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FILM FESTIVAL
European Union film fest comes to Siskel Center

By Michael Phillips

Tribune movie critic
The dollar may not be much against the euro these days, but your dollar can buy a very impressive line-up of films offered by the Gene Siskel Film Center's 11th annual European Union Film Festival. This year's slate, running March 7 through April 3, zigzags from Slovenia to Ireland, constituting 61 features from 26 nations, many represented by EU co-productions between various countries. Stories of boundaries crossed and yearning unquenched will grace the screen, though grace itself is hard to come by in films such as the Austrian "Import Export," which paints a blackly comic, sexually explicit picture of an EU in constant economic and emotional flux.

Visit siskelfilmcenter.org, or call 312-846-2800.

'Estrellita' 2 1/2 stars (fair-good) (Slovenia; Matod Pevec, 2007) Each year the Film Center's European Union Film Festival opens with a film from the country currently heading up the EU itself. Thus we have Slovenian writer-director Pevec's well-acted if rather schematic melodrama starting things off with what might be termed a soft launch. It begins with the death of a concert violinist. His widow (Silva Cusin) and her son soon learn of the violinist's infidelities. At the funeral, a mysterious 12-year-old Bosnian immigrant turns up as a mourner. Taking its title from the nickname of the dead man's cherished instrument, "Estrellita" uses a debate over who owns the violin as a way of exploring various fragmenting relationships. The film might be more vibrant if the boy (played by Tadej Troha) weren't the sort of serenely angelic wonder who belongs more to the movies than to life. But the scenes between the boy's parents, coping with money issues and an eroding love, compensate for some of the contrivances. In Slovenian with English subtitles. 7 p.m. March 7; 3:15 p.m. March 9. --Michael Phillips

'Import Export' 3 stars (good) (Austria; Ulrich Seidl, 2007) Guaranteed to alienate as many audience members as it draws into its web, Seidl's astonishingly grungy odyssey follows the story of a nurse from Ukraine, moonlighting as a sex worker, who heads to Austria to expand her horizons. Meantime, an unemployed Vienna man and his debauched stepfather journey to another corner of the EU and find only the outer limits of their own corroded world-view. It's often painful to watch, and the scenes with the decrepit residents of a hospital ward dressed up for a macabre holiday celebration border on the exploitative (not to mention scenes with the stepfather's prostitute). But Seidl's wry, stately sense of composition is consistently well-considered, and he's getting at a sense of dislocated, blasted souls looking for a home in a way few other directors can match. In German, Russian and Slovak with English subtitles. 2:30 p.m. March 8; 6 p.m. March 11--Michael Phillips

'How to Cook Your Life' 3 stars (good) (Germany; Doris Dorrie, 2007). Once upon a time, Chef Edward Espe Brown was a real jerk. He was, according to his own recollection, arrogant and short-tempered, lacking in patience for the natural rhythms of cooking. He wanted everything done right, and he wanted it done 10 minutes ago. And then he found Zen Buddhism. Or maybe it found him--sometimes it's hard to tell. In any case, Brown and Buddhism met and fell in love, and now Brown teaches other aspiring Buddhists to cook in harmony with Zen principles: essentially, be aware of what you're putting into your body, its origins and how it feels, tastes and smells. What does it mean to prepare food for others? How do our food choices affect our surroundings? Although it occasionally threatens to take itself too seriously, on the whole this sumptuous, beautifully shot documentary, the latest from veteran German filmmaker Dorrie ("Men," "Enlightenment Guaranteed"), is as unpretentious and refreshing as the food it celebrates. In English and German with English subtitles. 5 p.m. March 8; 6 p.m. March 12.--Jessica Reaves

'Boarding Gate' one-half star (sub-poor) (France; Olivier Assayas, 2007). Oh, Olivier Assayas, if only you had quit while you were ahead. You might have sailed into early retirement on the redemptive fumes of "Clean," your bracing 2004 collaboration with Maggie Cheung. Instead, you let yourself slide into the muck, tapping the wildly untalented Asia Argento for this demeaning, nonsensical and ultimately stultifying chronicle of sad sacks who make consistently stupid choices. Unless you are absolutely desperate to watch Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) deliver a few lines of dialogue, there is absolutely no reason to subject yourself to this cinematic disaster. 9 p.m. March 8; 8 p.m. March 12.--Jessica Reaves

'Priceless' 3 stars (good) (France; Pierre Salvadori, 2006). French gamin Audrey Tautou stars as Irene, a mistress looking to make a permanent alliance with a man of means. She makes a professional misstep when she encounters Gad Elmaleh as Jean, a hapless dog walker/bartender at a Biarritz resort. Misreading his tuxedoed self for a younger, fitter, richer sugar-daddy model, Irene ends up dumped, and Jean abandons his job to pursue her. She teaches him the craft of paid companionship, and faux romance blossoms into real love. This comedy benefits from leads with distinctive eyes--hers saucer-sized, his hang-dog--employed to impressive effect. In French with English subtitles. 3 p.m. March 9.--Maureen M. Hart

'Kicks' 3 stars (good) (Netherlands; Albert ter Heerdt, 2007). The format owes a lot to "Crash," but this culture-clash plot line is leavened with more humor than 2005's best-picture Oscar winner. The shooting of a Moroccan immigrant by a Dutch cop prone to racist patter (if not intentions) sets off reverberations in the immigrant and native-born communities. While the victim's kick-boxer brother Said (Mimoun Oaissa) works to keep the peace among inflamed local youths (and reassesses his relationship with his blond girlfriend), a Dutch filmmaker (Roeland Fernhout) invites trouble with a crackpot idea for a film about the immigrant situation. In Dutch and Arabic with English subtitles. 2:45 p.m. March 8; 8 p.m. March 10.--Maureen M. Hart

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