Which International Movie Should You Watch This Weekend?

Radha Vatsal curates a selection of international mystery and suspense. 

The Cremator (1969)

Creepy, dark comedy, forgotten classic

Even thinking about The Cremator makes my skin crawl. Legendary Czech actor Rudolf Hrušínský plays Karel Kopfrkingl, soft-spoken family man and crematorium manager in 1930s Prague. “We’re a beautiful and blessed family,” he says to his wife and teenage son and daughter, “and I keep feeling I do so little for all of you.” When the Nazis arrive, Kopfrkingl’s love for his job veers into horrific directions. 

Hrušínský’s portrayal of Kopfrkingl makes you feel the chilly, clamminess of the man. Thinning hair plastered to his head, voice low and hushed, simpering smile, he’s always spouting one banality after the other with utmost seriousness—including his unexpected fascination with Buddhism and reincarnation. The film was shot in working crematoria, and the cinematography is superb, sometimes hallucinatory, and inventive throughout. 

The film is based on the novel, Spalovač mrtvol  (“the burner of corpses”) by Czech author, Ladislav Fuks, and the director, Juraz Herz, was part of the Czechoslovak New Wave of filmmaking and a Holocaust survivor. The Cremator, as disturbing as it is, is also satirical, artful, and smart. It stays with you long after watching.

Directed by Juraz Herz, 100 minutes, black and white. 

Streaming: Criterion Collection 

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)

Fantastical, frothy, historical, female lead

Paris, 1912. Thanks to the occult experiments of Professor Marie-Joseph Espérandieu, a prehistoric egg at the Museum of Natural History hatches and a pterodactyl emerges to terrorize the city. Journalist and explorer, Adèle Blanc-Sec (Louise Bourgoin) travels to Egypt to obtain (today, we would say steal) the mummy of the pharaoh Ramesses II’s physician in the hopes that Espérandieu can revive him, and that the physician, in turn, can revive Adèle’s twin sister who lies comatose as the result of a freak tennis accident. These fantastical plot strands elegantly come together in this stylish adventure/mystery based on the graphic novels by Jacques Tardi.

Other characters include an incompetent police inspector, Albert Caponi; and Andrej Zborowski, a mustachioed eager scientist and Adèle’s admirer. The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec has a sense of humor, is fast paced, and a gift to anyone who enjoys tongue-in-cheek depictions of Belle Epoque Paris: the Moulin Rouge, rotary telephones, discredited mind-body theories, dime-novel Egyptology, tennis played in ankle-length dresses with wooden rackets, and so on. 

Caveat: I did have to squint away from the portrayal of Adèle’s Egyptian helpers in the opening sequence.

Directed by Luc Besson, 107 minutes.

Streaming: Multiple platforms. 

Argentina, 1985 (2022)

Political, legal drama, based on real events

Recently, there seem to be a wave of movies reckoning with dictatorships in South America. Argentina, 1985 follows the trial of Argentina’s military dictatorship—which ruled over the country from 1976 to 1983 and committed extrajudicial executions, torture, and forced disappearances—from the perspective of the prosecution team led by chief prosecutor, Julio Strassera (Ricardo Darín).

This is a classic courtroom drama in which the stakes are extremely high. Not since Nuremberg, the trailer tells us, has a dictatorship been put on trial. Over 800 witnesses testified—the screenplay naturally condenses this into a few telling testimonies. 

Much of the drama comes from the tension between the nine military commanders who clearly still have connections in high places and look down on the civilians bringing them to trial, and the viewer’s fear for the prosecutors as they steadily piece together evidence even while they and their families receive death threats.

Depressingly, what we learn about the military junta feels all too familiar and still, the courage of those who kept going in order for the truth to emerge and leaders be held responsible remains an inspiration.

Directed by Santiago Mitre, 140 minutes.

Streaming: Prime Video