As we head into the final week of the Vancouver International Film Festival (which runs until October 15), here is the third batch of Straight capsule reviews. Be sure to check the official VIFF website for date or venue changes. For our full coverage of the festival, including photo galleries, videos, blogs, news, and more, visit www.straight.com/viff

American Grindhouse (U.S.)
Robert Rodriguez is affectionately parodying it; Samuel R. Delany is nostalgically writing about it: clearly, U.S. exploitation cinema has entered the Age of Elegy. In American Grindhouse, Elijah Drenner does a pretty good job of documenting this maze of subgenres (with the inexplicable exceptions of “sleepers” and “straight to video” productions that originally aimed higher). I believe it was Vladimir Nabokov who said: “Nothing is as invigorating as philistine vulgarity.” Drenner shows us just how true that statement still is.
Granville 7, October 9 (10 p.m.) and 11 (3:20 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

Aurora (Romania/France/Switzerland/Germany)
In recent years, Romanian filmmakers have distilled cinematic gold from a unique mélange of opaque characters, sparse dialogue, oppressive locations, long takes, and dystopian situations. Cristi Puiu’s latest venture into the suburbs of Bucharest has all of that, but it lacks the final, essential ingredient: dramatic tension. A lot of craft is visible in this low-key study of a man on the brink of personal chaos, but, sadly, in the final analysis there’s too much journey and not enough arrival for it to be considered a celluloid success.
Granville 7, October 12 (9:15 p.m.) and 13 (3 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

Carlos (France/Germany)
This is the five-and-a-half-hour version of the biopic that will be released commercially at half this length. Considering the richness of the material—the life story of the world’s only “celebrity terrorist”—and the brilliant, multilingual, weight-shifting acting of star Edgar Ramirez, it’s “the more the merrier” so far as this historically relevant, fast-paced Olivier Assayas flick is concerned.
Park Theatre, October 9 (1 p.m.) and 11 (5:30 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

Echoes of the Rainbow (Hong Kong)
A lovingly re-created British Hong Kong of the 1960s posits a kind of In the Mood for Love from a child’s perspective. Filmmaker Alex Law’s autobiographical charmer switches focus freely between its grade-school protagonist and his older brother, who is athletically bold but romantically challenged. One question: what’s with all the Celtic soundtrack music?
Park Theatre, October 13 (6:15 p.m.); Granville 7, October 14 (11:40 a.m.)
> Ken Eisner

Gold & Copper (Iran)
Amid so many angry images coming out of Iran these days, here’s a portrait of a family you can’t help but empathize with—and the main character is a mullah in training. When his devoted wife is diagnosed with a serious illness, he’s left to cook and care for his small children, on top of his studies. It’s not a role you ever see portrayed in such a patriarchal society. No fancy film work here, just a humanistic, sweetly funny, and quietly moving slice of life.
Granville 7, October 10 (9 p.m.) and 11 (11:40 a.m.)
> Janet Smith

Harragas (Algeria/France)
The lot of the illegal economic migrant has never been an easy one, but for those crossing the Mediterranean in a northerly direction, it can be a fatal one as well. Merzak Allouache follows the trajectory of 10 Algerians who dream of starting a new life in Spain if only they can survive the myriad perils of an underprovisioned sea voyage. Harragas takes a while to get started, but once it does, it’s taut drama all the way.
Granville 7, October 9 (2:10 p.m.) and 13 (9 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

I Am Tony Scott: The story of how Italy got rid of the greatest jazz clarinetist (Italy)
Everyone who knew the great jazzman in his later, crankier years says he was too long-winded; same goes for this doc, which raises fascinating questions that go unanswered, repeats too many assertions, and pads things out with generic stock footage. Still, the goodies are undeniable, including a closing clip that’s worth the price of admission.
Granville 7, October 12 (1:30 p.m.) and 14 (6:45 p.m.)
> Ken Eisner

Incendies (Canada)
Based on his track record, Denis Villeneuve is probably the most promising of the younger generation of Québécois auteurs, and Incendies is the film that confirms that promise. Set mainly in a country that is Lebanon in all but name, this screen adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s acclaimed play manages to touch on every level of politics, from the international to the personal. Strong structure, poetic writing, and rock-solid acting result in indisputable cinematic success.
Granville 7, October 12 (9:15 p.m.) and 14 (3 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

King’s Road (Iceland)
If Aki Kaurismí¤ki ever directs an episode of Trailer Park Boys, it will probably look a lot like King’s Road. This Icelandic black comedy is set in a landscape so bleak that it makes even the Western Front look inviting. As for the characters, all are either losers, idiots, bimbos, or pricks, while the level of family values would disgrace a male grizzly. In other words, great fun.
Granville 7, October 9 (4 p.m.) and 12 (6:45 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

