*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.
O FANTASMA
Portugal, 2000. Director: Jo㯠Pedro Rodrigues
Sat., June 2, 12:00 a.m., Egyptian
Mon., June 4, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ Jo㯠Pedro Rodrigues’ first feature is shot completely at night and graphically explores the insatiable sexuality of Sergio, who obsesses over men—first in fantasy, then in reality. A visual—and very visceral—shocker, this voyeuristic film has explicit homoerotic scenes. Nominated for the Golden Lion award at the recent Venice Film Festival.
ODD LITTLE MAN
Norway, 2000. Director: Stein Leikanger
Tues., May 29, 7:15 p.m., Pacific Place
Wed., May 30, 5:00 p.m., Pacific Place
Here’s an odd little movie, strangely lacking in plot. Lovely Norwegian landscapes sparkle against this coming-of-age tale set just before World War II and German occupation. Oddemann, a towhead with Prince Charles’ unfortunate ears, is caught in a web of family mores and sibling rivalry that seems all too familiar. Between watching for miracles, playing arctic explorer, and practicing air-raid drills in the root cellar, the boy devotes his mental energy to Jesus. As part of an austere Christian family (complete with grandmother who dresses in black and forbids whistling), Oddemann’s experiences are colored by the so-called Pillar of Power. At the top there’s Mother, Father, God, Jesus, the Heavenly Host, his older brother, and then himself. Framed by Oddemann’s adult narration, the film seems to imply that there’s an exact moment he leaves his youth behind—but it’s left vague and, well, oddly mysterious. E.B.R.
*101 REYKJAVIK
Iceland, 2000. Director: Baltasar Kormr
Mon., May 28, 6:30 p.m., Egyptian
Wed., May 30, 5 p.m., Egyptian
Just when you exclaim, “No more slacker movies!,” that seemingly exhausted genre is unexpectedly revived. This oddball Icelandic feature does the trick nicely, despite excess voice-over narration (betraying its literary origin). Here, our resolutely lazy hero falls for his mother’s lesbian lover (Almod� vet Victoria Abril, an unstoppable force of eros) and possibly impregnates her. Other complications ensue (mostly sexual), but the path to eventual redemption is saved from clich頢y Reykjav weird fusion of ancient landscapes and modern rave-going kids. Hand-held cameras push through endless, smoky, alcohol-fueled, and ridiculously overcrowded house parties, accompanied by a genuinely eccentric soundtrack by Blur’s Damon Albarn and the Sugarcubes’ Einar ֲn that thumps and bleeps like a Moog synthesizer with a mind of its own. For those with a taste for gray-skied deadpan Nordic humor ࠬa Aki Kaurism䫩, 101 ReykjavI> is just the right postal code. B.R.M.
THE OTHER GIRLS
France, 2000. Director: Caroline Vignal
Mon., June 4, 7:15 p.m., Egyptian
Sun., June 10, 1:45 p.m., Harvard Exit
Sexually curious girls, hairdressers, sleazy men—sounds like a French film all right. But this first-time feature is a well-directed, realistically acted drama that’ll make you feel guilty for having enjoyed American Pie (and maybe for being American). It’s closer in spirit to the great Australian coming-of-age film Flirting, with snooty peers who make main character Solange feel out of place because she’s yet to bed a guy. At her hairdressing school, she befriends another misfit: an African girl avoiding the arranged marriage her parents are planning. Teenage Solange leans on her new friend, but their lives aren’t as complementary as she’d hoped. Instead, Solange faces a lonely battle against her troubled home life (being only child of a dysfunctional couple) and an even more lonely quest to find a man who can satisfy her awakening sexual desires. It’s a raw film with themes that’ll appeal mainly to the French, to Francophiles, and the people who tolerate them. R.A.M.
*OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS
Colombia, 2000. Director: Barbet Schroeder
Sun., June 10, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Tues., June 12, 5:00 p.m., Cinerama
This Spanish-language film is a quietly explosive return to independent form for Schroeder, the European director whose Hollywood career has pitched from excellent (Barfly, Reversal of Fortune) to middlebrow (Single White Female) to ho-hum (Desperate Measures). Having lived in Colombia as a child, Schroeder here animates the casual violence of the cocaine-saturated Medellia Fernando Vallejo’s adaptation of his own 1994 novel. Colombia stage veteran German Jaramillo plays a writer confronting the bloody, callous beauty of his home city, while plucked-from-the-streets Anderson Ballesteros is the teenage assassin who becomes his lover. The two actors display a tender May-December eroticism (reminiscent of Almod�’s Law of Desire), lending Our Lady passion, spirituality, and a bottomless well of poignant gallows humor. The circumstances of the film’s production—it was shot on high definition video in semi-guerrilla fashion, due to the very real possibility of kidnapping or murder attempts by local gangs—add an extra layer of intrigue. Jason Cohen
OUT OF THE CLOSET, OFF SCREEN: THE WILLIAM HAINES STORY
U.S.A., 2001. Directors: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Wed., June 13, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Thur., June 14, 5:00 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
SIFF SEZ Ever heard of William Haines? In this delightful documentary, the directors of last year’s SIFF hit The Eyes of Tammy Faye introduce the number-one male star in Hollywood some six decades ago. Haines’ stardom came to an abrupt end in 1933 when, at the start of the repressive Hays Code era, Louis B. Mayer ordered him to give up either his male lover or his studio contract. Haines retorted, “When you get rid of your wife.” He soon became the most sought-after interior decorator in town. Presented with Way Out West (1930, 71 minutes), which features Haines’ most outrageous performance. (“I’m the wildest pansy you ever *ed!”) World premiere.
