March 5, 2000 Lovers on the Bridge
(Les Amants duPont-Neuf)
(France -- 1991 -- 125 min.)

For this deliriously overwrought story of love among the down-and-out, director Leon Carax meticulously built a replica of Paris' oldest bridge. Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) plays an artist who hides her encroaching blindness from the street performer that she loves. "A go-for-broke dazzler" (Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times) with "a narrative or stylistic surprise every five minutes or so" (Mike Clark, USA Today).

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March 12, 2000

My Son the Fanatic
(United Kingdom -- 1998 - 87 min.)

The latest film written by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Launderette) inverts the usual formula: in the north of England, Parvez listens to jazz records while his son becomes a religious fundamentalist. Since Parvez is a taxi driver who introduces prostitutes to visiting businessman, the tensions simmering in this Pakistani family will soon boil over. Director Udayan Prasad is up to the task of conveying the complexity of Kureishi's characters in this "absorbing, wonderfully acted, and subtly written film" (Amy Taubin, Village Voice).

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March 19, 2000

The Stuntwoman
(Ah Kam)
(Hong Kong -- 1996)

Director Ann Hui (Boat People, Summer Snow) combines melodrama, comedy, and martial arts in this film about the life and loves of a stunt performer. Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies) turns in her "most touching performance" (Hong Kong Film Critics) as an apprentice to Sammo Hung (TV's Martial Law). The narrative veers suddenly when the stuntwoman takes a young child under her wing.

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April 9, 2000

Strawberry Fields
(USA -- 1997 -- 86 min.)

In the early 1970s, 16-year-old Irene is filled with inchoate rage after the death of her younger sister Terri. Terri's ghost leads Irene from Chicago to the Arizona desert where she makes some important discoveries about her family's past in the WW2 internment camps. "A moving piece of work, made by a filmmaker with a strong sense of history, memory and the inherent power of stark imagery" (John Petrakis, Chicago Tribune).

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April 16, 2000

The Limey
(USA -- 1999 -- 90 min.)

Two icons of the 1960s collide when Terence Stamp's ex-con comes to L.A. to track down the man responsible for his daughter's death, a rich record producer played by Peter Fonda. Steven Soderbergh's follow-up to Out of Sight is a more meditative but no less entertaining pulp fiction "with a compact, efficient plot... a dazzling, diamond-cut script... and a great jazz combo of a supporting cast" (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly).

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April 23,2000

The Saragossa Manuscript
(Poland -- 1965 -- 180 min.)

Out of circulation for over thirty years, The Saragossa Manuscript has achieved legendary status based on the enthusiasm of fans ranging from the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia to author Maxine Hong Kingston. In the time of Napolean, a Belgian military officer encounters a beautifully illustrated book -- and soon realizes that he is a character within it! "A goofy, sprawling, all-purpose allegory so overstuffed with symbolism that it plays as a kind of epic spoof of the form" (Stephen Holden, New York Times).

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April 30, 2000

West Beirut
France/Lebanon -- 1998 -- 105 min.)

Writer/director Ziad Doueiri (a camera operator for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk 'til Dawn) directs his younger brother in an autobiographical tale set in 1975, as Beirut gradually becomes a warzone. But for teenager Tarek, a more pressing matter is finding a store that will develop his Super-8 movies in this "fractious, clear-eyed fusion of comedy, innocence, romance, and sudden danger" (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly).

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May 7, 2000

Genesis
(France/Mali -- 1999 -- 102 min.)

The tale of Jacob is transposed to West Africa 300 years after the Flood. International pop star Salif Keita portrays Esau, who plots against his brother Jacob; the biblical story becomes an allegory for contemporary tribal conflicts. "A work of deep conscience and imagination, of great visual beauty and human presences that are indelibly strong" (Stuart Klawans, The Nation).

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This page was updated on 2/21/00.