The 2007 Miami International Film Festival

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Greetings from sunny Miami. Local filmgoers await with excitement the signature film event in our city. The 2007 Miami International Film Festival will take place from March 2nd to March 11th at 6 venues throughout the city. The festival is divided into several sections. 17 films from established directors, which are typically shown out of competition, are screened at the majestic 1400-seat Gusman Theatre in the downtown area. Dramatic and Documentary features competing for awards usually receive three screenings at smaller venues located in South Beach, Coral Gables, Little Havana, and North Miami. This year the Festival opens with the screening of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and closes with the world premiere of The Heart of the Earth, the new film by Antonio Cuadri.

The Festival will show well over 100 films from throughout the world, with a continued concentration on documentaries and films from Iberoamerica. The Festival's Film Exchange Program focuses on a different Latin American country each year with exhibition of films, panel discussions and events. This year, films from emerging Colombian filmmakers will be shown, and the festival will bring to Bogota a group of film industry advisors to share experience and knowledge with Colombian film students and filmmakers.

In 2007, the Festival bestows its Career Achievement Award to the world-famous director Luc Besson. His latest film, Angel-A, will be screened following a tribute.
Let the films begin!

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CHOKING MAN (USA)

Choking Man is set in Jamaica, Queens, where reportedly 140 different languages are spoken. Rick, a sympathetic Greek man, is the owner of Olympic Diner. His quiet wife is the cashier; a surly Mexican cooks; there's Jerry, a jokester from Philadelphia who did time for selling drugs, and middle-aged, long-suffering waitress Teri. The film's protagonist is Jorge, a pathologically shy busboy from Ecuador. When Rick hires a new waitress named Amy, a cute and vivacious Chinese girl, friction develops between Jerry and Jorge.

Choking man is quite a departure for Steve Barron, who directed groundbreaking music videos in the early 80s and went on to make Electric Dreams, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Coneheads. His latest feature is an independent, low-budget film, based on his own script, that depicts a young immigrant "choking on the American Dream". One can't imagine the extremely introverted, near-mute Jorge managing anywhere, and one can't imagine a more inaccessible protagonist. Barron responds to the challenge by finding novel ways to get inside Jorge's head. At first it seems that the handsome guy inside Jorge's dingy studio is his roommate. Gradually it becomes apparent he is a type of mental projection, perhaps Jorge's alter ego, or his subconscious, or an alternative personality kept locked inside his psyche. On the outside, Barron illustrates Jorge's thoughts and imaginings via brief animated sequences. As a result, Choking Man manages to create a rich character study of an individual cinema rarely bothers to portray. The excellent ensemble cast features Mandy Patikin as Rick, and newcomers Octavio Gomez Berrios and Eugenia Yuan. Choking Man was named "Best Film Not Playting at a Theater Near You" at the Gotham Awards.

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COCALERO (Bolivia)

Cocalero is a term used in Bolivia to describe coca leaf growers or members of the union they formed to advance their interests. Coca growers became politicized after the Bolivian government, pressured and financed by the USA, began a campaign to eradicate coca plantations. The key person in this union movement is Evo Morales, a bachelor of indigenous descent (Aymara tribe) who is now the President of this South American country. Native populations have historically been subjected to all types of abuses and discrimination throughout the Americas. Morales states he understood the degree of hatred towards indians when, in 1981, he witnessed a Quechua man being burned alive by soldiers not far from his small farm.

Documentarian Alejandro Landes was given unprecedented access to the charismatic but simple leader. Cocalero's footage was shot over the course of a year, but focuses mainly on Morales during the 2-month campaign as the presidential candidate from the "March Toward Socialism" party. Landes shows him getting a haircut at a tiny barbershop, taking a back-country swim in a river, ordering breakfast at a food stall, and casually chatting with townfolk. Morales is a populist who seems quite humble, lacking the arrogance and self-importance of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, his major ally in the region. We watch him at campaign meetings and political demonstrations, rallying workers with a fiery speech and appeasing business and military leaders. As we follow the candidate, the viewer gets an overview of Bolivian society although, lamentably, Cocalero pays no attention to the opposition or those who disagree with his socialist platform. Of particular interest are scenes involving several indigenous women of limited education who have been elected to political posts, and a scene in which Morales is publicly subjected to racial slurs. Cocalero ends with a caption that reports that Morales won the election with 54% of the vote in his favor. Over the closing credits, we watch a tailor making a business suit for the president. His first one.

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SALVADOR (PUIG ANTICH) (Spain)

The titular character is the last person to be sentenced to death in western Europe. It happened, naturally, at the conclusion of the Franco regime in Spain, the last country in the region to embrace democracy. The film opens immediately after Salvador (Daniel Bruhl, who was born in Barcelona and speaks unaccented Spanish and Catalan) was brought to jail. He meets with his lawyer Arau (Tristan Ulloa) and recounts in flashback the last three years of his life. At the beginning of the 1970s, the MIL, a left-wing group made up of a handful of Spanish college students and French militants, commits a series of robberies in Catalonia to fund the more radical sectors of the workers' movement. At first, their success gives the young, giddy MIL members a feeling of invulnerability. Their actions come to a sudden end in September 1973 when members of the Socio-Political Brigade set a trap for two of the group's key members. During the arrest, there is a shootout in which a police inspector dies. Salvador is seriously injured and, after a time in hospital, is sent to Modelo prison in Barcelona to await trial. Salvador depicts the camaraderie between the friends/partners-in-arms and the protagonist's intermittent family life and romantic liaisons.

Director Manuel Huerga (Antartida, Gaudi) maintains a fast pace during the fist half of the film via quick edits and skillful deployment of handheld cameras. The vibrant, saturated colors give way to a palatte of somber grays and blues during the last hour of Salvador. Arau and Salvador's sisters race against the clock to save him from "the garrote", Franco's very brutal method of execution. However, on 20 December 1973, an ETA bomb kills Admiral Carrero Blanco, a high government official. Huerga's film proposes that Salvador Puig Antich became the scapegoat for a sector of Franco's regime bent on revenge. As Salvador prepares to die, he develops a close relationship with Jesus (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a prison guard who moves from brutality to empathy as he gets to know the young militant. All the efforts to save his life, including an improbable and bizarre escape attempt, are in vain and Puig Antich is executed on March 2, 1974. Towards the end, Salvador (Puig Antich) becomes somewhat repetitive and sentimental. The filmmakers' aim to highlight the tragedy and gravity of the event is commendable, but I find that the change in pace serves to lessen the film's impact and diffuse its undeniable power. Salvador (Puig Antich) received 11 Goya nominations and won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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TWO HOMELANDS, CUBA AND THE NIGHT (Germany)

This documentary aims to answer the question: what's it like to be gay in 21st century Cuba? Producer/director Christian Liffers made two trips to the island to interview six individuals that constitute a cross-section of the gay community. The six portraits alternate with readings of poems by Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), the renowned gay writer whose life was dramatized in the acclaimed film Before Night Falls. There are also brief musical interludes, most of them original compositions. A former friend of Arenas finds acceptance and sense of community among practicioners of African-based religions; an artist and intellectual complains about the government censoring his provocative photo exhibit; a 19 year old social worker gives a tour of the clandestine gay meeting places in the outskirts of Havana; an HIV-positive man struggles to make a living as a drag performer; a transexual living with a dozen relatives finds brief respite from prejudice at nightly get-togethers along Havana's waterfront; an unemployed 30 year-old relates how a private party was infiltrated by an undercover cop who made a video that was shown to party officials, his own father among them.

The violent repression of gay life experienced by Arenas in the 70s is no longer the government's policy, which was oficially amended in the late 80s. The current practice is to keep gays (and lesbians) marginalized, outside of "official" society. For instance, there are no establishments of any kind that cater to gays, no gay organizations, no freedom to express explicitly gay viewpoints or depict aspects of gay lifestyle, and no educational campaigns aimed at reducing homophobia or HIV infection. The poems and novels written by Arenas remain unpublished on the island. Clandestine copies of his works are still subjected to expropriation. These issues are not explored beyond what is divulged by the six men. As a matter of fact, a significant amount of material they share deals with the universal theme of the search for happiness and lasting romance. Two Homelands would gain heft and gravity by moving beyond the anecdotal to explore and perhaps confront the barriers to progress for gay Cubans.

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THE 12 LABORS (Brazil)

Heracles (Sidney Santiago) has spent a couple of years at a reformatory for petty theft. The handsome 18 year-old from the slums of Sao Paulo wants to renounce a life of crime. "Depending on where you were born, your story is written before it starts", he comments in voice-over. His cousin Jonas (played by Madame Sata's Flavio Bouraqui) provides him with an opportunity: to join him as a motorcycle courier for Olimpo Express. Heracles is hired on a trial basis and sets out to prove he can handle the task. During the course of one day, Heracles is entrusted with both assignments and impromptu requests from clients. Heracles navigates the city of 17 million on a beat-up motorcycle trying to meet the 12 challenges. Changing his fate will require a Herculean effort.

Indeed, The 12 Labors's structure is inspired by a tale from Greek mythology. Writer/director Ricardo Elias has previously shown a particular interest in impoverished young men trying to "do the right thing" and enter mainstream society. He offers an alternative to a slew of films that exploit the violent, criminal lives of ghetto youth for thrills (City of God being the most prominent). The threat of violence is palpable here, but it never manifests itself. It merely lurks somewhere on the periphery of the action. Consequently, some viewers may find the plot less compelling than anticipated. Instead, The 12 Labors explores the potential obstacles that keep lower-class youth mired in a life of crime and deprivation, and creates a comprehensive snapshot of Sao Paulo via Heracles' contacts with a variety of its residents. To that end, Elias gives artistic license to his protagonist, who narrates brief biographies of several individuals he meets throughout the day as if he really knew them. The dynamic mise-en-scene is enhanced by a knockout soundtrack that incorporates orchestral passages, Brazilian hiphop, and samba-infused electronica. The final scene pays homage to Truffaut's The 400 Blows and draws parallels between Heracles and Antoine Doinel. The 12 Labors took home the Horizons Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival and the Best Actor award at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival.

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RADIANT CITY (Canada)

Throughout his career, writer/director Gary Burns has developed the theme of people trapped in dehumanizing environments in his native Calgary. He debuted with The Suburbanators, a comedy about 20-somethings living in cookie-cutter residential developments and hanging out in strip malls. His best film to date, Waydowntown, is set entirely in the grid of downtown office buildings interconnected by glass-enclosed walkways that dominate the city's center. Now Burns has teamed up with journalist Jim Brown to make a documentary about life in Calgary's newest suburban enclaves.

Radiant City combines interviews of city planners, architects and sociologists with a presentation of the daily life of the Mosses, a family who moved from the inner city to a new suburban development a year earlier. The experts provide interesting data about the increasing amount of private space required by North Americans over time, and how it compares with other industrial nations. The sacrifice of community for the sake of privacy and security, the way house design has changed to deter social interaction, and the effects of the cost of land and energy are major issues explored, although not always with sufficient depth. Moss family members discuss their lifestyle-altering decision to move to the suburbs, and the inherent gains and losses. Some drama is generated when dad decides to act in a community play, a musical comedy that pokes fun at suburban living. His wife disappoves and ends up refusing to attend. The filmmakers have a trick up their sleeve, a last-minute revelation that warrants discussion but cannot possibly be revealed without spoiling the surprise.

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SATANAS (Colombia/Mexico)

Debut feature by Colombian director Andi Baiz, a New York University graduate. Satanas (Spanish for Satan) is an adaptation of a popular novel by Mario Mendoza based on real events that took place in Bogota in 1986. Baiz presents three separate plot threads that converge at the conclusion. Each thread is dominated by a precisely drawn character struggling with "the evil within" or the dark aspects of their personalities. Eliseo is a trilingual, cultured man who served in the US Army for 13 years, including tours of duty in Vietnam. He is about 50, single, and works as a private English tutor. Eliseo lives with his elderly mother, with whom he constantly bickers. He has an obsession with order and cleanliness_he carries a bottle of hand desinfectant wherever he goes and eschews cloth towels for disposable, paper ones. Eliseo is courteous but not kind; meets a friend for chess regularly but treats him with great reserve; he is obviously troubled but can't express it. Paola, a sexy 20-something, makes a living by meeting men at ritzy clubs and spiking their cocktails so her accomplices can steal from them. Returning alone from a club one night, she gets raped by two men. She takes revenge with help from her crime buddies, then feels remorse. She vows to change her lifestyle and gets a job as a waitress. Ernesto is a portly priest disappointed by his failure to keep a parishioner from committing a serious crime, and tormented by his lust for his cleaning lady. One night he takes his frustrations on a persistent beggar. Eventually, he realizes he's lost his vocation for the priesthood. He takes the cleaning lady out to dinner at a restaurant where he will run into Paola and Eliseo.

Satanas is an auspicious debut for Mr. Baiz, who was obviously ready for feature-length work after directing several well received shorts. The style of the film is straightforward, never calling attention to itself. The suggestive, piano-based score by Angelo Milli is a major asset in sustaining a portentous mood. The script, also written by the director, is tight and economical. Satanas is truly a character-based piece. Its ace-in-the-hole is Damian Alcazar, winner of 6 Mexican Academy Awards and known to American audiences via films like Herod's Law, Chronicles, and The Crime of Father Amaro. His Eliseo is a particularly difficult part because he must merely suggest a storm brewing inside while presenting a placid emotional facade. I don't claim expertise in distribution matters, but it seems obvious to me that Satanas has wide commercial appeal. Satanas is having its world premiere at the festival before opening in Colombia next June. Distributors should heed my advice and start bidding.

