanca Portillo), along with her son, Diego (Tamar Novas), often visit Mateo to make sure he’s okay and to collaborate with him on various film projects. It is not until Diego mixes MDMA with a bit of meth laced with Coke (the soda kind, just to be clear) that the entire story unfolds, including the reason for Mateo’s blindness. Diego’s curiosity about a man named Ray X who comes to Mateo with an idea for a movie irritates and unnerves his mother before she leaves to scout locations in Barcelona. After Diego recovers from his ill-fated journey into clubland narcotics, Mateo offers to tell him why Judit is so afraid of Ray X, a disturbed and newly open homosexual that just so happens to be the recently deceased Ernesto Martel’s son.

Evoking a Spanish Marilyn

At this point, the two disjointed stories merge into one and Almodovar settles into the visual aestheticism that is Penelope Cruz. Like any man who likes men, Almodovar knows what makes a woman beautiful. He is a master in the field of cultivating the most attractive features of his feminine inspiration. He centers entire scenes around Cruz’s elegance and allure, finding any excuse to dress her up garishly, as with the donning of a variety of wigs before Mateo shoots the film Girls and Suitcases and in the scene in which she puts on the most ostentatious gold necklace to be worn since the musical heyday of MGM.

Lena stars as the daffy heroine of a screwball comedy entitled "Girls and Suitcases"

Almodovar may have evolved his directorial tactics over the years, but the intensity of his scripts and the overall presence of a karmic balance remains evident in what is undoubtedly the best foreign film of 2009.

Yojimbo is the 1961 samurai classic from Akira Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune plays the baddest badass samurai of all time, Sanjuro. Here’s a small glimpse of how amazingly badass our samurai is, with one of his many brilliant one-liners:

I’m not dying yet. I have to kill quite a few men first.