FilmFest KC

Iron Island The second feature by Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is an obvious allegory, but it's an unusually vivid, even visceral one for being set almost entirely on an abandoned oil tanker — a corroded planet adrift in the azure cosmos of the Persian Gulf. It's a floating neighborhood populated by an assortment of cute kids, busybody octogenarians and women masked in stylized burkas. Giving advice and delivering orders, Captain Nemat (Ali Nasirian) is the father of his "tenants." His name echoes Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, but he assumes the more primally patriarchal roles of Abraham, Noah and Moses. There's a timeless, elemental quality to the situation, but Nemat's reign is not without incident; his boat, as he is loath to admit, is taking on water. Depending on one's mood, the movie might seem poetic or prosaic. Either way, Iron Island poses the questions that were always asked of movies produced behind the Iron Curtain and later in China: How was it shown at home, and what does it mean there? (J.H.)

La Petite Jérusalem Set in Sarcelles, a low-income Orthodox Jewish community in Paris, French writer-director Karin Albou's first feature film is the story of two sisters. Mathilde (Elsa Zylberstein) is a devout wife and mother who embraces the laws of her faith. She lives in an apartment with her husband; her four young children; her mother; and her sister, Laura (Fanny Valette), who studies Kantian philosophy, which exalts reason over all else. Mathilde's marriage is deteriorating because she believes that her religion forbids sexual pleasure, whereas Laura believes that passions must be subordinated to rational thought. On one level, the film examines the sexual awakening of both women. It also looks at the animosity between Arabs and Jews when Laura falls in love with a young Algerian man she meets at work. This is really Laura's story, and Valette does a superb job of communicating both her character's intellectual struggles and her emotional fragility. (J.O.)

Lemming Exhilaratingly anxious, Dominik Moll's film charts familiar territory with gravity, inventive iconography and spooky rhythms. It's a savory psychodrama and a triumph of unsettled reaction shots. The comfortable affluence of an inventor (Laurent Lucas) and his gamine of a wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is beleaguered first by his boss (André Dussollier) and the man's semi-psychotic wife (Charlotte Rampling), then by the metaphoric torque of a semi-living lemming found in their kitchen-sink drainpipe. Suicide, could-be hauntings and betrayal follow. Moll's achievement is all in the backbeats and portents, and the result is less like Hitchcock than like Lynch. The wallop of disquiet is delicious. (M.A.)

Look Both Ways An unassuming, unadventurous but likable dramedy about dying and grief, Sarah Watt's debut feature has pleased audiences in Australia and abroad. It's not hard to see why — rename it Death, Actually, and a sense of its fluffy, faux-angsty approach is brought to bear. Previously a watercolorist-animator, Watt punctuates her film with mordant painterly imaginings, of both the mortality-obsessed artist-heroine (the refreshingly plain Justine Clark) and the cancer-haunted photographer-hero (William McInnes), detailing demise via sudden earthquakes, derailed trains, car crashes, etc. Unfortunately, Watt should've won the Aussie award for Most Frequent and Obnoxiously Lengthy Song Interludes, without which her film might've clocked in at 25 minutes or less. (M.A.)

Moolaadé This visually gorgeous morality tale was written and directed by Ousmane Sembene, considered the father of African cinema. In a small village in Africa, four girls resist ritual "purification" (read: circumcision) by taking refuge at the home of a courageous woman named Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly). Collé grants the girls moolaadé, a form of protection that can't be broken by other members of the community. A conflict erupts, pitting women against women, women against men, husbands against wives, and young against old — and getting at the core values and power relationships within a tightly knit society. Though the pace is patient, true to the rhythms of life in the village, this beautifully shot movie seems to fly. (M.L.)

My Mother's Smile Is there a tortured Italian struggling with fidelity who is not played by Sergio Castellitto? As he did in Don't Move and Catarina in the Big City, Castellitto here plays a man hounded by his allegiances (or lack thereof) and struggling to maintain some semblance of identity. In this dark and confusing drama, which has the eerie music, blurred shots and stringy tension of a horror movie, Castellitto is pitted against the usual suspects, plus the Catholic Church. He plays Ernesto, an atheist artist who suddenly learns that his dead mother — killed by Ernesto's unstable brother — is a candidate for canonization. Castellitto's acting is expert — his face is a map of misery informed by rage — but he can't save the film from its maudlin, directionless fear-mongering. (M.L.)

Nobody Knows Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu's poignant, deeply affecting tale of child neglect — all the more disturbing for being based on a true story — is definitely not for children, despite its rating. Young single mother Keiko moves her four children into a tiny Tokyo apartment. More child than adult herself, she is loving but also alarmingly casual about her responsibilities as a parent. Twelve-year-old Akira (Yagira Yuya) dutifully shops, cooks, cleans and takes care of his three younger siblings, but his solemn face and anxious eyes reveal the terrible weight he shoulders. One day, Keiko disappears, abandoning the children to go off with her latest boyfriend. The rest of the film charts their struggle to survive. Flawlessly acted (all four children are nonprofessionals) but overly long (nearly two and a half hours), the film is beautiful but depressing. (J.O.)