The Polish Bride

Algerian-born director Traidia may not seem an obvious choice to helm a small-scale love story set in rural Holland, but he deals with umpromising material deftly enough. The two main characters are seemingly incompatible: one is a phlegmatic Dutch farmer, the other a Polish refugee on the run from the pimps who forced her into prostitution. The cultural differences separating them may be immense, but, inevitably, they overcome their wariness and slowly fall in love. Traidia captures the beauty and the monotony of country life, and only marring the quietly affecting story with a bombastic and violent denouement.