The ABCs of AFI

On November 6, the AFI Fest 2003 begins an 11-day run, with an eclectic mix of splashy mainstream movies, American indies, an international spectrum of the profound and arcane, shorts, documentaries, and tributes. Among the stand-outs are two films that will receive imminent theatrical release - The Barbarian Invasions and In America. The former, from Quebecois Denys Arcand, reunites many of the performers from his Decline of the American Empire in a tale of friendship, family, and mortality; it received two prizes in Cannes (including one for Arcand's script) and is Canada's foreign-language submission to the Oscars. In America, the latest from Jim Sheridan, is the filmmaker's highly autobiographical saga of arriving in the U.S. with a wife and two young daughters, and more hope than cash; the episodic material is tied together by an intoxicating passion for life and superlative performers, who draw you into their struggle to succeed.

-Leonard Klady

Other Highlights

Bon Voyage. Best known for his Cyrano de Bergerac (with Gerard Depardieu), writer-director Jean-Paul Rappeneau concocts an epic souffle set in the days leading up to the fall of France in 1940. Depardieu appears here as a senior French politician, but the action gravitates around Isabelle Adjani as a vain, charming, and reckless movie star. The film is an odd, if highly entertaining, mixture of farce, melodrama, and history. As the action shifts from Paris to Bordeaux - the new seat of a provisional government - the sense of chaos and desperation rapidly escalates. Beautifully shot by Thierry Arbogast, it features Gregori Derangere as a naif pegged for a murder he didn't commit and Peter Coyote as an amoral journalist. France's 2003 foreign-language Oscar submission. (Leonard Klady)

Coast Guard. A jumpy Korean Coast Guard private (Jang Dong-gun), thinking he see spies on the beach at night, accidentally kills a young man - a local boy, who was in mid-copulation with his girlfriend (Park Jee-ah). The townspeople are understandably enraged, even more so when officials whitewash the event, and yet more so when the woman goes mad and starts offering herself to every soldier on the base. The guilt-ridden private starts to unwind as well. This Korean drama from writer-director Kim Ki-duk (The Isle) - which won three awards at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival - describes the toll taken among South Koreans by a half-century of tension with the North. While this is a variation on familiar turf, it's still grimly affecting, as both central characters express their madness. (Andy Klein)

Frankie and Johnny Are Married. In 2001, writer-director Michael Pressman, best known for his Hollywood career directing TV dramas like Chicago Hope and Boston Public, directed his wife, Lisa Chess, in a well-received Equity Waiver theater production of Terrence McNally's romantic drama Frankie and Johnny at the Clair De Lune. Now, Pressman has created a fictionalized comedy based on that experience, starring himself and his wife. The results are a warmhearted, if self-indulgent, combination of "let's put on a show" cliches and droll industry inside jokes. Pressman and Chess are affable performers, whose onscreen chemistry is affectionate, and Pressman's intimate and jiggly camerawork seems intended to create the mood of a less acerbic episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The plot's low-key muddle of flimsy crises, advanced in lieu of compelling incidents, strain to sustain our interest. Still the film features some funny self-parodying cameos from A-list types like Mandy Patinkin, David Kelley, and Les Moonves. (Paul Birchall)

The Green Butchers. This droll comedy from Denmark recalls Sweeney Todd in its ghoulishness and Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry in its temperament. Svend (Mads Mikkelsen) and Bjarne (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) decide to break away from the local butcher and hang out their own shingle in a small rural community. The operation appears doomed until an accident of circumstance prompts the former to carve up an electrician, who has accidentally frozen in their meat locker, and serve him up as a chicken dish. Much of the rest is predictable; what keeps it from being crass are genuinely appealing characters, whose bad judgment is offset by good intentions. Writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen starts with an outlandish, virtually unpalatable premise but fashions it into a delicious human comedy. (Leonard Klady)

James' Journey to Jerusalem. Wide-eyed, devoutly religious James (Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe) leaves his African village to see Jerusalem. But cynical Israeli immigration bureaucrats assume he's just another jobseeker, so they toss him in the clink. He is sprung by Shimi (Salim Daw), an Israeli businessman who runs a cleaning service, using guys like James as cheap labor. But, under the guidance of Shimi's aging dad (Arie Elias), James turns into an entrepreneur himself, increasingly losing sight of his true mission. This mellow comedy/drama (primarily in English, with some Hebrew and Zulu) from Israeli director Ra'anan Alexandrowicz doesn't paint a particularly likable picture of middle-class Israeli mores, even while straining to be fair to everyone. With support from a generally fine cast, Shibe does a wonderful job of making James's transition from innocent to hustler believable. (Andy Klein)

Joy of Madness. Fourteen-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf, daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, makes her feature-length debut with this documentary about the making of sister Samira's At Five in the Afternoon. Shot on handheld digital video, the film is disorienting at first, even sometimes nauseating, as Samira makes her way through Kabul after the fall of the Taliban, in search of actors to star in her film. But the people she approaches are wary and sometimes fearful of cinema. It's a trying experience all around, as seen in Samira's increasingly abrasive attempts at flattery, appeals to nationalism, admonishments over backing out, and straight-out bribery to get people to appear in her movie. One can't help but think, "Just find someone else!" The proceedings are all the more frustrating because only a fraction of the dialogue is translated; still, ultimately, these exchanges, captured by Hana's unassuming lens, helps us better understands the people we encounter. (Annlee Ellingson)

