The sixth annual European Union Film Festival continues Friday through Thursday, March 21 through 27, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. Admission is $8, $4 for Film Center members. For further information call 312-846-2800. Films marked with an * are highly recommended.
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Evi (Henriette Heinze) is a waitress on the verge of a nervous breakdown in this 2001 film set in a swinging Austrian ski resort. Regretting having spent a night in bed with two men, Evi swears off drinking and demands the day shift in order to take proper care of her six-year-old daughter. But soon she’s mixing alcohol with pills and spinning out of control. Heinze, a former waitress, is convincing in that capacity, but she’s unable to project whatever inner turmoil it is that causes her character to fall apart. Sabine Derflinger directed. In German with subtitles. 96 min. (FC) (8:15)
- Oporto of My Childhood
In this scenic 2001 thriller from Irish director Johnny Gogan, a cartographer (Brian F. O’Byrne) comes to a town on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland to prepare a tourist map for the local heritage society. In the course of his survey he finds a corpse, that of an alleged informer executed by the IRA, and soon finds his own life in danger as he is unwittingly drawn into the sectarian intrigues simmering just below the surface of the community. While not above cliche–stare downs in the pub, the headstrong local lass (Susan Lynch) who falls for the hero–the picture works both as a whodunit and an insightful look at a divided community. 93 min. (TS) (5:45)
A middle-aged Iranian man and a teenage Somali marathoner meet in a Swedish refugee facility and decide to run rather than leave their fates to the immigration authorities in this uneven road movie (2000), a condensed version of a Swedish miniseries. Dramatic and narrative balance may have been lost in the editing room: the tone of the picture careens between pathos and light comedy; subplots and side characters abound, but none are fully developed. Despite these flaws and some hyperventilated acting, the film’s vision of Sweden as a flawed promised land is amusing and sometimes even scary. Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love) wrote the screenplay; Geir Hansteen Jorgensen directed. In Swedish with subtitles. 137 min. (TS) (3:30)
A Dutch family reunites in an Austrian chalet to be together one last time before the mother succumbs to cancer; a riot of dysfunction ensues. Son Nico, who can’t hold his liquor, hits the bottle and laments that his dying mother never loved him; daughter Bibi avows her hatred for her sister-in-law; and things go downhill from there. Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen’s film (2001) has its affecting moments, but in the absence of the stylization that successful melodrama requires, the plot is too contrived to be emotionally convincing. In Dutch with subtitles. 95 min. (FC) (6:00)
