Our SIFF Recommendations: Week 4

Sun., June 14, 6:30 p.m., Cinerama, 0SS 117: Lost in Rio Considered as a film alone, this sequel to the delightful French 2006 retro-spy romp now wears its premise rather thin. But add in the closing-night gala party at the nearby Pan Pacific Hotel…well, it’s just barely a pick. Agent 0SS 117 (Jean Dujardin) is back, but he’s stumbled forward from the early Cold War espionage period (James Bond) to the late ’60s (perilously close to Austin Powers). Dispatched to Brazil to retrieve some damning microfilm from Nazis, our blithely arrogant dimwit hero encounters hippies, Jews (including a sexy Mossad agent played by Louise Monot), Chinese assassins, and loud-mouthed CIA bullies. And, yes, Hubert manages to offend them all with his oblivious, De Gaullist notions of patriarchal French superiority. But we got that joke the first time. After a ski-lodge dance party intro, Hubert’s antics—and all the split-screen Thomas Crown Affair montages—become progressively less hilarious, allowing you to study the perfect period costumes and background décor. Hubert’s lapels are wider, the ladies’ skirts are shorter, men’s hair is longer, and strange new polyester fabrics now come in burnt oranges, bright mustards, and startling mauves. Much to his chagrin, the world is changing around Hubert. Still, he clings to the old ways. When the Mossad hottie lists his many imperfections—“You’re old, full of yourself, borderline racist…”—he hears only one criticism, and sounds genuinely hurt by it: “A tacky dresser?” (NR) BRIAN MILLER

Fri., June 12, 9:30 p.m., Harvard Exit, Youssou N’dour: I Bring What I Love It’s with not a small amount of embarrassment that I admit that, prior to watching this doc, my only knowledge of Youssou N’dour was his “In Your Eyes” duet with Peter Gabriel for Say Anything. I’m probably not alone there, which I expect will make Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s portrait of the Sengalese singer and political activist that much more compelling to Western audiences. But what sets I Bring What I Love apart from other musician-centric documentaries is that in avoiding hagiography, it becomes something much more novel: a nuanced exploration of Islam that avoids the topic of terrorism altogether. In 2004, N’dour released Egypt, a collection of Sufi praise-hymns in the vein of his griot roots, and while he performed the album in front of adoring, and also, secular European audiences, sales of the album in his native and predominantly Muslim Senegal tanked. Vasarhelyi follows N’dour, one of Africa’s most treasured musicians, as he attempts and ultimately fails to negotiate the fault lines between his profession, his faith, and the rigid traditions that determine how and when that faith is celebrated. (NR) VERNAL COLEMAN Also: 1:30 p.m. Sun., June 14.