Now in its 31st year, the Chicago International Film Festival, which runs through Oct. 29, offers myriad movies for all tastes. Here is a schedule of festival films for Friday through Sunday, with reviews in italics. A schedule of weekday screenings will run in the daily Tempo section. For next weekend’s Film Fest schedule, see Take 2 in the Oct. 27 Friday section.
Friday
The Apartment (USA; Billy Wilder), 2 p.m., Fine Arts. Part of the festival’s Wilder retrospective. A bitterweet story of an eager-to-please clerk who lends his apartment to philandering executives. The pitfalls of office pimpmanship, scathingly demonstrated by Wilder and his peerlessly charming and delightful costars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. One of the great American movie comedies, this witty Best Picture Oscar-winner (1960) nimbly juggles the risque and the hilarious, the satirical, moral criticism, humanity and romance. (star) (star) (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 125 min.
The Owner (Argentina/Hungary; Jorge Rocca), 5 p.m., Fine Arts. A young peasant girl in 1930s’ Argentina takes revenge on the wealthy landowner who tries to ruin her life. An overheated, undernourished film that is too brutish in conception and execution to faithfully explore the serious and thought-provoking ideas upon which the story is founded. The abrupt shifts in tone and color seem arbitrary and not thought out. (star) (star) Patrick McGavin 87 min.
Fallout (USA; Robert Palumbo), 5 p.m., Music Box. Four high-powered execs are trapped in a fallout shelter when their building collapses. Tighter, tauter and better-filmed than most low-budgeters, “Fallout” holds your interest, but doesn’t necessarily reward it. You can believe corporate bankers reverting to savagery, but fallout shelters as a post-Cold War metaphor? What about hula hoops? (star) (star) M.W. 87 min.
Les Rendez-Vous De Paris (France; Eric Rohmer), 5:15 p.m., Fine Arts. Three vignettes by the master of the long chat, each an attempt to bring love back into a dying relationship. What else do you need to know? It’s Rohmer. 100 min.
L’Enfant D’Eau (Canada; Robert Menard), 6 p.m., Fine Arts. A 12-year-old girl and a mentally retarded man are stranded on a desert island. Mind-boggling pseudo-romanticism. It’s hard to say which is sillier–the eye-rolling idiot-child seduction or the abandoned beach cottage that is the bizarrely luxurious setting chosen for this desert island castaway tale. (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 103 min.
Persuasion (Great Britain; Roger Michell), 7 p.m., Fine Arts. A woman who is persuaded not to marry the man she loves lives to regret her decision. Adapted from the Jane Austen novel, “Persuasion” is an original and very effective approach to Austen. Rather than laminating the tale in brittle high style, this film, while losing none of Austen’s comedy or social acuity, is gritty, dramatic, emotional and bristling with psychological undercurrents. (star) (star) (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington
Antonia’s Line (Netherlands; Marleen Gorris), 7 p.m., Music Box. The story of five generations of spirited women who challenge the mores of their home village. Imaginative and bursting with life, the performances and personal stories compensate for the strident, doctrinaire politics that almost fatally disrupt the discursive narrative lines. Gorris’ direction is smooth and fluid, with a capable sense of time passed and lives enriched. (star) (star) (star) Patrick McGavin 93 min.
Seven Beauties (Italy; Lina Wertmuller), 7:15 p.m., Fine Arts. Part of the festival’s Wertmuller retrospective, this grotesque 1976 film, set in a concentration camp, examines just how far–and how low–a man will go to survive. Usually considered Wertmuller’s masterpiece, this gorgeously overpacked tale of a hapless pimp adrift in the opportunism, chaos and nightmare of Fascist Naples and Nazi Germany is her most opulent collision of sexuality and politics. (star) (star) (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 120 min.
