A profusion of foreign films addresses the complex ties between the West and Islam.

“There’s always a kind of wave of themes” in social and political discourse, said Susanne Bier, the director and a writer of “In a Better World,” which won this year’s Oscar for best foreign-language film. (The movie opens in Spain in April and in Australia and Britain later this year.)

In the film, a Danish doctor working in refugee camps in a Sudan-like country and in rural Denmark is forced to confront a fundamental moral question: When is violence justified?

In contrast, American films either avoid the East-West relationship altogether, or, when Arab or Muslim characters do appear, they are presented in simplistic and stereotyped ways.

Why isn’t the United States part of the emerging global cinematic conversation?

European films have been grappling with the Islamic presence since at least the 1970s, when Rainer Werner Fassbinder made “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.” France has produced a flood of such movies, from the recent prison drama “A Prophet” to “Angel A,” Luc Besson’s fantasy about a thief of Arab origins.

The same is true of Israel . Two award-winning films directed by Eran Riklis, “The Lemon Tree” and “The Syrian Bride,” portray Arab characters in nuanced and even sympathetic fashion, as does “The Band’s Visit,” a 2007 comedy by Eran Kolirin.

Hollywood has made films set in the Islamic world: “The Hurt Locker” even won the Oscar for best picture , and “Syriana,” “Three Kings” and “Redacted” take place in the Middle East.

But “we see everything through American eyes, without context or a representation of community” on the Islamic side, said Matthew Bernstein, chairman of the film and media studies department at Emory University in Atlanta.

There are exceptions. “Amreeka” is a 2009 portrait of a Palestinian family in Chicago that encounters prejudice after 9/11; and Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor” depicts a professor who befriends a Syrian immigrant and his Senegalese girlfriend.

Mr. McCarthy traces his interest in the Middle East to a filmmaking trip to Beirut. “The spirit of the Lebanese people was so warm, engaging and verbal that it almost reminded me of my Irish heritage,” he said.

But his indie film contrasts with the Hollywood studio system’s mass market, where the dynamic is very different.

“I’m not sure the industry sees a lot of box-office potential in getting these representations right,” Mr. Bernstein said.

One explanation sometimes offered for the paucity of American films that engage the Muslim world is that North America is distant from where Western and Islamic civilizations converge or collide. But of the four films dealing with such issues that were nominated for the foreignlanguage Oscar this year, one, “Incendies”( in worldwide release with a spring opening in Germany), came from Canada and another, “Biutiful” (also in wide release, opening in Singapore in May), is from Mexico.

“One of the beauties of cinema is that it can build bridges between cultures, and my film is a tiny bridge,” said Denis Villeneuve, the director of “Incendies.” “We deeply need communication with the Arab world right now, a dialogue other than war.”

Of course other ethnic and racial minority groups, including Hispanics and East Asians, also have long complained about negative stereotypes of them in Hollywood . But Jack G. Shaheen, the author of “Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11,” said there is a difference.

“Other groups are stereotyped, but they also benefit from contrasting images,” he said. “Yes, there is the Mafia thing. But there are also movies in which they are portrayed as funny, warmhearted and kind people.” With Arabs and Muslims, he said, it’s “a continuous bombardment of negative images .”

More humane portraits may be on the way. Jonathan Demme has bought the rights to Dave Eggers’s book “Zeitoun,” about a Syrian immigrant who was helping neighbors after Hurricane Katrina when he was arrested.

Rachid Bouchareb, the French- Algerian director, has Oscar nominations for films that address the difficult relationship between France and its former colony Algeria: “Days of Glory” and “Outside the Law.” His next two films will be shot in the United States, with American and Arab-American actors.

“For me, all of this is simply a pretext to talk about the relationship between these two peoples, these two cultures,” Mr. Bouchareb said recently. “ But perhaps American filmmakers are still reluctant to deal with it.”


LARRY ROHTER ESSAY