Golden Door, Castro, Thursday, 7:00. Emanuele Crialese begins his immigration
allegory with two men climbing a mountain, barefoot, each carrying a sharp stone in his mouth. From there, Crialese fills his tale with strange, beautiful, and occasionally bewildering imagery. He also fills it with fascinating people and a dry, sardonic humor. Many of his characters, Italian peasants immigrating to America, are superstitious, ignorant, maybe even stupid, but they’re decent people and we care very much for them (they’re joined on their journey by one considerably more worldly Englishwoman). And through their eyes he shows us the entire process of leaving a community, crossing the ocean in steerage, then navigating the inspections and bureaucracy of Ellis Island, all in more detail than I’ve ever seen it before. A unique, remarkable, and funny motion picture. Advanced tickets for the San Francisco International Film Festival‘s opening night presentation are sold out, but rush seats are available. If you miss it this time around, the film will get a wider opening in a few months.
The Firemen’s Ball, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 8:50. An official good time run by a small town’s fire department just makes people miserable in Milos Forman’s subtle satire of Communism (an obvious satire would have been too dangerous to make at the time). The people running the alleged good time don’t seem to understand that they don’t always know what’s best for everyone. Besides, people keep stealing stuff. Part of the Archive’s tribute to the San Francisco Film Festival At 50.
Comedy of Power, Roxie, opens Friday. There are few laughs in Claude Chabrol’s character study of a judge (Isabelle Huppert) investigating high-placed corruption as her marriage falls apart. Huppert is brilliant as a calm, cool legal avenger who truly believes she is acting out of completely altruistic motives, even as we begin to suspect that her ego has more to do with the problems than she would care to admit. But Chabrol holds his characters at arm’s length, creating a cold movie that never really draws us in.
Days of Heaven, Castro, Wednesday. I was blown away by this movie when it first 
opened–Nestor Almendros’ atmospheric cinematography turned the simple story of lovers posing as siblings into something approaching a masterpiece. But that was nearly 30 years ago and I don’t know if I would have the same reaction today. Besides, back then, the spectacular photography was enhanced by 70mm presentation. The Castro is presenting Days of Heaven in 35mm, but at least it will be on their ample screen. On a double bill with Arabian Nights as part of the Castro’s tribute to Composer Ennio Morricone.
Journey From the Fall, Roxie, opens Friday. “Nothing is more precious than freedom.” Ho Chi Minh’s hypocritical quote adorns the entrance to a re-education center (in other words, a slave-labor camp) in Ham Tran’s small-scale historical epic. But the film changes course halfway through and loses a lot of momentum. The haunting, gut-wrenching first half plunges us into a Vietnamese family’s nightmare experiences with Communist oppression in the years after the fall of Saigon, cross-cutting between a father’s degradation and torture in the above-mentioned camp and his family’s attempts to flee the country. While the second half–about the family’s adjustment to life in America–is reasonably good drama, it feels anticlimactic after the harrowing and unforgettable beginning.
The Host. Cerrito and Elmwood, opens Friday. A barely-functional family fights an uncaring government and a giant mutant carnivore, and it’s hard to say which is the scarier threat. I didn’t find this quite the masterpiece others saw–the political points are obvious, the third act gets confusing, and the big finale fails to satisfy. But director/co-writer Joon-ho Bong succeeds where it counts: He makes you care about the characters and scares you out of your seat. Much of the credit goes to the talented computer animators at San Francisco’s own The Orphanage, who brought the monster to life.
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