Les Miserables (France; Claude Lelouch), 8 p.m., Fine Arts. Not an adaptation of the stage play, but instead Victor Hugo’s famous tale is magically transported to the early 20th Century, where it deals with Nazism, boxing and suicide. Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. An absurd idea. (Either the Victor Hugo sections or the new story itself should have been excised.) But Lelouch directs with such verve and elaborate resources–and Belmondo has such iconic power as the modern Jean Valjean–that the film tends to sweep you along irresistibly. (star) (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 174 min.
Low (USA; Lise Raven), 9 p.m., Music Box. A story of loyalty, hero-worship, betrayal and family, set in the world of boxing. Smart and gutty with a consistent gritty atmosphere and quirky tone. But something is missing in this dark, tough film noir. Conviction? Humor? Surprise? A promising directorial debut, though. (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 95 min.
Midaq Alley (Mexico; Jorge Fons), 9:15 p.m., Fine Arts. Actress Salma Hayek (“Desperado”) stars in this film about the love lives of neighbors living in a sleazy Mexico City barrio. The film is compulsively watchable and stylishly entertaining. Fons employs an ambitious novelistic structure that examines identical scenes from multiple points of view, creating an often-moving and dizzying portrait of ambition, desire, love, betrayal and madness. (star) (star) (star) Patrick McGavin 140 min.
Moon Shadow (Italy/France/Netherlands; Alberto Simone), 9:30 p.m., Fine Arts. An astrophysicist learns some valuable lessons about life from a work crew of mental patients fixing his house. 82 min.
Not Bad for a Girl (USA; Lisa Rose Apramian), 11 p.m., Music Box. A documentary about the women of rock ‘n’ roll–from Hole to the Lunachicks–featuring interviews and performances. 90 min.
Saturday
Sabrina (USA; Billy Wilder), 12 p.m., Fine Arts. Part of the festival’s Wilder retrospective, this 1954 charmer stars Audrey Hepburn as a chauffeur’s daughter being romanced by brothers William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. Wilder in his Ernst Lubitsch mode–somewhat sabotaged by the miscasting of an uncomfortable Bogey in a role intended for Cary Grant. But Hepburn is at her most radiant; this upper-crust comic romance often gets the bubbly champagne fizz it wants. (star) (star) (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 113 min.
Seven Beauties (Italy; Lina Wertmuller), 12 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Vacant Possession (Australia; Margot Nash), 12 p.m., Music Box. After the death of her mother, a troubled woman returns to her childhood home to confront her tragic past. Visually interesting but too heavy-handed and obvious to have much impact. It does, however, have more flashbacks than you can shake a boomerang at. (star) (star) John Petrakis 95 min.
Closed Eyes (Italy; Francesca Archibugi), 1 p.m., Fine Arts. A tale of class struggle and sexual intrigue as a pregnant woman tries to find a father for her baby. 113 min.
It’s a Long Way to the Sea (India; Jahnu Barua), 2 p.m., Fine Arts. A poor ferry captain, who sees his livelihood being threatened with the construction of a bridge, is forced to take drastic measures. Slow moving and heavily symbolic. Life is a river. Bridges are like relationships. We all row our own boats to the sea. A good lead performance, but there’s way too much baggage on this ferry ride. (star) (star) John Petrakis 106 min.
Korea (Ireland; Cathal Black), 2 p.m., Music Box. A down-and-out father wants his son to join him in 1952 America, but the boy longs to remain in Ireland with the woman he loves. Soporifically paced and stiffly acted, this sluggish drama wastes a good subject. Its only distinction lies in having drained every ounce of whimsy out of its star: “The Knack’s” one-time madcap Donal Donnelly. (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 95 min.
Midaq Alley (Mexico; Jorge Fons), 2:30 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
The Wormkiller’s Last Spring (USA; Thomas Dempsey), 3:30 p.m., Fine Arts. The remaining members of an aging softball team struggle to hang onto their fading youth. “Wormkiller” is sports slang for a weak infield grounder. It fits. The kind of picture that is often dubiously praised as a critique of modern machismo, this lackadaisical low-budgeter fails as ensemble drama, comedy and sports movie. (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 90 min.
