DISCO PIGS
Ireland/UK, 2001. Director: Kirsten Sheridan
Baise-Moi (Rape Me)
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Cast: Elaine Cassidy, Cillian Murphy
Fri., June 15, 7:15 p.m., Harvard Exit
Sat., June 16, 4:00 p.m., Pacific Place
SIFF SEZ Bright new talent Kirsten Sheridan (daughter of My Left Foot director Jim Sheridan) reimagines for the screen Enda Walsh's dark play. Sin顤 and Darren, born on the same day, dangerously symbiotic, are nicknamed "Runt" and "Pig," the Queen and King of Pork City. As the world begins to resist the nasty fun and games they dream up, the two plunge into a Walpurgisnacht of violence. Drawing startlingly effective performances from Murphy and Cassidy, Sheridan is up to the magical-realist demands of this Irish Enfants Terribles. U.S. premiere.
*DIVA
France, 1981. Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Cast: Fr餩ric Andr马 Wilhelminia Wiggins Fernandez, Richard Bohringer, Thuy An Luu, Dominique Pinon
Fri., June 15, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Part of SIFF's Jean-Jacques Beineix retrospective, his 1981 debut feature was hugely popular at SIFF '82 and during its subsequent commercial run in Seattle. Opera, intrigue, and gorgeous cinematography make for one ravishingly stylish movie—and mark Beineix's self-conscious departure from so much dour Gallic fare in the fizzled-out nouvelle vague movement. Diva's a generational landmark in French cinema, not always coherent or logical, but filled with moments of offhand beauty. Certainly, the "Ebben? Ne andro lontana" aria from Catalani's La Wally has never gotten so much respect—before or since. Free! B.R.M.
DIVIDED WE FALL
Czech Republic, 2000. Director: Jan Hrebejk
Fri., May 25, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Sat., May 26, 1:45 p.m., Pacific Place
SIFF SEZ Set in the last years of WWII, this black comedy tells of Josef and Marie, a childless couple who hide their Jewish neighbor David after he escapes from a concentration camp. With German soldiers occupying their village and an old friend, now a Nazi collaborator, sitting at their kitchen table, sheltering David turns into a feat of loyalty, absurdity, and heroism. This is a masterful example of modern Czech filmmaking that mines humor out of humanity in extremis. (Official Czech Oscar nomination: Best Foreign Film.)
DOG FOOD
Philippines, 2000. Director: Carlos Siguion-Reyna
Mon., June 11, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Tues., June 12, 5:00 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
For those who love Mexican telenovelas, Hindu melodramas, and our own soap operas, Dog Food is the movie for you. It's got violence, passion, blood, incest, lachrymose ballads, sex, and adorable puppies. Also, people eat dogs. Sweet, studious 12-year-old Lily lives with her disgraced cop father and evil stepmother, finding an unlikely friend in Teban, the grizzled old neighborhood dog-meat seller. Melodramatic complications ensue, and how. Any film that deploys "Silent Night" as a weepy musical cue has stepped too deeply into pathos, but Dog Food fails to provide enough smut or camp to balance pristine Lily's travails. Still, there are some nutty, colorful touches. Lily plays in a balalaika band (don't ask why), and her stepmother provides the film an ending reminiscent of Titus Andronicus and Medea. Exclaims our heroine, "Just give me love, Mr. Teban, that's enough." Well—for her, maybe. B.R.M.
DORA-HEITA Japan, 2000. Director: Kon Ichikawa Mon., June 11, 9:30 p.m., Cinerama Wed., June 13, 2:30 p.m., Cinerama
SIFF SEZ Gamblers, drunks, prostitutes, and crooks infest the district of Horisoto, and it's Dora-heita, the "Alley-Cat Magistrate" (charismatic Koji Yakusho of The Eel, Shall We Dance?, and Eureka) who must clean it up. In order to infiltrate a crime world involving courtiers and Yakuza, this undercover samurai must first appear to be as debauched as the bad guys, a masquerade that threatens his personal life, his career, and his honor. This is a marvelous samurai saga reminiscent of Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sanjuro, based on a script co-written by Akira Kurosawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, and Kon Ichikawa.
*E-DREAMS
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Wonsuk Chin
Sat., June 2, 4:00 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
"Never in my life have I experienced such momentum," says one of the kids running Kozmo.com. Significantly, we're then only halfway through this breezy documentary; it's December '99 and the glorified bike messenger company has hauled in $150 million from investors, including a fat grant from our own Starbucks. We all know where it's headed, of course. Yet Korean-born filmmaker Wonsuk Chin manages to make the dot-com saga captivating again, thanks in part to his charmingly sympathetic central character, Kozmo co-founder Joseph Park, who seems as amazed as anyone at his company's dumb luck. Park's garrulous good humor keeps you rooting for him, even as the market falls and the company tanks. There are plenty of priceless moments, none better than a hapless Howard Schultz asking CNN studio hands for reassurance that his Kozmo baseball cap doesn't make him look foolish. (It did, Howard, in more ways than one.) Mark D. Fefer
THE ENDURANCE: SHACKLETON'S LEGENDARY ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION
U.S.A., 2000. Director: George Butler
Thurs., May 31, 7:15 p.m., Egyptian
Sat., June 2, 11:30 a.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 set off on the Endurance to make a 1,500 mile traverse of Antarctica. A mere 100 miles from their destination, the ship became trapped in pack ice, and for almost two years there was no contact with the explorers. Narrated by Liam Neeson, this engrossing documentary uses original expedition photos to tell the stunning true story of their battle for survival.
