*BREAD AND TULIPS
(dir. Silvio Soldini, Italy)
In Hollywood, the amazing thing about women over forty is that they rarely
actually look over forty. Sela Ward, Rene Russo, Cher–magazines scream over
their great accomplishment: appearing closer to thirty. In this movie, the main
character is a housewife with grown kids who looks about like a housewife, and
she’s terrific. She’s well worth watching as she evolves from a harried mother
on a bus tour to a freewheeling single woman establishing a new life in Venice.
The comedy emerges organically, and sometimes rises to the level of slapstick.
At moments, the film lifts off to surreal, dreamy passages, which complement
the realism. Secondary characters are well drawn, with complex lives in process.
This is an upbeat film with the happy message that love, passion, picnics and
accordion music are available to everyone, at any age, as long as one is open
to adventure. MONICA DRAKE
Fox Theater: 7:15 pm, Feb 9; 3 pm, Feb 10


DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER
(dir. Fritz Lang, Germany)
Anyone who doubts there were sophisticated
people in olden days should be taken to see a film by Fritz Lang. The Dr. Mabuse
of the title is a criminal mastermind out to destroy all decent life. Although
the pace is slow for an audience nurtured on lightweight cameras and explosive
visual effects¯oh, let’s be frank, the pace is slow, period. But the sensibility
is right up there with our own comic noir favorites, from Guy Ritchie of Lock,
Stock etc. to the Quentin Tarantino of Reservoir Dogs. Much will
depend on the quality of the print and the musical accompaniment. If they are
poor, Mabuse will seem like moldy camp; but if good, relax and sink deep
into a burnished fever-dream of pure, unadulterated eeeevilll. BARLEY BLAIR
Whitsell Hall: Part I: 2 pm, Feb 18; Part II: 6 pm, Feb 18

* THE ENDURANCE: SHACKLETON’S LEGENDARY ANTARTIC
EXPEDITION
(dir. George Butler, USA)
This is an aptly named movie for a film
festival. Like Ernest Shackleton, whose almost disastrous South Pole trek this
documentary chronicles, the viewer begins with a great burst of optimism at
the array of titles soon to come, despite the seemingly insurmountable task
all that lies ahead of seeing them. Then, like Shackleton and his crew caught
in the disastrous ice pack, one realizes what one has got oneself into, as film
after film comes at you. Also like Shackleton, wandering helplessly on the ice
flow, you seem to get nowhere as you scamper from one theater to another, and
films you really want to see prove elusive. Finally, like Shackleton abandoning
his men to sail 800 miles across uncharted ocean to a small whaling community
to get help, the viewer gives up, abandons friends, hunkers down, and tries
to get to the closing night of the festival unscathed. Thus, this quietly competent
documentary by George Butler, which, narrated by Liam Neeson, blends actual
footage of the trek with new footage of the places they endured, plus interviews
with the crew’s ancestors, will seem very familiar to festival frequenters.
D. K. HOLM
Whitsell Hall: 2 pm, Feb 10; 7 pm, Feb 13

THE GIRL IN THE SNEAKERS
(dir. Rassul Sadr Amerli, Iran)
This movie feels emotionally
familiar, even though the story is set in what is (to U.S. sensibilities) the
distant and culturally removed world of Iran. A 15-year-old girl, attracted
to a philosophical and dreamy boy she meets in the park, finds herself nearly
squashed under the oppressive rule of her parents and culture when the authorities
step in. The girl is arrested, detained and given a pelvic exam to determine
that her virginity is still intact. For obvious reasons, she’s resentful and
sullen. In an effort toward self-determination, she runs away from home. Most
of the film takes place as she barely manages a night on the streets. The girl
is universal in her idealism and urges. She’s at odds with authority, and almost
manic at moments, speaking to strangers in an unguarded way. Ultimately, the
story is about the perpetual conflict between control and impulsiveness in a
person, a family or a culture as a whole. MONICA DRAKE
Broadway Theater: 2:45 pm, Feb 10; 7 pm, Feb 12; 6:30 pm, Feb 15


