Cannes Film Festival

Saul Ausländer (Géza Röhrig) leads a sickeningly ghastly life. As a Sonderkommando in the Auschwitz concentration camp, he’s been consigned to a special prison work crew charged with aiding his Nazi captors in the gruesome task of exterminating his fellow Jews.

In 1962, filmmaker François Truffaut (1932-1984) was a rising star in the world of cinema, having directed a small but significant number of acclaimed pictures, such as “The 400 Blows” (1959) and “Jules and Jim” (1962). Yet, when the brash young French auteur was asked to name the greatest influence on his work, he cited a veteran of the field, someone many years his senior, the legendary British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980).

A lifelong movie fan and longtime metaphysics student, Brent Marchant is the author of “Get the Picture?!: Conscious Creation Goes to the Movies” and “Consciously Created Cinema: The Movie Lover’s Guide to the Law of Attraction,” both of which look at how conscious creation (a.k.a. the law of attraction) is illustrated through film.

Life in the ancient and fabled Malian city of Timbuktu undergoes a radical change with the arrival of a band of oppressive outsiders. The northwest African community on the edge of the Sahara Desert, long home to a population of spiritually focused, peace-loving Muslims, is disrupted by the appearance of the Islamic Police, a self-proclaimed posse of fundamentalist jihadists seeking to implement Sharia law – mostly by imposing it on the locals at the end of a gun barrel.

We’re all no doubt familiar with the expression “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Meritorious ideas, as good as they might be, unfortunately often languish as untapped, unmaterialized potential, simply because no steps are taken to bring them into being. And, ironically enough, in many cases, those undertakings could easily get their starts through the simple act of asking to make them manifest. Such is the focus of the dramatic new release, “Two Days, One Night” (“Deux jours, une nuit”).

For those unfamiliar with the term force majeure, it’s a French expression (usually, though not exclusively, used in a legal context) that refers to a superior (and often-uncontrollable) force, such as an extraordinary act of nature, like a flood or hurricane. In other contexts, it can be used to characterize an exceptional man-made action or event, one capable of having profound, perhaps even devastating, impact. In the case of this film, force majeure effects arise from both of these sources, some of which are obvious and some of which are more insidious, but all of which threaten to wreak havoc in many ways.

When do we cross the line between ambition and fixation? That can be a difficult call, especially for those of us who are decidedly motivated to achieve highly prized aspirations. It’s a struggle rife with challenges, most notably finding out what’s behind those aims. Those dicey issues are among the key considerations that get played out with gripping intensity in the compelling new drama, “Whiplash.”

Are we truly pleased with the lives we lead? Or do we let self-doubt, the expectations of others or the pressures of authority figures get in the way? How we answer those questions depends on how much we value our efforts – and ourselves – in the creation of our realities, no matter who we are or where we come from. These are among the issues brought to light in the new, fact-based inspirational comedy, “Pride.”

Taking stock of where we stand in our lives can be a very rewarding – and revelatory – experience. Sometimes we affirm what we already know, but, in other instances, we come to conclusions that come as surprising, if not shocking or perhaps even disillusioning. That’s just the sort of exercise an aging protagonist pursues in the profoundly moving, often hilarious Italian comedy-drama, “The Great Beauty” (“La grande bellazza”).

It’s been said that none of us can serve two masters, for attempting to do so will surely lead to our downfall. No matter how well equipped we may feel to take on such a task, we’re susceptible to failure when our personal resources and wherewithal are pushed to their limits. And the struggle to set matters right under such circumstances can be more than we’re capable of handling. That’s the lesson for a conflicted young freedom fighter in the gripping new drama, “Omar.”

In an age when so many aspects of life seem so inherently transient, it’s hard to fathom how some can persist with dogged determination. This can be particularly maddening when it comes to those we’d rather rid ourselves of, yet they’re almost always the ones that endure the longest. When such circumstances arise, there’s usually some kind of life lesson involved, one that we’d be wise to address, a point driven home in a poignant drama from Denmark, “The Hunt” (“Jagten”), now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

It’s easy to take our world for granted. In fact, sometimes we can even lose sight of what connects us to it and everything that makes up its being. But what do we lose when we embrace such an aloof, disconnected outlook? Arguably, it could be far more than we realize, and getting it back may be more difficult than we can imagine. Such is the challenge put to the protagonists in the offbeat new comedy-drama, “Nebraska.”