Reel World 2

[February 15th, 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 runs through Feb. 25.

PIFF tickets $9, Portland Art Museum members $8, Silver Screen members $6, children 12 and under $4. Tickets on sale noon-7 pm daily at the Festival Ticket Outlet, 901 SW Taylor St., 228-7433, www.nwfilm.org ($1 service charge to purchase advance tickets online).

Screenings are at Broadway Cinemas (B1/B2, 1000 SW Broadway), Guild Theatre (GU, 829 SW 9th Ave.) and Whitsell Auditorium (WH, inside Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave.).

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 pm Wednesday, Feb. 15, B2; 6:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 22, B2

The Proposition

[Australia] Written by gloom-rocker Nick Cave and directed by fellow Aussie John Hillcoat, this is the Down Under equivalent of Deadwood: violent, profane and dusty. It's set around 1900 in the brutal, uncivilized outback, with a British captain (Ray Winstone) seeking to tame it by bringing a family of outlaws to justice. His method is to turn the brothers against each other, and the film considers whether blood really is thicker than water. All the violence adds up to an anti-violence message, sort of, and the film is more thought-provoking than you'd suspect, in addition to being grimly entertaining. ERIC SNIDER. 6:15 pm Wednesday GU, 3:45 pm Saturday WH

Dreaming of Space

[Russia] This is a sweet but odd film set in the 1950s, immediately after the Russians launched Sputnik. A stranger named Gherman suddenly appears in a small northern Russian border town, and his presence, at least as much as the existence of the satellite, expands the world of a naive cook and his waitress girlfriend. The film is beautiful to look at, but it's a little baffling toward the end as key characters vanish and you realize that what you thought was the central mystery is never going to be solved. BECKY OHLSEN. 6:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday B1

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

[Romania] Cristi Puiu's bittersweet tale recounts the last night in the life of an aging widower who lives with his three cats. 7 pm Wednesday WH

Tapas

[Spain] The entanglement of five strangers in a Barcelona neighborhood makes up this comedic melodrama. 8:15 pm Wednesday B2, 8:30 pm Thursday B2

*WW PICK* My Nikifor

[Poland] Based on a true story, My Nikifor is a brilliant confession of old age, friendship and alienation. An adorable, very old beggar walks into the studio of Marian Wlosinski, an ambitious artist. He takes over Marian's studio, painting incessantly and telling his benefactor, "You don't know how to paint." It turns out this crazy beggar is the famous folk artist Nikifor, who doesn't care for much but painting all day. Unfortunately, this stubborn wonder also has tuberculosis, causing the town to shun him and even burn his paintings. More important, it poses a risk to Marian and his family. Set in 1960s Poland, with a masterly cross-gendered performance by Krystyna Feldmann, this film is a revelatory, tender and penetrating portrait. LAURA MULRY. 8:45 pm Wednesday B1

Mutual Appreciation

[U.S.A.] I wanted to walk right into this movie, like Mia Farrow in The Purple Rose of Cairo—only with a machine gun. Or maybe a hatchet. Then I'd kill every single character while laughing with glee. The most painful example of gutless, nutless indie-rock awkwardness I've ever seen (and I live in Portland, fer chrissakes), the second feature from director Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha) drifts aimlessly through the lives of an aspiring musician from Boston, his best friend and his best friend's girl. All three of them are loathesome, inarticulate, self-absorbed, unoriginal, bumbling, insubstantial wastes of skin who can't even make crippling neurosis mildly interesting. Kill, KILL, KILL!!! BECKY OHLSEN. 8:45 pm Wednesday GU, 6 pm Thursday B2

*WW PICK* Iron Island

[Iran] On an abandoned rustbucket of a ship anchored in the Persian Gulf, the bombastic Captain Nemat reigns over a small band of outcasts who live there because the rent is cheap and they don't have anywhere else to go. He calls himself their benefactor, but he's only too happy to charge fees and taxes for every service and to use them as free labor to procure and sell scrap metal and leftover oil from the ship. Meanwhile, his rebellious young assistant conducts an illicit courtship of a girl engaged to someone else, an old man stares at the sun awaiting a sign, and an adorable little kid rescues fish trapped in the ship's belly, returning them to the sea. It's all weirdly entrancing, and the setting is gorgeous. BECKY OHLSEN. 6:15 pm Thursday GU, 1:30 pm Saturday B1