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SOMEONE TO RUN WITH (Israel)

This adaptation of David Grossman's bestselling novel juggles two timelines that are kept separate for most of the film. Tamar, a 16 year-old girl, gets her head shaved in preparation to go "underground". She joins the homeless teens of downtown Jerusalem accompanied by Dinka, her Labrador retriever. Tamar makes a living by singing and playing songs on her acoustic guitar while looking for a boy whose connection to Tamar is kept secret. Her months-long street adventure alternates with the story of Assaf. He is a gangly teenage boy who takes a summer job at the city's dog pound. His first assignment is to track down the owner of a Labrador retriever that has been picked up on the street. Dinka leads him to what turn out to be Tamar's usual haunts. Among them, a convent and a home for wayward youth run by a villanous, Fagin-like drug dealer. Assaf, partly functioning as audience surrogate, pieces together the details of the girl's situation over the course of two eventful days. Then they finally meet.

Someone to Run With is the sophomore effort of director Oded Davidoff, whose familiarity with his native Jerusalem pays dividends. Neophytes Bar Belfer and Yonathan Bar Or were cast in the lead roles. Their performances speak well of Davidoff's skill as a director of actors. The film is stylishly shot on HD video (transferred to 35 mm) by Yaron Scharf (who photographed last year's fest hit Close To Home). Just about everything else is a mess. Foggy behavioral motivations, continuity problems, poorly developed characters,and inexplicable plot twists abound. I was about to place most of the blame on first-time scriptwriter Noah Stollman when I learned that the 2-hour theatrical cut is an hour shorter than a version intended to be shown only as a miniseries on Israeli TV. Anyway, I can only judge this theatrical version and it's not very good. The fact that Someone to Run With was nominated for 9 Israeli Academy Awards is perhaps indicative of the poor state of Israeli cinema at this juncture.

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ALATRISTE (Spain)

Diego Alatriste is a courageous soldier who's the protagonist of a popular series of novels written by Arturo Perez-Reverte. They are set in the first half of the 17th century, when the power of the mighty Spanish empire began to decline. Alatriste (Viggo Mortensen) is a common soldier, but he is nicknamed "Captain" by his buddies because of his skill and leadership qualities. Alatriste opens at dawn as a group of soldiers silently wade through waist-deep water to ambush a Dutch contingent during the War of Flandes. Alatriste becomes entrusted with the care of Inigo, the son of a soldier who dies in his arms, and gains notoriety when he saves the life of a duke. He returns to Madrid wounded. Once recovered, he is commisioned by the Grand Inquisitor (Blanca Portillo) to intercept two "heretic" foreigners at the city's entrace and kill them. Alatriste accepts then decides not to obey orders, as one of the foreigners turns out to be the Prince of Wales, visiting to forge an alliance with the Spanish Crown. Meanwhile, Alatriste reignites an on-going affair with Maria de Castro (Ariadna Gil), a famous and married actress. The film jumps 10 years when Inigo, now in his 20s, becomes Alatriste's squire and falls in love with the aristocratic and conniving Angelica (Elena Anaya). Alatriste proceeds to depict conspiracies, court intrigue, and war battles, as Spain strives to maintain its hegemony. Throughout, Alatriste and Inigo struggle to maintain relationships with the compromised women they love.

Alatriste is the most expensive production in the history of Spanish cinema, and you can see where the money went. The film looks gorgeous, a winner of Goyas for Best Costumes, Production Design, and Production Direction. The period recreation is stunning, the battle scenes imposingly realistic. The cinematography of the indoor scenes uses a color palette and lighting scheme based on epochal paintings by Velasquez and his contemporaries. Mortensen, who speaks Spanish since childhood, is perfectly cast as the sedate and noble soldier who anchors the film and gives it a sense of continuity. The decision to cast an actress in the role of the Inquisitor is the sole unconventional choice in a film that otherwise adheres to the conventions of the historical epic film. Despite excellent production values and good execution, Alatriste was doomed from the start to be average by the decision to condense material from the five novels published into a single film. A number of secondary characters are insufficiently developed, consequently their motivations are sometimes obscure. Alatriste entertains with its eventful narrative, but feels somewhat underdeveloped and rushed. Many critics who watched the film when it premiered in Venice and Toronto last September share my opinion. Consequently, director Agustin Diaz Yanes added 12 minutes of footage to the original 135-min version. Although I haven't seen the shorter version, I'm convinced the added running time improves the film, but not enough to make it memorable.
20th Century Fox will distribute Alatriste in the US.

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MEANWHILE (Argentina)

A month after her mother's death, Eva comes to Buenos Aires to work as a maid. She rents a room in the humble home of Violeta, a childhood acquaintance who is separated from her husband Mono. Violeta is considering a reconciliation with Mono, who plans to bring her and their young daughter to Ibiza. Meanwhile, she works in a restaurant where a co-worker shows romantic interest in her. Eva cleans two houses. In one she's disparaged by the employer and made to clean dog poop. In another the lady keeps warning Eva not to steal, but her son Dalmiro is very kind. Dalmiro is a lonely bachelor who has a small studio where he makes pottery to sell at the crafts market. Sergio, a friend of Mono, wants to realize his wife's dream of having a child of their own. Their doctor tells them he is "sub-fertile" and recommends adoption, because other options are beyond their means. By the conclusion, these characters make crucial decisions about the course their lives will take.

Meanwhile is the sophomore feature by Diego Lerman, the 30 year-old who made a splash at festivals worlwide with Suddenly (2002). The new film confirms Lerman's talent for depicting the lives of working-class people in a thoroughly naturalistic manner. It takes a lot of planning and skill to give the impression a film was put together on the fly, without a blueprint. There's an organic feel to the transformations and realignments of characters in a Diego Lerman film. This is more true of Meanwhile than the highly praised debut. That film includes a scene in which a parachutist improbably lands on a road in the middle of the night, gets run over, and dies in the arms of a protagonist. There's nothing of the kind in Meanwhile (and no lesbian girls who call each other Mao and Lenin). Moreover, Meanwhile evidences a refinement of technique. For instance, in Meanwhile, Lerman and crew are more skillful at shooting using only existing sources of light (Suddenly looked murky and underlit in spots). The new film has a greater number of characters, all of which are introduced early on. This could cause the viewer to become temporarily disoriented and lose patience. Those who stick it out will be rewarded by a low-key but substantive slice-of-life.

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BACK HOME (USA)

Autobiographical documentary directed by J.B. Rutagarama, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. He relates how, as a 17 year-old, he managed to escape across the border to a refugee camp when the violence reached his town. News footage provides historical background. Evidence that occupying Belgian forces manufactured hostility and segregation between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes is particularly convincing. They planted the seeds to a civil conflict that erupted in most brutal carnage during the 1990s. Some scenes recreate J.B.'s perilous escape. Upon reaching the camp, he befriended two London-based ABC News correspondents. The women practically adopted him, helping him move to Britain where he earned a college degree. J.B. got a job as a cameraman for Fox News in New York. A month later, the Twin Towers were attacked. It had a profound effect on J.B., opening old wounds. He decides to reconnect with his homeland, search more diligently for his lost mother and brother, and make a film of the experience. Back Home details with great care J.B.'s ambivalent feelings about returning to Rwanda and the painful confrontation with its violent legacy.The search and reunion with his mother is quite moving, particularly when he learns of the courageous Hutu man who risked his life to bring his mom and nearly 200 other Tutsis to the Hotel Milles Collines (the one in the fiction feature Hotel Rwanda). The most interesting aspect of the film is the depiction of the "gacaca", the traditional Rwandan approach to justice. It consists of open-air town meetings in which the guilty confess, seek forgiveness, and agree to perform work for the benefit of the comunity. J.B. and his mother visit a work camp and interview several Hutus involved in the massacre. It's a decidedly difficult emotional experience for both sides, and compelling to witness. Rutagarama comments that "Reconciliation is awkward, imperfect, and slow, but it is possible".

Rutagarama chooses not to deal with the issue of his Hutu father, who was poisoned by tribal propaganda and reported his wife to the militia that perpetrated most of the acts of genocide. The director reveals this during the opening minutes, and never mentions his father again. It would also be of great interest to explore why it took him two years to get a visa to visit the country, and why representatives of the current administration seized his equipment and footage he had shot. This information about government interference is contained in the production notes made available to the press, but Back Home ignores it completely. It's seemingly relevant to the future prospects of the country. Addressing these topics would make the film more thorough and satisfying.

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A TON OF LUCK (Colombia)

Hollywood films invariably top the Colombian box office year after year. In 2006, this local, populist entertainment was the country's highest grossing film. It's based on a real event that took place in 2003, when a battalion of 147 soldiers found $46 million hidden deep in the jungle by narco-guerrillas and decided to divvy up the untraceable loot. Rodrigo Triana's sophomore effort reduces the number of soldiers involved to a manageable 30 and focuses on four of them who are close friends.

At the opening, the wife of Porras (Manuel Jose Chavez) travels with their small daughter as she reads a letter sent by her husband. It instructs her to travel to a remote town at the edge of the Amazon forest. A Ton of Luck flashes back to the foursome at a strip joint prior to going on a mission. The scene establishes Perlaza's dream of marrying exotic dancer Dayana and Porras as devoted married man. Suprisingly, the sequence culminates with an inconsequential melee that is poorly staged. The mise-en-scene improves once the troops enter the jungle and the adventure begins. After a few skirmishes and long days battling the elements with inadequate resources, they discover piles of cash buried inside plastic containers. Porras is the only one who takes the moral high ground. The soldiers are ill-equipped to handle their sudden riches. After barely missing being caught at the military base, they get a day off and go to the city. These poor, uneducated, young soldiers can't help but flaunt and squander the money with obvious consequences. A Ton of Luck returns to Porras' wife for the surprising finale. The film often assumes a light tone, with attempts at humor achieving mixed results and performances that never rise above merely competent. A Ton of Luck is worth watching but unremarkable. It received a nomination for "Best Spanish-language Foreign Film" at the Spanish Academy Awards. It's Colombia's submission to the Oscars yet simply not good enough to have a chance at getting a nomination.

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SEPTEMBERS (Spain)

Director Carles Bosch was visiting a friend at a detention facility near Madrid when he stumbled on inmates singing karaoke on stage. They were practicing for a singing competition held every September within Spain's penitentiary system. Bosch decides then that the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated documentary Balseros would focus on these men and women. Septembers is less concerned with the competition than with the personal tragedies, hopes and dreams of the participants. Adalberto is wanted for theft in his native Argentina and hopes to avoid extradition so he can live with his lover in Barcelona. Rudolf is a Lithuanian accused of making counterfeit bills; he's sad because his Ukranian girlfriend has lost interest in him. Arturo is a proud gypsy with a tattoo of his wife's face on his arm who worries about his three sons growing up without a father. There's a Mexican woman who tried to enter Spain with a substantial amount of cocaine; she's won the "festival of song" the past two years. An attractive Bolivian woman feels ambivalent about a liaison with an older Spanish man. There's a woman from Valencia who bought heroin for her addicted son, and a drummer for a once-famous rock band.

Bosch's primary focus is on the love lives of a dozen inmates and their expression through song. Bosch doesn't editorialize or make generalizations but, because of the variety of subjects from several prisons, Septembers manages to comment on the nation and its penal system. It's clear that Spain's healthy democracy and economy have attracted a high number of immigrants in the past decade, and that they often experience difficulty adjusting. I was quite impressed with the physical condition of the penitentiaries (very clean and spacious), the opportunities for rehabilitation available, and the dignity with which inmates seem to be treated. Granted, these facilities don't hold the most dangerous criminals_only one documentary subject is guilty of a violent offense, but what's on view is indicative of a humane and efficient penal system. Septembers is very coherently edited and consistently engaging. It's having its world premiere at the festival.

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PRINCESS (Denmark)

Shortly after he returns to Copenhagen, the sister of a missionary named August dies of a drug overdose in a brothel. He picks up his young niece Mia and brings her to live with him. It soon becomes evident that Mia has been subjected to physical and sexual abuse while living with her mother, the porn star known as Princess. The devoutly Christian August vows to take revenge. With assistance from Mia, he proceeds to shoot, maim, burn, torture and bomb anything and anybody connected with the "smut empire" built by Mia's ex-boyfriend Charlie, who may or may not be Mia's father.

The film is mostly animated, with character and background drawing below the standards of current American and Japanese animation. Animated sequences are interspersed with live-action flashbacks from August’s camcorder, an original approach that enriches the film by providing detailed backstory regarding August, Charlie and Princess.
From animator and author of children's books Anders Morgenthaler's statement: "To enjoy a porno film one must either be very dumb or be able to abstract from the fact that one is watching real people". Princess is an expression of its creator's religious, anti-porn crusade. Even those who support his views might wince at the way he glorifies and justifies all sorts of gory, vigilante violence. Perhaps there's an audience out there for Princess. I just don't want to meet them.

