Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Paul Schrader, U.S., 1985, 121 min., Japanese
Saturday, Nov. 15, 2:15 p.m., Tivoli 1

SLIFF presents a new 35mm print of the gorgeously restored “Mishima,” which Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Schrader considers his finest work. Visually stunning and structurally audacious – featuring John Bailey’s ravishing cinematography, Philip Glass’ propulsive score and Eiko Ishioka’s exquisite sets and costumes – the film offers a collage-like portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata). Taking place on Mishima’s last day, when he famously committed public seppuku (ritual suicide), the film alternates extended flashbacks to the writer’s life and stylized adaptations of his fiction. Reviewing the new Criterion DVD of “Mishima,” critic Nathan Rabin of the Onion A.V. Club writes: “Just as his subject sought to reconcile intellect and action, words and deeds, Schrader finds a perfect union between sound and image, weighty ideas, and giddy sensual rapture.” With director Schrader.
Sponsored by Film and Media Studies Program at Washington University

Mosquito Kingdom
Brad Hodge & Derek Elz, U.S., 2008, 103 min.
Sunday, Nov. 23, 5:45 p.m., Tivoli 3

This stylish contemporary film noir, shot in St. Louis and the Florida Keys, tells a complex, defiantly nonlinear story of betrayal. When Ash, a small-time crook, begins a reckless affair with the wife of a corrupt cop, he finds that he is in over his head and is forced to flee to a remote key, an island that soon proves as much prison as refuge. The Riverfront Times says of the film: “‘Mosquito Kingdom’ is dark. Not just in the sense that the hyper-stylized images onscreen rival the most inky-black and smoke-filled film noir, but dark for the way in which the film takes place in a frantic, bizarre and life-sucking moral vacuum.” Venice Café regulars will take particular delight in the scene-stealing performance of bartender Dick Pointer as a sardonic henchman of crime boss Woodrell. With co-directors Hodge & Elz and screenwriter Jed Ayres.

More Than Just a Game
Junaid Ahmed, South Africa, 2007, 90 min.
Saturday, Nov. 22, 3:30 p.m., Tivoli 1

This inspirational docudrama recounts a little-known chapter in the story of South Africa’s notorious Robben Island prison, where opponents of the apartheid regime – including Nelson Mandela – were held. While doing research in South Africa, UM-St. Louis sports-history professor Chuck Korr unearthed a cache of documents that chronicled a soccer league that the prisoners had formed and meticulously run. The league served a vital function, providing the men not just with a much-needed diversion but a means of asserting their dignity and self-governing ability. The film, which stars Presley Chweneyagae of the Oscar-winning “Tsotsi,” alternates fascinating contemporary interviews with the former prisoners and dramatic re-enactments of their lives – and soccer games – on the island. With consultant and co-producer Korr.

Nights and Weekends
Greta Gerwig & Joe Swanberg, U.S., 2008, 80 min.
Friday, Nov. 21, 9:45 p.m., Tivoli 1

Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig, who collaborated on Swanberg’s “Hannah Takes the Stairs,” co-write, co-direct and co-star in this intimate portrayal of longing and confusion. Described by Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir as a “low-budget, high-nudity improvisation,” “Nights and Weekends” – which premiered at SXSW – shows a couple struggling with the distance between New York and Chicago, with their visits becoming reminders of the difficulties, not the pleasures, of their relationship. Gerwig also co-stars in another SLIFF film from the mumblecore movement, “Yeast,” directed by and starring Mary Bronstein (“Frownland”).

Not by Chance
(Não Por Acaso)
Philippe Barcinski, Brazil, 2007, 90 min., Portuguese
Sunday, Nov. 16, 8:45 p.m., Frontenac
Wednesday, Nov. 19. 9:30 p.m., Frontenac

Enio, a traffic-control supervisor, and Pedro, an obsessive pool player, find comfort in their measured, mathematically exact lives. However, the sudden deaths of Enio’s ex-wife and Pedo’s wife upend the men’s stable existences. Pedro despairs until he meets Lucia, a young woman with whom he tries to re-live the same exact moments he once lived with his wife. Enio is forced to confront his loss through the mysterious appearance of his unknown daughter. Eventually, the men must decide between their obsessions and the opportunities life has given them. Reminiscent of contemplative and moving dramas such as “Amores Perros” and “Crash,” “Not by Chance” examines how swift changes in destiny can forever alter lives.

