Perhaps nothing better illustrates the divide between American and European cinema than the fact that the most recent Academy Award winner for best foreign-language film is considered by some critics in her home country to be “too commercial.” To the North American viewer, Danish director Susanne Bier’s films come as a revelation. Her intimate dramas are so involving, you don’t even notice when you’re swept away on their intense emotional charge. “In a Better World” won the Oscar in a group crowded with talent, beating the powerful “Incendies” and the Javier Bardem drama “Biutiful.” As it opens, it looks like it will be a message movie about a Scandinavian doctor doing good in impoverished Africa. Instead, it turns out to be a shocking and moving film about the trials of childhood and how they continue as we grow older, but not always wiser.
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