Reel World 3

[February 22nd, 2006] The following films play at the Northwest Film Center and Broadway Cinemas this week as part of the 29th Portland International Film Fest, which ends Saturday, Feb. 25.

Forest for the Trees

[Germany] A heart-wrenching tale of a woman who tries to fit into a new life after leaving her old small-town roots. 6:30 pm Wednesday B2

we feed the world

[austria] Here's yet another documentary addressing the question of why people are starving all over the world when, at the same time, farmers are paid not to grow food and bakeries and restaurants throw perfectly good bread into the trash. The film also touches on the fishing industry, poultry farming and the impact of genetically modified produce on small farmers. In true PIFF fashion, it's all very depressing, though illuminating and well-made. The highlight: watching thousands of little yellow baby chicks wondering just what the hell kind of world they've hatched into as they're shuttled along an assembly line to their doom. BECKY OHLSEN. 6:30 pm Wednesday GU, 1 pm Saturday GU

mother of mine

[finland] A poignant account of one of the 80,000 Finnish children sent to neighboring countries during World War II. 6:45 pm Wednesday B1

Fateless

[Hungary] Based on Imre Kertész's novel, this film follows Gyuri, a 14-year-old Jewish boy from Budapest who survives a concentration camp only to find himself further separated from his neighbors when he finally makes it home. The haunted eyes of actor Marcell Nagy will stick with you far longer than the film's two-hour-plus running time. Fateless is directed by well-known cinematographer Lajos Koltai. BECKY OHLSEN. 7 pm Wednesday WH

zozo

[sweden] A young boy travels to Sweden after losing his family in the civil war in Beirut, only to encounted more hardships in this semi-autobiographical poignant tale. 8:30 pm Wednesday B2, 9:15 pm Friday B2, 4:30 pm Saturday B1

short cuts ii:

international ties

This collection of shorts from five different countries features new work from animator (and former Portlander) Bill Plympton. 8:45 pm Wednesday GU, 9 pm Thursday GU

THE second wedding night

[italy] A war widow returns to her family estate looking for love from a simple but good man in this emotive comedy. 9:15 pm Wednesday B1, 5:30 pm Saturday GU

**WWPICK** KZ

[great britain] Talk about grim. KZ is a documentary about what it's like to be a tour guide at a Nazi concentration-camp memorial—specifically, Austria's Mauthausen, a camp above a cheerful little village whose older inhabitants remember the wartime atrocities with widely varying emotions. Guides here are face-to-face with the horrors of history every day, and it wreaks havoc on their minds, as does the reaction of the tour groups. Most people are deeply affected by the re-creation of events in the camp, but there are also those who steal showerheads as "souvenirs" and draw graffiti swastikas on the walls of the gas chambers. This is a fascinating film, but beyond upsetting. BECKY OHLSEN. 6 pm Thursday WH

**WWPICK** Favela Rising

[Brazil/U.S.A.] One of the best films at PIFF is this documentary set on the violent streets of Rio de Janeiro's brutal slum Vigário Geral, where Anderson Sa led a social revolution. A former drug dealer whose life was forever altered by the murder of his family, Sa became the co-founder of AfroReggae, a cultural movement that inspired people through music and dance, giving hope for a better way of life. Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist document Sa and his partner Jose Junior's attempts to rally their community against the corrupt police and drug dealers that wreak havoc on people's lives. DAVID WALKER. 6 pm Thursday B2

**WWPICK** mongolian ping pong

[china] Director Hao Ning offers a precious glimpse into the vast Mongolian steppes and a group of nomads living there. The setting is breathtaking, and the plot endearingly takes its time evolving with small details while also revealing these intriguing people and their everyday lives. The plot begins when an innocent 9-year-old boy finds a ping-pong ball floating down a stream. He shows it to his two friends, as well as to his grandmother, who tells him it is a "glowing pearl." The wondrous effect this mysterious table-tennis ball has on these three boys makes for a simple but delectable film. LAURA MULRY. 6:30 pm Thursday B1

iraq in fragments

[u.s.a.] Three intimate portrayals illuminate a very human side of Iraq rarely shown. 6:30 pm Thursday GU, 3:30 pm Saturday B2

**WWPICK** THE President's last bang

[south korea] With its pitch-black humor outweighed by its political-thriller underpinnings, Sang-soo Im's fact-inspired movie recalls such films as Dr. Strangelove and Network. Recounting the 1979 assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-hee by a secret-service agent disgusted by the commander in chief's immoral behavior, the film moves seamlessly between comedy and thriller. Suk-kyu Han (Shiri) gives a powerful performance as one of the key participants in the assassination, who finds himself caught in a moral quandary. DAVID WALKER. 8:30 pm Thursday WH, 8:15 pm Saturday B1.