PARSLEY DAYS
Canada, 2000. Director: Andrea Dorfman
Thur., June 14, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Fri., June 15, 12:00 p.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ Summer in Halifax is the perfect backdrop for this lyrical comedy about ideal soulmates Kate and Ollie, the envy of an off-beat collection of friends. Just as Kate discovers she’s pregnant by Ollie, the “king of contraception,” her love begins to fade, causing dismay among their eclectic crowd. An herbalist friend says parsley will induce a natural miscarriage, and so begin Kate’s “parsley days.” U.S. premiere.
PEACHES
Ireland/Great Britain, 2000. Director: Nick Grosso
Thur., June 14, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Fri., June 15, 12:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Nick Grosso’s stage-comedy-turned-film is surprisingly entertaining considering that you’ve seen everything in it done better before: the shaggy-dog sex-tutorials of Richard Lester’s The Knack; the aimless, profane, guy-dialogues of Sexual Perversity in Chicago (a.k.a. About Last Night . . .); the ironic celebration of slackerdom of pre-Dogma Kevin Smith. The movie works as well as it does mainly because of clever casting. There’s not a familiar face on screen, but even the smallest roles are filled out better than they deserve to be by talented young British stage actors. It’s not easy to play a human black hole, but Matthew Rhys (who got baked in Julie Taymor’s Titus) makes vacuity strangely attractive. Kelly Reilly almost convinces you that a woman with an IQ over 70 could fall for such a zero. U.S. premiere. R.D.
*THE PERFECT SON
Canada, 2000. Director: Leonard Farlinger
Cast: Colm Feore, David Cubitt
Tues., June 5, 7:15 p.m., Harvard Exit
Sat., June 9, 4:00 p.m., Pacific Place
An affecting AIDS drama doesn’t have to be sappy. Son takes the story of a fractured relationship between two brothers and creates a quiet, harmonic balance between the older “perfect” one, Ryan (Feore), and Theo, the addict and sensitive screw-up (Cubitt). Soon we learn that the former druggie and alcoholic is back from a stint in rehab and wants to be a writer, while big brother is into guys and has end-stage AIDS. Once these facts are established the actors take over, circling each other and learning the vulnerabilities each has shielded from his brother and himself. After his stellar lead performance in 1993’s Thirty-Two Films About Glenn Gould, Feore is believably unwilling to show the slightest chink in Ryan’s armor, while Cubitt’s emotional Theo pleasantly suggests a more polished George Clooney—and I mean that in a good way. E.B.R.
*A PLACE NEARBY
Denmark, 2000. Director: Kaspar Rostrup
Mon., June 4, 7:15 p.m., Pacific Place
Wed., June 6, 5:00 p.m., Pacific Place
Danish actress Ghita Nrby delivers an intense performance as a haggard single mother who suspects her autistic 20-year-old son has killed a young woman. Her efforts to protect him from the cops and keep him out of a state-run home reveal intense devotion but also self-preservation—he’s all she has to live for. As a dogged police detective keeps the case between his teeth, the tension rises with the temperature (the town’s stuck in a heat wave). Anyone who disparages Hollywood for ignoring actresses over 40 should be thrilled with the powerful portrayal of a woman torn between deciding what’s right for her son and the realization that she’s been part of the problem. A.V.B.
PLENILUNIO
Spain, 2000. Director: Imanol Uribe
Mon., May 28, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Wed., May 30, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
A thriller should never begin with its most unsettling scene. Such is the first mistake in Plenilunio when a coroner discovers a young girl’s naked corpse. She was violated with an unknown object, then choked to death with her panties stuffed down her throat. The film then obliterates any sense of mystery by introducing the 22-year-old, less-than-intimidating (and kinda cute) killer who deems all women as “whores.” It also racks up the usual crime movie clich鳬 from minor details—aggressive reporters, cheesy sex scenes—to its main character, Detective Solas, an ex-alcoholic, lapsed Catholic (because this is such a dark world, natch), who then decides that this case is personal! One last gripe with this overly serious flick with too many loose ends: Susana, the sunshiny, poetry-quoting teacher who brightens up the grim detective. Okay, she’s a free spirit, but do we have to have her listening to jazz in every scene she’s in? D.M.
POSSIBLE LOVES
Brazil, 2000. Director: Sandra Werneck
Thur., May 31, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Sun., June 3, 11:30 a.m., Pacific Place
Carlos (Murilo Ben), depending on which circumstance you choose to believe, is either a married man contemplating a relationship with the love of his life, a lothario looking for the love of his life, or a divorced gay man whose love of his life just may be his ex-wife. In each of director Sandra Werneck’s three what-if scenarios, the result is heartfelt distraction for him and us. Though Carlos is increasingly selfish with each new twist, and the episodes aren’t interlaced deeply enough to reveal any insight into chance and the human heart, this Portuguese-language film benefits from the high gloss of its surfaces: Ben is so off-the-chart gorgeous and the swoony notions of his escapades are so beguiling, that damned if you don’t hope he gets whatever he wants. As a romantic statement, the whole thing may be inconsequential, but it’s often delectable nonetheless. S.W.
