Films & Schedules - Friday, February 12, 2010

Heliopolis follows the lives and frustrations of a host of characters living in Cairo's historic Heliopolis district.

This ensemble drama’s sharp critique of Egyptian society is matched by a nostalgia-drenched longing for life before the 1952 revolution. Using intertwining stories, Abdalla skillfully sheds light on the small struggles of everyday life in Cairo, and on the discontent that seems to pervade one particular district of the city. Criss-crossing Cairo’s historical Heliopolis neighborhood, we share the minor travails of various players over the course of a single day. Hany wants to procure a visa to travel abroad. Ali and Maha want to buy Hany’s apartment but must first negotiate gridlock. Grad student Ibrahim wants to interview an uncooperative subject. Hotel clerk Engy simply wants to be anywhere but Egypt. As they each fail to achieve their meager goals, Abdalla suggests that their individual frustrations stem from an underlying discontent endemic in Egyptian society.

First Feature Film.

96 Minutes    

Interests: New Directors, Narrative Feature, French Language, Middle Eastern.

Christine, a crippled skeptic, joins a pilgrimage to Lourdes in an effort to reconnect with society. When she is apparently healed and the media gets hold of the story, Hausner's film becomes a sensitive, satirical look at faith and doubt.

Christine (Sylvie Testud), confined to a wheelchair, is isolated and socially awkward. Desperate to engage with the world around her, she joins a religious group journeying to Lourdes, the iconic Christian shrine in the Pyrenees mountains. Skeptic though she is, Christine needs companionship, and, like the others, hopes for a miraculous cure from the grotto’s healing waters. When she wakes up one morning seemingly cured by a miracle, surprising attention comes her way. “Always treading a fine line between sorrow and satire, Hausner’s cool depiction wavers between a critique of religion and a story of redemption. Christine’s pilgrimage is perplexing and wonderful in its misguided search. She will discover that the most important part of the journey is to believe in something, whether basic human kindness or divine intervention.”—Cinematheque Ontario.

Filmography: Lovely Rita (01), Hotel (04).

In French with English subtitles.

Sponsored by Austrian Consulate General, Los Angeles.

99 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, French Language.

Police, Adjective follows a morally conflicted, undercover cop as he stakes out a young boy accused of selling drugs.

Winner of the Jury Prize (Un Certain Regard) and Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the latest film from Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest, PIFF 31) starts out with an absurdly comic police sting operation—one designed to catch a lone high school student in the act of selling drugs. Cristi, the cop assigned to the case, realizes the futility of the mission, but his attempts to convince his bureaucratic superiors are met with contempt, derision, and the reminder that it is not his place to question the letter of the law. But letters and laws are very much on Porumboiu’s mind, as the observational style of the film’s first part gives way to an exhilarating verbal joust between cop and police chief about conscience, personal morality, and the true meaning of the things one sees and how one chooses to describe them. “The truth of my character lies in the small things, in his daily routine and in a certain time of being and reacting.”—Corneliu Porumboiu.

Filmography: 12:08 East of Bucharest (06).

Sponsored by Romanian American Society Portland Iasi Sister City Association.

115 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, Comedy.

A Danish village with many secrets is the setting for this blackly comic thriller. When Robert, a Copenhagen policeman, tries to help the beautiful Ingelise escape her abusive husband, the stage is set for a glorious flaunting of conventions and a melding of noir, comedy, and thriller.

A southern Danish village hides as many secrets as the nearby bog in this blackly comic thriller about the universal nature of compromise and corruption. When tightly wound cop Robert is transferred to a small border town where outsiders either adapt or disappear, he finds that the clannish locals scorn by-the-book law enforcement and rely instead on their own unique brand of frontier justice. When another outsider, the alluring Ingelise, tries to enlist Robert’s help in escaping from her abusive husband, the stage seems to be set for a predictable love triangle. Cleverly defying expectations as it knowingly toys with genre conventions, Terribly Happy sustains a unique tone that smoothly incorporates Western, noir, horror, and psychological thriller with creative flair.

