Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

The horrible attacks in Beirut and Paris last week have shaken the world. But how to respond to these attacks? For many governments, the War on Terror is the answer. Others turn toward diplomacy. Some say drone attacks are what keep terrorism at bay. But other experts warn that US drone kills are the best recruitment ads groups like ISIS have. A new documentary that opens today across North Amerioca is called Drone (Dir: Tonje Hessen Schei). It features Brandon Bryant, a former drone pilot turned whistle-blower, as well as the people in the lands where the drone attacks happen — Afghanistan and the Middle East — who experienced drone attacks as “collateral damage”.

Some non-conformists choose to dissociate themselves from mainstream culture. They find non-conformity works better if you live far from other people, away from the mainstream. This week I’m looking at two European dramas about non-conformists who leave it all behind. People who flee the cities but at a price. There’s a French father and two sons who go back to the wild, and an Abanian who heads for the freedom of the mountains, before ending up in Italy.

Sworn Virgin
Dir: Laura Bispuri

Hana (Alba Rohrwacher) lives with her parents in an isolated part of the mountains of Albania. But when her parents die, she is found and adopted by a family in a village. But she runs into trouble almost immediately just for living her life the way she always has. Her new sister Lila (Flonja Kodheli) tells her what’s what.

It’s not good to drink before a man drinks, speak before a man speaks, smoke, touch a rifle, go into the woods, choose a husband, do a man’s work, even look at a man funny. Basically, she has no rights at all. Hana says that’s just not fair, how can she live this way, how can she stand it? Is there a way out? There is. A woman can live like a man does and get all his privileges. BUt there’s a catch. She has to cut her hair, bind her breasts, wear pants and carry a gun. But she has to take an oath and give up all sex and live her life as a so-called sworn virgin.

So the movie picks up many years later in a Tyrolian town in Italy. Mark shows up at Lila’s door direct from the mountains of Albania. He’s still a sworn virgin but wants to give that life up. But Mark is the ultimate fish out of water. Exposed to weird things like women’s bras, nudity, supermarkets, money, and synchronized swimming, it’s almost too much to take in. Lila’s daughter Jonida (Emily Ferratello) finds Mark fascinating, but doesn’t understand him. And for Mark, making the shift back to life as a woman, is overwhelming. The women’s and men’s bodies he sees at the local swimming pool is all a fascinating mystery. Lila is the only person he’s shared a bed with. But Bernhard – the swimming cioach at the pool attracts her. Which way will Mark/Hana choose for their identity, gender and sexuality?

Sworn Virgin is an incredibly fascinating movie, based on a true practice. To this day there are people in Albania – largely unknown in the rest if the world — who choose to live as so-called “sworn virgins” for the advantages it gives them. The movie, especially the performance of Alba Rohwacher, looking like a young KD Lang, is really remarkable, like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Wild Life
Dir: Cedric Kahn

Paco and Nora (Mathieu Kassovitz and Celine Sallette) meet in a teepee circle in France, and fall in love. Along with Nora’s own son, Thomas, they have two sons together: Tsali and Okyesa (David Gastou, Sofiane Neveu). They live a nomadic farming life in rural France. A back-to-nature, hippie life. But after about a decade Nora calls it quits and takes the three boys – kicking and screaming – with her. Overnight, their lives change home-schooled hippy-farmers to conservative townies at Nora’s parent’s home. And Paco is forbidden all contact, except on national holidays, until the custody agreement is settled. Which takes many years.

But Paco — and the two youngest sons — decide to go back to living a wild life, back to the woods, with no possessions and only the clothes on their backs. They do the mandated education – French dictee, times tables – but they also learn to catch fish with their bare hands, to tame wild birds, and handle live scorpions and snakes without getting bit. They can catch and skin a rabbit, climb trees, and hide from any passing helicopters.

As they grow older, the boys have to use fake names, and avoid cities, trains, and police at all costs. Paco is a fugitive. Paco tells them they are allowed to go back to their Mom at any time, as long as they ask. The boys say they choose to be with him… but can ten-year-old boys make such decisions? They eventually settle at a hippy commune and build stone houses from scratch, and live with no electricity.

But as teenagers, Paco is dismayed to see them reading comic books, dancing to rave music, spending cash and hanging out with friends they meet. They want to be accepted, see the world, see their mother again. And they want to meet girlfriends, have sex, move away… just like any other teenager. Can this fragile family stay together?

This is a great movie. It’s doubly interesting because it’s based on true story, a book written by the people who lived it — the Fortin Brothers and their father. The actors playing the briothers as kids, and later as teenagers (Romain Depret, Jules Ritmanic) are all new to the screen. But they seem to be the real thing. Only the troubled idealistic Paco (played by well-known director Matthieu Kassovitz) is familiar. Don’t miss this one.

Sworn Virgin, played last weekend, and Wild Life is opening tonight at the EU Film Festival. This is a festival that shows movies from each country in the European Union for free at the Royal Cinema on College St. Go to europeanfilmfest.ca for details. Also opening today is the wonderful drama Brooklyn about a young migrant woman in the 1950s (Saorise Ronan) who travels between big city New York and small-town Ireland. Do not miss this movie.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.