Best of the Fest

Alexandra
(Alexander Sokurov, Russia)

Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity, Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra is founded on contradiction. Musing on war in general and the Russian occupation of Chechnya in particular, this is a movie in which combat is never shown. The star, octogenarian Galina Vishnevskaya, is an opera diva who never sings. Sokurov, who has more than once attempted to document the Russian soul, may be a visionary, but his eponymous protagonist is resolutely down-to-earth. An instant anomaly, Alexandra clambers out from a transport train into a dusty station — presumably at some point during the second Chechen war. Stern and stolid, when not sighing with annoyance, the old lady is surrounded by Russian troops and a swirl of whispers, laughs, and faint melody. Alexandra has come to see her grandson, an army captain in his late 20s, and is escorted to the base, at one point riding in a tank. The son of a Soviet military officer, Sokurov spent his childhood moving from base to base, and there's a mascot quality to Alexandra as she makes her tour of inspection. The movie has no shortage of incident, but it's less a narrative than a situation: The emphasis is on boredom and routine. Sokurov may not clarify the situation in Chechnya but, in chronicling Alexandra's trip to the front, he illuminates its reality. J. Hoberman
At the Sundance Kabuki Fri., April 25, 7 p.m. and Sun., April 27, noon; at the Pacific Film Archive Sun., May 4, 4:15 p.m.

Ballast
(Lance Hammer, USA)

It's winter in Mississippi Delta country, where every step squishes into mud or debris. The world is falling apart for a man whose twin brother has just committed suicide, prompting him to attempt the same thing. The dead man's ex-wife struggles to keep her adolescent son away from drug dealers, while the boy auditions surrogate fathers to serve as ballast for his wildly lurching life. Indelible performances by the nonprofessional actors in Lance Hammer's debut feature show a sluggish but unmistakable progress from despair to self-respect. A few ordinary images are made remarkable and funny by the compassion that has engendered them: a woman stalking angrily next door to yell at her brother-in-law; a man and boy choosing Cheerios, then something more sugary, from a minimart shelf; a wolf-dog suddenly looming into a frame, frightening the boy; a DHL box opened to reveal an algebra textbook. Frako Loden
At the Pacific Film Archive Fri., May 2, 6:30 p.m.; at the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 12:45 p.m. and Wed., May 7, 6:30 p.m.

Ezra
(Newton I. Aduaka, Nigeria/France/Austria)

The blood-diamond industry and its victims get a properly Afrocentric makeover in this fevered drama about a traumatized former child soldier cracking up under questioning by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone. Unsparing, pedagogic, and genuinely compelling, Ezra, like Ed Zwick's 2006 Blood Diamond, supplies context aplenty for the armed children springing up all over Africa, fingering the tainted diamond industry that lines the pockets of Northern Hemisphere profiteers while exacerbating vicious civil wars across the continent. But British-based Nigerian director Newton I. Aduaka, working with a modest budget and no Hollywood stars, offers a character study at once more personal and political than Zwick's flashier picture. Kidnapped by rebel thugs while skipping to school in his peaceful village, Ezra — played as a teenager with brooding intensity by Mamoudu Turay Kamara — suffers brutal brainwashing topped up with hallucinogenic drugs that dehumanize him until he can be made a killing machine. Once he's rescued, only amnesia protects him from total disintegration. The recovery of his past is complicated by his sister (Mariame N'Diaye), who has lost her tongue but finds her voice in public testimony. Though far from subtle, Ezra movingly complicates the distinctions between victim and aggressor, between forgetting and forgiving, while cutting the glibness from the claim that the truth shall set you free. Ella Taylor
At the Sundance Kabuki Sun., April 27, 9 p.m. and Tue., April 29, 3:30 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Thu., May 1, 6:30 p.m.

