Turtles Can Fly
(2004) Iranian, subtitles
Director/Screenwriter:  Bahman Ghobadi
Principals:  Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Hirsh Feyssal


This story is set at the time of the American invasion of Iraq.  Kurdish children, who lost their families to previous pogroms and wars, band together under the leadership of a clever, thirteen year old called “Satellite,” known for his uncanny ability to install satellite dishes in nearby towns and villages.  He procures the dishes in exchange for land mines which the children find and de-fuse throughout the countryside.  This film’s visual power stems from the haunting beauty of the mountainous landscape, and its portrayal of the humor and tragedy that intermingle in the desperate lives of the children.  Director/writer/producer Bahman Ghobadi pulls everything together with dignity and compassion.  See this one.  It is both poignant and thought provoking.


Reconstruction
(2003) Danish, subtitles
Director/Screenwriter:  Christoffer Boe
Principals:  Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Maria Bonnevie 


Creative, stylized, and sexy, this film will take you places hardly imaginable.  This is a filmmaker’s film.  It starts out simply enough with a pick-up scene in a bar that turns into a love entanglement that is reconstructed in film and fiction any way the author chooses.  I know… you don’t get it and probably won’t get it even after the first time you see it.  But, don’t despair, this film will take you in so many interesting directions that you won’t care if you are dumbstruck at the end.  Director/writer Christoffer Boe and stars Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Maria Bonnevie make something very complicated fit together with seamless simplicity.


Bodies, Rest & Motion
(1993) Indie
Director:  Michael Steinberg;  Screenwriter:  Roger Hedden
Principals:  Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates  


This guilty pleasure is filled with self-absorbed characters who at various times are sadly pathetic, deeply philosophical, yet always humorous.  The story is set in Enfield, Arizona where both time and place seem to stretch out into an infinite wasteland of purposelessness.  A house painter (Eric Stoltz) falls in love with the house’s sad occupant (Bridget Fonda) who is very upset at her nasty boyfriend (Tim Roth) for leaving unannounced on a road trip to find his parents.   She confides in her girlfriend (Phoebe Cates) who secretly desires the boyfriend.  All of the characters are perfectly despicable and likeable at the same time.  Director Michael Steinberg makes this film seem interesting and entertaining in spite of its depressing subject matter.  You probably won’t like the ending but how could it end any other way.


2046
(2004) Chinese, subtitles
Director/Screenwriter/Producer:  Wong Kar-Wai
Principals:  Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung


This film is the achievement of master writer/director/producer Wong Kar-Wai.  The story involves a writer whose personal life would read like a scandal sheet with both petty and serious affairs filling up the lines.  Set in the 1960s in an apartment numbered 2046, the writer (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) creates a science fiction piece entitled “2046” in which a mysterious train rides into the future so that travelers can recapture lost memories.  Supposedly, nothing ever changes in 2046 but no one knows for sure because nobody ever comes back except the writer.  Obviously, the story is very complicated jumping around between past and future.  The cast creates characters that are just as intriguing and mysterious as the story.  But, what puts this film on the Maven List are its beautiful and breathtaking cinematography, haunting musical score, sharp edits which move the action dimensionally as well as spatially, and dazzling costumes which establish place and time.


Barcelona
(1994) Spain, English
Director/Screenwriter:  Whit Stillman
Principals:  Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen, Mira Sorvino


In spite of itself, this film shines with a witty, acerbic screenplay that covers a lot of ground.  Two cousins from America interact in amusing and revealing ways with the Europeans that they meet.  Barcelona is teeming with people from all over Europe who see Americans in stereotypical fashion.  At times, the story seems as light as air and then suddenly it takes on very serious interpersonal and political overtones.  In some sense, by watching the antics of the characters on the screen, we learn more about ourselves than about them. The acting by Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman is believable and smart, but it is Whit Stillman’s crisp screenplay and direction which make this film engrossing.