The Secret Life of Words (2005)

I had an unusual reason for moving this to the top of my queue: At some point, I had rated it accidentally, never having seen it. Netflix, alas, doesn't allow removal of ratings, only re-rating. Well, worse things have come of accidents. Besides, Pedro Almodóvar produced it, and I hadn't seen any of his work in five years.

In Northern Ireland, unsociable nurse Hanna (Sarah Polley) never has a day off until her employer, under union pressure, orders her to take a month's paid vacation. Instead of heading to a tropical island as suggested, when she overhears in public about trouble finding a nurse for an emergency at an offshore oil rig, she offers her services. The patient, Josef (Tim Robbins), got badly burned and temporarily blinded. In the face of his persistent attempts to break the ice, she gradually opens up to him like she has to no one this side of therapist Inge (Julie Christie).

Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013)

The entire Department Q trilogy was on a list of favorite Netflix screening options. I took care to start with the first, not The Absent One (2014) or A Conspiracy of Faith (2016). They all have similar IMDb scores. Perhaps I should have noted that their Rotten Tomatoes scores get progressively much higher.

Somewhere in Denmark, impulsive policeman Carl has botched a raid, leaving his partners out of commission and himself needing months of recovery. Afterward, no one else on the force wants to work with him, so the chief invents a Department Q, populated by Carl and assistant Assad, for sorting files of closed cases. But before long, Carl gets suspicious about a woman's reported suicide: Why do that on a cruise with her heavily brain-damaged brother? He and Assad investigate further, taking a trip to Sweden, despite the chief's consternation. As you've no doubt predicted, they're right.

Day of Wrath (1943)

Ah, Carl Theodor Dreyer, it's been a while. When you're not dabbling in artistic horror, I can count on you for some sort of religious message. This film, based on a play, is more drama than horror, but it seemed appropriate for my October lineup due to a focus on witches.

It's set in 1623 small-town Denmark, which apparently had the same problem as 1692 Salem. Early on, a woman begs Rev. Absalon to get her off the hook for alleged witchcraft, as he did for his eventual mother-in-law. He shows concern only for her soul, not her life, even when she threatens blackmail if not a posthumous curse. The thought weighs heavily on him after her execution, but it's rather incidental to his most immediate problem: His young wife, Anne, who apparently married him for convenience and not love, falls for his son from a previous marriage. What's more, Absalon's mother has suspected from the get-go that Anne takes after her mother in wickedness.

Ordet (1955)

The British Film Institute's favorite films include quite a few artsy numbers that do next to nothing for me. Taking a suggestion from the list, especially one that I'd barely heard of elsewhere, was pretty chancy on my part. I did enjoy The Passion of Joan of Arc and found Vampyr at least pretty interesting, so another Carl Theodor Dreyer hit would seem safe -- only I hadn't looked up the detail before. From the look of the title, I had assumed French, not Danish.

It means "The Word." If you guessed a religious connotation, congrats. The story concerns a Lutheran farm owner with three sons: Anders, who wants to marry a woman from a slightly (but too significantly for their fathers) different religious background; Mikkel, a bitter agnostic who nevertheless loves his wife Inger; and Johannes, who, having studied Kierkegaard, proclaims himself the second coming of Christ. When Inger has complications in giving birth, the philosophical focus rests almost entirely on whether faith can move mountains long after biblical times.

After the Wedding (2006)

Netflix ventured almost a full five stars in suggesting this to me, probably because that's what I gave The Hunt. Both are recent dramas, take place (mostly) in Denmark, and star Mads Mikkelsen. But that's about where the similarity ends.

The action in AtW begins in India, where protagonist Jacob has been an orphanage manager. He doesn't miss Denmark, because it has a lot of rich people, whom he resents despite having to persuade some to give to his cause. One rich man, Jørgen (Rolf Lassgård, who resembles Gérard Depardieu with a stronger bass), offers a big donation on rather bossy conditions that bring Jacob not only back to Denmark but to the wedding of Jørgen's daughter, Anna.

Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922)

Yup, another foreign film right after the last, this one involving an allegedly more genuine brand of magic. Last Halloweeny pic I'll watch for some time, I warrant; Netflix just had a long wait on it.

It's only the second silent so-called "documentary" I've seen, after the reportedly dishonest Nanook of the North. (You can watch the William S. Burroughs-dubbed version from 1968 on the same disc if you hate reading intertitles or want to save time, but I prefer the powerful classical score to the quirky jazz. I don't think the later one uses helpful tinting either.) In truth, while this Swedish-Danish collaboration does start out looking like a presentation along the lines of An Inconvenient Truth, complete with rare first-person narration by the researcher, it soon goes on to reenactment with license a la "America's Most Wanted" and feels more like historical fiction. Which makes it no less enjoyable.