The Judge and the General
(Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco, USA/Chile)

Who could imagine a scenario more compelling than The Judge and the General? A lower-level judicial bureaucrat, a passive supporter of the 1973 coup that had overthrown an elected Marxist government, is assigned an investigation into the reputed crimes of the new regime. He uncovers documents in his own hand denying writs of habeas corpus sought by families of missing victims of the coup ... and then he begins uncovering the bodies of those victims. One disinterred corpse had been shot in the head. Another had been tied to a rail and thrown into the ocean. Ultimately he weighs indicting the coup leader himself, Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco's film tells this compelling story, its protagonist Judge Juan Guzmán, whose rulings determine the rest of the former president's life. Farnsworth, an East Bay filmmaker and contributor to PBS' NewsHour, and Lanfranco, a Chilean, have done a fine job using their film to reveal not just the horror of the individual crimes, but also the support those crimes received from our own government. Gregg Rickman
At the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 3 p.m. and Mon., May 5, 6 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Tue., May 6, 6:30 p.m.

Medicine for Melancholy
(Barry Jenkins, USA)

Part mood piece, part awkward love story, and part sociological exposé, San Francisco writer-director Barry Jenkins' debut feature is some kind of wonderful. This day in the life of a young African-American couple (Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins) begins when they wake up the morning after they meet at a house party. Shot in timeless black-and-white, ranging across the city from the Marina to the Tenderloin to SOMA, the movie is simultaneously a laid-back sketch of a stutter-step courtship and a scathing comment on what it is to be black, middle-class, and invisible in San Francisco. The tone, though, is wistful rather than angry. This is the rare film that is as thoughtful as it is sensual, as attuned to personal epiphanies as it is to social injustice. Vaguely reminiscent of Charles Burnett's Los Angeles–set classic, Killer of Sheep, Medicine for Melancholy joins the short list of essential San Francisco indie films that includes Steal America and Revolution Summer. It deserves the wide audience, however, that eluded those movies. Michael Fox
At the Sundance Kabuki Wed., April 30, 9:15 p.m. and Wed., May 7, 3:30 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Tue., May 4, 8:15 p.m.

Still Life
(Jia Zhang-ke, China)

Jia Zhang-ke, the preeminent cine-chronicler of contemporary China, returns with his fifth feature, an eccentric guided tour of postapocalyptic Fengjie — the ancient river city largely flooded and partially rebuilt several years ago as part of the monumental Three Gorges Hydro project. But the movie is also an open-ended progress report. There are two protagonists and a pair of parallel narratives. In one, a stolid miner (Han Sanming) comes downriver in search of the bought wife who left him 16 years before and the daughter he has never seen. In the other, a young nurse (Zhao Tao) arrives in Fengjie to look for a husband who has been too busy making his fortune to stay in touch. Much of Still Life is simply devoted to these characters as they wend their respective ways through eerily half-demolished (or half-built) neighborhoods. Deconstruction would seem to be Fengjie's main industry: Old buildings are blown up, workers are sometimes obliged to remove unwilling tenants by force, and job-related injuries are rife. Without unduly belaboring the point, Jia suggests a pervasive, free-floating corruption. Everything is for sale. Money trumps all. But what's striking about Still Life is its micro-analytical curiosity: Judgment seems suspended — like the bridge that magically lights up over the Yangtze or the unlikely tightrope walker glimpsed in the movie's last shot. J. Hoberman
At the Sundance Kabuki Fri., May 2, 6:30 p.m. and Sun., May 4, 9 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Tue., May 6, 8:45 p.m.

Up the Yangtze
(Yung Chang, Canada)

The rising waters behind the Three Gorges Dam, under construction since 1994, submerge older communities and have displaced a million people — "the small family sacrificing to help the big family," a slogan repeated like a mantra throughout Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze. Yung's documentary centers on a 16-year-old peasant girl who works on a cruise ship for tourists, and whose family ekes out a living on the edge of the rising river. Along the way we visit other people displaced by the dam, glimpse some protests, and see the cruise ship in operation. The fat, clueless Midwesterners peopling the boat fit every negative cliché you've ever imagined about Ugly Americans abroad. One striking scene finds a gibbering tour guide touting a Potemkin village of suburban-style housing allegedly used by displaced peasants, all of whom are conveniently absent while "farming." The complaisant visitors survey the tacky decor, worthy of a HGTV cable show on fixing up your add-on, and murmur about how lucky those farmers are. The film's focus is on Yu Shui, the middle-school graduate who yearns to go on to higher education, but whose family's desperate financial need forces her onto the boat. There, her name changed to Cindy, she gradually assimilates into the world of English lessons and makeup, crying as she is assigned to wash dish after dish after dish. Gregg Rickman
At the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 12:30 p.m.; Tue., May 6, 5:45 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Thu., May 8, 8:55 p.m.

