Kenneth Turan’s Top 10 Foreign Language Films

• Coco Before Chanel (France)
• Everlasting Moments (Sweden)
• Flame & Citron (Denmark) An old-fashioned vehicle starring Mads Mikkelsen that’s been beautifully restored and revitalized for the modern age. Its focus on the heroic behavior of a pair of Danish anti-Nazi resistance fighters may sound traditional, but the tone throughout is more nihilistic than idealistic, and that makes a considerable difference.
• Il Divo (Italy) If you plan to see this film about the life and times of Italian master politician Giulio Andreotti, and you should, be prepared to hold on to your seats. Simultaneously exhilerating and confounding, dazzling and confusing, this is filmmaking of such verve and style that you just won’t care that you can’t follow it completely.
• The Maid (Chile)
• Moscow, Belgium (Belgium)
• Revanche (Austria) A darkly compelling, convincing film that can be viewed as either a thriller with psychological overtones or a psychological drama with thriller elements. Either way, its carefully plotted, well-made scenario will leave you with a lot on your mind.
• Summer Hours (France) While the setting here — a major family reunion at a marvelous old house in the country — is familiar, even Chekovian, what writer-director Olivier Assayas does with it is not. He’s not the type to do anything classically French, so it is a pleasant surprise to see him working in a naturalistic form but bringing his own particular sensibility and global concerns to the mix.
• Seraphine (France) What makes this winner of seven Cesars, including best film and best actress, so exceptional is that it neither condescends to nor romanticizes its subject, a World War I-era primitive artist. Rather, it allows us to meet this singular person on her own terms, lets us see how ordinary life, extraordinary artistic ability and eccentric mental states can and do exist in the same person.
• A Woman in Berlin (Germany)

More capsule reviews in click-through slide-show at the LATimes.