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FICTION (Spain)

Alex, a 39 year-old film director, comes to a village at the edge of the Pyrenees to spend a couple of weeks with Santi, an old friend. Alex hasn't seen Santi for years and doesn't feel completely at ease around him, but needs a respite from the wife, kids, and big city pressures. Also at the village is Judith, Santi's best friend and a former acquaintance of Alex, and Monica, a musician from Madrid visiting Judith. Fiction concerns these four characters and how they relate to each other, but gradually the main focus becomes what develops between Alex and Monica. They get ample time together when they become separated from Santi and Judith during a mountain hike and get lost. They spend the night in a shelter where each realizes separately there is something special between them, something that is perhaps better left unacknowledged. Later, Judith's girlfriend returns from a trip abroad and Alex's wife makes an impromptu visit.

Ficcio (fiction in Catalan) is the third solo effort from director Cesc Gay (In The City, Nico and Dani). All three films revolve around characters who either are not the type to show their feelings openly, or choose consciously to repress them. Only the spectator is truly privy to certain emotions felt by key characters. In Fiction, Gay explores the nostalgia felt by people at mid-life for a time when all the roads were open. Any road taken closes the door on other possibilities because we can never really go back. This is the third script co-written by Gay and Tomas Aragay. It typically avoids any semblance of stiff theatricality or literary wit. Gay's method of shooting chronologically to allow for improvisation without creating continuity problems again pays dividends. The tone is consistently understated and sober, probing character nuance without histrionics or genre twists. Fiction is the type of film in which it's almost unfair to single out any of the actors because the whole cast is impressive. Having said that, Fiction features, arguably, the two best Spanish actors working today: Eduard Fernandez (as Alex) and Javier Camara (as Santi).

Catalan is the prevalent language in Fiction, which is no small matter. Catalan is spoken by less than 5 million people. The mere use of the language spoken in Catalonia means reduced box office potential and distribution for any film, not only in Spain but also in Latin America and the USA. Perhaps Fiction will eventually be released on dvd in the US (like In The City, which is also in Catalan). For the time being, it will delight festival goers looking for refined adult fare. Fiction is one of the best films of the festival.

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OUR FATHER (Chile)

Pedro, Roberto and Meche have been summoned to Valparaiso after their 72 year-old father is hospitalized. The first half of Our Father (Padre Nuestro) is a road movie as the siblings, along with Pedro's Argentine wife Maite, make the hour-long drive from Santiago. The drive is interspersed with flashbacks to each receiving a phone call from Rosa, Caco's second wife. Pedro, the oldest, has lied to Maite about undergoing fertility tests because he believes he's sterile and fears Maite will leave him when she finds out. Meche, who suffers from bulimia, is the one who found out about her father's affair with Rosa when her parents where still married. She is still quite angry at her father and has kept a distance from him for years. Roberto, the youngest, has not told anyone that he separated from his wife months ago. Caco turns out to be quite a character, a gregarious bon vivant with a great sense of humor. He is on the verge of dying but vows to go his own way. After the others return briefly to Santiago, he gets Roberto to "borrow" an ambulance and take him to his old haunts by the waterfront. They have a ball at a bar owned by an old friend of Caco's and visit a lively bordello. At sundown, Caco gets Roberto to drive him to the beach town where they used to go on vacation. Caco's dream of reuniting the whole family one last time is realized there.

This film, written and directed by Rodrigo Sepulveda, shares thematic elements with The Royal Tenenbaums and The Barbarian Invasions but can't quite reach their high level of artistry. Our Father is impeccably directed and thoroughly enjoyable though. Veteran Chilean thespian Jaime Vadell seems to be having a blast playing Caco, and Cecilia Roth (as Maite) is always a welcome presence. The problem with Our Father is that the compelling issues raised during its first half are abandoned in order to grant Caco one last joyride and the conflict-free reunion that is his final wish.

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SERAMBI (Indonesia)

Serambi (Veranda) was shot in a town in the Aceh region referred by Indonesian Muslims as the Veranda of Mecca, the point of departure for their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is, historically, an important center of trade between East and West. On December 26, 2004, the town was ravaged by the tsunami that killed over 200,000 people and left many more homeless in the Indian Ocean region. Home video footage shows crowds running away from waves of water carrying cars, piles of debris, and people down the streets. After the water recedes, the corpses that litter the street are taken away and survivors look for missing friends and relatives.

Director Garin Nugroho, returns to his documentary roots after successful forays into fiction features (including the critically acclaimed musical Opera Jawa). He focuses primarily on three survivors from different generations. Reza, a middle-aged man who makes a living delivering goods in a small motorized vehicle, misses his wife terribly, and eats food he buys at street stalls at the ruins where his house used to be. Usman, a college student who worships Che Guevara and attempts to restart a relationship with his despondent ex-girlfriend. Tari, she's about 9 years old, lost most of her family during the tsunami and now lives in a UN shelter. The devout girl prays for "God to love my parents like they loved me when I was little". Serambi follows its three subjects around town as they attempt to cope with their many losses and reorient themselves to the environment. Some of the most interesting issues that come up refer to how the disaster challenges certain religious beliefs of the survivors. Nugroho's approach to the documentary form is anecdotal and poetic, which may disappoint viewers looking for a comprehensive, informational point-of-view of this terrible natural disaster.

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I AM THE OTHER WOMAN (Germany)

Robert (August Diehl), a civil engineer, travels to Frankfurt on business. At the hotel bar, he meets Carlotta, a platinum blonde in a red dress and they share a night of kinky sex. She's gone by the time he wakes up. Robert goes to his scheduled meeting with Carolin Winter (Katja Riemann), who looks just like Carlotta (remember Vertigo?) except her attire and demeanor are completely different. Carolin accepts an invitation to dinner, where she denies any connection with "the other woman" and resists Robert's persistent attempts to seduce her. Undeterred, Robert visits the Winter estate and meets her ditzy, alcoholic mother (Karin Dor, making a comeback to the big screen) and creepy, wheelchair-bound father Karl (Armin Muller-Stahl, perfectly cast). Also living in the household: a mute, glowering manservant, who turns out to be Mrs. Winter's longtime lover, and a fortyish secretary who, we will learn, was a teen prostitute Karl met during a trip to Morocco and brought home with him. The intriguing plot of I am the Other Woman is propelled by Robert's erotic obsession and by Carolin/Carlotta's need to escape the clutches of the dementedly possessive Karl.

I am the Other Woman is an adaptation of a novel by Peter Merthesheimer who collaborated with F.W. Fassbinder on several projects. Perhaps Fassbinder could have made art out of this lurid, grotesque, sometimes preposterous material. Veteran director Margarethe von Trotta was perhaps attracted by the theme of male oppression in the story_a topic she explored in some of her best work. Here she seems content with delivering outrageous entertainment and directing an amazing veteran cast. File under guilty pleasure.

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ANTONIA (Brazil)

A hiphop band allows their four backup singers to play one song to open a concert. The talented girls get an enthusiastic response from the audience and hire a manager. They sing at private parties and get gigs at clubs and festivals. Then the group starts to fall apart. Preta (Negra Li) catches Mayah (Quelynah) flirting with her husband and a rift develops between the two childhood friends. Mayah ends up leaving Antonia, as their group is called. Lena (Cindy Mendes) gets pregnant. Her boyfriend agrees to live together and recognize the child if she stops performing. Barbarah (Leilah Moreno) gets taunted in the street by a boy who claims responsibility for the beating of her gay brother. A fight ensues in which Barbarah pushes the boy against a concrete wall and dies. She is sentenced to jail for manslaughter. Preta performs solo while manager Marcelo tries to keep up her spirits. Antonia jumps to moments of crisis resolution, and rushes to Antonia reunited to deliver two outstanding numbers at a music festival.

Antonia, a musical directed by Tata Amaral, is grounded on life as lived in the hilly working-class neighborhoods of Sao Paolo, South America's largest city. Dramatic situations are familiar and handled conventionally. Key to Antonia's ability to deliver solid entertainment is the casting of the four attractive and talented singers, none of which has previous acting experience. The dramatic scenes are delivered with conviction and credibility, perhaps a sign that that Ms. Amaral is a skillful director of actors. The musical numbers, a mix of rap, ballads, and r&B, exude on-stage chemistry.

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LA LUPE: QUEEN OF LATIN SOUL (USA)

World premiere of this hour-long documentary about legendary Afro-cuban pop singer Guadalupe Yoli (1940-1992). La Lupe was not a musical genius like Benny More or a consummate pro like her rival Celia Cruz. La Lupe was a flamboyant, extravagant woman with great stage presence and a powerful voice. La Lupe: Queen of Latin Soul, on the other hand, takes a conventional approach, providing a chronological view of her tempestuous life via photographs, performance footage, and interviews. La Lupe's fame was both based on her singing and controversial aspects of her life: her devotion to Santeria, her exhibitionism, her drug abuse, and her late conversion to Christian fundamentalism. La Lupe: Queen of Latin Soul was directed by Cuban-born, New York-based Ela Troyano, whose previous works include the award-winning short Carmelita Tropicana and disposable, gay-camp feature Latin Boys Go To Hell. She plays particular attention to La Lupe's years in New York, when she was a key figure in the emergence of "salsa" as the predominant Latin music genre. During the late '60s and early 70s, she was a highly sought out performer. La Lupe: Queen of Latin Soul includes footage of her appearances in "The David Frost Show" and "The Dick Cavett Show". The clip from the latter is hysterically funny, and revealing in more ways than one. La Lupe:Queen of Latin Soul will have its broadcast premiere on PBS on June 5th.

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JINDABYNE (Australia)

Jindabyne is a township in New South Wales, originally inhabitated exclusively by aborigines. European immigrants gradually settled there. In 1964, the old town was drowned by rising waters caused by the construction of the Snowy Mountains Dam; the town had to be relocated. Jindabyne Lake now covers the sacred ground of the aboriginal population, who live scattered in the surrounding area.

Director Ray Lawrence's film transplants American writer Raymond Carver's short story "So Much Water So Close To Home" to this locale (it was also used by Robert Altman for one episode of Short Cuts). The opening scene shows a man, who turns out to be the town's electrician, forcing a car driven by a 19 year-old aboriginal woman to stop on a lonely stretch of road. Soon thereafter, he dumps her corpse in a river. The film introduces the four men (and their families) who simply won't allow their finding the corpse to disturb their fishing expedition. The men report it to police two days after finding the body and securing it to some branches with fishing line so it won't flow away and crash against the rocks. A police chief is only shown once, angry at the men for waiting so long to contact authorities, since Jindabyne doesn't concern itself with finding and catching the killer. It mostly focuses on the impact of the morally-questionable decision on the biracial community, and on the relationship between Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) and his wife Claire (Laura Linney). The Irish gas station owner and his American wife are richly drawn, and provided with significant backstory. They experienced a painful separation following the birth of their 6 year-old son Tom, and have tentatively managed to stay together despite lingering tensions. A possible new pregnancy and Claire's befuddlement and disappointment by Stewart's insensitive action precipitate a new crisis.

Lamentably, Lawrence and scriptwriter Beatrix Christian pile up the characters and can't possibly begin to explore all the baggage they carry. Secondary characters are given protagonist-size issues and the filmmakers are simply not up to the challenge. For instance, the wife of one of Stewart's buddies has adopted her granddaughter but seems to hate her. The little girl has unresolved bereavement issues following her mom's death. She and little Tom stab the school's pet hamster with a fishing knife and kill a bird. Like the Japanese girl in Babel, these characters deserve their own movie, one that cares about them, one that takes an interest in what afflicts them. Several dramatically weak scenes appear more so due to the ponderous fade-to-blacks that separate them. Jindabyne boasts very good performances and evocative use of landscape. It's an imaginative re-thinking of Carver's original story that serves as an allegory of the history between Europeans and aborigines in Australia. The film generates great interest when focused on the crumbling marriage of Stewart and Claire, but the flaws abovementioned render it ultimately unsatisfying. Particularly so, coming from the director of the superior Lantana.

Jindabyne is scheduled for release on April 27th by Sony Pictures Classics.

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DARK BLUE ALMOST BLACK (Spain)

Jorge (Quim Gutiérrez) aspires to be a business executive. Seven years ago, his dad suffered a stroke which left him incapacitated. With older brother Antonio (Antonio de la Torre) seving a jail sentence, Jorge had no choice but to take care of his dad and work as a janitor. Unwilling to abandon his dream, the persistent Jorge has managed to obtain a business degree but the job search has thus far failed. The title of Daniel Sanchez Arevalo's film refers to a suit Jorge wants to wear to work. In the meantime, Antonio has joined a theatre group for the purpose of meeting immates from the female wing of the penitentiary. He hooks up with Paula, who wants desperately to get pregnant. Antonio is sterile, so Paula suggests they ask Jorge to bat for him. Afraid to lose Paula, Antonio reluctantly agrees. Once the "vis-a-vis" meetings are approved, Paula and an ambivalent Jorge meet for weekly, hour long, private sessions. The decision is complicated by the return of Jorge's childhood crush after years living in Germany.
An additional plot thread concerns Israel (Raul Arevalo), Jorge's best friend. He has taken to spying on and taking pictures of the masseur in the adjacent building, whose clientele is exclusively male. Israel is simultaneously repulsed and fascinated when he notices the service includes sexual favors. He is shocked one day, when he recognizes his father being serviced. The conflicted Israel attempts to blackmail dad with the photos taken to get a car, then schedules an appointment with the masseur.