PRINCESA
Italy/Germany/Brazil, 2000. Director: Henrique Goldman
Wed., May 30, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Mon., June 4, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
SIFF SEZ The dream of becoming a princess means different things to different people. For Fernanda, a 19-year-old transvestite working the streets of Milan’s red-light district, simply achieving middle-class normalcy with the man of her dreams would be enough. Henrique Goldman’s Antonioni-like direction avoids easy sensationalism and instead allows images of Milan to tell much of this thoughtful and moving tale. Based on the real Fernanda’s autobiography.
THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR
Germany, 2000. Director: Tom Tykwer
Fri., June 15, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Sun., June 17, 4:00 p.m., Egyptian
Tom Tykwer, the German showboater fruitlessly obsessed with smooth surfaces, crane shots, and coincidence, follows the breakneck Run Lola Run with an ostentatiously languid romance: A cute psychiatric nurse and a cute ex-soldier with leaky tear ducts fall in love, in apparently cosmic ways. Lola‘s Franka Potente here plays the shy nurse Sissi, a considerably less dynamic role in a garbled but still consistently watchable film. (Look for Potente as Johnny Depp’s cancer-afflicted, bikini-wearing ’60s SoCal girlfriend in Blow.) D.L.
*THE PUNISHMENT
Austria, 1999. Director: Goran Rebic
Sat., June 2, 4:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
To extricate a pest named Slobodan Milosevic, an American-led NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days in the spring of 1999. While the prolonged and perplexing Balkan conflict was briefly halted as a result, collective Western opinion continued to vilify the whole country as some sort of collective goon squad. Accordingly, Viennese filmmaker Goran Rebic’s documentary of the bombing’s aftermath is a deliberate, eye-opening prod to your conscience. Shooting in video against a tableau of burned-out, bombed-out, graffiti-splashed buildings, The Punishment acts as a kind of catharsis for the handful of students, professionals, and other civilians interviewed. Each of their articulate and passionate monologues ruminates upon international (i.e., American) politics, despotic leaders, and the conundrum of trying to make sense of madness in a “civilized society.” Rebic may not specifically want Americans to feel ashamed for living so far and so safely away from the destruction we caused, but that’s not a bad idea. Stewart A. Williams
RAMAYANA: PRINCE OF LIGHT
Japan/India, 1999. Directors: Ram Mohan, Yugo Sako, Koichi Saski
Sat., June 2, 11:30 a.m., Pacific Place
This animated feature devoted to the exploits of Prince Ram (Ramayana), hero of classic Eastern mythology, is passable only for children under 7 and hallucinogenic drug users. The animation and painfully insipid dialogue are reminiscent of cheap ’70s Japanese manga fare, but Prince‘s overly earnest, humorless tone is even more hopelessly dated. (How could a movie with a cast of thousands of monkey-people be so unfun?) Looking like a frightening amalgam of Michael Jackson, Fabio, and Brian Boitano, the blanched, doe-eyed Ram is even more cloying and sterile than the safest Disney creation. Requiring $13 million and 6 years to produce, Prince is by all indications a folly of epic proportions. Surely the story of its making—I’d bet the house that an old loony rich guy bankrolled this one—is far more deserving of being committed to film. P.F.
LE RAT
France, 2000. Directors: Christophe Ali, Nicolas Bonilauri
Wed., June 13, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Thur., June 14, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Suggesting both Eraserhead and the Caro-Jeunet team behind Delicatessen, this hour-long black-and-white silent is more weird than whimsical, and not for the faint of heart. Be careful, stranger, goes the chorus to an old 30s tune played on a phonograph belonging to an apparent serial killer. He collects various body parts in a forest trove; meanwhile a rat surveys his activities in a squalid little apartment. The old killer is also plagued by nightmares of childhood loss, making him a not unsympathetic characterespecially in comparison to a bunch of ghouls also stalking the countryside. How much is real or imagined? Decide for yourself in this macabre, nightmarish film. Paired with Le Rat is the wonderful, wordless, black-and-white Scarecrow, which is made in Russia but universally accessible. A young boy lives with his aged grandfather in a caravan amid windswept hills; there, the lad bestows some eyes upon their tattered scarecrowwhich them seems to take a protective interest in him. Lovely cinematography and evocative peasant faces make the film a somber yet oddly affirmative meditation on the relentless seasons life and death. B.R.M.
A REAL YOUNG GIRL
France, 1975. Director: Catherine Breillat
Sat., June 9, 12:00 a.m., Egyptian
Tues., June 12, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ Breillat’s debut film, adapted from an autobiographical novel, A True Young Lady provoked scandal when it appeared 25 years ago and was banned outright. In the ’60s, a young woman spends summer break from boarding school in her parents’ rural home. In the heat and haze of her hormonally fired sexuality, she fantasizes about and acts out various shocking scenarios—alone and with various boys. A fitting precursor to Breillat’s controversial Romance.
REEF HUNTERS
Philippines, 2000. Director: Marilou Diaz-Abaya
Fri., June 1, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Mon., June 4, 5:00 p.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ In a performance that netted him a best actor award at France’s Festival International de Cinema last year, Filipino superstar Cesar Montano portrays a master fisherman who drives his underage crew over the edge in his relentless quest for a record-breaking catch. Stunning underwater free-diving sequences power this seagoing morality tale and reveal the destructive legacy of traditional coral reef fishing.
