Hitchhiker's Guide To The Festival

It's time to say guten tag to another Portland International Film Festival. The 30th annual exercise in cinematic diplomacy, which spans the next three weeks through Feb. 24, kicks off this Friday night with a showing of German spy story The Lives of Others in the 800-seat Newmark Theatre. From there, you're free to visit sledgehammer-wielding Hong Kong gangsters and meet Canadian zombies—or stay close to home for an hour with WW's own cartoon correspondent John Callahan. But beware: While PIFF offers slices of magic, it is strewn with its fair share of artsy duds. Global cinema is a minefield. That's why you need a handy map of the pleasures and perils, you ugly Americans. Happy to help.

The Lives of Others

[OPENING NIGHT, GERMANY] Spying on people can make you crazy—anybody who's ever spent a little too much time on MySpace knows that. So it's no surprise that when spying is your job, you turn weird. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is the best there is at his job. He's also decidedly odd: a tense, quiet man with tunnel-vision eyes and a flat, unbending line of a mouth. Wiesler works for the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. It's 1984, five years before the Berlin Wall crumbles, though everything in the film, even the air, looks old and shabby. Wiesler signed up with the Stasi out of an idealistic faith in socialism, but now the party has grown slack and dissolute. Despite the corruption around him, Wiesler remains committed to the cause—until he sees a production by one of East Germany's few loyal playwrights, rising star Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Wiesler instantly becomes entranced by Dreyman's leading lady, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). When Wiesler is ordered to spy on the couple, the once robotic Stasi operative is tested beyond imagining. The film, written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (quite the name, that), works on all kinds of levels: as a romance, a thriller, a grim portrait of an oppressive regime. But thanks to Mühe's heartbreaking performance, it's most memorable as a study of a lonely untermensch, exploited and broken by the system he's devoted his life to preserving. BECKY OHLSEN. (NT, 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 9.)

Winky's Horse

[NETHERLANDS] Small girl meets sick pony, seeks Christmas magic. Cynics need not apply. (BW, noon Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 10-11.)

Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures

[BRAZIL] The title promises spectacle, but this is a subdued, minimalist film tracing the journeys of two men against the looming backdrop of World War II. Johann (Peter Ketnath), a German traveling the backcountry of Brazil in his sun-bleached Bayer Aspirin truck, is selling the "new wonder drug" with his movie projector and screen, displaying cherished commercials revealing aspirin's healing powers. He picks up Ranulpho (João Miguel), a Brazilian desperate to get out of his small hometown. As radio dispatches leak war-torn news, it becomes more and more obvious that Johann is buying time away from a life he is scared to contend with. The two form a quiet, unlikely friendship, trying to find opposite ways out of their apparent destinies. ELIANNA BAR-EL. (BW, 12:15 pm Saturday, Feb. 10, and 5:45 pm Monday, Feb. 12.)

Perhaps Love

[HONG KONG] Perhaps a musical. Perhaps a tragedy. Certainly a pageant from director Peter Ho-Sun Chan. (BW, 12:45 and 4 pm Saturday, Feb. 10. WH, 8:45 pm Monday, Feb. 12.)

Offside

[IRAN] Admission to a World Cup qualifying game in Tehran isn't easy to come by (nobody believes that sign reading "The mullah needs two tickets"), and if you aren't a man, forget about it. The five girls who try to sneak into the stadium in Jahar Panahi's movie find themselves dumped in a holding pen tantalizingly close to the pitch. Panahi, who protested Iran's Islamist strictures with bitter pathos in Crimson Gold, here treats Sharia as a comedy of the absurd—the movie often resembles a Persian Bend It Like Beckett. And then, as the young women merrily ignore the repressive ignorance of their elders, Offside becomes something else again: a gynocratic declaration of independence, a thrilling glimpse of hope for a real Iranian victory. AARON MESH. (WH, 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 10. BW, 8:15 pm Tuesday, Feb. 13.)

Bothersome Man

[NORWAY] The actor Trond Fausa Aurvaag has a nice line in blank, Zach Braffian stares—the kind where the eyes bulge and the mouth drops at the stultifying surroundings. In Jens Lien's barbed parable about a Scandinavia drained of desire, Aurvaag has plenty to goggle at. Dropped off by bus in an antiseptic purgatory where the wine contains no alcohol and the food no flavor ("Hot chocolate, pussy, burgers: Nothing tastes any good," a fellow citizen complains), he tries to find some snatch of beauty or love. Or at least successfully throw himself under a train. Well, desire is messy. AARON MESH. (BW, 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 10.)

The Great Match

[SPAIN-GERMANY] In the Amazon basin, the Nigerian desert and the Mongolian steppe, soccer fans try to watch the World Cup final. People will do anything for a good head butt. (BW, 2:15 Saturday, 3:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 10-11.)

Naming Number Two

[NEW ZEALAND] A matriarch names her successor at a traditional pig roast. No, the title has nothing to do with what you're thinking. (BW, 3 pm Saturday, Feb. 10, 5:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 11, and 6:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 13.)