Kristin Lavransdatter (Norway; Liv Ullmann), 4 p.m., Music Box. Billed as the largest Norwegian film production of all time, this three-hour 14th Century epic has love, passion, betrayal and revenge, and that’s just in the convent! The first part of Nobel Prize-winning author Sigrid Unset’s massive trilogy of outlaw romance in medieval Norway, adapted with picturesque sweep and fierce intimacy by the great actress-turned-director Ullmann. Her control seems uncanny; it’s a magnificent epic. (star) (star) (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 180 min.
Les Miserables (France; Claude Lelouch), 4:15 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Manneken Pis (Belgium; Frank Van Passel), 5:15 p.m., Fine Arts. Director Frank Van Passel moves forecefully in tone and mood, from rueful sadness to exuberant sensation in this modest, funny, though finally quite moving exploration about the tentativeness and beauty of a first romance. (star) (star) (star) Patrick Z. McGavin 90 min.
My Mother’s Courage (Germany; Michael Verhoeven), 5:30 p.m., Fine Arts. The true story of a wrongly arrested woman whose belief in the goodness and honesty of man faces a stern test. This tale of a Holocaust incident has an atypical ending and scenes that shake you. Though Verhoeven (“The Nasty Girl,” “The White Rose”) keeps a somewhat ironic perspective, tragedy and horror always beat against the walls. (star) (star) (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 92 min.
The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in a Night Full of Rain (Italy; Lina Wertmuller), 7:15 p.m., Fine Arts. This 1978 film stars Candice Bergen as an American feminist who falls for Giancarlo Giannini as a radical Italian journalist in 1968. Then the rain comes. The famous flop that began and ended Wertmuller’s American film career. Another fiery battle-of-the-sexes tale with an outstanding Giannini wperformance–and a highly expendable “Greek chorus.” (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 108 min.
Moon Shadow (Italy/France/Netherlands; Alberto Simone), 7:30 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Good Men, Good Women (Taiwan; Hou Hsiao-hsien), 7:30 p.m., Fine Arts. An actress is forced to re-examine her sordid past by way of a stolen diary and a difficult role on stage. Possibly the best film of the festival, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s astounding conclusion to his trilogy on the formation of Taiwan freely intermixes the personal and abstract to produce a meditative, enveloping portrait of a national identity. (star) (star) (star) (star) Patrick McGavin 108 min.
Stonewall (Great Britain/USA; Nigel Finch), 7:30 p.m., Music Box. A love story revolving around the famous Stonewall riot of 1969. Finch’s final film is admirable and well-meaning though unconvincing and dramatically sluggish. The historical significance of the gay liberation movement overwhelms the poorly conceived fictional characters who inhabit this milieu. (star) (star) Patrick McGavin 98 min.
Red Rose White Rose (Hong Kong/Taiwan; Stanley Kwan), 9:15 p.m., Fine Arts. Joan Chen stars in this tale of a man torn between two women–one an erotic seductress, the other a chaste innocent. 123 min.
Last Summer in the Hamptons (USA; Henry Jaglom), 9:30 p.m., Fine Arts. The lives and loves of a group of friends take surprising turns during a weekend getaway on Long Island. In appropriating the style and material of superior filmmakers such as John Cassavetes, Woody Allen or French director Eric Rohmer, Jaglom has made a manipulative and dishonest film, though the strong cast sometimes transcends the banal material. (star) (star) Patrick McGavin 105 min.
Menmaniacs–The Legacy Of Leather (Germany; Jochen Hick), 9:30 p.m., Fine Arts. A documentary about the steamy world of leather, and we’re not talking purses here. 86 min.
Rhythm Thief (USA; Matthew Harrison), 9:30 p.m., Music Box. A music bootlegger and his psycho girlfriend go on the run from an angry rock band. This low-budget feature won the Jury Prize for best director at Sundance. Matthew Harrison’s gritty, absorbing, extremely low-budget black-and-white feature recalls early John Cassavetes with its poetic abandon and uncommon affinity for the material, which partially makes up for the third-act incoherence of the story. (star) (star) (star) P.M. 88 min.
