AFI Fest: A to W

 
GO  TWO-LEGGED HORSE (Iran) Samira Makhmalbaf’s latest film is an allegory about two Afghan children who are as alike in their despair as they are separated by circumstance. The smaller child — wealthy and legless — pays the larger — poor and retarded — $1 per day to transport him around like a horse. The film refuses to coddle its audience: The scenes of cruelty are blunt, and the boys’ relationship grows more damaging as the plot progresses. Yet, the plainspoken storytelling recalls neorealist parables like The Bicycle Thief, and like De Sica, Makhmalbaf treats her characters with the greatest humanity even as she portrays a world without it. (ArcLight Hollywood, Tues., Nov. 4, 7 p.m.; Wed., Nov. 5, 3:15 p.m.) (SS)

 
CRITIC’S PICK  TWO LOVERS (USA) After three rounds of increasingly tortured (and tedious) cops-and-robbers action (Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own the Night), the last thing one would have expected from writer-director James Gray is this delicate, sensitive romantic drama about the gradually deepening affection of two damaged people: a depressed young man (Joaquin Phoenix) recovering from a suicide attempt and the shy legal secretary (Gwyneth Paltrow) who has newly moved in upstairs. He’s in the midst of being foisted on the proverbial nice Jewish girl (Vinessa Shaw) his dry-cleaner parents would like him to settle down with; she’s put too much faith in the married lawyer (Elias Koteas) who claims he’s going to leave his wife and child for her. Yet, in a series of exquisitely tender, unhurried exchanges, these virtual strangers come to see in each other the chance for a new start and maybe even happiness. Two Lovers is a small but beautifully realized work in which Gray’s strengths as a filmmaker — his strong senses of family, community, class and tradition — support the material in a way they haven’t before. Paltrow is very good in a role that gives her more than one monotonous beat to play, while Phoenix is loose, in-the-moment and mesmerizing. Having previously dismissed Gray as the flash-in-the-pan enthusiasm of a few influential French film critics, I heretofore switch my party allegiance. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sat., Nov. 1, 7 p.m.; Thurs., Nov. 6, 3:30 p.m.) (SF)

Teresa Isasi/IFC Films

Che

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CRITIC’S PICK  UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US (USA) Heavy metal begat the speedy tempos of thrash, and thrash begat the double-kick drumming and extreme distortions of Norwegian black metal — an unexpectedly melodic subgenre that in turn begat a ’90s underground scene that was notoriously eclipsed by murder, suicide and large-scale arson. Filmmaking team Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites spent two years in Norway investigating what’s left of the Black Circle, the “unholy cult” (as the newspapers stained them) of eloquent young musicians in corpse paint, who congregated at an Oslo record store opened by Mayhem guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, who was later stabbed to death by one of their own. Today, Burzum front man Varg “Count Grisnackh” Vikernes sits arrogantly and unrepentantly in a maximum security prison, the pioneer of a classically inspired, dark ambient sound, as well as a string of politically motivated Christian church burnings. Darkthrone’s Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, a doting follower of Vikernes (musically, at least), seems alone after the fallout, and mourns how black metal was commercially co-opted after all the negative press. As richly compelling and artfully shot as rock docs get, Until the Light Takes Us goes beyond charting black metal’s underpinnings and the tabloid sensationalism of its fiery saga. Through smartly constructed reveals and blunt interviews that include many vulnerable moments, Ewell and Aites investigate the entanglement of art, terrorism, and the media that tried to define both. (ArcLight Hollywood, Fri., Oct. 31, 7:45 p.m.; Mann Chinese 6, Wed., Nov. 5, 3 p.m.) (Aaron Hillis)

 
VISIONEERS (USA) Indebted to everything from Brazil to American Beauty, Visioneers demonstrates that while modern life may be one soul-crushing encounter after another, there’s nothing quite so miserable as a movie that turns it into a witless absurdist parable. George (Zach Galifianakis) enjoys a comfortable existence with a big house and a pretty wife (Judy Greer), but his pointless office job has him wondering if there’s something missing. Visioneers’ litany of social ills — faceless mega-corporations, quick-fix depression cures — doesn’t offer any revelations, and director Jared Drake’s sluggish comedic pace makes life’s doldrums seem positively ecstatic by comparison. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sat., Nov. 1, 9:45 p.m.; Mon., Nov. 3,12:30 p.m.) (TG)

 
CRITIC’S PICK  WITCH HUNT (USA) Watching Don Hardy and Dana Nachman’s ­documentary on the mid-’80s legal witch hunt that arose from the media-scare that child molesters were lurking on every corner in America is to be horrified anew at the vulnerability of everyday folk up against an unchecked legal system. As the town of Bakersfield was rattled by an ever-growing chain of arrests, the innocent men and women accused of molestation lost jobs, family, friends and their identities. Narrator Sean Penn (who also executive-produced) fills in the gaps with information not provided by interviews with the accused, the children who were pawns of overzealous law officials, and assorted lawyers and sheriffs. Filled with amazing old news footage and infuriating new interviews that outline ways in which the miscarriages of justice are still resonating today, Witch Hunt also taps an unexpected emotional current as prison love letters between a convicted husband and wife are read aloud onscreen. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sun., Nov. 2, 7:10 p.m.; Mon., Nov. 3, 3:15 p.m.) (Ernest Hardy)