Filmography: Someone Like Hodder (03).

Winner of six Danish Bodil (Danish Oscars) and this year’s Danish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Sponsored by West Cafe.

95 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature.

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Ulrich Tukur (The Lives of Others) gives a gripping performance as John Rabe, a German industrialist in China who, in 1937, intervened to save an estimated 200,000 Chinese civilians from the rape and slaughter perpetrated by the invading Japanese army. Reluctantly drawn into the relief effort by a coalition of fellow internationals, including an American doctor (Steve Buscemi) and a French school headmistress (Anne Consigny), Rabe and company create a safety zone at Rabe’s Siemens plant where refugees fleeing the Nanking massacre can take shelter. But mounting pressure from the aggressive Japanese commanding officer (Teruyuki Kagawa) pushes their resolve to the breaking point. Based on Rabe’s diaries (published as “The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe”), Gallenberger’s film is the winner of four German Film Awards including Best Film and Best Actor.

Filmography: Tango Berlin (97), Shadows of Time (04).

134 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, History, Literature.

Valery Todorovsky's period-set musical Hipsters centers around a group of splashy young rebels living in Moscow in the 1950s.

Moscow, 1955. In the midst of strict Cold War Soviet conformity, nothing can stop a group of young “hipsters” from donning outrageous threads, adopting American nicknames, puffing up their pompadours, throwing back martinis, and reveling in forbidden jazz. Straight-laced 20-year-old Communist Youth Party member Mels finds these brazen renegades shocking until he falls under the spell of a pretty one and joins the new revolution. Soon he’s cavorting in the latest flashy fashions, sporting an enormous do, and wailing on the saxophone—all in an exuberant musical that delves into a chapter of Russian history little known to outsiders. Music and the common dream of America become a manifestation of freedom. The winner of four Nika Awards (Russia’s Oscar) including Best Film, Hipsters is universal in its celebration of self-expression and spirited opposition to conformity.

Filmography: Love (92), The Land of the Deaf (98), The Lover (02), My Stepbrother Frankenstein (04).

Sponsored by Hotel Modera.

125 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Music.

Based on the best-selling novel by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the tale of a disgraced journalist trying to crack a 40-year-old murder that may have been the work of a still-at-large serial killer.

An international crime thriller involving corporate intrigue, serial murder, and powerful Old World dynasties, Oplev’s taut film is based on the international best-selling novel by Stieg Larsson and will have you on the edge of your seat. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a disgraced reporter about to go to prison. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is the mysterious girl of the title with a checkered past and a sideline in computer hacking. Together they are hired to investigate a 40-year-old disappearance at the request of eccentric, 82-year-old industralist Henrik Vanger. As they dig deep into the secrets of the Vanger family they begin to uncover a dark and bloody history that someone wants to keep hidden at any cost.

Filmography: Portland (96), Defense (03), We Shall Overcome (07).

Sponsored by Alaska Airlines.

152 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Literature.

A simple act of generosity sends a young man on a picaresque journey through a frightening netherworld of crime and weirdness in this evocative tale.

Bimal and Meera are a young Kolkata couple, very much in love and on the verge of getting married. But Bimal has an idealistic streak that jeopardizes their bliss. On a visit to his old school, he sees how it has fallen into disrepair and decides to donate a new, handcrafted window to replace the now decrepit one from which he gazed as a boy. It seems like a simple act of generosity, but in Dasgupta’s Bengal, generosity can seed chaos. Soon, he is lost in a picaresque netherworld of petty crime and mystical visions. “Window showcases Dasgupta’s striking imagery and sense of place, but still more impressive is his delightful, seamless mesh of the magical with the realistic, the slapstick with the ethereal, and romance with global economics.”—Telluride Film Festival.

Selected Filmography: Distance (78), Crossroads (81), The Return (86), Their Story (92), The Shelter of the Wings (93), A Tale of a Naughty Girl (02), Chased by Dreams (04), Memories in the Mist (05), The Voyeurs (07).

110 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature.