Movies Like THE WORLD IS BIG AND SALVATION LURKS AROUND THE CORNER

"World" centers on Alexander (played by Blagovest Mutafchiev as a child and Carlo Ljubek as an adult), who was born in 1975 in Bulgaria. During the oppressive communist era, he and his parents immigrate to Germany. But when an automobile accident takes the parents' lives, Alexander's beloved grandfather, Bai Dan (Miki Manojlovic), comes to tend to him. The young man is suffering from amnesia as a result of the accident, and Bai Dan decides to try to restore his memories by taking him on a bicycle journey back to the town in Bulgaria where he was born. Bai Dan, a backgammon champion and force of nature, is the kind of charismatic grandfather figure that movies often have relished. But the performance by Manojlovic (a veteran of several Emir Kusturica films) is so vigorous and unsentimental that the character never seems generic. These beautifully detailed episodes give the universal trauma of immigration a precise, painfully human focus.