Kissed by Winter

[Norway] This film takes a look at a small Norwegian town covered in snow, along with death and repression. Yay! 8:30 pm Thursday B2; 3:15 pm Saturday GU

**WWPICK** factotum

[Norway] Adapting the booze-soaked words of Charles Bukowski to the big screen is no easy task, but Norwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer does an admirable job. Matt Dillon stars as Bukowski's legendary alter ego, the alcoholic, skirt-chasing gambler Henry Chinaski, who drifts aimlessly between meaningless jobs, the racetrack, dingy bars and the beds of wanton women. Not the obvious choice for Chinaski, Dillon manages to pull it off. Fans of Bukowski may find reasons to nitpick, but they should be happy the film is as good as it is. DAVID WALKER. 9 pm Thursday B1, 8 pm Saturday GU

when the sea rises

[france] In this winner of the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film, a travelling comedian begins a tumultuous love affair with a man she meets on the road. 6:30 pm Friday B1, 3 pm Saturday WH

**WWPICK** in my father's den

[New zealand] Don't watch this one if you're feeling fragile—it's a brutal if scattered story about buried tragedy that surfaces in unexpected ways. Matthew Macfadyen (Pride & Prejudice) is a war photographer who returns to his small New Zealand hometown for his dad's funeral. Digging through the stuff collected in his father's secret hideout, he's forced to confront all the reasons he left town. He starts out sad and just gets sadder. Whee! BECKY OHLSEN. 6:30 pm Friday WH, 7:15 pm Saturday B1

art school confidential

[u.s.a.] Director Terry Zwigoff reunites with Ghost World writer Daniel Clowes for this disappointing comic noir about a series of murders at a Manhattan liberal-arts college. There are chuckles in the first half as that film skewers the various types of art students—vulgar filmmakers, gay fashion designers, vegan painters, etc. But things take a turn for the weird later on, as the protagonist, "normal" freshman artist Jerome (Max Minghella), comes to be suspected for the murders. John Malkovich and Jim Broadbent give supporting performances that, like most of the film, are almost funny but not quite. ERIC D. SNIDER. 6:45 pm Friday GU, 8 pm Saturday WH

delwende

[burkina faso] A woman searches for her exiled mother accused of being a witch in this glimpse of Burkina Faso culture. 7 pm Friday B2, 2:15 pm Saturday B1

manderlay

[denmark] Lars von Trier used to make movies and write manifestos. And he used to be pretty good at both. But with Manderlay, the Danish director has combined the two, and the sum is a whole lot less than the parts. This follow-up to Dogville uses the same bare-stage setting and stilted dialogue with omniscient voiceover. Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard, replacing Nicole Kidman) gets her gangster lawyers to free the slaves at a Southern plantation and, oh benevolence, give them ownership of the place. Though set in America, this is a critique of human idiocy worldwide. But it's so heavy-handed it feels like a college sociology lecture. BECKY OHLSEN. 9 pm Friday B1

the car

[colombia] This box-office hit from South America accompanies a middle-class family that spent its nest egg on a car. 9:15 pm Friday GU, 6 pm Saturday B2

The Notorious bettie page

[u.s.a.] The life and times of legendary pinup model Bettie Page are the stuff of which great movies are made. And in more capable hands than that of screenwriter Guinevere Turner and director Mary Harron, this film might have had a fighting chance. But rather than make something compelling, this not-so-dynamic duo has crafted a film of such maudlin mediocrity that it becomes and endurance test to just sit through this hackneyed mess. Recounting the rise to infamy of Page (Gretchen Mol) from wholesome schoolgirl to the embodiment of sexuality, this film falls short of even the most hackneyed of biopics. DAVID WALKER. 9:15 pm Friday WH, 5:30 pm Saturday WH

Bluebird

[Netherlands] A teenage girl shunned by her peers must face the hardships of her life in this coming-of-age tale. Noon Saturday B1

Requiem of Snow

[Iraq] This woeful story about rebellion and tradition finds a young girl ordered to marry a man twice her age instead of her beloved fiancé. 1 pm Saturday B2