This is highly original material with a few plot developments that might seem improbable. Perhaps it's the assured direction and naturalistic ensemble acting that contributes to my willingness to believe the narrative as presented. Anyway, it is said that life is stranger than fiction, and what transpires in jail is credible in the context of Spain's liberal policies towards inmates. Dark Blue Almost Black is a film bursting with the unpredictability of life, with likable-but-flawed characters forced to make life choices they could never anticipate. This highly enjoyable film manages to instill humor into the proceedings without detracting from the substantive issues inherent in the plot. Dark Blue Almost Black nabbed the award for best European film at the Venice Film Festival. At the 2007 Spanish Academy Awards, it took home three Goyas: the Best New Director award went to Daniel Sanchez Arevalo, Best New Actor to Quim Gutierrez, and Best Supporting Actor to Antonio de la Torre.

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ANGEL-A (France)

Luc Besson once announced he'd direct no more than ten features. Angel-A was the 9th and the recently released (and poorly reviewed) Arthur and the Invisibles is the 10th. We'll see if he sticks by his statement. I won't grieve if he does.

Andre (Jamel Debbouze) is a scam artist with low self-esteem who owes thousands of Euros to some bad guys. He begs his way out of being thrown from the roof of a building by thugs. He can't possibly raise the dough he owes so he decides to commit suicide. As he is about to jump off a bridge into the Seine, he watches a leggy blonde (Rie Rasmussen) do the same and rescues her. She turns out to be an angel on a mission to restore his self-esteem and save him from the villains. She'll do anything for him, including beating up his enemies and raising money by screwing every guy at a swank nightclub. Andre falls in love with Angel-A, but she says that's against the rules.

Many films have explored the premise of an angel on a mission to earth, but none as poorly imagined and vulgar as this one. Angel-A has two redeeming features: a lively, jazz-inflected score by Anja Garbarek, and gorgeous, widescreen lensing of an eerily depopulated Paris in crisp black & white.

European critics have not been kind to Angel-A. Expect their American counterparts to follow suit when Sony Pictures Classics releases the film in the USA. Announced date of release is May 25th, but it may be limited to NYC and LA if the film performs poorly.

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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF MY VERY BEST YEARS (Bolivia)

The availability of digital video technology is helping to create a wave of independent cinema throughout Latin America. Aspiring filmmakers from countries like Peru and Bolivia often do not have the financial backing of their counterparts in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Filmmakers like 26 year-old Martin Boulocq, writer/director/cinematographer of The Most Beautiful of My Very Best Years, perhaps could not get a feature made if it wasn't for the newer and cheaper DV cameras.

The Most Beautiful of My Very Best Years is a highly personal generational portrait: middle-class, 20-somethings from Boulocq's hometown of Cochabamba. He calls them "the disinterested generation". Victor and Berto are best friends. Berto is an introverted young man who has decided that his future is in Madrid. He plans to sell the '65 Volkswagen he inherited from his grandfather to buy a plane ticket but selling the jalope proves more difficult than he anticipated. Meanwhile, he hangs out with Victor at home, at the park, at video arcades and bars. Berto has quit his job in anticipation of his departure so he kills time at the tiny video store where Victor works_once Berto tells Victor to steer customers away from popular action and porno flicks by introducing them to quality cinema. Won Kar Wai's Fallen Angels, an obvious influence, gets referenced. Unlike Berto, Victor is gregarious, inquisitive, and a bit wild. The balance is upset when Camila, Victor's girlfriend, arrives from abroad for a visit. She's a vivacious and worldly brunette who seems compatible with Victor but gradually tires of his aimlessness and refusal to move from Cochabamba. Camila starts to date other men and flirt with Berto. This causes a rift between the two friends even though Berto resists Camila's advances. The narrative is, like real life, complex and inconclusive. This is the type of film that may have inspired this year's festival's motto: "Films that leave something to the imagination". Any attempt at synopsis can't help being somewhat reductive.

The Most Beautiful of My Very Best Years achieves the spontaneity Boulocq intended by shooting chronologically in real locations with a small crew, and keeping the non-professional actors in the dark about the plot. The mode is detached observation of human relationships within a small social circle. The dialogue seems mostly improvised, with humorous banter that may remind Americans of Kevin Smith's Clerks. The visual point of view is that of an insect buzzing around the characters with no established flight plan. Lensing is sometimes hyperactive, with highly mobile displacement of mini-DV cameras. At times I wished Boulocq would provide respite by moving back from the action and letting a scene unfold more statically. He was inspired by Christopher Doyle's lensing and achieves some attractive, artful visual effects that provide a counterpoint to the wholly realistic, almost documentary content. Martin Boulocq is a filmmaker to watch.

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ACCIDENT (Brazil)

Directors Pablo Lobato and Cao Guimaraes are natives of the large state of Minas Gerais located in southeast Brazil. From the hundreds of towns there, they selected twenty whose evocative names were used to write a poem. Turned out neither Lobato nor Guimaraes had visited any of them. They decided to create a portrait of Minas Gerais composed of 20 sequences shot in Super-8 representing the towns selected. They arrived without expectations as to what they would find, without a plan or a method. "We had to unlearn how to look", they explain. Whatever they'd capture would be by accident, in a spirit of total freedom. The resulting 72-minute documentary/film poem is a fascinating experiment. The information about the land and its people is almost exclusively conveyed visually, in a tradition that goes all the way back to silents like Berlin:Symphony of a Great City. The directors asked no questions but did not discourage subjects who wished to address the camera, as when a gay man discusses the difficulty of finding true love in a small town. Accident captures slices of village life, like a religious procession and passion play, a rodeo in which a transvestite is one of the participants; a man gets off his truck barefoot and dives into a natural pool on the side of the road, people buy bread as the sun begins to rise, vehicles of all kinds go up a steep cobblestone road, a folk band plays inside a dingy bar, nearby forests disappear under heavy morning fog...At times, Guimaraes and Lobato hold a shot longer than the content merits. And too often, the filmmakers indulge their penchant for abstract photography, closing up on random objects for no discernible reason. Accident is inconsistently inspired and rewarding.

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AFTER THE WEDDING (Denmark)

Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) has been living modestly in Bombay for many years. He runs an orphanage in desperate need of funding. A potential benefactor named Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) turns up in his native Copenhagen. Jacob hates to leave the kids and travel to the materialist first-world he disdains, but it must be done. Upon arrival, Jacob is picked up by Jorgen's future son-in-law and brought to a luxurious hotel. The next day he pitches the project to Jorgen, a confident and casually arrogant man who claims he is considering several options. Jorgen insists Jacob attend his daughter Anna's wedding the next day. Arriving late at the church, Jacob locks eyes with Helena (Sidse Babett Knudsen), Jacob's wife, and it's clear they share a past history. At the reception, Jorgen's toast casually reveals he is not Anna's biological father, which surprises no one but Jacob. Jorgen gradually emerges as a master of manipulation, a man with a grand scheme based on weighty reasons revealed methodically over the gripping two-hour duration.

With After the Wedding, director Sussane Bier continues to build her reputation as one of the pillars of modern Danish cinema. She specializes in films in which complex individuals face tragic situations within the context of family life. If you watched her previous two films (Open Hearts, Brothers), you know she's attracted to desperate characters experiencing strong emotions. At key moments, Bier gazes at their facial features with hand-held cameras as if conducting research through a microscope. There are some brief, abstract nature shots that serve as mere punctuation between scenes. Bier takes credit for the premise or story of her films, but the scripts are written in collaboration with Anders Thomas Jensen. They manage to take material that could easily generate a soap opera or black comedy and produce something fresh, deeply affecting, even insightful at times. Good writing is paramount, but a film like After the Wedding depends greatly on the actors. They are invariably superb. Mikkelsen, who played the compassionate doctor in Bier's Open Hearts, is an actor of great range_he played the villain in the recent Casino Royale. Lassgard, who looks like Lars von Trier's older brother, plays the most demanding role, the powerful and pitiful man who serves as the catalyst of this interesting story. After the Wedding was one of the five pictures nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. IFC Films will distribute the film in the USA beginning on March 30th.

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Bella and Full Grown Men are being shown as part of a series called "Touching Florida" that celebrates the latest works of filmmakers from the State, or films "whose subjects touch on Florida". I'd be proud to hail the work of these filmmakers if it was merited, as I have admired the films of Victor Nunez, Julian Goldberger, and other Floridians. I'd like to acknowledge, to be fair to those involved, that critics from serious publications like Variety, LA Weekly, and New York magazine had more positive evaluations of both films than I do. Neither film has been picked up for distribution.

BELLA (USA)

Jose, a handsome Latin man, and his slick agent are riding on a vintage Chevy while discussing his new $2.2 million contract with a NY soccer team. Bella cuts to a busy restaurant, owned by Jose's brother Manny, where the footballer now works as a cook. Manny is angry because Nina, a waitress, is late again. We see her buying a pregnancy kit and rushing to her small flat. Manny fires her when she gets to the restaurant and Jose rushes after her. They hang out and have conversations that reveal why Jose had to give up soccer and why Nina wants an abortion. Meanwhile, Manny fumes. Jose invites Nina for dinner at his parents' home. The warm embrace of the traditional Latin family is like a healing balm to the lonely Nina.
Bella boasts appealing performances by Eduardo Verastegui and Tammy Blanchard (the deaf girl in The Good Shepherd), competent direction by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, and excellent use of New York locales. It's not enough to recommend the film. The story contains implausible twists, vague character motivations, and forced moments of whimsy. The script piles up the cliches, and aims for maudlin sentiment at every turn. Is this what people want? Perhaps, Bella won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival.

FULL GROWN MEN (USA)

There is no character like 35 year-old Alby (a well cast Matt McGrath) in film history. There have been many immature male characters who need to grow up and face adult responsibilities, and kids trapped magically in a man's body, but this guy is truly something else. Unlike the protagonists of Chuck & Buck and the recent The Science of Sleep, this man-child is not recognizably human. All he wants to do is play with his action figurines and have what a typical 9 year-old considers to be fun. Inexplicably, he has managed to marry and have a son, whom he treats like a puppet. When his wife kicks him out, he contacts his boyhood friend Boliche (Cuban for "pot roast"). Boliche is planning an excursion with the mentally disabled kids he teaches. They're going to Diggityland, Alby's favorite place in the world, so he invites himself.Full Grown Men becomes a road comedy full of grotesque characters and zany situations, none of them remotely plausible. Alby proves at every step of the way that he is not only terminally child-like, but also an insufferable jerk with psychopathic tendencies. I do admit experiencing perverse enjoyment out of watching him get his ass kicked by two dwarfs, but just about everything else made me groan. To be fair, production values are excellent, and cameos by Alan Cumming and Miami-born Debbie Harry brighten things up momentarily. Otherwise, Full Grown Men is a dud.

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BLUFF (Colombia)

Nicolas, a fashion photographer, catches his girlfriend Margarita and his boss Pablo making out. He loses job and girl. Pablo and Margarita get married but one year later, Nicolas' spying on Pablo pays off when he catches him with his lover and takes pictures. He threatens to show them to Margarita but Nicolas rebuts by offering him $1 million to kill Margarita. You get the idea, more characters are introduced and the twists multiply and I didn't buy any of it or cared about a single character. All the characters look good, but the girls are invariably gold-digging bimboes and the guys are horny, violent and greedy.

Bluff attempts to be a black comedy, but it generated very few laughs. It moves at breakneck speed, with the quick editing style typical of music videos. Bluff was shot with handheld cameras which are placed very close to the actors' faces most of the time. All these close-ups make the histrionic acting style much more difficult to ignore. The use of an English word as the original title of a Spanish-language film probably indicates the film aspires to distribution in English-language territories. It would not be deserved. It's a slick, cynical, and contrived movie, but it's supposed to be all that. The problem with Bluff is that it's neither funny nor engaging.

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EL BENNY (Cuba/Spain/UK)

Bartolomeo "Benny" More (1919-1963) was the greatest Cuban singer and bandleader of the mid 20th century, a period of intense socio-political turmoil in the island. This biopic, made in Cuba and financed by Spanish and British production companies, was reportedly seen by half a million Cubans during the first month of release. Almost half a century after his death, the public's admiration for the charismatic singer endures. Benny, a self-taught musician proud of his country roots, was a man of the people who refused to join the throng of artists who emigrated during the early years of the revolution.

El Benny starts during what would be his last concert performance, and quickly flashes back to a decade earlier, in 1952, when Benny had already achieved wide popularity in Latin America. We witness scenes of marital strife due to his alcoholism and womanizing, his breakup from the Cuban National Orchestra and his efforts to form his own band. Director and co-writer Jorge Luis Sanchez's strategy soon becomes evident: to dramatize key episodes from More's adult years. The resulting film is intentionally episodic, like most musician biopics. What might set it apart is the scrambled chronology, but it seems to serve no artistic purpose. El Benny is bookended by a dubious scene in which a nurse hands Benny a bottle of aguardiente that leads to his collapse on-stage and precipitates his death. It's a misstep designed to provide closure and synthesize Benny's losing battle against alcohol-induced liver disease.

The film is a success due to its casting, performances, and art direction, key aspects of a musical biopic. The period recreation is precise to the last detail whether the action is set in swank Havana clubs or the humble country shack where Benny grew up. Renny Arozena, a young theatre actor with little film experience, prepared for over two years to play Benny. Arozena's performance is a triumph. His Benny is multifaceted_ brilliant, proud, generous, but also petty and weak. A number of contemporary Cuban musicians are responsible for the magnificent music, old Benny More hits interspersed with new compositions. None deserve more credit than singer Juan Manuel Villi, in charge of imitating the voice of "El Barbaro del Ritmo", the great Benny More.

