Through the Trees

Itinerant industry flexibly enabled as resourceful families seek continuity, their newfound country strange and mysterious in haunting possession of otherworldly customs.

The sudden realization that you're actually there and need to learn a new language, simple things like buying groceries much more confusing at the startling outset. 

Finding work also a difficult task as cultural and linguistic barriers demotivate, yet perseverance and determination eventually lead to modest earnings.

Lodgings also tough to come by as rental negotiations require knowledgeability, yet with compassion and understanding rooms are eventually to be found. 

Community contacts are gradually made as the enthusiastic immigrants settle, local networks providing help as they seek to learn more about their neighbourhood. 

Other people in similar circumstances lend a hand and offer friendship.

But hostilities also emerge.

As communities struggle to get along at times.

The difficulties of learning a foreign language while simultaneously finding a job and somewhere to live, aren't lost on the filmmaking team as they showcase several scenes of inherent disillusionment. 

The manifestation of sympathetic people seeking to lend a helping hand also works well, people noting the newcomer's courage and keenly responding with tips and aid.

The focus on how things start to level out as more time passes is skillfully done, the not-so-smooth-at-times integration effectively facilitating highs and lows.

The scenes at work help to diversify the narrative as several different characters tell their tales, immigration stories from all over the world humanistically told with hardboiled eloquence.

Communal celebrations add a festive touch as the years pass with energetic resolve, the coming together of various traditions sewing resilient interactive multiplicities.

The humble transference of their origins and customs fruitfully enhances local cultural narratives.

Adding transfigurating depth. 

While keeping in mind local industry. 

Enemy Mine

Intergalactic war brings devastation as bellicose covetous cultures clash, the freeform colonization of space demanding macroscopic invention. 

They're both after the same fertile regions and generally ill-suited to interplanetary diplomacy, consistently engaging in heated space battles to indelicately bridge the chaotic gap.

A spirited soldier from Earth is passionately incensed after his friend is obliterated, and skilfully tracks the offending aggressor into the atmosphere of a barren planet.

A sudden wayward miscalculation and both pilots soon find themselves lost and stranded, still at disputatious odds but willing to work together to facilitate survival. 

Thus, as happens so often, when the grandiose flare for jingoism fades, the courageous troops who do most of the fighting habitually find they have lots in common.

Without the speeches and the advertising and the rhetoric the manufactured hatred gives way to reason, and rival soldiers find common ground from which to build a working conzensus.

Communication remains difficult as the brave warriors seek stable shelter and food, both languages sharing no logical links they're starting from scratch with sounds and visuals.

They aren't that gifted linguistically but they quickly make up for it with determined gusto, and since they have a lot of time on their hands they're able to learn to efficiently speak.

Learning a new language in the beginning can be disheartening because there are so many new words, not a hundred or five-hundred or a thousand but several thousand to be effectively mastered.

Many of these words often have different forms so learning one is like learning two or three, and one word often has more than one meaning so you have to learn different definitions for different contexts.

Remain calm.

Don't let it get to you.

Be patient and kind.

People will help you.

And take note of your surroundings, you may encounter many people who don't read Dickens, but they can still speak solid working English and reasonably discuss multiple subjects.

Remember, if they can do so in English eventually you should be able to do the same in their language.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Acquire new vocabulary.

Use it in conversation. 

Here

Bas Devos's Here brought back fond memories while also nurturing dreams for the future, Stefan's modest immigration experience humbly encouraging unorthodox travel.

The film follows a laidback worker who has spent some time living in Belgium, as he finishes his last shift and solemnly prepares for a month long vacation back in his homeland. 

As he walks about town casually observing things I was pleasantly reminded of life in the city, and the manifold options routinely available as you variably concoct thematic experiences. 

When he enters a restaurant for instance to get out of the pouring rain, and finds himself suddenly conversing in French with someone who speaks the language fluently.

As he tries his best to understand he knows he has to respond with something, and adamantly hopes it directly applies to the specific topic under examination.

But he gets it wrong he's misunderstood the dialogue halts it's insufficient, but he doesn't take it as a sign to stop speaking he continues onwards with verbal gusto.

By doing so, he actively demonstrates there are lots of words he can turn into sentences, and hopes his curious interlocutor instinctually respects that and keeps on talking.

In the best case scenario, they understand you're learning and that your positive attitude demonstrates you want to be there. 

If they continue the conversation using a less intricate in/formal vocabulary, it's a great opportunity for learning that can lead to chillaxed friendship (miss you).

I understood the old "fridge-clean-out" as well when you throw most of what you've got into a pot, and slowly cook it with spices and liquids until you've created something unique and edible. 

By doing so, you have several meals and fortunately nothing goes to waste, and you can share it with your friends as well as modest Stefan does in the movie.

Nature also figures prominently as he walks from place to place since his car's in the shop, the extant forest he freely travels through bringing on carefree thoughts and nascent wonder.

It's so important as cities expand and depressing sprawl creates a concrete jungle, to remember to plan intermittent green spaces throughout the urban landscape like they do in Québec.

Nice places for lunch or to spot local wildlife or even make a career studying mosses or lichen.

I'm usually careful not to disturb moss in the forest.

Although it does make a comfy place to lie down! 

*Criterion keyword: gossamer.