RENNIE’S LANDING
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Marc Fusco
Cast: Peter Facinelli, Scott Foley
Fri., June 15, 7:15 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Sun., June 17, 4:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ When four friends reunite a year after college, they realize that life isn’t as rosy as they’d hoped. In order to “get control” of their lives, they devise a smartly performed heist that nets $5 million—more money than they’d ever dreamed of. But they lose more in the process than they could ever imagine. This character-driven drama features superb performances and a shocking denouement. World premiere.
RING 0
Japan, 2000. Director: Norio Tsuruta
Wed., June 13, 7:15 p.m., Cinerama
Thur., June 14, 12:00 p.m., Cinerama
This prequel to the 1998 Japanese “saiko-horaa” (psycho horror) mega hit The Ring *s up thirty years prior to that film’s events to uncover the origins of Sadako, one of the great specters of contemporary horror. The original’s subtext was “the medium is the message,” since a cursed videotape killed viewers a week after watching it. While preserving that media-age mystery, Ring 0 now uses a theater troupe to suggest that all the world’s a stage and that sound and fury are embodied by “weird” girl Sadako (Yukie Nakama). When the lead actress dies under mysterious circumstances and Sadako gets her role, the company becomes suspicious—especially since a snoopy reporter has been nosing around. Owing much to Carrie, Ring 0 is a solid—if not more intelligible—addition to the Ring franchise. It’s much more satisfying if you’ve already experienced the chills of the four-part series’ superior first installment. U.S. premiere. S.G.
*THE ROAD HOME
China, 2000. Director: Zhang Yimou
Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Sun Honglei
Fri., June 8, 7:15 p.m., Cinerama
Tues., June 12, 5:00 p.m., Egyptian
Like his 1987 Red Sorghum, Zhang Yimou’s Road is a flashback story of parental courtship. Rather than the feudal era, the primal scene is set a year or two after the Communist revolution. Pointedly, Zhang juxtaposes the rainbow-hued past with a grimly monochromatic present—the contemporary sequences substitute a Titanic poster for the traditional image of Mao in a rural hut. This shamelessly traditional tale of a peasant girl’s total devotion to the local schoolteacher—alternately touching and embarrassing in its puppy-dog insistence—takes on another subtext for starring a bright-eyed, pigtailed, coy-but-headstrong teenager, Zhang Ziyi (now famous for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), who bears an astonishing resemblance to the young Gong Li (the star of so many of Zhang Yimou’s films). An award-winner at Sundance and Berlin. J.H.
ROSELYNE AND THE LIONS
France, 1989. Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Cast: Isabelle Pasco, G鲡rd Sandoz
Fri., June 1, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ Always idiosyncratic director Jean-Jacques Beineix focuses on a different kind of obsessive love in this tale of two young lovers and the passion they share for jungle cats. Thierry works at the Marseilles zoo, where he convinces the lion tamer to train him to work with the zoo’s cats. Roselyne spends all of her free time at the lion cages as well, fascinated by the grace and power of these exotic beasts. One day, when the lion tamer returns to the cages to find the pair recklessly handling the lions, he fires Thierry. So the feline-obsessed Thierry and Roselyne take to the road determined to break into the big time as circus lion tamers. Beineix brings his customary visual flair and superb imagery to this whimsical story of youth and innocence. Particularly striking are his fluid tracking shots of the magnificent cats and the magical circus world Roselyne and Thierry come to inhabit. Free!
*A RUN FOR MONEY
Turkey, 2000. Director: Reha Erdem
Wed., May 30, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Thur., May 31, 5:00 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
A fable set in modern-day Istanbul shows just how much money is at the root of all evil. Family-loving Selim is a shirt salesman known for his honesty and frugality. Yet after riding in the cab of a bank robber foolish enough to have left more than $400,000 in the back seat, Selim inadvertently ends up a rich man. And, he soon realizes, money complicates everything. Going from straight-and-narrow businessman to paranoid, obsessed spender and hoarder, Selim’s life is insidiously undermined. Shot in the picturesque port city on ferries, in parks, at the beach, and near the minarets, the tragicomic story is one of the simplest that can be told. But it’s nevertheless worth seeing how this particular man, with the barrage of circumstances that take him further and further from his ideals, attempts to live with his secret—and himself. E.B.R.
A SAD FLOWER IN THE SAND
Netherlands/U.S.A., 2001. Director: Jan Louter
Tues., June 5, 5:00 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Huge in Europe, Los Angeles novelist and screenwriter John Fante is basically unknown in this country, although his 1939 Ask the Dust is considered a minor classic of Depression-era fiction. Among his admirers in this largely uncritical documentary are Chinatown‘s Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne (who appears on camera) and cult novelist Charles Bukowski (who, being dead, does not). Bukowski lauds Fante as his favorite writer, and one can place him as a kind of proto-Beat figure, ahead of his time and largely ignored during his lifetime (1909-1983). 1989’s Wait Until Spring, Bandini is the only movie yet produced from his novels. While it includes some nice old newsreel footage of bygone L.A., Flower tills the usual sand, repeating the standard artistic complaints. (“Hollywood is a bad place; it kills writers.”) Still, it just might inspire you to hunt up a copy of Dust (reprinted by Black Sparrow Press). B.R.M.