Vasermil
(Mushon Salmona, Israel)

In the desert development city of Beer-Sheva, a melting pot far from the cosmopolitan hubs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, new immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union vie with native Israelis for tiny scraps of opportunities. Fractured families, petty crime, racism, and resentment are pervasive, with little prospect of improvement. This isn't news to Israelis, but Mushon Salmona's terrific, tough-minded drama is an eye-opener for Americans. Three diverse teenagers cross paths through a stolen pizza-delivery scooter and a soccer team, gradually forming delicate bonds of trust and respect. Despite the conscientious efforts of teachers and coaches, the Ethiopian soccer prodigy Adiel, the Russian Ecstasy dealer Dima, and homeboy Shlomi are trapped by the combination of weak and unhelpful parents, peer pressure, and illegal activities. Instead of raising the stakes with cheap jolts of violence, Salmona adds layer after layer after layer of character development to cement our involvement with the smart but overmatched teenagers. The film brims with echoes of hip-hop, but it isn't trendy or derivative so much as solid street. Michael Fox
At the Pacific Film Archive Wed., April 30, 6:30 p.m.; at the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 1 p.m.; Mon., May 5, 6:45 p.m.; and Wed., May 7, 7 p.m.

Water Lilies
(Céline Sciamma, France)

The camaraderie of the undesired: Invisible to everyone else, pinched, late-blooming Marie (Pauline Acquart) pairs with Anne (Louise Blachère), a heavy girl with a pasty food-court complexion. Cruelly cloddish on dry land, Anne provides their only link to the larger social world through her synchronized-swimming extracurriculars. Complications come at poolside, where the two-girl clique meets Floriane (Adele Haenel), a swimmer who has come through puberty with all the right proportions and whose beauty entrances Marie. Flo won't give it up to her appropriately hot partner, François, after whom Anne ineptly pines — and so a trickle-down chain of exploit-the-weaker is set in motion. The p.o.v. is fixed: Neither object of desire is seen outside of Marie's and Anne's lives; adult authority is alluded to but never present (the effect is more Massacre at Central High than Peanuts). Completing the convergence of rare young talents is the director, Frenchwoman Céline Sciamma. Her feature debut doesn't quite have the stun of discovery — mortified adolescent sexuality is something of a national specialty, after all — though she inexhaustibly endeavors after the indelible image. Nick Pinkerton
At the Sundance Kabuki Sat., April 26, 9 p.m. and Mon., May 5, 1:30 p.m.

You, the Living
(Roy Andersson, Sweden)

The title is from Goethe: "Rejoice, you the living ... ere dark Lethe's sad wave wetteth thy fugitive foot." A trolley car in the film bears that underworld river's name for a destination, and everybody in Swedish director Roy Andersson's film is destined to go there someday. But while they're still alive, he treats us to vignettes of these inherently hilarious humans, most of them caught in midstare by a becalmed camera and the greenish tinge of a world's last days. A disgruntled woman chases off her boyfriend and sits on a park bench, singing and complaining. A man recalls a nightmare in which he is condemned to fry for a tablecloth trick. My favorite vignette is one near the end, as a forlorn girl dreams of being a newlywed in her kitchen when the scenery mysteriously rolls by outside and wellwishers stop her and her guitar-playing groom for a sendoff on, as it turns out, a train. Frako Loden
At the Castro Fri., April 25, 6:15 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Sun., April 27, 8:30 p.m.; at the Sundance Kabuki Tue., April 29, 7:00 p.m.

Asia Rising
No flesh in the pan, Argento plays prominently in two featured movies at the Film Fest this year.

Q&A with Medicene for Melancholy Director Barry Jenkins
Local film director gives this town a dose of its own Medicine.

Glass, Jazz, and Black Francis
Music takes the stage at the Film Fest.