Kops. This Swedish comedy is set in a small rural community where nothing ever happens - which poses a major problem for the three men and one woman who compose the local police force. A national cost-cutting program has singled out the community: Local crime-busters have been told their station will be closed, due to lack of activity. Their only hope is to create a crime wave and keep their jobs. The second film from Josef Fares (Jalla! Jalla!), who also appears as one of the hapless cops, is an engaging, often hilarious character comedy. The wonderfully deadpan villagers, slightly dense civil servants, and fitfully believable lawmen collide in an antic, affectionate world that recalls the keenly observed Preston Sturges comedies of the 1940s. (Leonard Klady)

Monsieur Ibrahim. Omar Sharif - the subject of an AFI tribute evening - stars as a shopkeeper in a working-class neighborhood in 1960s Paris. He is a Muslim, yes, but "not an Arab," he tells the Jewish teenager who lives in the apartment across the way. Ibrahim takes the lad - whom he calls Momo - under his wing and gently dispenses a series of life lessons. Vignettish in structure, the film is a well-observed slice-of-life yarn with a contemporary immediacy. It is unquestionably grounded in Sharif's title performance, a reminder of the enormous screen presence he displayed in his days as a movie star. He remains charming and charismatic in this autumnal role, eschewing all vestiges of glamour for the full-bodied abandon of someone who has lived and lived well. (Leonard Klady)

Rosenstrasse. The true-life story of non-Jewish German women who, for many tense weeks in 1943, risked all to protest the Nazis' detention of their German-Jewish husbands is the basis for this profoundly moving film from director Margarethe von Trotta. The fictionalized story is told in flashback from the point of view of one such wife, Lena Fischer (Katja Riemann at 33, Doris Schade at 90), as she recalls events that emboldened powerless "Aryan" women to stand tall in the face of tyranny. Riemann, who was awarded Best Actress at this year's Venice Film Festival, is breathtaking as a woman struggling to hold together the last vestiges of a once happy and prosperous existence. It is arguably von Trotta's finest film in many years, still very much ensconced in the concerns of the New German Cinema that spawned her career as both actress and filmmaker. Like Fassbinder's BDR Trilogy - as well as The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, her own collaboration with former husband Volker Schlondorff - it wrestles with issues of postwar German identity, as characterized by the unique tribulations of German women - an allegorical affirmation of female fidelity in response to the uniquely male failings of the Fatherland. (Wade Major)

She Got Game. Venus. Serena. Martina. Jennifer. Anna. In a sport where women have overtaken men in popularity, the top-tier players are often recognizable by first names. But, according to this documentary by Bobbi Jo Krals and Abbey Jack Neidik, the life of the average pro tennis player is not nearly as glamorous as her top-ranked counterparts. Behind the scenes is a sometimes corrupting industry, in which parental pressure for success can segue into abuse, players become shills for corporate sponsors, and stars with crossover appeal, like Anna Kournikova, some say, contribute to the sexualization of female athletes. Krals and Neidik touch on all of these themes and more as they interview many key players. In addition, their cameras were afforded incredible access over the course of three years on the WTA Tour, yielding revealing candid moments, such as a WTA staffer pleading with Serena Williams to pose for a picture. (Annlee Ellingson)

Spin. Sure to be among the crowd pleasers at AFI Fest, Spin, written and directed by James Redford (yes, son of that Redford), is a sincere, sepia-toned story about an orphaned young boy, who is raised by a ranch hand (Ruben Blades) and his wife (Dana Delaney). Although a gringo, Eddie (Ryan Merriman), as a teenager, is subjected to the same anti-Mexican sentiment in the 1950s Southwest as his surrogate family. The film deals sensitively with racism, with its portrayal of interracial marriage and dating, but in a way it's also colorblind, as Eddie and a friend vie for the affections of a Mexican girl without comment. Of particular note is the characterization of Eddie's rival - less an arrogant jerk than simply inadvertently ignorant. Merriman's easy good looks and graceful charm carry the film, buoyed by expert work from vets Stanley Tucci, Blades, and Delaney. (Annlee Ellingson)

The Triplets of Belleville

When an obsessive bike racer and several of his cohorts are kidnapped by an evil mobster, the young man's indefatigable mother and his aging, faithful bloodhound head out to the city of Belleville to liberate him. Once there, Mom and pooch are taken in by three dotty old sisters, who turn out to be the once-famous singing group, the Triplets of Belleville. The plot of this essentially dialogue-free animated French/Canadian/Belgian coproduction from Sylvain Chomet is a little reminiscent of Finding Nemo; and the whole is every bit as enchanting. Chomet's style at times invokes Sally Cruikshank, Jacques Tati, Ralph Steadman, Jeunet and Caro, and even Disney's Toad of Toad Hall, but all of those influences put together do not begin to convey the bizarre hilarity of this utterly singular film. (Andy Klein). V