A couple of "downers"

It is possible to find viewing a movie a worthwhile experience but to be left feeling rather more miserable than one began.  Such is the case of two foreign-language films seen recently -- both well-made, both well-acted, but in the end rather dispiriting:

"Whisky" (2004):  This film had quite reasonable press on its release, but left the viewer wishing for a happier resolution.  Set in Uraguay, Jacobo is a 60-something owner of a run-down sock-manufacturing factory; when his more successful brother Herman is due to visit from Brazil for the unveiling of their mother's headstone, Jacobo asks his plain, middle-aged manageress, Marta, to pose as his wife to present a more successful picture to the brother he's not seen in many years.  She is equally lonely but certainly the more efficient of the two and seems to enjoy her unexpected role as a married woman, especially when encouraged to embrace possibilities by the more joyful younger brother.  The ending is left open, but one is left believing that Jacobo will continue with his unrewarding life but that Marta may just discover that there can be more to living than a fruitless day to day routine.

"The Sky is Falling" (2000):  The correct title of this Italian movie is "Il Cielo Cade" and it is set towards the end of World War II.  Jeroen Krabbe plays a cultured Jew living peacefully in the Italian countryside with his Aryan wife, Isabella Rossellini, and their two daughters.  When her two nieces come to live with them after their parents have died in a car accident, the viewer is presented with a child's eye view of the action from the elder, Penny.  One believes that, even in wartime, happy family life with its acceptable ups and downs can go on.  However as the occupying Germans face their final defeat, Krabbe is warned that he is in danger and reluctantly, thinking he and his family have nothing to fear, hides out with the partisans.  Unfortunately the losing and retreating Nazis have only contempt for his family and there is the inevitable slaughter to follow.  Realistic probably, but still pretty depressing stuff.