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LIFE CAN BE SO WONDERFUL (Japan)

This anthology film consists of five fictional portraits in the form of visual poems. Together the numbered episodes can be said to constitute a snapshot of Japanese society. More than anything, Life Can Be So Wonderful is the debut feature of artist Osamu Minorikawa, who aims to express his worldview, esthetics and personal concerns through five characters that reflect aspects of his personality. The film adopts the title of the first episode, about a 39 year-old nude model's concern with aging. This single woman living in Tokyo gains a deeper appreciation of her body through her interest in botany. This episode features vibrantly saturated shots in which the color green predominates. "Bar Fly" is the only episode shot in black & white. It concerns the daily routine of a homeless man in Osaka who carries a sign promoting sake bars, then spends his pay at those same establishments. "Her Favorite Solitude" uses voice-over narration to convey the ruminations on love and happiness of a young girl during moments of intimacy with her boyfriend. "Snakfin Liberty" features a cosmologist whose girlfriend's pregnancy conflicts with his desire to remain free from familial responsibilities. The character, like Minorikawa himself, identifies with Finnish cartoon character Snakfin, a globe-trotting poet. A teenage girl is the central character of "Reasons to Live", a gorgeously fluid meditation on beauty, on noticing the small things in life we often bypass or take for granted. Things that are often difficult to grasp and explain. Life can be so Wonderful incorporates a variety of texts including Jacques Prevert's "Pater Noster" and these words by Umberto Saba: "Nothing answers life like life". The unique experience is complemented by an evocative soundtrack that highlights the lovely voice of world-famous opera singer Norie Suzuki.

Writer/director Osamu Minorikawa introduced the film then answered questions after the screening. He is an affable, 35 year-old man with blond hair and an easy smile. He charmed the audience by helping those who walked in during his introduction to find seats in the crowded theatre. He reported that this screening was the "world premiere" of Life Can Be So Wonderful but he must have meant outside Japan since the film was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival (it's scheduled to screen at Cannes in May). He discussed technical and financial aspects of making his debut, but most interestingly provided details of his personal life that left no doubt as to the autobiographical nature of the project. Not only his interest in botany and cosmology, but his desire to fall in love and have a family competing with his freespirited, freewheeling personality.

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THE VIOLIN (Mexico)

Don Plutarco Hidalgo, his son Genaro, and grandson Lucio earn a living as street musicians. Plutarco (Angel Tavira) plays the violin and Genaro the guitar while Lucio sings and collects donations in public squares. Under cover of darkness, Plutarco and Genaro smuggle guns, ammunition and supplies into the secret camps of a rebel army. Government troops have been ordered to find and exterminate the rebels. The Violin opens with a scene showing soldiers brutally torturing captives to obtain information. It leaves no doubt that the Hidalgos are risking their lives. One night they return to their village as it's being ransacked and burned by the army. Genaro's wife and daughter are not among the residents that manage to escape into the jungle. They've likely been killed or taken prisoner. The government troops set camp in the outskirts of the town, blocking the road that leads to the family's cornfields. While Genaro searches for his wife and daughter, Plutarco approaches the squad captain and asks for permission to pass. Plutarco's unthreatening stance, advanced age, and melodious music eventually help him gain the trust of the arrogant captain. A routine develops in which Plutarco entertains the squad for the privilege of having access to his cornfield_he is missing his right hand so he attaches his forearm to the bow with cloth in order to play. What the captain doesn't suspect is that the courageous Plutarco is bringing guns and bullets buried in his field to the rebels.

The Violin is the expanded version (98 minutes) of a short director Francisco Vargas made previously. The absorbing tale fully deserves the feature treatment; the pace never lags and the duel of wits between Plutarco and the captain generates a great deal of suspense. Black & white lensing is professional and free of mannerisms, perhaps helping to give The Violin a timeless quality. Vargas purposefully avoids anything that specifies time and place, both in the dialogue and in the visuals. The tale brings to mind a number of conflicts in Latin America although, if I had to guess, I'd say this is Chiapas,Mexico during the Zapatista "insurrection" of 1994. The Violin's politics are quite simple: the film is supportive of the rebels to such extent that it could reasonably be called "propaganda". It clearly aims at every stretch to present Plutarco and Genaro as heroic and their adversaries as villanous. The Violin won three awards at San Sebastian when it was shown as a film-in-progress in late 2005. At Cannes 2006, the dignified and stoic Angel Tavira was named Best Actor of the Un Certain Regard section. Then The Violin was nominated to 7 Mexican Academy awards based on screenings at the Guadalajara and Morelia film festivals. The most current information I could find is that Guillermo del Toro is trying to use his fame and clout to find a commercial distributor for The Violin. I wonder if the unabashedly leftist stand has anything to do with the film's failure to gain distribution in Mexico.

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SOUNDS OF SAND (Belgium/France)

Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, a third child is born to Mouna (Carole Karemera), a girl named Sasha. The event is not cause for celebration, particularly for Rahne, Mouna's husband, who reacts with anger and frustration. After the opening credits, five years have passed, and the family is forced to leave their parched village to search for water. Rahne, Mouna, their two sons, Sasha, a young couple, a small herd of goats and two camels embark on a perilous journey for survival. Along the way they encounter corrupt government soldiers and vicious rebels, thieves and scavengers. They must traverse punishing deserts and areas planted with land mines without the aid of maps or guides. Rahne finds himself fighting to preserve a family that begins to fall apart.

Sounds of Sand tells a sad story about people faced with poverty, violence, and disease. But there isn't a single maudlin moment because the performances are restrained and the music score is used sparingly. The relaxed stoicism of the characters inspires thoughtful concern, not pity. Because the perils faced by the characters are common to Africans of several nations, the script doesn't specify where the action is set. But those magnificent, daunting landscapes were mostly shot in Djibouti.

Writer/director Marion Hansel's film is an adaptation of the prize-winning novel "Chamelle" by Marc Durin-Valois. It could have easily become an adventure film, but Hansel never forces the action or milks the story's inherent suspense. She highlights the personal sacrifices made, and the desperate struggle to live through the most terrifying ordeals. By the final reel, Sounds of Sand becomes the moving story of father who grows to appreciate and admire the resilient daughter whose birth he once dreaded.

*The MIFF has been showcasing Hansel's films since 1985. They have been unjustly ignored in the United States, even the two or three spoken in English, perhaps because they are too "heavy" for mindless consumption. Sounds of Sand opens in Belgium in two weeks, followed by theatrical runs in France and Germany.

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HOLE (Spain)

The term "minimalist" has been overused, mostly by critics who usually confine their viewing to commercial movies. Here comes a film that truly deserves the designation. By the time Hole opens, Miguel has been kidnapped and brought to a "zulo", which means "hole" in Basque but refers specifically to a space that looks like an indoor well. It is said that the Basque separatist organization ETA used "zulos" to hide arms and captives, but the film avoids any specificity, refusing to identify Miguel's two kidnappers and explain why they captured him. They remain nameless and hidden behind masks for the duration of the film. Hole is not a character study either. All we learn about Miguel is what can be deduced by observation: he's about forty, wears nice clothes, and has a gold wedding ring. The kidnappers refuse to answer any questions, and there are no real conversations, only verbal exchanges regarding food, tobacco, water, etc. Hole is strictly experiential, in that we get to witness the gradual physical and psychological deterioration of Miguel, and how he responds overtime to such a predicament. All the suspense is generated by whether he is freed or killed.

Director Carlos Martin Ferrara deploys a varied choreography of shots inside the restricted space in which the film takes place. For instance, tracking shots are used to follow Miguel when he exercises by fast-walking around the periphery of the "zulo". When something is lowered to the bottom by the kidnappers, vertical shots follow the object all the way down. A single, brief establishing shot of an isolated wooden house, where Miguel is being kept one assumes, acquires significance because of its singularity. Jaume Garcia's performance is absolutely riveting from beginning to end; a work of intense focus and concentration. Obviously, Hole is a film for specialized audiences who can appreciate the rigorous execution of an experiential conceit.

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FRAULEIN (Switzerland)

This drama about three women from the former Yugoslavia working at a cafeteria in Zurich was written and directed by Andrea Staka. Ms. Staka, a Swiss of Serbo-Croatian descent, has developed similar themes in her previous films: the short Hotel Belgrade and the documentary Yugodivas.

Reza left Yugoslavia in the late 70s expecting her boyfriend to join her but he opted to say. Now she's fifty and owns a cafeteria in Zurich which she runs with discipline and efficiency. She ocassionally meets a man for sex but her life is governed by a precise routine. Reza speaks German without a trace of an accent and insists other immigrants working for her speak German while on the job. On the surface she has put the past behind her. Mila, an older woman from Croatia, came to Zurich about 15 years ago and has worked at the cafeteria for many years. She and her husband Ante invest as much as they can in a house they are building in the Croatian coast, where they plan to retire. Mila is afraid to tell Ante that she'd rather stay in Zurich near her grown kids and grandchildren, who would not be moving to Croatia. Into their lives comes the 22 year-old freespirited and hardworking Ana; she arrived after the war and hides deep emotional wounds behind her cheerfulness and zest for life.

Fraulein comments on problems familiar to people who have been displaced from their origins and must forge a new life elsewhere. Staka avoids being schematic and agenda-driven by keeping the focus on the psychology of the characters. Among them, Ana is the pivotal one. She serves as a catalyst for change in the settled lives of Reza and Mila. Moreover, Ana brings an element of mystery into Fraulein that helps engage the viewer's attention. Character is drawn as much through dialogue as through visual elements _close-up of mark on Reza's forearm from a watch worn too tight, tracking shot of Mila's living room decorated with Croatian knick-knacks, etc. Marija Skaricic and Mirjana Karanovic (Cabaret Balkan, Underground, Grbavica) shine as Ana and Reza. Ms. Staka has crafted a compact (81 min) and deeply satisfying drama that places her instantly among the most promising young European filmmakers. Fraulein won the Swiss Film Prize for Best Screenplay and the Golden Leopard (Best Film) at the Locarno Film Festival.

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GOD WILLING (Sweden)

The very hot summer of '75 in Stockholm. Juan cleans the kitchen at a McDonald's at night and works at a produce market every morning. He and his brother Tito emigrated to Sweden and, within a week, his wife will finally join him. Then Juan meets Juli, a beautiful tango singer from Finland. They like each other immediately, and get to know each other as Juan's wife's arrival approaches.

God Willing is the feature debut of writer/director Amir Chamdin, a hiphop singer who started directing music videos and shorts in the mid-90s. As would be expected, his use of music throughout the film is masterful, particularly a sequence scored to BJ Thomas' "Hooked on a Feeling". The film is inspired by the experiences of his Syrian father, and a newspaper photo of an immigrant standing in front of the McDonalds where he worked after it was bombed to protest US imperialism.

God Willing was shot in 24 days with an analogue Panavision camera and sound equipment typically used in the 70s. It's a gorgeous widescreen canvas, in black & white, with filters used to add a single color at a time. Chamdin plays Juan as an easy-going, slightly gawky guy well-liked by natives and immigrants alike. Scenes of Juan at work and play with his friends provide plenty of humor. The beautiful Nina Persson, lead singer of The Cardigans, plays Juli, a charming woman who may be suffering from serious health problems. To a large extent, she remains an enigma. When Juan asks her is she's single, she answers "sort of" and won't clarify what that means. God Willing is also vague about Juan's feelings towards his wife, whom we never meet. God Willing is light on plot and heavy on mood and atmosphere. Chamdin keeps the emotional temperature at simmer point. The film is a brilliant evocation of the 70s, a snapshot of immigrant life, and a richly imagined affair seemingly destined to be brief. Chamdin's ability to represent the characters inner lives; their dreams, memories and fantasies, marks him as a gifted and astute filmmaker to watch.

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SONJA (Germany)

Sonja is a blonde in her mid-teens living with her mother in the outskirts of Berlin. Over the opening credits, she reads in voice-over a poem about unrequited love. It soon becomes clear that the object of her affections is not ex-boyfriend Anton but best friend Julia. The girls are very affectionate towards each other, but Sonja's gestures and gazes indicate she wants more. Mom's suspicions are confirmed when she finds Sonja's diary and reacts with open hostility. It's summer and the plan is for Julia to spend a few days with Sonja at the beachfront house of Sonja's father. Julia changes her mind at the last minute, so Sonja goes alone. Once there, Sonja meets her father's neighbor, a handsome and kind 30 year-old guy. One night she tells him she thinks he's the right guy to help her lose her virginity. It seemingly convinces Sonja she's simply not attracted to the opposite sex. She returns to Berlin to find Julia is quite happy with her new boyfriend. Sonja suggests to Julia that they won't be close anymore because being around her is too painful to bear.

This is the debut feature of Finnish actress-turned-director Kirsi Liimatainen, who also wrote the screenplay. It's a good little movie (73 minutes) anchored by the performances of newcomers Sabrina Kruschwitz and Julia Kaufmann. The actresses give the impression of having spent a lot of time together during pre-production to develop intimate rapport. There are some quiet scenes in which a lot is expressed without dialogue. Liimatainen chooses not to show Sonja losing her virginity (there is no nudity whatsoever). Perhaps a wise choice since scenes just before and after sufficiently reveal the significance (or lack of significance) of the event. Moreover, this treatment of the material makes it appropriate for kids as young as 11, who will find it educational and thought-provoking. It's hard to think of a better film about a girl at the stage in life when her sexual orientation becomes a certainty.

