9:30 p.m. Thursday, May 29, SIFF Cinema; 11 a.m. Saturday, May 31, Uptown
Like George Romero's Rustbelt vampire tale "Martin," this satisfyingly direct yet subtle horror film thrives on its mundane setting, a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Stockholm, and a commendable attentiveness to, er, process. A blond, picked-upon preteen boy and a dark, enigmatic girl - apparently the same age and newly moved-in next door - make common cause against such irksome presences as schoolyard bullies, neighbors and parents. Sharply imagined, without self-congratulating flamboyance or camp sniggering, this Swedish gem will leave you with a host of vivid memories, from a daftly charming toothbrush duel between mother and son, to the jaw-dropping scene when a roomful of cats react to a tainted interloper. A righteous addition to the genre: let it in. - RTJ
Garden Party
7 p.m. Friday, May 30, Pacific Place; 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 31, Pacific Place
Too bad that Seattle got stuck hosting the world première of this drifty little indie with absolutely no reason to exist. Occasionally Ricky Nelson warbles the title song, while a bunch of "quirky" types seek their sexual/professional fortunes in La-La Land. Metronomically crosscutting among their banal adventures, director Jason Freeland apparently can't get enough of his cast, some of the most egregiously boring, shallow, unfunny folk you'll ever meet. - Kathleen Murphy
Time to Die
9:30 p.m. Friday, May 30, Pacific Place; 11 a.m. Sunday, June 1, Pacific Place
In Doroto Kedzierzawska's latest film, a spirited old lady (Danuta Szaflarska) with the lively face of a child unreels dreams of her youth like sunlit home movies. The camera savors the delicately lined landscape of Aniela's face and hands, the weathered wood of her beautiful, decaying house, the liquid movement of a breeze in leaves, the expressive gaze of a preternaturally sensitive dog. This well-nigh ecstatic vision is projected in glowing, shifting blacks and whites, a celebration of the world in sensual texture and motion. No dirge this, but as joyous as Aniela, streaming wet in a nocturnal thunderstorm, her arms upraised, gloriously alive. "Time to Die" shows us how to value our seasons, how to bequeath the paradise of the world to the young, and how to die with wit and dignity. -KM
Savage Grace
9:30 p.m. Friday, May 30, Egyptian; 1:30 p.m. Sunday, June 1, Pacific Place
Variety called this zombie jamboree "a crushingly unsuccessful" adaptation of the best-seller about the high-profile Bakelite murder in the '50s. Would that SIFF had heeded the warning. Was director Tom ("Swoon") Kalin trying for Sirkian melodrama in this tasteless smorgasbord of incest, ménages-à-trois, limp homosexual liaisons? The usually radiant Julianne Moore (Mrs. Bakelite) walks through Kalin's dead zone as though narcotized, Stephen Dillane (Mr. B) is impenetrable and young Eddie Redmayne (Junior B) poses lethargically. If only Kalin had thought to cast Paris Hilton as the lead in this untitillating raunchfest - it could have made all the difference. -KM
STALAGS: Holocaust and Pornography in Israel
4:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, SIFF Cinema; 9 p.m. Sunday, June 8, SIFF Cinema
An absolutely fascinating documentary that casts light - historical and psychological - on what it means to be a victim, on a genocidal scale.
In the 1960s, in a largely puritanical Israel, a spate of pornographic pocket books, called "Stalags," suddenly appeared, ostensibly authored by American writers. This pulp fiction boasted lurid covers showing SS guards - voluptuously female - torturing and raping captive American and British POWs. Turns out these porn parables were actually written by Israelis, including a famous Auschwitz survivor who novelized the experiences of Jewish "feldhures" in "The House of Dolls." Firsthand accounts of concentration camp horrors didn't emerge until Adolph Eichmann's 1961 trial, partly because survivors were often ashamed to be alive and many Israelis assumed the new émigrés must have committed atrocities to save themselves. Were the "Stalags" an attempt on the part of Jews to identify with those who had persecuted them? Why the strong sexual content? How did such trashy tales find their way as authentic history into high-school curriculums? Deep waters, teeming with monsters from a nightmare past. - KM[[In-content Ad]]