Here are capsule reviews for films (listed in chronological order) that critics were able to view in advance for Wednesday’s festival lineup; check Tempo through Thursday for daily reviews and updates. The Friday section will add more capsule reviews for films showing Friday through Sunday (a complete schedule is on the Internet at metromix.com). Film screenings will take place at Loews Cineplex Theatres (abbreviated as Loews), 600 N. Michigan Ave.; Music Box Theatre (Music Box), 3733 N. Southport Ave.; and University of Chicago DOC Films at the Max Palevsky Cinema (DOC), 1212 E. 59th St.
For tickets and other information, call the festival’s 24-hour hot line: 312-332-3456.
– “Happy End” (star)(star) (Jung Ji-woo; South Korea). This curious film begins by showing, in graphic detail, how a young wife has resumed an affair with her first lover, leaving her unemployed husband and baby daughter at home. But instead of pursuing this involving character study of conflict and need, the movie turns into an over-the-top revenger’s tragedy, complete with gore and groans. Big mistake. Korean; subtitled. (4:15 & 7 p.m., Loews; also 9:15 p.m. Thursday, Music Box) — John Petrakis
– “Chronically Unfeasible” (star)(star)(star) (Sergio Bianchi; Brazil). A fascinating blend of documentary realism and social satire, this Brazilian film tracks the corresponding and rhyming actions of five characters spread across the country’s five zones, examining their customs, rituals, feelings, actions and, most interesting, attitudes about class and race. Portuguese; subtitled. (6 p.m., Loews; also 9:45 p.m. Friday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Loews) — Patrick Z. McGavin
– “Pandora’s Beauty” (star)(star) 1/2 (Charles Biname; Canada). A poetic romance of obsessive, doomed love and a modern triangle, the frequent prize-winner Biname’s often finely wrought film offers more art than heart — though Pascale Bussieres (once the little girl of Michelle Lanctot’s “Sonatine”) is a haunting camera subject as the beautiful Pandora. A promising flawed film from a director to watch. French; subtitled. (6:30 p.m., Loews) — Michael Wilmington
– “Bedazzled” (star)(star)(star) (U. S., Harold Ramis). Chicago’s own writer-director-ghostbuster and Second city alum appears with his latest film, a remake of the delightful and neglected 1967 gem by director Stanley Donen and writer-stars Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It’s the Faustian farce about the poor schmo enamored of a beautiful co-worker, who falls into the clutches of a seemingly obliging but endlessly tricky devil, a Satan with lots of demonic double-deals up his sleeve. Here, Brendan Fraser is surprisingly appealing in Moore’s part of the hapless wisher, but Elizabeth Hurley is a little too sexy and oddball a replacement for Cook’s mod Mephistopheles. It makes you laugh, though. Ramis will attend. (7 p.m., 10/10, Music Box 1) — M. W.
“Manila” (star)(star)(star) (Romuald Karmakar; Germany). I still haven’t figured out what this obviously symbolic tale about a bunch of German tourists stranded in a Manila airport is all about, but by 30 minutes in, I didn’t care. I was having too much fun enjoying the warped characters and sordid goings-on. It probably has something to do with German unification and/or Europe’s presence in the Far East, but it also could just be “Ship of Fools” in Terminal A. (8:45 p.m., Loews) — J.P.
– “Gaea Girls” (star)(star) (Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams; England). A BBC-made documentary exploring the deeply ritualized, intensely rigorous training of a group of young Japanese women learning the art, stagecraft and physical daring of professional wrestling. Given the Japanese obsession with propriety and restraint, the work begins promisingly as an intriguing investigation of transgressive gender study, violence, sexuality and competition, but the directors neither fully penetrate the surface nor successfully individuate their subjects. Japanese; subtitled. (M.W.: (star) 1/2) (9:15 p.m., Music Box; also 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Loews, and 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Music Box) — P.Z.M.
– “To and Fro” (star)(star) 1/2 (Salvador Aguirre; Mexico). An undocumented worker who returns to his Mexican border town discovers the life he fled from has largely vanished with the death of his mother and the systemic corruption of the community. In a variation of Dashiel Hammet’s “Red Harvest,” he orchestrates a dangerous plan to reverse his lost status. Spanish; subtitled. (9:15 p.m., Loews) — P.Z.M.
– “Legacy” (star)(star)(star) 1/2 (Tod Lending; U.S.). A terrific documentary, shot in Chicago over five years, about the ways a single black family living in the projects responds to the shooting death of one of its most beloved members. The film is inspiring and insightful, as we witness how the various members of the family try to cope and escape (school, work, drugs), all the while operating in the shadowy memory of the one who couldn’t get away. A real find. (9:30 p.m., Music Box; also 7 p.m. Thursday, DOC) — J.P.