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THE OLD GARDEN (South Korea)

The Old Garden is the fifth feature from director Im Sang-soo, who has had as much international exposure as his compatriot Kim Ki-duk. What distinguishes Sang-soo is his interest in exploring South Korea's recent history and incorporating political themes into his films. In A Good Lawyer's Wife (2003) he critiques bourgeois marriage and pays attention to the painful legacy of the Korean War. The President's Last Bang (2005) was a caustically comedic take on the 1979 assassination of president Park Chung-hee by his Head of Intelligence. The Old Garden (2007) is a romance set in two time periods: the early 1980s, when the country was ruled by a military dictatorship, and the late 1990s, when democracy had been firmly established.

The Old Garden is an adaptation of a novel of the same name written by Hwang Seok-young, who spent most of the 80s in exile and was jailed upon his return_reportedly for traveling to North Korea without authorization. It's the story of Hyun-woo, a student activist on the run from the police during the months following the Guangju Massacre (clashes between police and demonstrators in that southern city resulted in hundreds of deaths in May of 1980).The handsome young man is sent to hide at the small, rural home of Yoon-hee, a confident art teacher. Over the course of several months they fall in love passionately. They take long mountain hikes, go on lakeside picnics, and build a miniature garden in the kitchen. Hyun-woo decides it's time to rejoin his comrades in the fight for social justice and returns to Seoul where he is apprehended. Yoon-hee attempts to visit him in jail but she's not allowed to see him because she's not a relative. Her letters are never delivered to him. He is released from prison 17 years later. A difficult period of adjustment and many surprises await.

The Old Garden portrays with great nuance the period of activism in Korea during the 1980s. Several scenes depict both the implacable brutality of the government forces and the sometimes foolish actions of the demonstrators, many of whom idealized the communist governments in China and North Korea. If there was any doubt as to Sang-soo's filmmaking chops, these precisely choreographed action sequences lay them to rest. The arc of the romance between the principals is beautifully realized, and the period transitions are graceful and smooth. It's the tone of the film that is sometimes a bit off. For instance, a long shot of an angry Yoon-hee after being denied visitation is unintentionally comedic. A couple of politically-charged violent scenes feel awkwardly integrated into the rest of the picture. These are minor complains, The Old Garden succeeds as a deeply affecting love story during a time of political instability for South Korea.

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IRA & ABBY (USA)

This sophomore effort by actress/writer Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein) is as much the crowd pleaser as the debut. Both premiered and won the audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival before touring the festival circuit. It's an "indie" picture that could perform like a "major" at the box office if handled properly. The premise is less original and "edgy" than Kissing Jessica Stein but it's just as funny.

An indecisive procastinator named Ira walks into a gym and, instead of getting a membership, gets a date with the perky and disarming saleswoman Abby (Westfeldt). They fall hard and fast for each other. She proposes marriage and he can't find a reason to refuse.Ira & Abby milks the culture clash between Ira's parents, who are angst-ridden Jewish analysts-not-therapists, and Abby's cheerful New-Age folks. Plot thickens when Ira's mom and Abby's dad start having a torrid affair and Ira discovers post-nuptials that he is Abby's third husband. Everyone enters therapy to deal with the fallout and all hell breaks loose when the shrinks get involved, culminating in a riotous group therapy session.

Ira & Abby moves like a sitcom but the material is a notch above. Veteran actors Robert Kline, Judith Light, and Fred Willard are masters at this type of comedy. Westfeldt and Six Feet Under's Chris Messina are likable as the titular couple. Nothing earth-shattering going on here but I was amused. Neil Simon and Woody Allen fans are likely to be delighted.

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THE PAGE TURNER (France)

Melanie is a 10 year-old aspiring pianist preparing to audition for tuition-free enrollment at a prestigious conservatory. While playing her tirelessly rehearsed piece, Ariane (Catherine Frot), one of the judges, makes a late entrance and waves in a fan seeking an autograph. Ariane's cavalier attitude causes Melanie to lose her composure and fail the audition. At home, the butcher's daughter puts away her Beethoven mantelpiece and locks the piano. A decade later, Melanie (Deborah Francois) gets an internship at a law firm where Ariane's husband Jean (Pascal Greggory) is one of the partners. Melanie learns that the rich couple need an au pair to care for their son. She volunteers and travels to their lavish home outside Paris. Melanie gradually earns Ariane's confidence. One day, Melanie approaches Ariane while she plays the piano and expertly turns the page of sheet music at the precise moment. From then on, Melanie becomes Ariane's regular page turner. Before traveling abroad on business, Jean tells Melanie that his wife is emotionally fragile and afflicted by stage fright since she was hit by an unidentified driver (was it our young protagonist?). Melanie waits patiently for the right moment to exact revenge on the unsuspecting Ariane.

Writer/director Denis Dercourt has made a number of films depicting the lives of classical musicians. The professional viola player and Conservatory instructor wisely adheres to the adage "stick to what you know". There isn't a single false moment in The Page Turner, and the use of music, both original and well-known repertory pieces, is predictably excellent. The Page Turner recalls Claude Chabrol's suspense thrillers, particularly La Ceremonie for its locale, This Man Must Die for its theme of obssesive revenge, and Merci Pour Le Chocolat for its classical music milieu. Dercourt's film lacks the irony, humor and sharp social commentary of Chabrol's best films. But The Page Turner is a precise chamber piece with a sustained and deliberate pace. The sense of mystery and suspense never flags. Dercourt keeps providing suggestions as to the many ways Melanie could potentially settle scores; he milks the premise for all it's worth. Both veteran actress Catherine Frot (Chaos, The Dinner Game, Un Air de Famille) and Deborah Francois (who debuted last year as the young mom in L'Enfant) are deservedly nominated for French Academy awards.

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MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD (Mexico)

Emilia is increasingly stressed by job demands, failed romances, moving to a new apartment, and taking care of her six year old daughter Alicia. She becomes depressed and irritable following a breakup with a co-worker. Little Alicia feels lonely and experiences difficulty adjusting to the new environment, particularly to the noises coming from the adjacent apartment.It's occupied by a gaunt, stoic man who suffers from a serious illness. Alicia comes to believe the man is a vampire, her imagination fueled by a TV broadcast of Dracula, her nanny's folktales, and the conversations with her schoolmate Julia. She interprets her mother's deterioration and moodiness as resulting from some kind of vampirism.

More Than Anything in the World was written and directed by Andres Becker and Javier Solar. It's an eloquent dramatization of the struggles of single, working mothers anywhere to maintain a balance between personal and parental demands. Actresses Emilia Cervantes and Julia Urbini spent a lot of time together prior to shooting to develop the necessary intimacy and familiarity. Their chemistry is undeniable, with dialogue involving mother and daughter feeling utterly genuine. Comparatively, brief scenes involving Alicia and Julia at school have a staged quality. The role of Julia, who serves only to advance the plot, is somewhat underwritten. The imaginative resolution of the plot involves a contrived twist that detracts from an otherwise laudable picture. More Than Anything in the World won Best Mexican Film at the Guadalajara Film Festival, Best First Film in Montreal, and has been nominated to 5 Mexican Academy awards.

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STRAIGHT TO THE POINT (Brazil)

A documentary about "gangsta samba" and Bezerra da Silva, the godfather of that musical style, directed by Marcia Derraik and Simplicio Neto. Original title, "Onde a Coruja Dorme", means "where the owl sleeps" and refers to Bezerra's willingness to go anywhere to collect streetwise sambas from composers the music industry ignores. Derraic and Neto's 15-minute short Coruja won Best Short at the Gramado and Miami Brazilian festivals in 2001. Encouraged by the awards, Derraik and Neto returned to Bezerra and his songwriting associates to make a feature-length documentary.

Straight to the Point consists of interviews and informal musical performances at homes, bars, street corners and workplaces_most of these composers hold jobs as electricians, mechanics, truck drivers, security guards,etc. The delicious music we hear should be familiar to most, but these sambas eschew typical romantic themes; Bezerra says he forbids the word "love" in any record he releases. These are chronicles of working-class life that tell stories of vicious drug gangs and brutal cops, corrupt politicians and the indifferent elites, workers' struggles to eke out a living and unfair bosses, and of various characters from Rio de Janeiro. Sometimes the tone is caustic and sharp, often bawdy and humorous, but the lyrics are always witty. The affection the songwriters have for Bezerra is palpable. He has provided an outlet for their art, and mediates between them and the record companies that finally realized the popular appeal of "gangsta samba". Film is probably the best way for non-Portuguese speakers to appreciate the genre because of the simultaneous translation of lyrics via subtitles.

I enjoyed Straight to the Point tremendously but I wish it included more biographical material on Bezerra. In the course of doing research for this review, I learned he had a very colorful life_for instance, Bezerra came to Rio from Recife by hiding on a ship transporting sugar when he was a teenager. I also learned that Bezerra da Silva died in 2005 at age 77, something perplexingly unacknowledged by this documentary reportedly completed in 2006.

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MISSISSIPPI CHICKEN (USA)

The American South has experienced tremendous change over the past 50 years. This film directed by John Fiege documents a relatively recent phenomenon: the establishment of hispanic immigrant communities in small towns.In this case, Central Mississippi towns located near poultry plants. Immigrants mostly from Mexico have taken the unpleasant and dangerous jobs available in this industry as African-Americans have moved up the economic ladder. The construction boom has also attracted a large number of foreign workers in the area. Mississippi Chicken focuses on how the newcomers are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation because of their legal status, low educational level, and lack of resouces. The central personality is Anita Grabowski, a young social activist and union organizer from Texas who practically became a part of the community for a year. We witness the charming, bilingual woman earn the trust of the community by advocating on their behalf in a variety of disputes, involving a sub-contactor, a corrupt cop, and a plant supervisor. The trust was extended to Fiege, a friend of Grabowski who basically follows her around with his Super 8 camera and eschews any formal interviews. Of special significance is the close friendship Grabowski develops with a Mexican woman and her teenage daughter, who are quite candid about the perilous journey from Southern Mexico to Mississippi, personal issues, and the painful separation from family members still in Mexico. Mississippi Chicken is consistently interesting and edifying.

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FISH DREAMS (Brazil)

In a seaside village in the Northeast of Brazil, Jusce, a 17 year old fisherman, dreams of owning his own boat and conquering the beautiful and elusive Ana. She dreams of traveling and moving to the city so she can live like the characters in the soaps she watches daily on a small b&w set. Jusce and his friends (including a long-haired German they call "Gringo") fish for sting ray and also lobster, which is illegal and dangerous. Jusce lives alone since his father died, presumably while diving deep for lobster. He's saving money to buy a motor and planks to fix a boat. When Rogerio returns from the city with a car, Jusce is forced to find a way to compete for Ana's attention. He takes the money he's saved for the boat, sells his shack, and goes to the city. He returns with a 61' projection TV set.

Fish Dreams is the feature debut of Kirill Mikhanovsky, who was born in Russia and lives in the US. He stretches the simple plot over almost two hours in order to capture life as lived in the gorgeous, remote location. Scenes of locals pushing boats in and out of the sea, sailing, diving, fishing and cleaning the catch reminded me of Four Men on a Raft, the documentary Orson Welles shot in Brazil while The Magnificent Ambersons was being butchered at the studio. The images are that beautiful and authentic. Mikhanovsky pays equal attention to the local leisure activities: the music-making, dancing, drinking, soccer-playing and socializing by the villagers.Fish Dreams is perhaps more of an ethnographic film than a fiction feature. The plot is merely sketched, with very little dialogue scripted (not a bad thing when you use non-professional actors). The film appropriately adopts the bucolic pace of life in this corner of the world but, at 111 minutes, it's too long. The message that the incursion of technology and modernity is nocent to the village is dramatized without a hint of didacticism.

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SWEET MUD (Israel)

This coming-of-age drama is informed by the personal experiences of writer/director Dror Shaul as a boy growing up in a kibbutz in Southern Israel. Sweet Mud takes place during the twelve months prior to 12 year-old Dvir's Bar Mitzvah, beginning in the summer of 1974. Miri, Dvir's mother, is a widow who has a history of psychiatric hospitalizations dating back to the mysterious death of her husband many years ago. During one hospital stay, he met Stephan, a much older and caring Swiss man who loves her. The kibbutz leaders allow him to visit but his stay is cut short when Stephan injures a neighbor who killed Dvir's dog and threatened to hurt the boy. Miri decompensates and begins to drink excessively. With his older brother doing his military service, the burden of helping Miri falls squarely on Dvir, who's dealing with issues of self-identity and first love typical of boys his age.

Sweet Mud contrasts vistas of the beautiful countryside surrounding the kibbutz with a debunking of the commune's romanticized image as a socialist paradise. The film is particularly critical of the kibbutz's treatment of its weakest, neediest members. Sweet Mud holds one's interest even though it loses its dramatic focus here and there. As visual narrative, the film never strays beyond the conventional. I found the performance by newcomer Tomer Steinhof (Dvir) wooden in spots, but effective enough to make me care. Variety's review, at its world premiere in Toronto, wrongly predicted the film won't amount to more than Shaul's forgettable Sima the Witch. Then Sweet Mud won four Israeli Academy awards, a youth prize at Berlin, and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2007.