Live and Become

[France/Israel] A boy is placed with Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) in order to escape the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s, and grows up pretending to be a Jewish orphan in modern Israel. 7 pm Thursday WH, 4 pm Sunday B1

*WW PICK* Cowboy del Amor

[U.S.A.] This documentary about Ivan Thompson, the Cowboy Cupid, is sure to get plenty of panties in a twist. Thompson, who lives near the border city of Juárez, is in the "woman bidniss," having switched over from the remarkably similar horse business. His job is to find Mexican wives for gringo men who pay him a fee. It sounds heinous, and there are hundreds of spots in the movie when the audience is simply aghast at the gall of this dude, but damned if he ain't a charmer. He's also under no illusions about what other folks' opinions of him might be, and he doesn't hold back in any way. In short, this Texan is a character, and Cowboy del Amor is at least as entertaining as its subject. BECKY OHLSEN. 8:30 pm Thursday GU, 4 pm Saturday GU

News from Afar

[Mexico] A lyrical and almost relentlessly sad film, News from Afar tells the story of a Mexican family that has just moved to a tiny community in the highlands called 17. It's a hardscrabble life, with young boys starting work alongside their fathers in the brickmaking factory at the ripe old age of 7. When tragedy compounds the hardship, young Martin tries to make a go of it in the big city, but movies like this don't let you believe for a minute that there's a happy ending around the corner. The film has a fascinating disjointed, dreamy feel and looks absolutely beautiful. BECKY OHLSEN. 8:45 pm Thursday B1, 4:30 pm Saturday B2

To the Other Side

[Mexico] A Mexican boy, a Cuban boy and a Moroccan girl all share the loss of a father who has emigrated in search of a better way of life. 6:15 pm Friday B2

Kinky Boots

[Great Britain] Those working-class British Isles comedies, with their bittersweet mix of humor and melodrama, are all well and good, but between everything from The Full Monty to Waking Ned Devine to The Snapper, we've pretty much seen 'em all. This time around, the action takes place in a shoe factory on the brink of financial ruin, inherited by Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton). Enter Dirty Pretty Things' Chiwetel Ejiofor as a transvestite who inspires Charlie to make women's footwear for men. Next thing you know, it's the standard ups and downs, with everyone learning valuable lessons about self-esteem and accepting others for who they are on the inside. Been there. Done that. DAVID WALKER. 6:30 pm Friday WH, 4:45 pm Sunday WH

Innocence

[France] Like a preadolescent Handmaid's Tale, this lush, painterly film leaves viewers vaguely uncomfortable throughout and confused at the end. Young girls step out of coffins to live at an isolated boarding school in the midst of a dark forest, where they study ballet and frolic in their undies until puberty. Rules are strict, escape is forbidden, boys are nonexistent. (So it's obviously not Heaven.) Teachers and servants all hide mysterious sorrows. The oldest girls make nightly visits to some unexplained character, maybe a doctor. Probably the most baffling film at PIFF, this otherworldly fairy tale gives the impression of being loaded with significance, but its actual meaning remains pretty obscure (at least to everyone I asked). BECKY OHLSEN. 6:30 pm Friday GU, 9 pm Saturday GU

Lower City

[Brazil] In Brazil's Salvador da Bahia, an enraged love triangle occurs when two friends help out a young hooker. 6:45 pm Friday B1

The Wandering Shadows

[Colombia] When two broken souls meet on the rough streets of Bogotá, it seems like a perfectly symbiotic friendship in the making. Mane hobbles around on one good leg and scrambles to find money to appease his landlord. Then he meets the Man with the Chair, a mysterious guy with a chair strapped to his back and goggles strapped to his face, who offers rides to passersby. As the film progresses and each man's true character gradually emerges, it becomes clear that this is far from a simple tale of people in need helping each other out. BECKY OHLSEN. 8:30 pm Friday B2, 9 pm Monday B1, 7 pm Tuesday B2

So Close, So Far

[Iran] This profound film follows a hubristic neurologist searching through the desert for his young son, who has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. 9 pm Friday B1