SANDSTORM
India, 2000. Director: Jagmohan
Wed., June 13, 7:15 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Fri., June 15, 2:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Ripped from the headlines, this fact-based melodrama is like a Hindi-language version of The Accused. Amid the sand dunes of beautiful Rajasthan, a lower-caste peasant woman is raped by arrogant, upper-caste village elders. Can she find justice for the crime? Sandstorm frames her tale from the perspective of a cosmopolitan journalist and her hunky translator, also interspersing frequent pop tunes to help leaven what is, in point of fact, a fairly depressing tale. Portrayed by Nandita Das of Deepa Mehta’s Earth and Fire, Sanwari is an appropriately dauntless, stoic heroine in this social-issue picture, intended to be an inspirational figure on her quest through an unfair legal system. Stereotypical villains embody the patriarchy, although Sandstorm actually improves considerably during its latter show-trial scenes, where a variety of smug, vested interests use Sanwari for their political purposes. It’s a didactic yet commercial film plainly designed to foster feminism at home, necessarily seeming rather obvious abroad. U.S. premiere. B.R.M.
SAROJA
Sri Lanka, 2000. Director: Somaratne Dissanayake
Fri., June 1, 7:15 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Tues., June 5, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ An award-winning film about deep-seated ethnic conflict: Forced to join rebel Tamils in their battle against Sri Lankan government forces, Sundaram flees with Saroja, his 7-year-old daughter, sending her to a nearby village when he is injured. A Sri Lankan child befriends Saroja, though her parents are divided over offering help. A bond develops between the two families, but can it withstand a decades-old conflict?
*SCARECROW
Russia, 2000. Director: Alexander Kott
Wed., June 13, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Thur., June 14, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Paired with Le Rat is the wonderful, wordless, black-and-white Scarecrow, which was made in Russia but proves universally accessible. A young boy lives with his aged grandfather in a caravan amid windswept hills; there, the lad bestows some eyes upon their tattered scarecrow—which then seems to take a protective interest in him. Lovely cinematography and evocative peasant faces make the film a somber yet oddly affirmative meditation on the relentless seasons life and death. B.R.M.
SCOUT’S HONOR
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Tom Shepard
Fri., May 25, 5:00 p.m., Egyptian
Sat., May 26, 11:30 a.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ Questions of tolerance vs. exclusivity are raised in this provocative look at the Boy Scouts of America. When a 12-year-old boy and a 70-year-old man, both Boy Scouts, both heterosexual, each opposed to the Scouts’ anti-gay policy, speak out for their ideals and start an organization called Scouting for All, their beloved Boy Scouts of America turns against them. Preceded by Coming to Terms (Shawn Postoff, 17 minutes, Canada).
SCRATCH
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Doug Pray
Sun., June 10, 6:30 p.m., Cinerama
The local music scene breathed a collective sigh of relief when Doug Pray’s Hype was finally released in 1996. A semi-trusted outsider who spent more than a year documenting the rise and exploitation of Seattle bands in the late ’80s/early ’90s, he created a fairly accurate, affectionate chronicle of our grunge/cultural history. Five years later, he’s back with a music documentary of similar depth but little similarity. Scratch is a powerful examination of hip-hop’s development through the eyes, ears, and hands of the DJs and turntablists who’ve made an art form out of mixing, scratching, and riling their audiences to frenzy. Pray interviews both old-school legends—Afrika Bambaataa and Grand Wizard Theodore among them—and young artists, including Q-Bert, Mix Master Mike, Cut Chemist, and DJ Shadow. The result is an exciting, enthusiastic oral history of hip-hop, loosely organized but great sounding. A.S.
SEANCE
Japan, 2000. Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cast: Koji Yakusho
Fri., June 1, 7:15 p.m, Pacific Place
Sat., June 2, 4:00 p.m., Pacific Place
SIFF SEZ Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who gained cult-director status with films such as Cure and Serpent’s Path, returns to the psycho-horror genre with this thriller based on Mark McShane’s novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon. The action revolves around Jun, a spiritual medium bored by her marriage whose reckless ambition has ghastly and ghostly consequences. U.S. premiere.
SECOND COMING
U.S.A., 2001. Directors: Darren Campbell, Steve Rees
Sat., June 16, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Sun., June 17, 4:00 p.m, Broadway Perf. Hall
SIFF SEZ In this fascinating thriller, combining religious conspiracy and metaphysics, a mysterious young man appears in Los Angeles and all signs suggest this may be the second coming of Jesus Christ. As his story parallels the New Testament—including a terrifying miracle in a barrio church—Second Coming asks hard questions: If Christ returned today, would the church embrace or deny him? Will the Messiah find himself “crucified” a second time? World premiere.
*THE SECRET FESTIVAL
Sun, May 27, 11:30 a.m., Egyptian
Sun, Jun 3, 11:30 a.m., Egyptian
Sun, Jun 10, 11:30 a.m., Egyptian
Sun, Jun 17, 11:30 a.m., Egyptian
Anything could happen! (Terrible or great.)
SENTIMENTAL DESTINY
France, 2000. Director: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Emmanuelle B顲t, Charles Berling, Isabelle Huppert
Sun., May 27, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Sat., May 26, 3:00 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
SIFF SEZ A sweeping adaptation of Jacques Chardon’s novel, Assayas’ latest effort is set in the picturesque Cognac region of France and covers three decades in the chronicles of a china-making family and its community. Woven into this complex narrative are several dominant threads: spiritual vs. profane love and the tension between personal needs and familial duty. Many individual stories and characters (in a superb cast) contribute to this engrossing Destiny.
