Why don't they standardize all DVDs and all DVD players so we could all have everything each country has access to?

There are economic and political reasons for the regional variance, to make more money the films are licenced to different distributors around the world who can only supply a particular area, eg most of the Bergman films are distributed in the UK by Tartan while in the US, Criterion have the rights to the majority. 

Different countries also have there own levels of censorship and that comes in many forms whether for violence, nudity and sex or political, these again are affected by strict regional control. Of course, piracy and imports throw all these rules out the window. 

Governments and distribution companies do not want region free players but as arsaib4 said, most players have a code you can find quite easily on the net and once you've input the code, voila you're region free. 

Sara, have you checked on the net to see if there is a code available for your player?

Cheers Trev.