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DRAINED (Brazil)

It rarely happens that I watch a movie and I can't form a firm opinion about it. If Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum have expressed similar reactions (to other films) in print, I figure it's ok to express an uncertain opinion here. As a matter of fact, the last time I felt like this, the film in question was I Heart Huckabees (2004). And here's Ebert's initial response to it: "At festivals, the moment a movie is over, everybody asks you what you thought about it. I said, "I didn't know what I thought." Then how did it make you feel? "It made me feel like seeing it again." I actually do have an opinion about Heitor Dhalia's adaptation of Lourenco Mutarelli's O Cheiro do Ralo (The Smell of the Drain). I won't pretend it's a firm, conclusive opinion though. I'd have to see it again. That alone probably means there's something original or subversive about Drained which renders it important.

Lourenco is a rich, well-dressed, 30-something who buys used goods from people desperate for cash. He takes delight in manipulating, disparaging, and humiliating them as if they were mere pawns in a game of his own creation. Lourenco treats the motley group that parade past his desk as commodities that would sell their soul if the price is right. He operates in a large warehouse in the outskirts of Sao Paolo where everything he buys gets cataloged and stored. Lourenco is obsessed with the smell of a clogged drain in the bathroom, a glass eye he believes to have special powers, and the round rear of a waitress at a nearby cafeteria. He goes there frequently, chatting up the waitress while ogling her rump. She has a naive sensuality and finds herself attracted to him. Laurenco doesn't want to know her name and doesn't want to seduce her, he wants to buy her. He complains about the stinking bathroom but he is also addicted to the stench, finding excuses not to have the drain unclogged (at one point he muses that the smell comes from hell itself). Lourenco shows awareness of his vile, pathetic existence but can't or won't change.

Mutarelli's novel is a tragedy with absurdist elements and a caustic critique of consumerism and capitalism. The story might also imply certain things about men's objectification of women. It's a highly provocative, metaphorical narrative told from the less-than-reliable point of view of an anonymous "Nosferatu"_a word Mutarelli uses to describe the protagonist. Dhalia adds bits of humor and playfully assigns the writer's first name to the protagonist. Dhalia further humanizes Lourenco by casting handsome, matinee idol Selton Mello in the lead role. "The character could not be seen as a total asshole or people would leave the film during the exhibition. The image I have built as an actor gave the character a certain goodness" says Mello. This approach to the character seems to me to be incompatible with the original nature of the story. Moreover, I'm not convinced the humor in it, which recalls films by the Coen Brothers, is appropriate within the overall context. Drained is a smart, original movie, but it's not fully realized because of incongruous elements added in the process of adaptation. I think.

Drained won Best Film at the Sao Paulo Film Festival and won Best Actor for Selton Mello and the FISPRESCI Prize at the Rio Film Festival.

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THE CUSTODIAN (Argentina)

Ruben is the bodyguard for the Minister of Planning. He accompanies him to public functions and private meetings, stands outside the dining room while the family eats and outside the entrance to the apartment of the minister's lover. He protects a man who seemingly is not at risk. Ruben is there but others act as if he isn't. He's in the shadows, on the margins of the action. He keeps a distance from the minister from which he hears isolated words but cannot really make out what's being said. He is in close proximity to the important man but is not familiar with him. He's subjected to the casual slights and petty humiliations experienced by those who serve the powerful. Ruben is a man of few words who follows a strict routine. We learn through a conversation with a colleague that his current position amounts to a demotion after exemplary military service. His private life gravitates between helping his neurotic sister and the ocassional visit to a prostitute who still lives with her mother. What exactly does Ruben feel and think about all this?

The Custodian (El Custodio) is the first solo effort by writer/director Rodrigo Moreno. It's a character study strictly from the point of view of the tight-lipped protagonist played by Julio Chavez (Caetano's A Red Bear). The portrait of Ruben is built from the accumulation of details rather than a succession of events. These details are conveyed via carefully planned mise-en-scene and a magnificent central performance built around restrained gestures and body movement. The mise-en-scene makes wonderful use of the physical barriers that keep Ruben removed and marginalized: glass walls that muffle voices, room partitions that create separation, and doors that close in front of the bodyguard. Moreno has assembled a magnificent crew that includes soundman Catriel Vildosola (used by Lisandro Alonso and Pablo Trapero), DP Barbara Alvarez, and the skillful steadycam operator Matias Mesa (Babel, El Aura, Elephant). The Custodian introduces yet another talented young director from Argentina to the world of cinema. I will review another excellent debut from that South American country soon. This wave looks increasingly like a tsunami.

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BLACK BOOK (Netherlands)

Gerard Soeteman was the principal writer for the first seven movies directed by fellow Dutchman Paul Verhoeven. The story they tell in Black Book stems from research they conducted for Soldier of Orange (1977). That war epic, an adventure involving Dutch Resistance fighters, consolidated Verhoeven's international reputation. Soeteman and Verhoeven have been working on the script, on and off, for decades. In the meantime, Verhoeven moved to Hollywood and Soeterman wrote the script for the Oscar winner The Assault (1985) and directed De Bunker, both stories of survival and resistance during WWII. Black Book comes back to the Netherlands during WWII, when Verhoeven and Soeterman were children. It's very much of a piece with their previous filmography.

Black Book tells the story of Rachel, a beautiful and resilient Jewish singer, who's hiding at the rural home of a Christian family in 1944. She's lucky not to be indoors when the Nazis bomb the house (in a Verhoeven film, the Nazis don't search the house, they just blow it up) and manages to run away. She reunites with her parents, who plan to escape with assistance from a Resistance group. The boat is ambushed by the SS, who received information from a mysterious source. Although her family gets killed, Rachel manages to survive and returns to Amsterdam. She gets a job at a factory run by a communist and joins the Resistance under an assumed name. Verhoeven is a highly skilled commercial filmmaker and he has crafted a fast-moving, eventful and exciting movie likely to become the highest grossing foreign-language film of 2007. Black Book eschews the stereotypical presentation of Resistance fighters as principled and Nazis as unredeemable villains. It paints a highly complex moral canvas that rings true. That's the extent of the subtlety and depth contained in a film built to thrill. Black Book also lacks the solemnity of recent films of the period, particularly those involving Jewish survivors. Carice van Houten plays Rachel with great conviction and verve. The handsome German actor Sebastian Koch (the playwright from The Lives of Others) is excellent as the Gestapo chief Rachel seduces in order to obtain information to aid the Resistance. At times, particularly during the second half of the film, Verhoeven seems desperate to keep the viewer amused at all costs. But there's no denying he's delivered a very entertaining mix of adventure, romance and mystery.

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THE HEART OF THE EARTH (Spain/UK)

World premiere of a historical epic inspired by Juan Cobos Wilkins's titular novel. In 1888, the people of Rio Tinto in the Spanish province of Huelva protested against a British mining company use of a copper processing method that endangered the environment and the lives of the residents. The protest was violently quelled with the support of the corrupt town's mayor and the governor. Fifteen years later, with the retirement of ruthless administrator Mr. Crown and a slightly more benign climate for the labor movement, the miners and their families again hope to improve their lot. Blanca Bosco (Catalina Sandino Moreno) witnessed the massacre as a little girl and became an English teacher and writer who advocated on behalf of the miners. The novel is set in 1952, as an elderly Blanca relates the events to Katherine, the curious young granddaughter of the company's British doctor. In the film, directed and co-written by Antonio Cuadri, Katherine (Sienna Guillory) is Crown's niece and Blanca's best friend. As young women, both become attracted to Baxter, the new manager's right-hand man. Surprisingly, it's the impulsive Katherine who takes violent action against the unwieldy British managers who continue to profit at the expense of the poor locals.

The Heart of the Hearth is a big budget epic with outstanding production values. The film is quite handsome, even spectacular, reminiscent of John Ford's color westerns. It was shot in the actual town and huge copper mine (closed for decades, of course) where these events took place. The story is rather simple, with clearly identified villains and heroes. The Heart of the Earth has an old-fashioned feel to it, adopting a conventional storytelling approach. The cast is fine, particularly Misses Guillory (Helen of Troy) and Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace). But I was unable to develop much of an interest in the romantic triangle in which their characters are entangled, and the epilogue is superfluous and anticlimatic. The Heart of the Earth is pretty and earnest but bland filmmaking.

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BELLE TOUJOURS (Portugal/France)

Manoel de Oliveira's Belle toujours is an epilogue to Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour. In the 1967 classic, Severine (Catherine Deneuve) is a young wife who finds a way to satisfy her sexual fantasies when Henri (Michel Piccoli), her husband's best friend, gives her the address of an exclusive brothel where housewives often work in the afternoons. It was based on a novel by Joseph Kessel. Belle Tojours is set in 2006 with Piccoli reprising his role and Bulle Ogier (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) subbing for Deneuve. Henri spots her at a concert hall but fails to meet her, then hangs out at a bar having double scotches and chatting up the bartender. Henri lies when he says Severine's fantasy was to cheat on her husband with his best friend. When the bartender asks if they had sex, he avoids giving a direct answer and never reveals she spurned his advances. Whereas in Bunuel's film fantasies fuel the narrative, Belle tojours privileges memories. Manoel de Oliveira makes a strong parallel between Madame Anais's brothel and this bar where the same oil nude hangs on the wall and two hookers flirt with Henri and provide a sort of commentary. They are roughly Severine's age then and now.

In Belle toujours, Henri is given an address_to Severine's hotel but he just misses her. Henri finally manages to catch up with her outside an antique shop, and she somewhat reluctantly agrees to have dinner with him in a restaurant. The concert hall, bar, hotel lobby and restaurant look no different than they would have appeared to the Portuguese director during his first visit to Paris in the 1920s. The outdoor scenes are precisely framed in order to maintain that illusion. Henri and Severine have dinner silently in a private dining room illuminated by the sputtering light of candles (a symbol of impermanence). Then Severine reveals she regrets her past and that her sexual desires have been extinguished or sublimated. Henri presents her with a lacquered box that makes a soft buzzing sound, it's identical to one brought by a client to the bordello in Belle de Jour. Henri is seemingly aware that specific sounds provoked the young Severine's sexual fantasies, but now her appetites fail to be aroused. She states she wants to retire to a convent (what would the anti-clerical Bunuel think). Immediately after she leaves, the revolving door reveals a chicken in the hall, as the film closes on a note of pure homage to Bunuel at his most surrealistic.

In Belle tojours, Manoel explores with characteristic old-world elegance what happens to erotic desire when we age. It's a magnificent film, best enjoyed by those familiar with Bunuel's 1967 masterpiece. Belle tojours will be distributed in North America by New Yorker Films.

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BEAUTY IN TROUBLE (Czech Republic)

Benes, a middle-aged Czech ex-patriate living in Tuscany, watches footage of the 2002 floods that devastated his native Prague. He decides to return to check on a property he owns. The floods ruined the uninsured home of the beautiful blonde Marcela and her husband Jarda, a mechanic who has turned to crime by stripping stolen cars. Marcela objects and they quarrel frequently. The kids are getting sick from the mold in their house. So Marcela and the kids move in with her meek, religious mother and Richard, mother's creepy, confrontational husband. It's an uncomfortable arrangement for everyone. Jarda gets arrested when the police find Benes' stolen car at his body shop. Marcela and Benes meet at the police station. Over time, they get to know each other and become friends, then lovers while Jarda serves time in prison. The cultured and generous Benes is very nice to Marcela's family, even to the obnoxious Richard. He even takes them on vacation to Tuscany, where he owns a vineyard. Jarda gets released from prison and wants a reconciliation with Marcela.

Beauty in trouble runs to the good angel
On whom she can rely
To pay her cab-fare, run a steaming bath,
poultice her bruised eye
Robert Graves (1895-1985)

This poem served as the inspiration for Beauty in Trouble, the latest collaboration between director Jan Hrebejk and writer Petr Jarchovsky. They have been inseparable since they met in film school twenty years ago, creating a highly regarded body of work (Big Beat, Up and Down, Divided We Fall). Their specialty is a type of humanistic drama with a healthy dosage of humor in which even secondary characters seem to exist outside the frame. They achieve a rather complex tone that feels invariably life-like: "If it's a tragic scene I try to shoot it as if it were a comic scene, and the other way around" say Hrebejk. I don't know specifically what that entails and it's probably unwise for others to attempt to duplicate that approach, but it works delightfully here. What Hrebejk films convey more than anything is an unconditional positive regard for even the least likable characters. They're granted their dignity and humanity. Richard may be the film's most interesting character. He's petty, dictatorial, even abusive but sometimes wise and ultimately well-intentioned. Another Hrebejk/Jarchovsky trademark is narrative clarity, a knack for guiding the viewer through significant events and pacing character introductions in a way that feels organic and natural. There's nothing simplistic about the characters or the plot of Beauty in Trouble but it's easy for the viewer to become oriented and engaged, all the way to the satisfyng and somewhat paradoxical conclusion. Ana Geislerova, who's excellent as Marcela, has become the most recognizable Czech actress since her three previous films (Zelary, Lunacy and Something Like Happiness) have traveled quite a bit (all three were released in the USA, where East-European films are usually hard to find).