*SEVEN MEN FROM NOW
U.S.A., 1956. Director: Budd Boetticher
Sun., June 10, 11:30 a.m., Harvard Exit
Long unavailable and newly restored, Budd Boetticher’s first Randolph Scott Western initiated a cycle that marked the end of the traditional Western. No one thought much about it back then except critic Andr頂azin, who, in 1957, hailed the film as “exemplary,” perhaps the best example of the genre he’d seen since World War II. Out to avenge his wife’s murder, Scott here pursues the eponymous seven (Lee Marvin among them) while also protecting a young couple he encounters on the trail. J.H.
SEX, SHAME & TEARS
Mexico, 2000. Director: Antonio Serrano
Tues., June 5, 7:15 p.m., Egyptian
Fri., June 8, 12:00 p.m., Cinerama
SIFF SEZ In this madcap comedy with serious points to make, two 30-something couples grapple with their relationship troubles and unfulfilled personal and professional ambitions. When a friend out of each couple’s past arrives for a visit, tensions escalate until the women decide to retreat to one apartment and the men to another, with interesting results. The biggest box-office hit in Mexican history and winner of the Audience Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival.
SHORT FILM PROGRAMS
A SENSE OF DISLOCATION: OTHER WORLDS, ALTERNATIVE REALITIES
Thu., May 31, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
ANIMATION EXTRAVAGANZA
Tues., Jun 5, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
MINDGAMES
Fri., May 25, 5 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
MODERN SEX & ROMANCE
Wed., Jun 6, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
ODDBALLS, ECCENTRICS, AND MISFITS
Sun., Jun 3, 1:45 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
QUEERSVILLE
Tues., Jun 12, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Ed Burns
Cast: Ed Burns, Heather Graham, Stanley Tucci
Sun., May 27, 6:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Mon., May 28, 11:30 a.m., Pacific Place
Ouch. Whatever promise he showed with The Brothers McMullen is pretty much squandered in Ed Burns latest effort behind the camera. Set in Manhattan, taking tangled relationships as its topic, Sidewalks treads much too closely to Woody Allens turf, and ends up looking woefully feeble and derivative for the journey. (Dont ever put Django Reinhardt on the soundtrack unless you mean business.) Burns and Graham start out apart, but we know theyll eventually hook up. Tucci plays a heel involved with a woman half his age; all parties periodically speak directly to the camera, documentary-style, musing about love and sex. The insights gained are remarkably vapid and obvious, the scenes arranged haphazardly. Graham is credible as a cosmopolitan Yalie, while again Burns insists on playing the nice guy from Queens. He asks at one point, “Did I just blow it?” The answer is yes. B.R.M.
*SIS: CITYSCAPES
Mon., May 28, 1:45 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
This Shooting in Seattle package of local shorts provides a nicely oddball view of our fair metropolis. The Hoffmann House Project finds recovering mental patients assisting in the renovation of their own group home. Marching On: Rainbow City Band has gay and lesbian musicians forming their own parade group. Space Needle (Twice Around) is a very cool collection of animated still photographs—all rotating around our famed World’s Fair icon. Best of the batch is Nuts & Bolts, previously broadcast on KCTS but not widely seen. If you’ve ever wondered about all that junk piled up against Queen Anne Hill along Westlake (opposite the marina strip), here’s your chance to meet the likable eccentric who owns the place. A bit like Errol Morris’ Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Nuts wins you over with crackpot charm. B.R.M.
*SIS: EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPES
Sun., May 27, 1:45 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
We’ve only sat through one title from this Shooting in Seattle package, but it’s definitely worth seeing. Brian McDonald’s White Face took a prize at Slamdance this spring, and he rated inclusion as one of 25 Seattleites to watch in our recent 25th anniversary issue. Believe the hype. McDonald takes an idea that has been used before (see Shakes the Clown), but treats anti-clown discrimination as a racial allegory that’s totally deft and light-handed. He doesn’t bludgeon a single joke, and nicely sends up Ken Burns documentaries along the way. In an age of debased sketch comedy, with SNL‘s evil spawn clogging our multiplexes, here’s a rare example of how to perfectly execute a small comic idea from start to finish. B.R.M.
SIS: WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE
Mon., May 28, 6:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
This Shooting in Seattle package promises the premiere of James Bazan’s feature-length documentary Rock and Roll Won’t Wait (about the Murder City Devils), plus other area shorts. B.R.M.
6IXTYNIN9
Thailand, 1999. Director: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Sun., May 27, 4 p.m., Pacific Place
Wed., May 30, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
“I’m lucky,” says Tum, an attractive young Bangkok secretary, but she’s being ironic, having just been fired from her job. Returning home, however, she discovers a box full of cash that changes her fortunes and creates a growing number of corpses in her apartment. Who’s the killer? Surely not the meek, mousy Tum, right? Well . . . let’s just say the girl discovers some hidden resources while caught between two incompetent criminal gangs. This low-key black comedy recalls Into the Night and Apartment Zero as Tum is led into darker and darker territory during the course of one long day. It’s “just like a movie” exclaims one friend, and 6ixtynin9 does indeed feels assembled from other movies. (The title refers to Tum’s flipping apartment number, not to your smutty thoughts.) While lacking one outstanding scene or a big climax, the leisurely film does maintain an amusingly drab, deadpan comic tone throughout, plus a wealth of colorful supporting characters. B.R.M.