O’Horten
Bent Hamer, Norway, 2008, 90 min., Norwegian
Saturday, Nov. 22, 4:30 p.m., Frontenac

After decades of timetables and routines, newly retired train engineer Odd Horten finds himself struggling with his new life’s lack of structure. Flailing in his newfound freedom, Horten has his life turned upside down by a series of unlikely adventures and puzzling dilemmas. A warm, absurdist tale, “O’Horten,” which played the 2008 Cannes and Toronto film festivals, is proof positive that there is humor to be found in embracing life in all of its idiosyncratic splendor. SLIFF alum Hamer (“Kitchen Stories”) offers a wonderfully skewed view of aging and the human condition, demonstrating that, in life, one must always expect the unexpected.

The Objective
Daniel Myrick, U.S., 2008, 90 min.
Sunday, Nov. 16, 9:45 p.m., Tivoli 1

In the supernatural thriller “The Objective,” U.S. special-ops forces are dispatched to the remote mountains of Afghanistan to locate an influential Muslim cleric. However, it soon becomes clear that Benjamin Keynes, the dispassionate CIA officer assigned to oversee the mission, may have another agenda in mind. With rumors of a horrible curse running rampant, the team ventures deeper and deeper into the unforgiving mountains, where eerie and unexplainable events suggest that they may face something more powerful and terrifying than weapons of mass destruction. Myrick, who made a memorable debut with “The Blair Witch Project,” offers a masterful blending of suspense, horror and warfare that will fascinate and titillate.

Of Parents and Children
(O rodicích a detech)
Vladimír Michálek, Czech Republic, 2008, 90 min., Czech
Thursday, Nov. 20, 9:30 p.m., Frontenac
Saturday, Nov. 22, 2:30 p.m., Frontenac

An aging father and his middle-aged son live vastly different day-to-day lives in this comic drama from the director of “Autumn Spring.” The only thing these two men apparently have in common is their monthly walk, a chance for each of them to explore their complex and ambivalent feelings toward one another – a relationship filled with anger, love and respect. From moment to moment, they might be close friends, father and son, or complete strangers. This bittersweet tale of parents and children will seem intimately familiar to anyone who has struggled to connect with a loved one and overcome the harrowing distance between middle age and the twilight years.

Opera Jawa
Garin Nugroho, Indonesia, 2006, 120 min., Indonesian
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 4:30 p.m., Frontenac
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 9:15 p.m., Frontenac

In this all-dancing, all-singing gamelan musical epic, Setyo and Siti live a peaceful life as husband and wife, selling earthenware in their village. But when Setyo is called away on business, a flirtatious butcher takes advantage of Siti’s loneliness to seduce her, setting the stage for an epic battle between the two men. Shooting in lush forests and on pristine beaches on Java, director Nugroho bases his deeply imagistic and dazzling visual narrative on a tale from the Hindu epic “The Ramayana.” Village Voice critic Nathan Lee raves that “the movie is a radiant folk fantasia, at once sophisticated and elemental, freewheeling and composed.”

The Pope’s Toilet
(El Baño del Papa)
César Charlone, Uruguay, 2007, 90 min., Spanish
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m., Tivoli 1

It’s 1988, and Melo, a Uruguayan town on the Brazilian border, awaits the visit of Pope John Paul II. More than 50,000 people are expected to attend, and the locals believe that selling food and drink to the gathered multitudes will make them rich. But petty smuggler Beto thinks he has the best idea of all: He decides he will build a public toilet in front of his house and charge for its use. His efforts bring about unexpected consequences, and the final results will surprise everyone. An official selection of both the Cannes and Toronto film festivals, “The Pope’s Toilet” gleefully mixes the sacred and the profane, with the Village Voice calling the film an “alternately heartbreaking and hilarious satire” that “bawdily conveys the complex Latin-American relationship to God – and the means by which authoritarian institutions take a dump on the lives of the impoverished.”