LAFF: the Best of the Fest

CYRUS See Ella Taylor's review in Opening This Week. (Regal; Fri., June 18, 8:p.m.)

CRITIC'S PICK  DISCO AND ATOMIC WAR Equal parts The Last Bolshevik and Drunk History. With tongues partially in cheek, filmmakers Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma lay out the case that communism was killed by Western pop culture, in the form of Finnish television broadcasts that drifted across the Estonian border. Narrating in deadpan English, weaving together incredible footage from Soviet archives with unmarked re-creations that almost pass for real home movies, Kilmi and Aarma detail their boyhood obsessions, the seduction of entire families by disco dance shows and Dallas reruns — and the increasingly absurd lengths taken by the state to maintain some semblance of control over the viewing habits (and thus, the hearts and minds) of the body politic. Disco is wrapping up its festival run and no U.S. release date has yet been set, making its LAFF screenings all the more essential. (Downtown Independent; Fri., June 18, 7:30 p.m., Regal; Sun., June 20, 10 p.m.) (K.L.)

Farewell

Katalin Varga

Related Content

• A Toast to Lena Dunham's Panties
  February 14, 2013
• From Lena Dunham to Matthew Weiner, TV's Best Writers Gathered in a Room Last Night. Here's What They Said
  September 20, 2012
• Five Artsy Things to Do This Week, Including Lena Dunham's Dad's Drawings
  May 2, 2012
• Lena Dunham's Girls and Her Dad Carroll's Drawings: Two Approaches to Making Us Uncomfortable
  May 23, 2012
• Seinfeld Writer Peter Mehlman, Credited With Catchphrases Like 'Yada Yada Yada,' Tells Us About His New Book
  May 14, 2013

More About

• Christina Kolozsvary Chrissy
• Trieste Kelly Dunn
• Grace Drummond-Hay
• Pat Tillman
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

DOG SWEAT This Iranian film gets its title from slang for American booze, sold illegally in the back alleys of Tehran. An absorbing docu-soap narrative, shot under the radar in a country where the official film industry is closely controlled by the government, Dog Sweat catalogs the codes, negotiations, doublespeak and deception that it contends the average young Tehranian relies on to carve out a semblance of personal freedom. Comparisons may be inevitable to No One Knows About Persian Cats, another recent film made on the down-low about the secret lives of Iranian youth, but Dog Sweat's tighter narrative structure allows for a much deeper investment in its characters, effectively elevating their mostly romantic frustrations into a reflection of the larger problems of life in a closed state. (Regal; Sat., June 19, 10:15 p.m., Regal; Sun., Jun 20, 4:45 p.m., Thurs., June 24, 5 p.m.) (K.L.)

DOWN TERRACE A truly bizarre, and mostly successful, genre hybrid: both an In the Loop–style British improv comedy and a psychologically potent peek behind the scenes of a gangster family à la The Sopranos, with the casual, slow-build relationship dynamics (and shaky camera work) of mumblecore, spotted with brutal, out-of-nowhere violence. Thick British accents plus lo-fi production values can make Down Terrace a tough listen at times, but this funny, gripping and above-all strange film is worth the work. (Regal; Sat., June 19, 4 p.m., Thurs., June 24, 10:15 p.m.) (Also screening at Cinefamily on Sat., June 19.) (K.L.)

CRITIC'S PICK EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE
It's old news that cultural innovators rarely reap the benefits of their innovation, and in fact often pay dearly for coloring outside the lines. Still, watching those truisms play out in the wrecked lives and professional disappointments of hometown heroes/cult darlings, Fishbone is painful indeed. Co-directors Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson have penned a cinematic valentine to the group via astounding archival concert footage, rapturous testimonials (Perry Farrell, Flea, George Clinton, Gwen Stefani and others) and original footage that often breaks your heart in this charting of the group's thwarted rise and chaotic fall. There's some groovy animation and cool narration by Laurence Fishburne, but the real star of this show is the still-ahead-of-its-time genius of Fishbone. (Regal; Sat., June 19, 10 p.m., Mon., June 21, 8 p.m.; Wed., June 23, 5:30 p.m.) (E.H.)

CRITIC'S PICK FAREWELL A gorgeous, deceptively simple work of experimental nonfiction. In 1929, Hearst journalist Lady Grace Drummond-Hay became the first woman to fly around the world, embedded on the 21-day inaugural worldwide voyage of the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin passenger airship. Hearst commanded Drummond-Hay to file stories in the air to fellow passenger Karl Henry von Wiegand, her professional mentor and, unbeknownst to anyone else, sometime lover. Working from Drummond-Hay's published stories and private diaries, filmmaker Ditteke Mensink constructs an intimate, dishy narration (delivered by actress Poppy Elliott), which she illustrates with a montage of stunning found footage, including newsreels shot on and off the Graf. With scant footage of Wiegand and Drummond-Hay together, Mensink makes the most of nonliteral juxtapositions of spoken word and image. Their complicated relationship (underlined by Drummond-Hay's melancholic, very modern-feeling neurotic split between professional propriety and personal desire) comes fully alive. With the trip taking place weeks before the market crash and encompassing unrest in Berlin and Stalinist Russia, Farewell backgrounds soap opera with history in the best way: Imagine a Lifetime movie directed by Dziga Vertov. (Regal; Sat., June 19, 7 p.m., Tues., June 22, 5 p.m., Sat., June 26, 7:30 p.m.) (K.L.)

A FAMILY A renowned, family-owned Copenhagen bakery is in danger of crumbling when paterfamilias Richard Rheinwald (scene-stealer Jesper Christensen) falls ill. Who will carry on the dynasty? Richard's adult daughter, Ditte (Lene Maria Christensen), has been offered a dream job in New York, but her father assumes she'd be willing to take over the business without ever having been involved before. Ditte doesn't consult with her boyfriend before making some intense decisions, Richard's second wife doesn't wish him to have hospice care, and the old man himself grows increasingly belligerent over his mortality and his empire's uncertain future. Threatening to be an epic saga with its beautifully nostalgic opening montage — in which archival footage, home videos, a spidery DIY font and a wistful indie ballad trace the Rheinwald ancestry back to German immigrants — the third feature from Danish auteur Pernille Fischer Christensen (A Soap) proves to be a more intimate melodrama about the disproportionate nature of familial obligations. Some may find the drama anemic because it's not heightened like a movie-movie, but its strength lies in subtly poignant moments, as when Richard slowly squeezes the life out of a sad, stale dinner roll — a doubly bitter metaphor for his fear of mortality and disdain for inferior breads. (Regal; Sat., June 19, 7 p.m., Sun., June 20, 1:30 p.m., Wed., June 23, 4:45 p.m.) (Aaron Hillis)