SKY HOOK
Yugoslavia/Italy, 2000. Director: Ljubisa Samardzic
Sat., May 26, 4:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Mon., May 28, 6:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
As NATO bombing blitzes their city, a determined Belgrade father hopes to convince his boy, terrified into muteness, to speak again by building him a basketball court. The minute the subtitle reads “Daddy’s gonna put you on his shoulders and you’re gonna slam dunk,” you have a pretty good idea of what Life Is Beautiful hath wrought. Suffice it to say that the community—a cynical tattoo artist, a cynical black market dealer, a cynical ex-wife et al.—comes together in the ravages of war and Daddy ain’t long for this world. Give all this a less devastating milieu and, oh, the kid from Jerry Maguire, and you’d have a Hollywood tearjerker (don’t be surprised if that’s exactly what happens). The film is sincere, involving, and well-made, but suffers from d骠 vu—it’s something we’ve seen before in a place we’ve never been. S.W.
*SMELL OF CAMPHOR, FRAGRANCE OF JASMINE
Iran, 2000. Director: Bahman Farmanara
Sat., June 9, 6:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
The first movie in 20 years by the long-banned Bahman Farmanara, a onetime distributor of foreign films in North America, Jasmine is a humorously death-haunted psychodrama in which the filmmaker—playing a movie director called Bahman Farjami—undertakes an absurd quest to document his own funeral. Like a cozier, more generic-looking Taste of Cherry, Jasmine is more or less bracketed by the protagonist’s discovery that someone else has been buried in his plot and his experience of watching himself, Tom Sawyer-style, as he’s laid to rest. Farmanara, playing a kind and portly family man, is an intensely sympathetic figure in this fusion of memory, fantasy, and social satire. J.H.
SONG OF TIBET
China, 2000. Director: Xie Fei
Sat., May 26, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Mon., May 28, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
SIFF SEZ A lush landscape and epic storytelling characterize this moving tale—told in flashback—about a Tibetan woman’s passionate love for a proud warrior. When her granddaughter visits her elderly gram from Beijing, Yixi recounts a 50-year tempestuous saga: how she was kidnapped by the man she came to love, his loss for decades, and their final reunion. A stunning vision of real locations and memorable human beings.
*SOUTHERN COMFORT
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Kate Davis
Thur., June 7, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Sun., June 10, 11:30 a.m., Cinerama
At first, Robert Eads seems like a stereotypical 52-year-old Southerner: With cowboy hat tilted over his head, wrinkles carved into his leathery cheeks, and voice weathered by tobacco clouds, he drawls on about his tract of Georgia land. But this enlightening documentary expands that image, revealing him to be a female-to-male transsexual dying from ovarian cancer. (“That last only part of me that was really female is killing me.”) A Sundance prize-winner, Comfort cozies up to Eads for a poignant cruise through his pleasant if fading existence. We meet his M-to-F girlfriend Lola and two best transgendered buds, and explore the few acres he calls home. Yet rural life isn’t without its shadows: Narrow-minded doctors deny him cancer treatment; dangerous neighbors reside in “the heart of the KKK.” But even if Robert humbly admits that “what you want and what you get aren’t the same thing,” it’s finally apparent that he’s made more than good with what he’s received. D.M.
STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES
Great Britain, 2001. Director: Jan Harlan
Thur., June 7, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Sat., June 9, 4:00 p.m., Egyptian
Members of the KDL unite! Smash the reactionary vanguard of film critics! Preserve the memory of our beloved leader! Such is the well-intentioned spirit of what might be called the Kubrick Defense League, formed following the 1999 death of the famous Lolita and Dr. Strangelove director. What about his more recent works, you ask? The basic objective of this documentary/hagiography, best suited for television, is to burnish Kubrick’s reputation as a misunderstood genius whose post-Clockwork Orange career slide, well, didn’t actually happen. Luminaries including Tom, Nicole, Woody, Marty, and Steven (Spielberg) gushingly testify to the man’s personal warmth and professional greatness. Obviously made in full cooperation with the Kubrick estate, the film is also a rebuttal to the June ’99 New Yorker article by an Eyes Wide Shut screenwriter that argued, essentially, that the emperor had no clothes. Time magazine’s Richard Schickel politely comments, “Stanley was a filmmaker most appreciated by his fellow filmmakers.” Too appreciated, perhaps. B.R.M.
*STARTUP.COM
U.S.A., 2001. Directors: Chris Hegedus, Jehane Noujaim
Fri., June 8, 7:15 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Mon., June 11, 5:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Late in 1998, at the height of dot-com hysteria, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman left Wall Street to become the CEO of an Internet start-up conceived with his high school buddy, Tom Herman. Also along for what we now know will be a turbulent ride was Tuzman’s roommate, fledgling filmmaker Jehane Noujaim. She duly *ed up a digital camera to follow him around, their friendship and his hubris yielding terrific access. Noujaim took the project to Pennebaker Films and soon she had a co-director, Chris Hegedus (The War Room). Accordingly, Startup.com has seamless editing; the drama builds throughout, and the arc of the central character is as shapely as in a Hollywood fiction. Great fun to watch, it’s also more than a mite superficial, owing to the filmmakers’ reluctance to include anything that might slow the pace. As con artist and dupe, Tuzman and Herman are perfectly matched, and the film milks their breakup for every bit of emotion. Amy Taubin
*STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.