Sunday
It’s a Long Way to the Sea (India; Jahnu Barua), 12 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Saturday)
Short Films (Program 3), 12 p.m., Music Box. A selection of short films–from the U.S., U.K. and Ireland–that deal with the difficult problems of coping. 102 min.
The Seven Year Itch (USA; Billy Wilder), 1 p.m., Fine Arts. Part of the festival’s Wilder retrospective, this 1955 comedy of fantasized adultery, starring the late Tom Ewell, is best known for the image of Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate. George Axelrod’s hit comedy is the quintessence of ’50s comic bawdiness. Deftly and urbanely done–though it’s a shame the studio wouldn’t okay Wilder’s choice of Walter Matthau as co-star. (star) (star) (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 105 min.
Revenge (Italy; Lina Wertmuller), 1:30 p.m., Fine Arts. Part of the festival’s Wertmuller retrospective, this 1978 film stars Sophia Loren as a Sicilian widow who dreams of avenging her husband’s murder. Also starring Marcello Mastroianni and Giancarlo Giannini. A curious, all-star misfire that seems almost a glamorized parody of Pietro Germi’s fiery Sicilian-set social/sexual comedies, but which is markedly inferior. Yet the stars–and Wertmuller–still strike some sparks. (star) (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 118 min.
Closed Eyes (Italy; Francesca Archibugi), 2 p.m., Music Box. (See Saturday)
Throwing Down (USA; Lawrence O’Neil), 2:15 p.m., Fine Arts. Two nickel-and-dime hoods get in over their heads when they steal drugs from a desperate and dangerous mobster. Another low-budget film noir–an especially mean and funny one–this comedy of betrayal, greed and murder steeps us in unabashed Manhattan and suburban pathology. (star) (star) 1/2 Michael Wilmington 91 min.
Les Rendez-Vous de Paris (France; Eric Rohmer), 3 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Midaq Alley (Mexico; Jorge Fons), 4 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (USA: Freida Lee Mock), 4:30 p.m., Fine Arts. A documentary about the young woman who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Gentle, brilliant Maya Lin is a strong role model, and this portrait–which notoriously won the 1995 documentary Oscar–is an admirable, if unexceptional, film. But better than “Hoop Dreams?” Give us a break. (star) (star) (star) Michael Wilmington 98 min.
Kristin Lavransdatter (Norway; Liv Ullmann), 5 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Saturday)
The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies (USA; Chuck Workman), 5 p.m., Music Box. An overview of American movie history, with still photos, interviews and film clips. A sometimes-sappy but overall effective paean to the directors, stars and films that have influenced our lives. The ending is especially moving. (star) (star) (star) John Petrakis 90 min.
Antonia’s Line (Netherlands; Marleen Gorris), 6:30 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
L’Enfant D’Eau (Canada; Robert Menard), 7 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Manneken Pis (Belgium; Frank Van Passel), 7 p.m., Music Box. (See Saturday)
Passover Fever (Israel; Shemi Zarhin), 8:30 p.m., Fine Arts. Family intrigue during a weekend Passover celebration. The best thing about this slow-moving family therapy session is the acting. It’s too bad the actors didn’t have a better script to sink their teeth into. (star) (star) 1/2 John Petrakis 100 min.
Low (USA; Lise Raven), 9 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
Pretty Baby (Germany; Sonke Wortmann), 9 p.m., Music Box. Pretty Baby (Germany; Sonke Wortmann), 5 p.m., Fine Arts. A comedy of sexual shenanigans involving a pregnant woman, her cheating husband and his gay best friend. A very funny skirmish in the battle of the sexes, both hetero- and homo-, with crisp dialogue, witty direction and first-rate acting. Should be a big crossover hit. (star) (star) (star) 1/2 John Petrakis 93 min.
The Owner (Argentina/Uruguay; Jorge Rocca), 9:15 p.m., Fine Arts. (See Friday)