Hidden Blade

[Japan] The highly anticipated follow-up to Yôji Yamada's Twilight Samurai, this, like its predecessor, is not your typical samurai film. It's a quiet, slow-moving meditation on honor, as seen through the framework of a love story and a broken friendship. Munezo Katagiri (Masatoshi Nagase) is a samurai who feels out of touch with modern advances in the military; he's also frustrated by his rebellious heart, which insists on loving a woman from a lower caste. On top of it all, his friend, who went off to seek his fortune, has returned under arrest for treason, and only Katagiri can match the traitor's fighting skills. Ponderous but laced with subtle humor, the film is a touching tribute to one man's ability to follow his own code of honor despite a strict but corrupt system. BECKY OHLSEN. 9 pm Friday WH, 7 pm Sunday B1

Lady Vengeance

[SOUTH KOREA] All you need to know is that this is the third part of Korean director Chan-wook Park's jaw-dropping revenge trilogy, a follow-up to Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy. Awesome. 9:15 pm Friday GU, 6:30 pm Saturday GU

Short Cuts VI: Young People's Film & Video Festival

This free screening is the annual celebration of film and video work by K-12 students from the Pacific Northwest. Noon Saturday WH

Short Cuts III: Animated Worlds

Highlights include Chel White's Magda and work by Joanna Priestley, Zak Margolis and Jim Blashfield, plus music videos for They Might Be Giants and 3 Leg Torso. 1:45 pm Saturday GU

The Boys of Baraka

[U.S.A.] The portrait of 20 12-year-old boys who are transplanted from the most violent ghettos of Baltimore to an experimental boarding school in Kenya. 2:15 pm Saturday B2, noon Sunday WH

The Sun

[Russia] The last days of the reign of Japan's Emperor Hirohito are reimagined in this gorgeous, meditative film by Aleksandr Sokurov (Russian Ark). Issei Ogata plays the emperor as an infantile, intellectual dilettante who is completely isolated from reality by a cushion of obsequious custom. He also does a really odd thing with his mouth the whole time that adds to the impression of total insanity. There are some (historically supported, kind of) sexual undertones to Hirohito's dinner with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and in general the mood of the film could be classified as heavy discomfort. As usual with Sokurov, though, it looks incredible, like a luscious oil painting in motion. BECKY OHLSEN. 4 pm Saturday B1, 9 pm Tuesday GU

The Child (L'Enfant)

[Belgium] From the Dardenne brothers (La Promesse) comes this incredibly grim argument for forced sterilization. Bruno is a total disaster, a man-boy scammer who says regular jobs are "for fuckers" and who clearly has not grasped the import of the fact that he and his girlfriend have just had a baby. He's used to buying and selling illicit goods, from SIM cards to video cameras, so he doesn't really think much of, well, selling the baby. "I thought we could have more," he tells his horrified girlfriend. Aware that he's done something wrong, but still miles from really getting it, Bruno has to embark on a long, long journey toward adulthood and responsibility. It's a fascinating portrait, but you can't help wanting to smack everyone in the film. BECKY OHLSEN. Saturday 6:30 pm WH, Sunday 2:15 pm WH

*WW PICK* Heart of the Game

[U.S.A.] The prospect of watching a documentary about girls' basketball, sorry to say, at first sounded about as interesting as watching girls' basketball. But director Ward Serrill has found the one thing that makes sports universally appealing: a great story. The saga of Seattle's Roosevelt High Roughriders' bumpy road toward the championship, filmed over the course of six years, pulls you in immediately and just keeps getting better. It starts when the school hires tax-law professor Bill Resler as the new coach for the girls' team. His style, which everyone agrees is unorthodox (he has them pretend they're wolves and howl for blood before the games, for example), gives the girls a level of confidence nobody could've foreseen. Narrated by Ludacris! BECKY OHLSEN. 6:30 pm Saturday B1, 1:30 pm Sunday B1

Dog Nail Clipper

[Finland] The refreshing story of an idealistic young man travelling through the countryside after World War II on a passionate quest to help a dog. 7:15 pm Saturday B2, 6:30 pm Monday B1

4

[Russia] A glimpse at contemporary life in Russia based on Vladimir Sorokin's controversial story. 9 pm Saturday B1, 7 pm Monday WH

*WW PICK* Heart of Gold

[U.S.A.] A great concert film needs two things: a great performer, and a director smart enough to get out of his way and let the music speak for itself. Neil Young: Heart of Gold was directed by Jonathan Demme, and it joins his Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense among the best concert films ever made. A solid 100 minutes of Neil Young and his band performing brilliantly, his songs by turns angry, tender, poetic and simple, captured by Demme unobtrusively, with long takes, lots of close-ups and nothing to distract from Young's unadorned performance. ERIC SNIDER. 9 pm Saturday WH

