Written and directed by French actress Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre in her directorial debut, The Mustang is a beautifully crafted drama with a powerful story of redemption and marked by terrific acting performances. The plot follows an inmate named Roman Coleman, played by the extremely talented Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who finds himself transferred to a rural Nevada prison and does not like to engage with the other prisoners and would rather be in isolation. He is a very quiet man who has obviously struggled in the past but wants to make up for his past violent crimes and reconnect with his estranged adult daughter. Eventually, after he is assigned to outdoor maintenance for a horse training program run by the inmates, he catches the eye of a grumpy elderly horse trainer named Myles, played by Oscar nominee Bruce Dern. Myles recruits Roman to become a member of the horse rehabilitation program that tries to break wild horses so that they can be sold off at auction. His humanity slowly begins to show as he develops a relationship with one of the mustangs who, like himself, is in need of redemption and rehab to rejoin the general population. Through the close connection to the horse who is also needing help, Roman breaks out of his shell and makes friends with a fellow inmate and horse trainer named Henry, played by Jason Mitchell, as well as having somewhat of a father figure in the civilian Myles. The film provides a sympathetic view of the redeeming qualities of having a meaningful job while incarcerated and provides insight into a rather unusual horse training program that most people have never heard of as being part of a prison system. All of the lead actors, especially Matthias Schoenaerts and Bruce Dern, bring a certain level of realism to their roles by giving intimate yet emotional depth to their characters who are based on real men. Overall, I found it to be one of the much more sympathetic depictions of what it must be like for prisoners who are trying to change their lives for the better, and the film is able to do this as a result of the outstanding directorial vision and acting performances.

Directed by critically acclaimed German filmmaker Christian Petzold best known for 2014’s Phoenix, Transit is a powerful dramatic film with a very unique and creative adaptation of a 1944 novel set in German-occupied France during World War II. Instead of the setting being World War II, the filmmaker makes the clever decision to have the story of a man trying to escape from a fascist regime take place in modern-day France. The sometimes rather unusual movie follows a German living in oppressive France named Georg, played by terrific German actor Franz Rogowski, who is desperately trying to flee the country for a better life in either the United States or Mexico. Much of the plot revolves around him trying to obtain a visa and transit papers to leave the port city of Marseille and travel by ship to a free country. He pretends to be a famous revolutionary writer named Weidel who has already obtained the proper paperwork to leave France but has just committed suicide. Eventually, he gets to know the writer’s widow Marie, played by German actress Paula Beer, who is also trying to leave the country but is searching for her husband who she does not know is dead. Over the course of getting to know each other, Georg and Marie begin to fall in love with each other, which complicates her search for her husband. Georg also befriends a young boy named Driss who is the son of one of his deceased friends. Along the way, we meet a same group of refugees meeting in bars, restaurants, and embassies hoping also to escape fascism. In addition to the twist on the setting, the movie also has a mysterious narrator who occasionally gives random narration about things that are not entirely clear. Overall, I found it to be a very intriguing foreign language film that is able to capture the fears of today surrounding nationalism by taking a World War II story and making it contemporary.