Love Translated (Canada)
Vancouver’s Julia Ivanova followed a batch of would-be Internet Romeos to Ukraine, where they gladly pay for the pleasure of having the Slavic version of Jersey girls check them out. The cross section of Canadians aboard is even more anthropologically amusing than the local talent—although the director hits deeper notes when she gets close to the women.
Granville 7, October 12 (8:45 p.m.); Vancity Theatre, October 14 (4 p.m.)
> Ken Eisner

Modra (Canada)
Ingrid Veninger’s best feature yet rests on two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who hardly know each other but who together visit the Slovakian relatives of the girl (the director’s daughter, in fact). The kids are unusually inarticulate, but that gives the pastoral setting a chance to bring something magical, if vaguely threatening, to their overly sedate lives. Highly recommended.
Granville 7, October 13 (12 and 8:45 p.m.)
> Ken Eisner

R (Denmark)
This prison drama about a clueless newbie who tries to rise through the ranks is very much indebted to Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet. Unfortunately, where the French original walked like a genre giant, its Danish clone limps like a starstruck Lilliputian. Imitation might well be the sincerest form of flattery, but it rarely results in first-rate cinema.
Granville 7, October 10 (9:15 p.m.) and 11 (4:20 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

The Robber (Austria/Germany)
The hero of this unusual crime drama is essentially interested in two things: robbing and running marathons. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem to see much difference between these usually antithetical activities. As for love, well, that’s the one thing that might throw his double-barrelled agenda totally off-kilter. Remarkably, director Benjamin Heisenberg manages to crosshatch excitement with Bressonian spareness without doing damage to either of these very different approaches to filmmaking.
Granville 7, October 10 (7 p.m.), 12 (3 p.m.), and 15 (11 a.m.)
> Mark Harris

The Strange Case of Angelica (Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil)
As he gets older—he’s now pushing 102, having first become involved with the movies way back in 1928—Manoel de Oliveira’s work has become sparer and more poetic. His latest gem is a ghostly love story in which a Jewish photographer falls hard for the recently deceased daughter of a wealthy Catholic family who somehow manages to live on within the borders of his photographs. It merges the very different aesthetics of Victor Sjí¶strí¶m’s silent cinema and Marc Chagall’s shtetl fantasias. A strange marriage, to be sure, but it works every bit as well as this delicate tryst between the living and the dead.
Granville 7, October 8 (2:15 p.m.); Pacific Cinémathí¨que, October 9 (9:15 p.m.), and 14 (1:30 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

The Two Escobars (Colombia/U.S.)
In very different ways, both Escobars were Colombian antiheroes. Pablo, of course, was once the world’s most infamous drug lord, while Andrés (no relation) was a slum-bred-kid-made-good who seemed destined to kick his homeland through the goal posts of its first World Cup. Both men had sad ends, one dying in a semipolitical assassination, the other paying a draconian price for a catastrophic football error. Ironically, both were extremely good for the health of Colombian soccer, while Pablo, for all his faults, might well have done more for the Colombian poor than all the pious pen pushers in Bogotá put together. A fascinating double biography.
Granville 7, October 8 (8:45 p.m.), 9 (3:30 p.m.), and 14 (3:30 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

The Ugly Duckling (Russia/France)
Bruno Bettelheim would doubtless have approved, but this heartbreakingly beautiful animated feature will probably make more children cry than Bambi. This is because, despite its happy ending and Tchaikovsky score, Garri Bardin’s adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tale re-creates barnyard cruelty with an accuracy worthy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. The end result is magnificent, to be sure, but also very sad.
Granville 7, October 8 (6:45 p.m.) and 10 (1:30 p.m.); Park Theatre, October 12 (7 p.m.)
> Mark Harris

When the Devil Knocks (Canada)
An Alberta woman wrestles with what used to be called multiple-personality disorder in this TV-style doc, which is overprocessed with synthesizer scare music and has too much repetitive footage. The casting of different children as facets of the woman’s persona—the film’s riskiest gambit—is surprisingly effective, however.
Granville 7, October 13 (6 p.m.); Vancity Theatre, October 14 (11 a.m.)
> Ken Eisner

Windfall (U.S.)
Take any quaint or idealistic ideas you have about windmills and toss them into the turbine. Laura Israel’s brisk and well-researched documentary—a refreshing burst of skepticism in the green movement—shows how the push for wind power has divided a small rural community in upstate New York. On one side, struggling farmers are opting for the 130-metre-high turbines and giving in to shady wind-power prospectors; on the other, community members are frantic about the noise, the shadows, the “ice throws”, and many more surprising side effects of towers they call “industrial facilities”. Quirkily styled, with funky music, intertitles, and archival footage, despite the dry subject.
Granville 7, October 10 (12:40 p.m.) and 13 (7 p.m.)
> Janet Smith