Week 1 Picks & Pans

THURSDAY, MAY 22

Battle in Seattle

A sort of teargas–drenched version of Crash, Battle in Seattle is a gritty evocation of a tumultuous moment all but erased from recent memory. It too marks an actor's debut as writer and director, in this case Queen of the Damned's Stuart Townsend, who directs girlfriend Charlize Theron, as well as Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin, and Lost's Michelle Rodriguez. The film, shot documentary-style by the brilliant cinematographer Barry Aykroyd (United 93), is a multilayered and unexpectedly thrilling retelling of the 1999 riots that engulfed Seattle during the World Trade Organization's meetings, which were cut short by protesters who ranged from righteous activists to hell-raising anarchists. Townsend has little patience for either the cops who willy-nilly attacked peaceful protesters, or for some of the protesters themselves whose reckless antics wound up stifling necessary debate among those who came to Seattle demanding the WTO treat poor countries with the same deference shown its richer members. (NR) ROBERT WILONSKY McCaw Hall: 7 p.m. Thurs., May 22.

FRIDAY, MAY 23

Ballast

Lance Hammer's remarkable debut feature is also the debut for his entire principal cast—nonprofessional actors recruited on location in Canton, Miss. It's the story of a mother and son trying to make ends meet, a story rendered fragmentary, mysterious, and poetic, revealing its central characters and relationships gradually and from a distance, as if we were entering into a private dream. Ballast is a movie marked by the most unusual mix of inspirations: Charles Burnett's impressionistic renderings of black American life, the Dardenne brothers' neorealist city symphonies, and Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' ecstatic widescreen exploration of rural vistas. But Hammer has digested those influences and formed from them a wholly original meditation on lost souls trying to gain a foothold in a bleak, treacherous landscape. It is, I think, the single most impressive film to premiere at Sundance since Half Nelson in 2006. (NR) SCOTT FOUNDAS Pacific Place: 7 p.m. (Also: 4:30 p.m. Sat., May 24.)

Before the Rains

British plantation owner and colonialist extraordinaire Henry Moores (Linus Roache) fancies himself the cowboy of Kerala, cavorting around the jungle with his Indian mistress, Sajani (Nandita Das), as he makes plans to expand his operations by branching out into spices: "Today, tea; tomorrow...cinnamon!" Coyly placed portents (a crushed robin's nest, a prominently displayed pistol) assure us that something is destined to go awry, and indeed, Henry's life begins to unravel almost immediately: Labor unrest thwarts his plan to build a transport road, even as his sharp-eyed wife (the wonderfully headstrong Jennifer Ehle) joins him in India, and Sajani's brutal husband starts to suspect that she's been unfaithful. Henry is less a character than a metaphor for imperialism; despite his buttoned-up bravado, he can't face the consequences of his carelessness with both Sajani and Kerala itself. As you might expect from a Merchant-Ivory production, Before the Rains is saddled with a predictable lushness—even a streak of blood on a dirty window is aestheticized until it looks like stained glass—and the sensuality here can crowd out the sense. Still, director Santosh Sivan imparts a vastness and a sense of wonder to the film, qualities reminiscent of a Thomas Cole painting: They remind you why the Brits thought conquering India was a good idea in the first place. (PG-13) JULIA WALLACE Uptown: 7 p.m. (Also: 11 a.m. Sat., May 24.)

Continental, A Film Without Guns

In the grand tradition of The Savages, last year's feel-good blockbuster about dysfunctional families and dementia, this movie bills itself as a "black comedy"—probably because that's the most enticing description its distributors can find to market a slow-paced deliberation on modern alienation whose humor arises out of awkward encounters between clinically lonely people. Quebecois director Stéphane Lafleur's first feature tracks the rollicking adventures of four characters chosen for maximum pathos and filmed in gorgeously geriatric blues and greens: a middle-aged man training to become an insurance salesman; a hotel clerk working the midnight shift who leaves telephone messages for herself; a junk-store owner on furlough from his marriage who tries video poker to pay for dental surgery; a woman whose husband has disappeared. Occasionally the characters talk to each other. For three blissful seconds, in fact, two share a laugh. (NR) JONATHAN KAUFFMAN Pacific Place: 9:30 p.m. (Also: 11 a.m. Sat., May 24.)

The Edge of Heaven

Fatih Akin's Heaven wears current events on its sleeve, feeling out the state of German-Turkish relationships as the former Ottomans clean house for EU membership, and the demographic earthquake of 70 million Muslims waits at Europe's door. Examining a continent whose increasingly porous borders have drastically undermined a long-standing homogeneity is very much at the center of new European cinema. Akin previously offered pseudo-provocations and a superficially deceptive simulacrum of Art with his punk-posturing 2004 Head-On (also at SIFF). Heaven ups the ambition: Its screenplay is a Dickensian network of happenstance, serving to intertwine six characters of different ages, nationalities, and castes. Three parent-child sets fracture, then reconcile/recombine. This expression of growth-through-trauma mostly involves actors hugging and making wistful "older and wiser" expressions while looking into the middle distance. (Everyone gets along. That the Turks believe in a different God than the Germans, and actually believe at that, is apparently not a pressing concern.) If the united Europe aspires to compete with America globally, this is good news—they've found their own multiculti Paul Haggis! (NR) NICK PINKERTON Egyptian: 6:30 p.m. (Also: Pacific Place: 1:30 p.m. Sun., May 25).

Elite Squad