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*recommended
THE MONKEY'S MASK
Australia, 2000. Director: Samantha Lang
Fri., June 8, 7:15 p.m., Harvard Exit
Mon., June 11, 5:00 p.m., Cinerama
SIFF SEZ In this eerie film noir mystery, adapted from Dorothy Porter's best-selling novel, private eye Jill (Susie Porter) discovers the darkly seductive connection between sex, violence, and poetry. Eroticism complicates the case of a missing Goth teenager as Jill encounters the vanished young woman's professor (Kelly McGillis) and a strange, romantic dance of death ensues.
MORTAL TRANSFER
France, 2000.
Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Cast: Jean-Hugeus Anglade, H鬨ne de Fougerolles, Miki Manojlovic
Thurs., June 14, 7:15 p.m.,
Cinerama
Sun., June 17, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Concluding SIFFs Jean-Jacques Beineix tribute is the U.S. premiere of his stylish, amusing noir spoof, filtered through the world of psychoanalysis. Here, Betty Blues Anglade is a shrink forced to play detective when one of his kinky patients winds up dead in his office. Was he asleep, or did he commit the murder himself? He voices his doubts to his own shrink, and suffers nightmares and flashbacks to his unsettled childhood (the films least successful aspect). As with every Beineix flick, sex lies at the heart of every problem and obsession, and Anglades increasingly twisted investigation suggests Eyes Wide Shut in a Paris demimonde. An inconvenient corpse makes for black comedy in a Hitchcock mode, although Transfers tangled script and plot holes require regular voice-overs to explain—plus a long final confession scene to tie up loose ends. Only in France could psychoanalysis still be treated with such respect; mercifully, Beineix gives the couch trip lots of silly flourishes. B.R.M.
NANG NAK
Thailand, 1999. Director: Nonzee Nimibutr
Wed., June 6, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Fri., June 8, 5:00 p.m., Cinerama
SIFF SEZ A visually ravishing folk tale, ghost story, and horror flick in one, Nang Nak marries the parallel mysteries of the supernatural and immortal love. Mak returns from war to a ghostly wife and child and a town full of frightened souls.
*NATIONAL 7
France, 2000. Director: Jean-Pierre Sinapi
Cast: Nadia Kaci, Olivier Gourmet, Chantal Neuwirth, Sa鸞Taghmaoui
Tues., June 5, 7:15 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Fri., June 8, 5:00 p.m., Pacific Place
Ever since Ren魭the diabetic, mostly paralyzed antihero of National 7—moved into a home for the handicapped, he's terrorized the entire community, brawling with the disabled ("extraterrestrials," he calls them) and ordering nurses to tack tittie posters to his bedroom wall. So it's a pleasantly jarring surprise when nurse Julie, the compassionate, sexually frustrated heroine of this DV-shot movie, grants her surly patient his wish to screw a prostitute, going so far as to measure the doors of hookers' trailers to make sure Ren駳 wheelchair will fit inside. Meanwhile, the other motley residents—including a gay Muslim paraplegic and a mohawked punker who's reckless with his motorized wheelchair—discover Ren駳 chauffeured trips to the whorehouse, then naturally clamor for similarly special treatment. An excellent film that's equally quirky and fascinating, irreverent and spiritual, National 7 asks an important question: Is there such a thing as giving too much? D.M.
THE NEW COUNTRY
Sweden, 2001. Director: Geir Hansteen J�nsen
Thurs., June 14, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Fri., June 15, 12:00 p.m., Pacific Place
SIFF SEZ Witnessing a scene of terrible brutality bonds Ali, a Somalian boy, and Massoud, an Iranian man. Avoiding deportation, they travel through southern Sweden until they meet a former Miss Sweden, who transforms the road trip into a man-and-boy-meet-girl adventure. The film received the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Berlin International Film Festival, plus four Guldbagge nominations (the Swedish equivalent of the Oscars). U.S. premiere.
NIGHT SHIFT
France, 2001. Director: Philippe Le Guay
Tues., May 29, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Wed., May 30, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ Pierre (G鲡ld Laroche) joins the factory night shift to earn more but encounters Fred (Marc Barb马 who continually mocks and plays practical jokes on him, and then Pierre's relationships with his wife and son soon begin to deteriorate. When his wife starts going out with Fred, Pierre remains passive, but the situation takes a drastic turn when even the dupe's son goes over to the enemy.
NO PLACE TO GO
Germany, 2000. Director: Oskar Roehler
Mon, May 28, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Tues., May 29, 5:00 p.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ Breathtaking in black and white, this beautifully visualized film portrays the final days of leftist writer Gisela Elsner (Roehler's mother). When the Berlin Wall falls in 1989, she is already in collapse, clinging to alcohol, drugs, and her former fame. Desperate to digest political change, she finds that she no longer has a place in this brave new world. (Official German Oscar submission: Best Foreign Film.)
O
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Cast: Rain Phoenix, John Heard
Sat., May 26, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Sun., May 27, 4:00 p.m., Egyptian
Shakespeare goes to high school. Here, Othello is restaged at a lily-white Charleston, SC prep school where a black basketball star (Shafts Phifer) is dating the deans daughter (Stiles). His prestige galls the Iago figure (an impressive Hartnett of Pearl Harbor), triggering inevitable tragedy. Director Tim Blake Nelson is now best known as one of the fleeing prisoners in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but his Eye of God earned a prize at SIFF 97. He elicits generally good performances in a film thats had its release repeatedly delayed because of recent school violence headlines (Columbine, etc.). True, theres ample blood in O, but scarcely more than in the play. The real problem is that Nelsons working with an often ham-fisted script, which also sticks too closely to the original plot. Iagos creaky revenge scheme doesnt mesh with the cell phones, hip-hop soundtrack, and teen slang, although the heros fall still resounds. B.R.M.
