The title means "Good Life" — as in Good Life Delivery — a message service Hernan works for, delivering messages throughout an Argentinean city on his scooter. The film opens with him saying goodbye to his brother and sister-in-law, who are moving out of his small rented house, giving him some much-needed breathing space. Not that he'll be going anywhere fast: in fact, he's stuck, he admits, and we realize getting unstuck will be the matter of this film. Hernan dreams of being an Industrial Designer, but he can't seem to get himself out of the rut of mere survival, a common enough rut in this country it seems, where so many trying to make it live on the edge of slipping back into desperate poverty. One promising direction Hernan looks for the Good Life involves the pretty lady-attendant at the service station where he fuels his scooter. He shyly invites her to lunch, and learns she's in transition, too — in the midst of a breakup with her boyfriend: Patricia needs a place to stay just as Hernan happens to have an available room. Of course, one thing leads to another, and soon "Pato" is living with him, and not just as a tenant. But what seemed to be setting up as a bright romantic comedy takes here a turn into darker shades, to match the film's unexpectedly shadowy lighting. Every new scene brings a new complication and poor stuck Hernan finds himself becoming ever more mired in a quagmire beyond his worst imaginings. If the film had played things more broad and higher key, all this might have remained charming and funny; instead, the situation degenerates to a level that, while possibly not as desperate as Fatal Attraction, is uncomfortable enough to watch that this is probably less than a great date movie. Hernan has to take increasingly drastic measures in an efort to get unstuck. But at least once he's moving in that direction, both he and Patricia do manage to crack open some new possibilities for breaking some vicious cycles.

Sam Fuller is an American director whose work has always fueled discussion among critics, especially European ones, even when it has not always been as well-remembered by audiences at home. A director capable of both embarrasingly purple and unforgettably lyrical passages of cinema, Fuller defies easy categorization. The Big Red One is a film from the end of his career, and a new cut featuring scenes of both sorts will probably not do much to finally categorize Fuller, but will probably bring more people in on the discussion. The film follows the "band of brothers" of the First Infantry Division from North Africa in 1942, across Europe and into Germany until the end of the war. In some ways, the film is a meeting of Old and New Hollywood, by way of what some might call Fuller's European realist flair. Lee Marvin may be a tad old to be a Sergeant, but he weights the film with classical authority. Unlike the old war movies, though, the soldiers are genuine kids, including an exceedingly-young (between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back) Mark Hamill as "Griff". The platoon sets off as an unembarrassed cliche: there's the farm boy, the kid from the Bronx, etc. But they follow their leader into territory that often feels surprisingly fresh. We see boy soldiers falling asleep to the silky discouraging words of a Berlin Brunhilde, swapping dead Germans' ears with Free French "goons", hear an explanation of a cynical German officer about the true history of Nazi hero and sleazeball, Horst Wessel. The film is narrated from an inside-the-platoon perspective, but this limited POV is often supplemented with an omniscient angle that gives access to the German side as well (balancing the perspective, but unbalancing the film structure, some might argue.)

Other bits fall flat or zoom over-the-top, no question. A campy German doctor puts the moves on a wounded Marvin, who rejects the advances, saying, "I can understand you being horny, Fritz, but you've got bad breath." The boys deliver a baby in the nearest available shelter, an abandoned German tank. But there's a few striking set-pieces: a battle with Germans in the ruin of a Roman Theater in North Africa, a shootout in a still-occupied insane asylum. Typically, Fuller injects a certain ambiguity into this generation-defining endeavor of the Greatest Generation. One of the inmates at the asylum goes crazy with a gun and declares "I'm one of you! I'm sane!", adding to an ongoing discussion within the film on the difference between murder and killing. Ultimately, the power of the loosey-goosey script and execution sneaks up on you: breaking up the expecations of the usual overly-earnest or plot-driven war films creates breathing space, allowing a sense of place and circumstance often lost in films kept on a tighter leash.

The end sequence of The Big Red One might be compared to walking in a run-down alley, opening a random door, and being awed to discover you were looking up into a great cathedral. As the First Infantry fights their way through a death camp in Czechslovakia and into the heart of its terrible secrets, the film is caught up in a remarkable power that transcends its weaknesses. Griff, once troubled by the concept of killing, drives a climax that leaves him bloodthirsty yet helpless in the face of an unfathomable bloodthirstiness. Thus whatever victory Marvin and his boys snatch from the jaws of this near-defeat for humanity is tainted by lingering ambiguities, leaving the viewer wrestling with both hopelessness and hope.

A lonely widower named Xu Daqin is consumed with his plans for a trip to Hunan, going so far as to train physically for the trip with his friend Uncle Ruan. All this makes no sense for Xu's daughter, for whom he has already sacrificed much; yet her only response is to try to get him to give up his plans and invest his savings in her aerobics business. "I've lived my whole life for others," says Xu. "I want a few days for myself." Xu determines to make his journey, even when it turns out he has to go alone. Gradually, we learn the reason for Xu's trip, and why it means so much to him. The journey to Hunan is part of a deeper journey of self-discovery for Xu, one that turns out to be unexpectedly bumpy. This poignant story involves a minimum of plot, but rather turns on evocative images and incidents. The tone is not sentimental, nor "feel-good," nor self-consciously "life-affirming." The scenery of this trip ranges from lovely compositions of mountains and lakes to the psychological landscape of a man contemplating his destiny. The journey unfolds with quiet dignity and restraint, both its darker and lighter threads. Among these are questions about fate and the ways Xu's fate has been taken out of his hand by others — or so it seems. South of the Clouds is an award-winning film of subtle flavors that will be too subtle for some, but savory and satisfying for others.