Bluebird

[Netherlands] A teenager shunned by her peers must face the hardships of her life in this coming-of-age tale. 12:30 pm Sunday GU; noon Saturday, Feb. 25, B1

*WW PICK* Favela Rising

[Brazil/U.S.A.] One of the best films at PIFF this year 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. 3 pm Sunday GU; 6 pm Thursday, Feb. 23, B2

Paheli (The Riddle)

[India] It's impossible to stay grouchy while watching this film. Sure, it's totally cheeseball—but the sheer exuberance, the over-the-top vivid sets, the lovely lovely dancing girls and everyone's tendency to break into elaborate musical numbers all the time are just too much fun. The story is an old folk tale about a ghost who falls in love with a new bride and takes her husband's place (inhabiting his body so completely he gets his wife knocked up), only to be dismayed by the real husband's return. It's a rare happy ending at PIFF, and the music is great. BECKY OHLSEN. 4:30 pm Sunday B2

*WW PICK* 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. 5 pm Sunday GU; 6 pm Thursday, Feb. 23, WH

C.R.A.Z.Y.

[Canada] This festival favorite is a coming-out tale that spans 30 years and goes from a Catholic suburb in Quebec to Israel's gay-nightclub scene. 7:15 pm Sunday GU, 6:30 pm Tuesday B1

Fateless

[Hungary] This Hungarian film based on Imre Kertész's novel 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-plus-hours running time. Fateless is directed by well-known cinematographer Lajos Koltai. BECKY OHLSEN. 7:30 pm Sunday WH; 7 pm Wednesday, Feb. 22, WH

Wah Wah

[Great Britain] This semi-autobiographical account of the dissolution of a boy's family in southern Africa mirrors the fall of the British Empire. 7:30 pm Sunday B2

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. 6 pm Monday B2; 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 25, B2

*WW PICK* Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea

[U.S.A.] You know you're doomed when your only real champion is Sonny Bono. The Salton Sea, a "toxic margarita" stewing warmly just south of Palm Springs, could've been a great playground. Instead it's an ecological disaster. Birds, fish and old people come to its shores in droves each year to die. It's saltier than the ocean and smells like rot. And, as this documentary shows, it's surrounded by some of the oddest folks alive, from the ancient, leathery nudist who loves everybody but "don't like clothes" to Hunky Daddy, the beercan-brandishing rockabilly freedom fighter who left Hungary during the revolution in 1956. Narrated by John Waters, the doc thoroughly entertains while making serious points about the Salton Sea's bleak future. BECKY OHLSEN. 6:15 pm Monday GU, 6:15 pm Tuesday WH

Kissed by Winter

[Norway] This film takes a look at a small Norwegian town covered in snow, along with death and repression. Yeay! 8:15 pm Monday B2; 8:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 23, B2; 3:15 pm Saturday, Feb. 25, GU

Short Cuts I: International Ties

Selection of the year's best shorts. 8:30 pm Monday GU

Mongolian Ping Pong

[China] In what sounds like a remake of The Gods Must Be Crazy, a little boy from Mongolia finds a golf ball and, mystified, goes on a mind-expanding quest to figure out what it is. 6:30 pm Tuesday GU; 6:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 23, B1

Short Cuts IV: Parallax Views

Maybe if you're an incredibly pretentious art student you'll love films like Curious About Existence, an 11-minute Canadian project that includes depressed otters discussing Nietzsche and a pair of living mannequins in a bathtub talking in android voices about tits and entropy. Good for you, because if you like that, you'll also like most of the other shorts in this particular program. The one piece that seems more genuine than clever is Bocas de Ceniza, by Colombia's Juan Manuel Echavarría. It's a series of close-ups of the ravaged faces of people singing a cappella songs they composed themselves after witnessing atrocities in their Colombian hometowns. BECKY OHLSEN. 8:30 pm Tuesday WH

Mother of Mine

[FINLAND] A poignant account of one of the 80,000 Finnish children sent to neighboring countries during World War II. 9:15 pm Tuesday B1; 6:45 pm Wednesday, Feb. 23, B1