Beauty in Trouble

[CZECH REPUBLIC] A woman must choose between her husband and a rich suitor in Jan Hrebejk's dramedy. We ain't saying she's a gold digger, but she ain't messing with no bounced Czech. (BW, 3:15 and 8 pm Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 10-11.)

Short Cuts I: International Ties

They may be concise, but many of the entries in this collection of short films pack in more humor than half a dozen full-length projects. Particularly funny is Éramos Pocos, a placid account of domestic crisis from Spanish director Borja Cobeaga, who raises an age-old macho question: When your wife leaves you, who cooks the meals? And then a less common question: Should you kidnap Grandma from the nursing home? AARON MESH. (WH, 3:45 pm Saturday, Feb. 10.)

12:08 East of Bucharest

[ROMANIA] With humor as dry as sawdust, this nearly chuckle-free "comedy" traces a late December day in the life of Jderescu (Teodor Corban), a pudgy-faced, full-of-himself fuddy-duddy who hosts a television talk show. Writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu implies that his countrymen are no better off 16 years after the Ceausescu dictatorship ended. He establishes his basic mode of thought with static camera setups parked in front of drab interiors and occasional tracking shots that reveal city streets as gray, hideous ruins. The most memorable moments belong to a high-school marching band standing in place as it performs a cheerfully insipid Latin number, and to a confrontation between Jderescu and Chen, a Chinese expat who endures Jderescu's racial slurs and contentedly sells defective Santa outfits to old men. N.P. THOMPSON. (BW, 4:30 pm Saturday, 1:30 pm Sunday, 9 pm Monday, Feb. 10-12.)

Pao's Story

[VIETNAM] The chronicle of a daughter's uneasy relationships with her two mothers: the infertile "stone" (her word, not mine) who raised her, and the somewhat enigmatic birth mother who, for reasons never fully comprehensible, steals the family cow. First-time helmer Ngo Quang Hai burdens a simple, potentially moving story with a confusing flashbacks-within-flashbacks structure. But the film has its share of sublime images: The camera caresses landscapes of towering, green mountains, and there's a haunting shot of villagers trawling a stream for a missing person. N.P. THOMPSON. (BW, 5:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 10.)

Summer '04

[GERMANY] A love triangle involving a middle-aged woman and a 12-year-old girl. Scheiss. (BW, 5:45 pm Saturday, 6:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 10-11.)

Nina's Journey

[SWEDEN] A dramatization of Nina Rajmic's escape from the Warsaw ghetto. Directed by Nina's daughter, Lena Einhorn. (BW, 6:30 Saturday, 4 pm Sunday, 6:45 pm Monday, Feb. 10-12.)

Hear and Now

[OREGON] Sweeter and more endearing than it has any right to be, Hear and Now had me—a fan of violence and depravity—sniffling like a little girl. Portland documentarian Irene Taylor Brodsky captures joy and fear as she documents her parents Sally and Paul, deaf since birth, undergoing hearing restoration surgery at age 65. We watch the couple as they hear the world for the first time—snapping branches are as marvelous as airplanes and the ocean. It sounds sugary, but it rings true to the heart. AP KRYZA. (WH, 6:30 pm Saturday, 1 pm Sunday, Feb. 10-11.)

Days of Glory

[ALGERIA] Rachid Bouchareb's war epic has raised belated French outrage over the second-class status of North African soldiers who came to the aid of Europe in World War II. All to the good, but it doesn't make the actual movie more than a nicely shot, gratingly didactic elegy to another subset of the Greatest Generation. Unfailingly predictable and devoid of much gore, this is a picture that could have been made in 1946 (and was, often), only this time the fresh-faced boys hail from Algeria and Morocco instead of Yonkers and Kansas. AARON MESH. (BW, 6:45 pm Saturday, Feb. 10.)

Retrieval

[POLAND] Amateur boxing. Nightclub bouncing. Debt collection. Who wants a job in Poland? (BW, 8:15 pm Saturday, 8:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 10-11.)

Woman on the Beach

[SOUTH KOREA] Hong Sang-soo writes some of the savviest patter heard nowadays, especially in the realm of compliments that are really insults—such as when Joong-rae, a swaggering filmmaker whom everyone addresses (to sweetly ludicrous effect) as "director Kim," tells an aspiring musician: "You sung how an average person would. I liked that amateur feel to it." Hong directs in a delightfully deadpan style that nonetheless has genuine tension. His triangle of creatives digging their talons into one another rings true, with Kim Tae-woo both funny and poignant as a young acolyte whose sincerity makes him the odd man out. The scene in which he demands that Joong-rae apologize to a sushi waiter is pure, exhilarating joy. At 128 minutes, the movie has a brilliant first hour, yet in the second turns flat, shrill, repetitive. Even so, Woman remains worth a gander. N.P. THOMPSON. (BW, 9:15 pm Saturday, 1 pm Sunday, 8:30 pm Monday, Feb. 10-12.)