U.S.A., 1928. Directors: Charles Reisnier, Buster Keaton (uncredited)
Sun., June 10, 6:30 p.m., Egyptian
The best way to watch a Buster Keaton classic is alongside a child, to immerse yourself in the purity of the laughs as you were meant to. Keaton is the ukelele-strumming boy whose father, a roughneck steamboat captain, tries to teach to be a man. By 1928, audiences trusted Keaton to deliver an astonishing crescendo after a lightweight first half of corny plot and droll bits. Steamboat, Keaton’s last production under his artistic control, literally explodes with an eye-popping cyclone and some of the most dangerous gags ever filmed—including the famous toppling house-front, in which he was given only a two-inch margin and one take. (He would later write, “You don’t do that sort of thing twice.”) You can be adult and admire Keaton’s adroit skill as a comic and pioneer filmmaker. Even better, just squeal like a kid as he battles the wind and let yourself be blown away. (Accompaniment by Boston’s Alloy Orchestra.) G.T.
STRANGER INSIDE
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Cheryl Dunye
Sat., May 26, 6:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Sun., May 27, 11:30 a.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ The director of The Watermelon Woman returns to SIFF with the unusual tale of Treasure Lee, a troubled girl who gets herself transferred to the women’s state (adult) prison, where she hopes to meet her long-lost mother and plumb the mysteries of how she came to be who she is. Intelligently directed and impressively researched, Stranger showcases the emotions and aspirations of authentic prison inmates, including a hip-hop geisha, a born-again embezzler, and a Xanax zombie.
THE STRANGER
Austria, 2000. Directors: G�Spielmann, Roger Frappier
Wed., June 6, 7:15 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Tues., May 29, 5:00 p.m., Pacific Place
You have to figure the directors wanted this story of an amiable loser lured into crime by a sultry damsel to be film noir. What they actually made, though, is less noir than tutti-frutti: a weird amalgam of socialist realism, romantic comedy, and thriller. In a contemporary and totally un-touristic Vienna, an affectless ex-alcoholic taxi driver falls in with a ditsy drug courier (Amores Perros‘ Goya Toledo, the eponymous stranger). He gets her out of a jam, takes her home, tries to find a buyer for her goodies, and chastely shares a bed with her. From this point on, The Stranger veers into pure wish fulfillment with an urban-grit overlay. Since Toledo is mesmerizingly gorgeous (a pint-sized Julia Roberts without the gums), that may not bother anybody much, but it sure does make hash of a movie that, at little over 90 minutes, seems awfully long. R.D.
STRANGLED LIVES
Italy, 1996. Director: Ricky Tognazzi
Sat., June 9, 1:45 p.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ “A series of relationships between executioners and their victims” (Tognazzi’s words) are featured in a nasty political thriller that dissects the way a worldwide financial crisis might begin! In a corrupt “food chain,” rich widows are seduced and fleeced by financial sharks who then make loans to failing businesses until they can be gobbled up. Luca Zingaretti plays a skinheaded lawyer who evokes the image of a modern-day Mussolini at home in a new brand of fascism.
*STRICTLY SINATRA
Great Britain, 2001. Director: Peter Capaldi
Cast: Ian Hart, Kelly Macdonald, Tommy Flanagan
Sat., June 16, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Sun., June 17, 11:30 a.m., Pacific Place
While treading close to the line of being too maudlin, familiar, and predictable, Sinatra just tips the other way, instead becoming one of those endearing little Scottish movies that wins you over with its brogues and fine character acting. Backbeats Hart is a no-talent Sinatra wannabe lounge singer befriended by local mobsters. Enthralled by a hood who actually met Mr. Sinatra in Vegas, heedless of the warnings of his sage pianist (good angel-bad angel, get it?), he inevitably faces Moral Conflict in a low-rent Glaswegian underworld. Naturally theres a woman with the redemptive promise of love; thankfully shes played by the absolutely sparkling Macdonald of Trainspotting (the schoolgirl who beds Ewan McGregor), whos alone worth the price of admission. Our heros Rat Pack pretensions and terrible perm make for enjoyable low-key comedy, while the criminal squalor recalls the last-gasp gangsters of Donnie Brasco. And you can bet that numerous Sinatra standards salt the story. World premiere. B.R.M.
SUCH IS LIFE
Mexico/Spain/France, 2000. Director: Arturo Ripstein
Sat., May 26, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Mon., May 28, 11:30 a.m., Harvard Exit
SIFF SEZ All the elements of a Greek tragedy fuel this down-and-dirty adaptation of Medea set in a poor district of Mexico City. Julia’s husband abandons her for the landlord’s daughter; the landlord evicts Julia; the husband takes the children; and then Julia takes revenge . . . big-time.
*SUN ALLEY
Germany, 2000. Director: Leander Hau߭ann
Tues., June 5, 7:15 p.m., Pacific Place
Thur., June 7, 5:00 p.m., Egyptian
Seventeen-year-old Micha wants to be a rock star, so naturally spends his time playing air guitar and hunting down contraband records. Yet this is East Germany in the 1970s, when Western cultural mores and GDR political dictates collide for Micha and his gang of friends. More specifically, this neighborhood is Sun Alley, a street-end bisected by the wall from West Berlin. That barrier, with its attendant checkpoints and military police, is never out of sight or mind for our freedom-loving teens. Their taste in recreational drugs is limited to inhalants of the over-the-counter variety, and their usual pastime is figuring out how to approach women and elude the roving security police. Not unlike the motley lads of The Full Monty, Micha’s ragtag group is full of personality (rivaled only by his nutty family), which diminishes the wall in size to their often hilarious coming-of-age misadventures. E.B.R.