HOUSE
(dir. Julian Kemp, Britain)
House is yet another British movie that looks like all other British movies (fuzzy camera, lots of “charming” old
ladies with blue hair and raincoats, and most scenes taking place in front of
brick London townhouses). In this particular Brit flick, the old ladies are
extra “charming,” as they come in the form of bingo players at La Scala, the
archaic bingo house that represents all that is traditional and proper about
England. La Scala is about to be put out of business by the new bingo parlor,
which represents the new, evil, capitalistic age. Full of flimsy metaphors and
paper-thin characters, this movie is pretty much boring, but it’s fun to hear
some real, live British accents and the heroine, Linda, is super cute. KATIA
DUNN
Broadway Theater: 7:30 pm, Feb 9; 4 pm, Feb 10; 9:15 pm, Feb 15


* IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

(dir. Wong-Kar-Wai, Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-Wai keeps his usual riot of romantic color but drops his hyperbolic
visual kinesthesia in favor of an almost classical distance and patience; the
result is the most achingly beautiful film anyone has made in years. Tony Leung
and Maggie Cheung are no less marvelous than you’d expect as the jilted spouses
who always find themselves circling one painful step away from seeking comfort
in each other’s arms, but even these two comely actors are the least of the
film’s attractions. Every moment in the film, each image, each sound, snaps
in place with the effortlessness of perfection. So sorrowful and sublime you
can feel the filmmaker’s hands press lightly against your chest; then push,
till the wind is knocked clean out of you. BRUCE REID
Guild Theater, 8:30 pm, Feb 17; 7 pm, Feb 19


* KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS
(dir. Michele Ocelot, France)
Animated family film Kirikou
and the Sorceress is by Western standards a crazy story, which is a good
thing. Most African folk tales that are retold in American children’s books
or made into short films are straightened out–made to obey Western linearity,
with all vulgar or offensive content carefully removed. Kirikou makes
no attempts in the direction of cleanliness or order, and sticks, as close as
it can, to the original content and narrative structure of the West African
story. I really don’t want to explain the plot of this film because it is too
complex, and I’m too westernized. But I will say that it never loses its momentum,
and you soon become used to the fantastic leaps and turns the bizarre story
makes. CHARLES MUDEDE
Whitsell Hall: 1 pm, Feb 24

POLLOCK
(dir. Ed Harris, USA)
Another attempt from the film industry to
mine the romantic lie of Bohemian life. This is actor Ed Harris’ directorial
debut (he also stars), and seems too hurried to establish the iconic events
of painter Jackson Pollock’s life–see Pollock urinate in Peggy Guggenheim’s
fireplace, see Pollock overturn the Thanksgiving table, see Pollock accidentally
discover drip painting–instead of letting any of these moments achieve any
natural resolution. It’s like being hustled past works in an exhibition without
being allowed to linger. One of the movie’s great joys (besides Amy Madigan
as a tart Guggenheim), however, is the sight of Harris painting: the pace slows,
the camera lingers, and Harris comes to life, suggesting that Pollock found
a fluidity in art that he never found in life. EMILY HALL
Whitsell Hall, 7 pm, Feb 11; 7 pm, Feb 12


* YANA’S FRIENDS
(dir. Arik Kaplun, Israel)
In this surprisingly complicated and charming story, the title character tries to work through the serene riddle
that her life has become. The year is 1991 and Saddam Hussein’s forces are slamming
Israel with SCUD missiles. Yana is a Russian immigrant, three months pregnant
and recently abandoned by her husband in Israel, with a nosy, amateur filmmaker
for a roommate. Think sex, lies & videotape with subtitles and gas masks.
At first, Yana’s Friends seems to plod through a murky collection of
family, friends and wayward immigrants who live in adjacent apartments. But
soon it becomes apparent that director Arik Kaplun has cleverly obscured the
murky stories about these characters, their charms and complications. Wryly
funny and clever, Yana’s Friends has won umpteen awards. PHIL BUSSE Whitsell
Hall: 7:30 pm, Feb 9; 4:30 pm, Feb 11

* YI YI
(dir. Edward Yang, Taiwan)
Confident enough in its rhythms
to dwell gingerly over the rituals and mysteries of a teenager’s first date
yet almost rush without comment past a murder, Edward Yang’s Yi Yi manages
the miraculous feat of being a work of art that unfolds with the inevitability
of life. The intimate hopes, sadnesses, regrets of a middle class Taipei family–dad
hooking up with the love he left years before, mom admitting how worthless she
feels, daughter longing for a forbidden boyfriend, son just reaching the age
where childhood certainty and innocence are exchanged for confusion and knowledge–earns
its epic length by compassionate attention to the tiniest details. If this family
drama is not a masterpiece, the word is meaningless. BRUCE REID
Whitsell Hall, 7 pm, Feb 10