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MY SON (France)

A deeply disturbed woman (Nathalie Baye) increasingly dominates and smothers her son Julien as he enters adolescence in Martial Fougeron's debut feature Mon Fils A Moi. It involves a bourgeois family in which the marital relationship is practically nonexistent. Dad (Olivier Gourmet) is completely dedicated to his academic work as a college professor and submits to his wife's wishes when at home. Mom makes every decision in the boy's life including what he eats and wears. Julien gets a respite from her when he receives piano lessons from his grandmother (Emmanuelle Riva) and at school, where a cute girl catches his eye. Fougeron and co-writer Florence Eliakim establish certain expectations by opening the film with a long shot of an ambulance outside the family's suburban home. They establish a tense mood from the start and sustain it, as Julien's attempts to escape from her mother's claws are thwarted every time. Julien's sister, a college freshman, complains to her father to no avail. Instead, she's sent to the college dorm and Julien is forbidden to visit his grandmother and commanded to come straight home from school. In one particularly effective scene, Mom walks into Julien's room and torments him until he drops the towel wrapped around his waist. Midway, My Son gives a taste of the violence to come when Mom hits Julien for going to a party he was, of course, forbidden to attend. Uncharacteristically, Dad stops the beating by slapping her, which caused the audience to cheer in relief (two sources report the same audience reaction at San Sebastian, where the film won the Best Film and Best Actress awards).

My Son is more than anything a horror film, in that mom behaves monstruously and no explanation or backstory is offered. Only Julien's futile attempts to develop some separation and self-identity are treated with psychological depth. My Son is absorbing, painfully so, as it moves down a one-lane road into the darkness.

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THE NIGHT OF THE SUNFLOWERS (Spain)

Esteban, a speleologist from Madrid, comes to an isolated rural area to explore a newly discovered cave. A photographer from a nearby village joins him to document any findings. Esteban's girlfriend Gabi goes for a hike in the woods where she's assaulted by a traveling salesman_did he kill the young woman whose corpse was found in a sunflower field in the film's opening scene? A shocked Gabi misidentifies her attacker causing Esteban to exact revenge on a local curmudgeon. An opportunistic young cop figures things out before his boss and proposes to help Esteban in exchange for money.

La Noche de los Girasoles is the auspicious debut of writer/director Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo. The title has a double meaning in that "sunflower" is a term used in rural Spain to refer to outsiders or "cityfolk". The film is infused with the melancholic isolation experienced in small rural towns with dwindling populations, towns almost bereft of young adults who often move to cities when they reach a certain age. Sanchez-Cabezudo projects a very specific sense of place. This thriller is told in six episodes whose timelines overlap, amounting to a structure with several flashbacks and flashforwards. Such narrative structures can cause temporal disorientation in the viewer and pacing problems but evidently Sanchez-Cabezudo can handle the challenge. Each episode adopts the point of view of a different protagonist which results in more character dimensionality than usually found in heavily-plotted thrillers. Among the standout performances, Carmelo Gomez as the bewildered speleologist and Celso Bugallo as the wily old cop bent on solving the case. Ultimately, what takes The Night of the Sunflowers beyond genre is Sanchez-Cabezudo's handling of the story's moral repercussions. Spain's Critics Circle designated Mr. Gomez as Best Actor and Mr. Sanchez-Cabezudo as Best New Artist of 2006.

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A WONDERFUL WORLD (Mexico)

Luis Estrada is out to ruffle feathers again. The director's last political satire, Herod's Law (1999), had its world premiere temporarily cancelled and its commercial run shortened by authorities from the governing political party, the PRI. That film looked back at decades of unkept promises and institutional corruption by PRI administrations. The sarcastically titled A Wonderful World is motivated by Luis Estrada's concerns about the widening gap between the rich and the poor caused by globalization, free-market policies, and what the writer/producer/director calls "savage capitalism".

Looking for a warm place to spend the night, Juan (Damian Alcazar) sneaks into the World Financial Center building and lays down on an office couch. The bum panics when he hears a guard enter the office, hops down a window and into a ledge. His gesture is misinterpreted by onlookers as a symbolic suicide attempt, as a desperate protest. A crowd gathers, the media arrives and Pedro Lascurain, the Minister of Economy, worries about public opinion. The press turn Juan into a populist hero while Lascurain schemes to use Juan to his advantage. Juan is easily seduced by fame and the cute house and perks offered by Lascurain in exchange for his public support. Now Juan is confident enough to woo Rosita, a sweet downtrodden girl. His "compadres" Tamal, El Azteca, and Filemon feel a little left out though. They don't like it either when Juan starts adopting bourgeois attitudes. Meanwhile, Lascurain dreams of a high post at the WTO. To that end, he figures, he must eradicate poverty in Mexico... or at least make the poor invisible.

A Wonderful World is a satire structured as a fairy tale. It boasts excellent production values and a magnificent cast. The great Damian Alcazar (Herod's Law, Satanas) channels Chaplin's Tramp and Mexican icon Tintan into the protagonist. Cecilia Suarez reminded me of Giulietta Masina and Chaplin sweethearts like Paulette Godard and Edna Purviance. Juan's bawdy pals are played by three outstanding character actors who've never been better. Estrada takes liberties with the art direction: when Juan peeks inside a middle-class living room, the scene looks like a 50s TV sitcom; and the decor of Juan's new home is pure 70s kitsch. A Wonderful World borrows sporadically from 1930s social comedies and from Italian neorealism but its tone is very dark. Somehow, this melange of influences and allusions enrich and amuse without making the film derivative. The hopeful tone of Louis Armstrong's rendition of the titular song is used to provide ironic counterpoint. Ultimately, A Wonderful World reflects Estrada's conclusion that, if the powerful care at all, they are too insulated to realize that there's a limit to what the poor can withstand.

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GLUE (Argentina)

It's a tough task to make a fresh and original film about adolescence. There have been so many great movies that depict those wonderful/horrible years when humans change so rapidly and feel so intensely. A large number of them can be categorized as "coming-of-age" stories in that a major character faces a challenging event or experience that serves as a rite of passage to a higher level of awareness and maturity. For most of us, our teenage experience is not so clearly delineated. Real life usually doesn't yield dramatic narratives; it usually lacks a tragic or suspenseful element. The protagonists of Alexis dos Santos' debut feature are "average teenagers" only in the sense that nothing spectacular happens to them, but they are highly individuated. The film is also quite specific about the small town in Patagonia where they live, the same place where the director's family moved when he was eight years old.

Lucas is a gangly, bug-eyed 15 year-old with an expressive face and hair like the young Bob Dylan. That was her mother in the opening scene angrily confronting and fighting with her husband's alleged lover. Turns out they have been separated due to his infidelities but want to try to reconcile. It's a typical hot and dry summer. Lucas spends most of his time with peers, particularly his best friend Nacho and new acquaintance Andrea. Any attempt at providing a synopsis is bound to be as reductive as the title (which Santos qualifies by adding "Adolescent Story in the Middle of Nowhere"): the kids swim at the public pool, play in a rock band (Lucas writes lyrics and sings, badly, and he knows it), engage in prankish games and idle talk, and just plain hang out. The daring, awkwardness, vulnerability and self-consciousness of adolescence permeate every moment. Dad comes to dinner one night. Lucas decides to steal the key to Dad's apartment and party there with Nacho and Andrea. She can't come so the boys find some glue, get high and get each other off. Another day, the three of them go to a dance club, have a beer or two, then end up kissing and touching each other. The film is fluid and ethereal, both in content and form. Santos cast three kids who knew each other at an improv class, took them to the town of Zapala in Patagonia, let them wander around and suggest locations, provided them with basic scenarios and allowed them to create dialogue within certain parameters. He shot most of the film in HD video with gorgeously saturated colors, and added some impressionistic inner monologues shot in super 8 (reminiscent of those in Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation).Towards the conclusion, Lucas, his older sister, and parents, seemingly closer to reconciliation, go camping. They have trouble setting up the tent so that it doesn't collapse on them. A subtle metaphor for the difficulties of keeping a family together.

Glue takes a non-judgemental stance and regards the kids with deep empathy. It's a simultaneously realistic and lyrical snapshot of adolescence. Perhaps it's not a film that will be universally admired because it lacks the compelling narrative, the dramatic twists and turns, that certain audiences expect from a movie. Few will deny that teenagers have seldom been depicted with such warmth and unflinching honesty though. Glue has been a success in the festival circuit. It was recently selected to open the renowned New Directors/New Films series in New York. Picture This! Entertainment has recently acquired the North American rights to the film. It's unclear at the moment what type of distribution the film will receive.

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COLOSSAL YOUTH (Portugal)

"This is so out of the zeitgeist I don't know where to begin"
(Critic/author Mark Peranson, editor of Cinema Scope magazine, on reviewing Colossal Youth)

It's a rare privilege to watch the work of a filmmaker who seems to live in a parallel universe. Pedro Costa's films have no clear antecedents or familiar points of reference. The challenge of writing about Colossal Youth is compounded by the fact that it's my first exposure to his films. Colossal Youth completes a trilogy involving residents of the Fontainhas projects that began with Bones (1997) and In Vanda's Room (2000). A large percentage of those living in Fontainhas are immigrants from Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony in Africa. The trilogy is based on a unique artistic collaboration between Costa and the disadvantaged residents, who either play themselves or thinly fictionalized versions. Costa's sensitivity to their plights and his historical awareness is matched by the residents' self-exposure and tireless dedication_reportedly, Costa shot 320 hours of DV footage over a 15-month period then edited the film down to 155 minutes. Out of this material, Costa creates something that differs markedly from the documentary and neorealist traditions.

Ventura is a sixtyish recovering alcoholic forced into retirement by a construction site accident. The film opens with his wife tossing his belongings out of a third story window and angrily kicking him out of their slum dwelling. Ventura goes on an odyssey of sorts, a series of visits with younger people he calls his "children". One of the challenges of Colossal Youth is that it's left up to the viewer to clarify how exactly characters are related and how much time passes between these encounters. To most of these "children", Ventura is actually a father figure, a sort of village elder. The characters are depicted during a period of transition as the residents are being moved from the squalid and dilapidated Fontainhas to the sterile, white-walled apartments of a new housing development. The dislocation experienced by the residents is matched by the viewers' lack of spatial orientation due to the absence of establishing shots. Ventura's "children" include: Vanda, a former heroin addict who relates in detail the events surrounding the birth of her toddler, an injured laborer undergoing rehabilitation who wishes for a job as a goldsmith and grieves over a rift with his mother, a guard at a museum exhibiting the paintings of Velasquez, an illiterate migrant worker who asks Ventura to write a letter to his distant wife. The composition and recitation of the letter becomes a recurring theme, a sort of poetic incantation projecting the sense of loss and isolation inherent in the separation and estrangement of families. Ventura visits a young woman (who appears to actually be his biological daughter) still living at Fontainhas. As they sit, they look off-screen and create stories based on the figures on the wall created by the peeling paint, just as if the walls were clouds. No matter how decrepit, there's a history in these shabby and cramped rooms. The scene explains with great subtlety why the residents feel a profound ambiguity about being relocated. A couple of times, Ventura meets with a social worker to examine what is to be his new apartment, but Ventura keeps straining to find faults with it. His dream to gather "all his children" under one roof is illusory, impractical, and quixotic. It speaks volumes about his deep need for community and affiliation in a changing world.

Colossal Youth consists of long scenes that occur in real time. Costa generally uses a single light source that bathes the characters in pools of brightness and shadow. The camera is invariably fixed and positioned at an angle from the characters, with especial attention to the contrast between subject and background. Certainly Colossal Youth is not a film for the casual filmgoer, or those who regard movies as pastime or diversion. Costa has said that his films must be seen publicly because the walk-outs are part of the experience. Certain scenes are "designed" to send to the exits those who wandered into the wrong movie. The implication is that many won't truly care to know Ventura, Vanda, and the others. Or perhaps they don't want to deal with something "so out of the zeigeist". Colossal Youth is a mysterious and lyrical film created through the intimate collaboration between a true artist and his dedicated subjects.

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AWARDS

DRAMATIC FEATURES

IBERO-AMERICAN CINEMA COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize: The Violin (Mexico)
Audience Award: The Night of the Sunflowers (Spain)

WORLD CINEMA COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize: Red Road (Scotland)
FISPRESCI Prize: Red Road (Scotland)
Audience Award: Sweet Mud (Israel)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES

Grand Jury Prize: Banished (USA)
Special Jury Prize: Septembers (Spain)
Audience Award: To Play and To Fight (Venezuela)

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TO PLAY AND TO FIGHT (Venezuela)

Tocar Y Luchar was intended to be an institutional video about the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra system. After shooting had completed, the producers decided to submit it for exhibition at film festivals. It premiered at Montreal then at the AFI in Los Angeles in 2006. Lamentably, because of lack of funds for post-production, Tocar y Luchar received some criticism for its poor sound, editing, and other technical problems. These problems were corrected in January of 2007 and the film started winning awards in film festivals, including an Audience Award when shown at the Miami International Film Festival in March.

Tocar Y Luchar combines concert footage and interviews. Venezuela developed a nationwide music education program in the 1970s and, 30 years later, it's recognized as the best in the world. Several orchestra conductors from Germany, Switzerland and the U.S. are shown directing the youth orchestras and expressing their admiration and disbelief at the level of skill and commitment of the young musicians. A powerful scene shows Placido Domingo moved to tears by a choral performance. Adult graduates of the system and kids of all ages testify about the multiplicity of benefits of a music education. There's no polemic or tension to be found anywhere in this invariably uplifting and joyous documentary. It's crowd-pleasing almost to a fault.

*I missed Tocar Y Luchar during the MIFF but wished I had seen it after it won an audience award. I watched it last night as part of a retrospective of Venezuelan cinema. Tocar Y Luchar continues to be exhibited at festivals.