1: Once, Ireland, 2007
This is a semi-musical about two not-very-remarkable people in Dublin who both want to make music and end up sorta in love, except that she's already married to a Czech who is moving to Ireland soon, and he's off to chase down his girlfriend who scarpered to London some time back. Anyway, it's very sweet, unglamorous and fairly realistic. When you watch Ireland's recent Eurovision entries, and their total failure at being modern, I wonder why they've never looked at Marketa and Glen from this film and thought 'throw them some money and get them on the Eurovision stage.' They got a freaking Oscar for Best Song! Ireland does have musical talent!
2: No Man's Land, Bosnia, 2001
A straightforward film set in a 1990s no mans land area between the bosnians and the serbians where one of them is placed on a land mine, and it all goes a bit philosophical about war, life, death, and such things for a while before everyone gets killed. The ending is massively depressing.
3: The Baader Meinhof Complex, Germany, 2008
This is an interesting, if perhaps flawed and not technically amazing, film about the rise and fall of 1970s German terrorist group the Red Army Faction. What's especially interesting about it is probably what a bunch of absolute wankers they seemed to be.
4: Anna M, France, 2007
If you ever saw the twee/cutesy Audrey Tautou film He Loves Me He Loves Me Not, where she has erotomania and stalks a doctor guy she imagines herself in love with, then Anna M is the darker, sinister version of that, with less narrative tricks that don't hold up on rewatching. This has a suicidal librarian and a somber and ugly physiotherapist, not a sweet pretty art student who can whimsically hide her tablets behind a wardrobe and a thematically-linked young handsome heart doctor.
5 Closely Observed Trains, Czech Republic, 1968
I came across this film in university when I had to read the book. It's more linear than the book, about a lad who works in a rural train station, who attempts suicide after he can't go the whole way with his girl in the time of the German occupation of the Czech Republic (or whatever it was back then, I lose track).
6 Control, UK, 2007
When people think of European films, they think of Foreign Language films. Since Ireland's here, I suppose it's only fair to include a good British film that has a Europe vibe about it anyway, being about a band whose post-punk style has its roots in 70s German rock, and was directed by Dutch photographer Anton Corbjin.
7 In Bruges, 2008, Ireland, in a sense...
I don't care what it officially says, I'm calling this one an Irish film. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Martin Mcdonagh. It's an Irish film, whatever the title says. And I'm trying to make ten on my list. It's set in Bruges, that's in Belgium, that's in Europe. It totally counts. I need to see more foreign films.
8 Jar City, Iceland, 2006
Why does that pregnant junkie daughter look familiar? Oh, it's Silvia Night! Guess the Eurovision rejection really did hit her hard. This film is basically a Scandinavian crime drama, about some lowlife found murdered and connected with a weird genetic brain disease that only four people have. It's got lots of shots of Iceland that make you think 'oooohh, pretty' and a particularly notable scene where the detective eats a sheeps eat from a takeaway, Google says it is a dish called svid . Probably better than going to a dodgy burger van, mind.
9 Tilsammans, Sweden, 2000
Fucking hippies, man.
10 Three Colours: White French/Polish, 1994
The Three Colours trilogy is one of those default first-year film student things to watch. I never saw them till years later when a friend gave me Blue as a gift. I wasn't impressed. White, however, is quite good, and probably the only one of the three worth sticking with. The plot is a slightly off comedy about a Polish guy whose French wife dumps him because he's no good in bed (I think?) and he goes back to Poland with a guy who offers him some money to kill him, then he becomes successful in business and sets up his ex-wife as a criminal.
Honorable Mentions: Disco Pigs (Ireland), Bjarnfredarson (Iceland), Fucking Amal (Sweden), Goodbye Lenin, The Lost Honour of Katarina Blum, Volver, Persepolis -- Marjane Sartrapi's French-Iranian, so it counts,
No mention of Troll Hunter? ;)
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