WHISPERING SANDS
Indonesia/Japan, 2001. Director: Nan T. Achnas
Wed., June 12, 4:30 p.m., Cinerama
Thurs., June 13, 9:30 p.m., Pacific Place
A young woman awaits her absent father's return. U.S. premiere.
FIRST LOOK PICTURES
Skins
WHO THE HELL IS BOBBY ROOS?
U.S.A., 2001. Director: John Feldman
Tues., June 11, 4:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Wed., June 12, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
A stand-up schizophrenic comedian, that's who. World premiere.
THE WILD BEES
Czech Republic, 2001. Director: Bohdan Sl᭡
Fri., May 24, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Sat., May 25, 11:30 a.m., Harvard Exit
What happens to a remote Czech village once freed from the tedium-inducing strictures of the Communist regime? Sadly, the answer is still more tedium—only of a slightly more aimless variety. The tone of Wild Bees is intentionally bleak: Smiles are rare; booze is for breakfast; and monstrous middle-aged whores are the primary source of recreation. The unyielding gloom is intended as comedy, but unless people repeatedly calling one another "idiot" is hilarious to you, the laughs are spread awfully thin. Lada, a man obsessed with Michael Jackson, does a fine turn as the village, well, idiot. Yet, oddly, this joke isn't stretched as far as it could be. Bozka (Tatiana Vilhelmova), Lada's spectacularly bored girlfriend, is oddly compelling, but that's probably because everyone else in Bees is so staggeringly unappealing. The clouds lift a bit towards the end of the picture, but by then we're past caring. P.F.
WILD FLOWERS
Czech Republic, 2000. Director: F.A. Brabec
Wed., June 5, 7:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Thurs., June 6, 4:30 p.m., Harvard Exit
Few can be expected to know the 19th-century Czech poet Karel Jaromir Erben, on whose works Flowers' seven episodes are based. Combining folklore with a certain surreal yet sexual morbidity, Erben's stories suggest both Poe and Kafka. A lake-dwelling demon lover seduces a maiden, then won't let her flee. A red-haired beauty's jealous stepsister and mother chop her to bits, but magic saves the day. A young widow prays for the return of her dead soldier husband, then comes to regret her piety. Since these tales are spoken in verse and framed with a young flute-playing boy cavorting about, Flowers' never-never land quality can seem cloying and inscrutably foreign. But if you're inclined to take the Brothers Grimm and Bruno Betelheim seriously, these odd fairy tales offer moments of beauty and bizarre portents of death. "I scoff at superstition," one girl declares, not realizing the power of such enduring beliefs. B.R.M.
WINNING GIRLS THROUGH PSYCHIC MIND CONTROL
U.S.A., 2001. Director: Barry Alexander Brown
Cast: Bronson Pinchot, Amy Carlson
Sun., June 9, 6:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Sat., June 15, 1:45 p.m., Pacific Place
Serge has come a long way in the 18 years since Beverly Hills Cop. Unfortunately for Pinchot, its not far enough in this slim supernatural/showbiz comedy. He and Ruben Santiago-Hudson (a Tony winner in August Wilsons Seven Guitars) are likable as the down-on-their-luck lounge musicians who hit upon a psychic act when the latter, a Puerto Rican drummer, begins channeling voices from the beyond. That premise might sustain the low-budget, shot-on-video comedy, but Controls script unfortunately devolves into relationship psychodrama as Pinchots pianist pines for his torch singer ex (Third Watchs Carlson). Just help me get my life back, Pinchot implores the paranormal Conductor whose deep baritone abruptly emanates from the startled drummer. Forget the life or the girla wiser request wouldve been for a better movie. Its unclear if Pinchot or Carlson do their own singing; regardless, Control never finds its own voice. World premiere. B.R.M.
WRITTEN ON THE BODY OF NIGHT
Mexico, 2000. Director: Jaime Humberto Hermosillo
Mon., May 27, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
Wed., May 29, 4:30 p.m., Egyptian
A teenage boy's hormones rage in a household crowded with women.
*YELLOW ASPHALT
Israel, 2000. Director: Danny Veret鼯I>
Sun., May 26, 4:00 p.m., Pacific Place
Tues., May 28, 7:00 p.m., Pacific Place
The nomadic Bedouin tribes of Israel's occupied West Bank populate the three vignettes in this searing anthology film. The triptych relates stories that are as stark, elemental, and powerful as the arid landscape of the Judean desert. In one chapter, terrified Israeli truckers negotiate with Bedouins after a traffic accident. In another, the German-born wife of a Bedouin seeks repeatedly to escape an unhappy marriage and take her daughters with her. In the third and longest segment, an Israeli farmer's adultery with his Bedouin maid leads inexorably to blood and atonement, like a film noir in broad daylight. The Bedouins' unforgiving moral code gives dignity to the tribe but keeps it obdurately apart in a fast-modernizing country. Asphalt depicts its Bedouin subjects—all played by nonprofessional actors—as being terribly stoic, principled, and aloof at the same time, an almost inscrutable yet admirable people. Says one elder, "To live in both worlds . . . that cannot be done." B.R.M.
THE ZOOKEEPER
Czech Republic/Denmark/U.K./Netherlands, 2001. Director: Ralph Ziman
Cast: Sam Neill, Gina McKee, Om Puri
Sun., June 9, 1:45 p.m., Pacific Place
Tues., June 11, 9:30 p.m., Egyptian
There's no denying the power of director Ziman's images as his camera prowls a zoo caught by civil war in an unnamed Balkan city, nor of the forcefulness of Sam Neill's presence as its world-weary zookeeper with a troubled past. Ludovic elects to stay at his dangerous post when the rest of the staff flees. When Ludovic's loyal veterinarian (Puri) disappears, he finds two dangerous trespassers: a beautiful and violated refugee mother and her preteenage son, who's turning into an assassin before her eyes. If visuals and good intentions were all, this solemn twist on man's inhumanity to men and animals might work, but the characters are so heavily symbolic that they never get a chance to breathe. As for the primates and big animals, seemingly terrorized by fire and explosions, Ziman recently answered a worried film-festival questioner by explaining, "They were circus animals." Ahhh. S.B.
