For most, dust is a nuisance. And unless you're a big fan of documentaries about the stuff, you'll probably feel the same way about German director Hartmut Bitomsky's Dust. Though the film is beautifully shot, revealing the smallest dusty details, the topic itself can't support a 90-minute presentation spoken in German (with English subtitles). Dust may bring to mind a foreign version of the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe—but without the witty host. Beginning with the philosophical "dust to dust" idea, the documentary had me at first. As it moves through various uses of the tiny particles, such as mining and creating paint, one loses interest. For me, the link between dust's philosophical and everyday aspects isn't there. If you prefer your documentaries dry and scientific, by all means examine Dust. Otherwise, brush it off. (NR) MEGHAN PETERS Northwest Film Forum: 9:30 p.m. (Also: 5 p.m. Mon., May 26.
Epitaph
Old Dr. Park (Jeon Mu-song) began his medical career at Anseong Hospital in 1942, when the Japanese occupied Korea. He's relieved, as this K-horror story begins in 1979, that it will soon be torn down. In flashback, the subtle, creepy Epitaph recalls how a young and naive Park (now Jin Goo) first arrives at Anseong, and the strange series of events that follows. Cadavers disappear. An otherwise healthy patient dies of heart failure. One of the doctors doesn't have a shadow (revealed in a neat flashlight sequence). In their directorial debut, the Jeong brothers show they're already masters of ominous dread. Light on gore and low in body count by Saw standards, Epitaph emphasizes lingering psychological disturbances in its three World War II–era chapters. Those disturbances will remain with Dr. Park, and the viewer, even after the hospital ceases to exist. (NR) ERIKA HOBART Egyptian: 11:55 p.m.
Everything Is Fine
SIFF
The Fall, with Justine Waddell, is all spectacle.
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Teenage suicide movies work better in Japan, or with the stylish retro sheen of Sofia Coppola. But up in the Rust Belt of Quebec, there's no glamour to four boys offing themselves in high school—which is certainly director Yves Christian Fournier's entire point (he lost four friends to suicide, according to the film's production notes). Everything Is Fine—the title couldn't be more ironic—follows the odd teen out: the victims' best friend, Josh (Maxime Dumontier), who resists every effort by parents and high-school counselors to answer the inevitable "Why?" Unfortunately, Josh's stolid, chain-smoking resistance, interrupted only for sex in the local gravel pit, is tedious to watch. Fournier splits the adolescent sulk-a-thon into several time frames—before, during, and after any number of lethal events. But unscrambling who died when does little to relieve the movie's—and Josh's—chronic self-absorption. The film is most alive during its animated opening credits. And Normand D'Amour, as one victim's father (a dissipated ex-pro golfer), cuts through the torpor with his rage. "Life sucks," he tells Josh. "What do you dumb-asses think?" Would that the movie's other 114 minutes were as direct and effective. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Pacific Place: 7 p.m. (Also: 4:15 p.m. Sun., May 25.)
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
As expected, Hunter S. Thompson's 2005 suicide has been trailed by a glut of unauthorized bios and half-baked I-Knew-Hunter memoirs. I've read a lot of them, but Alex Gibney's stylish documentary is the first tribute done right. Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) doesn't bother trying to build myth or expound upon Thompson's personal life—which, of course, Thompson more than took care of during his lifetime. Gibney's doc succeeds because (1) he was given full access to Thompson's archives and the Owl Farm compound; (2) he doesn't drown the film with celebrity interviews; (3) he focuses on Thompson's body of work (not his love of booze and illegal weapons); and (4) he approaches his subject objectively and notlike some raving fanboy. Thompson aficionados will swoon upon hearing the actual conversations Thompson tape-recorded of himself and Oscar Zeta Acosta (aka "Dr. Gonzo") zipping across the desert in search of the American dream, as well as the tapes of him bickering with illustrator Ralph Steadman about attending the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire. The film gives equal play to Thompson's achievements and his failures; it veers off course only to follow his late-life cartoonish public persona. His first wife offers a chilling final word: Our current era of fear and loathing could use a voice like Thompson's more than ever. Anyone feel like picking up where he left off? (NR) BRIAN J. BARR Egyptian: 3:45 p.m. (Also: 9 p.m. Mon., May 26.)
Hair: Let the Sun Shine In
This pleasantly diverting look at the 1967 "American tribal love-rock musical" offers plenty of vintage clips and talking heads, plus scenes from a recent production, full of fresh-faced kids getting their hippie on, supervised by original book writer James Rado. (Co-author Gerome Ragni died in 1991—very possibly, the footage here suggests, from self-absorption.) But the big question, which this doc does a very inadequate job of answering, is: Why Hair, now, again? There are a few passing plus-ça-change mentions of the Iraq War and the show's continuing relevance, yadda yadda. But no one involved seems quite to grasp that reviving this period piece is the equivalent of Hair-era actors reviving a show from the 1920s—and then running around claiming the timeless message of The Student Prince still speaks to us today. The songs are catchy, even sometimes genuinely beautiful (and we see composer Galt MacDermot has gracefully aged into silver-haired squirehood), but I'd forgotten how many of the lyrics are basically just word lists compiled by thesaurus. The whole thing just seems so...stodgy. When the film's one non-unintentional laugh comes from Johnny Carson, you know the counterculture's dead and buried. (NR) GAVIN BORCHERT SIFF Cinema: 1 p.m. (Also: 4 p.m. Mon., May 26.)
Heavy Metal in Baghdad