Fido

[CANADA] In his pastel-swathed 1950s hometown, little Timmy's (K'Sun Ray) life is the pits—his is the only family on the block that doesn't own a zombie. Following America's "Zombie War," the walking dead have been domesticated via an inhibitor collar and forced to labor as slaves. When Timmy's mom (Carrie-Anne Moss, looking oh-so June Cleaver) finally buys a zombie named Fido (Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, an inspired choice), the boy finds a companion. What could have been a cheap Shaun of the Dead knockoff is instead a zany, morbid satire of the nuclear family and McCarthyism—a bizarro Lassie or Leave It to Beaver. "You crazy, wonderful zombie!" Moss squeals when Fido noshes on a pesky neighbor. You'll have to agree. AP KRYZA. (WH, 9:15 pm Saturday, Feb. 10. BW, 2:15 pm Sunday, Feb. 11.)

The King and the Clown

[SOUTH KOREA] Uneasy lies the head that wears a clown when two minstrels arrive in 14th-century Seoul bent on satirizing the monarchy. Peppering Shakespearean allusions in with homosexual

subtexts, director Jun Ik-Lee's clunky period piece—the highest-grossing domestic film ever in South Korea—focuses on the court jesters instead of the nobles, giving it the limited scope of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead without the irony. Boy, is it without the irony: By the time a lugubrious funeral is held for a comic named Six Dix ("Six Dix! Come back!"), most of the humor is unintentional. AARON MESH. (BW, 9:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 10. WH, 8:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 13.)

Men at Work

[IRAN] Four chaps decide they must knock over a tall, phallic rock. It's a satire of male obsessions. In case you couldn't tell. (BW, 12:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 11, and 6 pm Tuesday, Feb. 13.)

Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel

[OREGON] Even if you hate his drawings, it's hard to deny that Willamette Week cartoonist John Callahan is a fascinating character. Fortunately, Simone de Vries' documentary about the provocative local artist and musician—whose own best friend calls him a "quarrelsome quad"—airbrushes nothing. The filmmaker trails Callahan around Portland as he gathers material for his withering portraits of the absurd and the hypocritical. Describing the accident that left him in a wheelchair at age 21 and the continuing process of living through it, he says: "You can get used to anything, you know. Except maybe the Bush administration. If you get used to that, you really have no feeling." BECKY OHLSEN. (WH, 4 pm Sunday, Feb. 11.)

Away from Her

[CANADA] I have loved Julie Christie ever since I was taken to see Heaven Can Wait as a wee bairn, and I'd hoped to love her in this, too, but Sarah Polley, making an inauspicious directorial debut, renders that impossible. Polley deprives Christie (and us) of her British accent, and without that impeccable lilt, Christie's vocal rhythms are way off. It's often hard to hear her—the movie's soundtrack is a little muddy. The revelation here comes from Michael Murphy in a nonverbal role as an Alzheimer's patient. The frowning, silent way he passively wrests whatever power remains for him, and the burbling cries he emits when someone frightens him, are devastating reminders of what superb acting is all about. N.P. THOMPSON. (BW, 4:45 pm Sunday, 8:15 pm Monday, Feb. 11-12.)

Triad Election

[HONG KONG] Director Johnny To loves a slow burn, and Triad Election crackles with increasing fervor until the eventual explosion. Hong Kong's top gangsters hold a biannual election for a leader to act as godfather among the feuding gangs. Tradition states that no man can be re-elected. Current godfather Lok (fiery Simon Yam) wishes to abolish this practice, and when hot-shit Jimmy (Louis Loo) makes a bid, a bitter war erupts, leaving loyalties and bodies in pieces all over Hong Kong. When hell breaks loose—and damn, does it break loose—even strong-stomached fans of hard-boiled cinema will cringe. At a press screening, several audience members left during an extended scene involving sledgehammers, German Shepherds, a butcher knife and an industrial meat grinder. The difference between To and his excessive peers is that he does a damn fine job of it, offering an enthralling story that cuts as deep as his villains' blades. AP KRYZA. (BW, 5:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 11, and 6:15 pm Tuesday, Feb. 13.)

Rang de Basanti

[INDIA] A hot British journalist travels to Delhi to shoot a biopic about militant revolutionaries during the British colonial period. She recruits a fun-lovin' gaggle of historically apathetic college kids who begin to understand their history and their current plight. For nearly three hours, director Rakesh Omprakash Mehr flings everything possible at the screen—action scenes, dancing-and-motorcycle montages, tragedy. Nothing sticks. Character actions become unbelievable, while all historical resonance is lost. The result is a plodding cross between Fellini, Jerry Bruckheimer and a Mountain Dew commercial. AP KRYZA.

Portland International Film Festival

Ticket Outlet:

Portland Art Museum Mark Building,

1119 SW Park Ave.,

228-7433.

nwfilm.org

General admission $9, PAM members $8, children 12 and under $6, Silver Screen Club memberships from $300.

BW—Regal Broadway Cinemas, 1000 SW Broadway

WH—Whitsell Auditorium,

1219 SW Park Ave.

NT—Newmark Theatre, 1111

SW Broadway

Showtimes listed below are for

Feb. 9-13 only. Some of these films will show again next week; check back for more reviews, and visit nwfilm.org for a full schedule. Movies whose summaries are not followed by critics' names were not screened before press time.

WWeek 2015