SIFF Week 2: Picks & Pans

Wednesday, May 26

7 p.m., Harvard Exit

Devil's Town

In tennis-mad Belgrade, this dark comedy is set among the mostly ridiculous politicians, mistresses, mobsters, rich kids, and tennis brats who fixate on that game's Serbian stars—e.g., Jelena Jankovic—rather than consider their own lives or their nation's recent history. It's a broad mandate, and Devil's Town is a broad comedy. A businessman returning to his homeland grouses, "Everyone wants a bribe." It's not just an expectation in this culture of corruption, but a national right. All the characters in Vladimir Paskaljevic's debut feature are connected, but to find out how means detours through whorehouses, rabbit farms, hospitals, and yachts where money (or sex) is exchanged for services. Murders are attempted, many tennis balls hit, and a foolish filmmaker begs his dying father for the money to back a movie. (First he'll win an Oscar, he says, then make the Serbian epic that explains their misunderstood country to the world.) Unlike the grim new cinema from Romania, similarly benighted in the post-Soviet era, the spirit here is one of disgusted laughter. Moments of tenderness are few, and generally among those with no money and no prospects. (NR) BRIAN MILLER (Also: 4 p.m. Mon., May 31.)

7 p.m., Egyptian

Night Catches Us

In 1976 Philadelphia, a former Black Panther returns home from prison to find a new generation of youth even more aggressive and volatile than the old guard. The cops—predominantly white—are an increasingly invasive presence in his neighborhood, and the racially divided city seems to be eating itself alive. Yet Marcus (Anthony Mackie, of The Hurt Locker and Half Nelson) backs down from no one; he snarls his way through condemnations of both oppressors and misguided radicals. His perfect partner-in-disgust is Patricia (Kerry Washington, Mother and Child), a stern but giving woman also harboring old Black Panther ideals. Unfortunately, she also has a direct family connection to the new era—an angry young cousin who glorifies violence and comes into conflict with Marcus. Another problem: Some suspect Marcus' involvement in the death of her husband. And the FBI may be spying on these activists. Night Catches Us boasts an amazing soundtrack by the Roots that blends '70s soul hits with contemporary hip-hop. Similarly, the film incorporates old documentary footage of relevant history into its narrative. Director Tanya Hamilton's debut feature examines an ugly time in U.S. race relations and makes something explosive yet beautiful out of it. (NR) A.J. TIGNER (Also: 4:30 p.m. Thurs., May 27, and Everett Performing Arts Center, 3 p.m. Sat., May 29.)

7 p.m., SIFF Cinema

Visionaries: Jonas Mekas and the (Mostly) American Avant-Garde Cinema

If you've read all the way through the title above, you'll want to see this film. That means you already know who Mekas is, and you have a taste—endurance?—for the non-narrative cinema that emerged in 1950s New York. Maybe you've even stood in line at Anthology Film Archives, which Lithuanian World War II refugee Mekas helped found in 1969. Visionaries director Chuck Workman is a product of that same scene, though he's best known for his brilliantly edited Oscar montages—especially those sad but gorgeous reels of dead Hollywood stars. He begins this tribute with a similar wordless assembly of images—by Stan Brakhage, Warhol, Paul Strand, Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Bruce Conner, Ken Jacobs, and others—set to a passage from Holst's The Planets. After that—well, casual viewers may lose interest. Visionaries moves to a more standard documentary format: interviews, more old clips (now identified), plus many encomiums to the 88-year-old Mekas and plenty of his spry life philosophy. ("I survive on wine, women, and song. Plus cinema!") Workman is scheduled to attend SIFF with his film. In it, my favorite moment is a very dry Andy Warhol explaining how Mekas got interested in projecting film leader (the blank stuff preceding the actual images). So, says Warhol, "I ran a lot of leader." And people bought tickets to watch. (NR) BRIAN MILLER (Also: 4:30 p.m. Fri., May 28.)

9 p.m., Uptown

Foxes

The character-driven drama follows pretty Slovak screwup Albeta and her prettier (and more stable) older sister Tina as they navigate multiculti Dublin. Shot with a gritty mise-en-scène, Foxes' initial tension seems to be routine sibling rivalry within a system that values foreign women only for their menial labor or hot bods. Mysteriously haunted Albeta flounders from being an au pair, then a waitress, and eventually a mistress to a wealthy hunk. What's her problem? Our main clue is a photo of her and Tina with a man whose face has been clawed out. A further sign of her despair is a hairstyle that gets progressively more deranged. (Crazy woman, crazy hair.) Despite the heavy-handed symbolism of an actual fox scampering through Dublin and trying to survive, Foxes' tenor is matter-of-fact realistic, even as the sisters' fortunes suddenly start to look dismally alike. Secrets are revealed via flashback, and Albeta decides to wreck Tina's life. The resulting soap opera undercuts the seriousness of their position. These two women are clinging to the threshold of a society whose door only opens so wide. (NR) MARGARET FRIEDMAN (Also: Harvard Exit, 4 p.m. Fri., May 28.)

Thursday, May 27