Kid performers naturally introduce elements of magic and mystery into the most banal situations. They are most resonant, however, when their characters are compelled to fend for themselves—childhood as an existential condition—as in Morris Engel's The Little Fugitive (1953), Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon (1995), or So Yong Kim's Treeless Mountain. Actually, Treeless Mountain, an American indie made in Korea, doubles the condition by featuring two round-faced, bright-eyed children. Already a latchkey kid with a distracted, prematurely worn mother, 6-year-old Jin (Hee-yeon Kim, no relation to the director) is uprooted along with her younger sister, Bin (Song-hee Kim, unrelated to both), and left in a distant town to stay with a gruffly alcoholic "big aunt," while Mom goes in search of the girls' feckless father. Even when the children have been doubly abandoned, dumped by Big Aunt at their maternal grandparents' farm, Treeless Mountain is skillfully unsentimental—because of, but also despite, the presence of two irresistible, unselfconscious performers in virtually every scene. Taking its title from the barren mound of dirt overlooking the bus stop where the girls last saw their mother, the film is a careful construction. Indeed, it is so closely edited that one is never quite sure how much time has elapsed since the kids were abandoned. But then that's part of the pathos—neither do they. (NR) J. HOBERMAN Also: Pacific Place, 1:15 p.m. Sun., May 24.
6:45 p.m., SIFF Cinema
PICK: I'm No Dummy
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A documentary about ventriloquists—or "vents," as those in the trade call themselves—sounds like a Christopher Guest mockumentary, a put-on. What's next—mimes or children's birthday clowns? But anyone with a memory extending back to '50s or '60s TV programming, and later the Johnny Carson show, and still later Soap, will find this doc unexpectedly fascinating. On the '70s sitcom parody Soap, for instance, that possibly insane blonde guy with the dummy he couldn't control is Jay Johnson, who earned a Tony Award in 2007 for his stage act. He and other present masters of the craft are knowledgeable interviewees, with a strong personal connection to the early TV pioneers. (Old television clips are amazing, including the famous Señor Wences.) The circle of vents is small and tight-knit, and also likely shrinking. After the practice graduated from vaudeville to nightclubs to early TV networks (which needed cheap programming), ventriloquism appears to be receding to regional theaters and Branson, Missouri. If not quite a lost art today, in a few more decades I'm No Dummy may serve as a nice eulogy. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Johnson and others from the film will perform at 6:15 p.m. Also: Pacific Place, 4 p.m. Sun., May 24; Kirkland Performance Center, 7 p.m. Wed., June 3.
7 p.m., Harvard Exit
PICK: Still Walking
Hirokazu Koreeda's touching, acutely observed drama about a 24-hour gathering of the Yokoyama clan—together for their annual remembrance of a deceased son—dissects family allegiances and fissures with uncommon grace. As the surviving son (Hiroshi Abe), his sister (You), and respective spouses and broods settle in at their elderly parents' seaside home, quotidian events—meal planning, children playing—subtly shift to the more emotionally raw realm of buried resentment and disappointment and the futile efforts for parental approval. (NR) MELINDA ANDERSON Also: Pacific Place, 11 a.m. Fri., May 29.
7 p.m., Neptune
PICK: We Live in Public
Ondi Timoner's Sundance prizewinning doc follows obsessive self-documenter Josh Harris on his decade-long odyssey from multimillionaire Internet pioneer to Manhattan art-world cause célèbre to bankrupt (financially and emotionally), mentally unhinged exile. In 1999, before reality TV boomed or the words MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube had entered the lexicon, it was Harris who launched the underground art project "Quiet: We Live in Public," in which 100 like-minded exhibitionists lived for 30 days in open cells under the constant scrutiny of video cameras and Orwellian interrogators. Timoner (DiG!) was there from the start, and she stuck around for Harris' equally catastrophic second act, in which he and his then-girlfriend equipped their apartment with wall-to-wall surveillance cameras and proceeded to live their lives, for your viewing pleasure, at the Web site weliveinpublic.com. Harris' gradual implosion is both repellent and mesmerizing, Timoner's film unsparing in its scrutiny. She films, therefore he is. (NR) SCOTT FOUNDAS Also: Egyptian, 11 a.m. Mon., May 25.
9 p.m., Egyptian
PICK: Chef's Special
Maxi is a very high-strung Madrid chef who flames brighter than a crème brulée blowtorch and who'd sell three limbs and his grandmother to get a Guide Michelin star. Getting in the way are his estranged children, 15 and 7, back in his life; a needy, nymphomaniacal maitre d' with a penchant for drama; and the closeted Argentine soccer star who just moved in across the hall. The screenplay for Nacho G. Velilla's comedy, a hit in Spain, is sloppy with dropped plot points and implausibilities. Even if you don't think the futbol babe's way out of Maxi's league, there's still the obvious hurdle that Maxi's a complete bitch. (And no man who wants to stay closeted should be seen within 50 meters of him.) Still, there's considerable fun in the script's stylish foul-mouthery ("Spanish is such a rich language when it comes to disrespecting somebody," says Maxi's wastrelly sous-chef) and in one of the funniest inadvertent coming-out scenes since Ellen blurted into that airport mike. (NR) GAVIN BORCHERT Also: Pacific Place, 3:30 p.m. Mon., May 25.
