European film festival turns from the political to the personal

A contemplative mood has stricken the European continent, if the seventh annual New Films From Europe Festival is any indication.

This year's crop of movies from France, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Spain, Romania , Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, many by first-time directors, seems less concerned with hot-button, culture clash issues like immigration, racism, and loss of national identity.

In place of these past worries is a quiet yet enigmatic acceptance. Europe's problems are not over, but its integration is well underway, the festival's films seem to be saying. Get used to it.

Swiss director Soeren Senn's debut, "KussKuss," is one of the standouts of the festival, which begins tonight at the Harvard Film Archive and runs through Jan. 31. In the film, Carina Wiese plays Katja, a daughter of a Russian immigrant, who stumbles upon illegal immigrant Saida (Saida Jawad) hiding in her lab . Desperate to care for something, Katja impulsively brings the Algerian woman home , rather than have Saida face being deported.

But bookish, distant boyfriend Hendrik (Axel Schrick) takes a liking to Saida. Or, one might say, takes advantage of her. Mocking helplessness, Saida, in turn, fleeces the couple. Or does she? Immigration may not flare up as a street riot but, "KussKuss" suggests, it can wreck a marriage.

In the exquisitely acted "Beauty in Trouble," marital strife is similarly played out on the international stage. Here, Czech director Jan Hrebejk examines a woman's choice between the safety of a cultured gentleman and the sexual passion she shares with her husband, Jarda.

Marcela (Anna Geislerová) splits when Jarda, father of her two young children but also a car thief, ends up in prison. Enter Evzen (Josf Abrham) , the elegant expatriate who left Prague years before and owns a villa in Tuscany. When he meets Marcela, he teaches her about wine and exotic food, and lures her with financial security and an idyllic Italian future (made all the more real thanks to Jan Malir's tempting cinematography).

The "I'm thinking it over" montage-background music by Glen Hansard permeating "Beauty in Trouble" at first seems jarring. Then again, in our New World Order, a Czech woman learning to eat sushi and discovering Tuscany to the tune of Irish folk songs may not be so terribly out of place. The coda leaves Marcela unsettled, not settled down.

Less successful, but still on theme, is "Molly's Way," newcomer writer-director Emily Atef's slightly amateurish look at an Irishwoman's search for a Polish coal miner with whom she'd had a memorable night -- too memorable. Actress Mairead McKinley's performance as Molly doesn't quite support the emotional weight the film requires, but "Molly's Way" captures the post-industrial wreckage of Poland. The hotel where Molly stays is essentially a brothel. Molly wants to help one prostitute fix up her room. No, the woman replies, "I don't want it to feel like home."

It's a line later echoed by a taxi driver. Like a Zen Buddhist monk, the driver leaves Molly with a piece of sage advice: "Sometimes you have to lose the way."

Getting blissfully lost is what's going on in Spain, back in the 17th century, in Albert Serra's Catalan-language film, "Honor de cavalleria," another feature debut. Imagine a film crew following Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on their hapless, trans-Iberian donkey and horse trek. That's the premise. The characters sit in a field and the camera parks itself beside them, peeking through the tall grass. Gone is most of Cervantes's rich philosophic banter and parody of chivalry; in their place, acres of silence. Plotless and tedious, or a minimalist and brilliant road movie -- you decide.

Another matter of taste is the latest from Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki ("Leningrad Cowboys"), "Lights in the Dusk," which wraps up his self-titled "loser trilogy" that included "Drifting Clouds" and "The Man Without a Past." Whether Kaurismäki hits the mark here depends on one's tolerance for deadpan delivery from expressionless actors stuck in a time-warped Helsinki that's half modern day, half femme fatale-era, mid-century Technicolor throwback. The bare-bones plot: night watchman Koistinen meets bombshell Mirja, who tricks him into giving her the keys to a jewelry store. Ironic or just grim, not one smile is broken the entire movie.

The festival's biggest surprise might be Valeska Griesbach's "Longing," a German film whose main plot points occur off camera. Markus is a volunteer fireman who saves a man from a car wreck. The accident sets off an odd reaction for the stunned Markus. Soon after, at a training retreat, he inexplicably cheats on his wife. The audience doesn't learn why. In fact, Griesbach seems to intentionally keep key scenes at arm's length. "Longing" is made of empty moments -- that pregnant pause before an argument or the silent aftermath that follows sex. Both are uneasy, but fascinating, places to occupy.

Other festival highlights include two French films: "Belles Toujours," Manoel de Oliveira's homage to Buñuel's "Belle de jour"; and "Change of Address," a Parisian comedy of manners. "12:08 East of Bucharest" is Romanian Corneliu Porumboiu's farce about the revolution that deposed Ceausescu. Take a look: It won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes for best first feature. Any film from tiny Iceland is a cause for celebration; first-timer Árni Ásgeirsson's "Thicker Than Water" explores the tricky domestic territory after a blood test shows a father and son are not related. Also of note is the Portuguese "Colossal Youth," directed by Pedro Costa, a glacially paced docudrama of Cape Verdeans surviving in a Lisbon slum . It competed for Cannes' Golden Palm Award.

The Harvard Film Archive doesn't forget directors of shorts, either. Two programs, "Serial Studies" and "In Visible Evidence," are worth the effort, especially Italian Olivo Barbieri's urban aerial studies called "site specific," and Yann Beauvais's "Sans Titre" ("Untitled") series, two of which look at workers in Sao Paulo and Beijing.

Just try not to let the festival's lingering silences, and sense of disquiet, become too troublesome.

Ethan Gilsdorf can be reached at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com.