The Tribune’s wrap-up of the Chicago International Film Festival schedule, by Tribune movie critic Michael Wilmington and the movie reviewing staff, appears each day. – indicates a personal appearance by the director or star.
Pick of the day
“The Consequences of Love” (star)(star)(star)1/2 (Paolo Sorrentino, Italy). A mysterious and secretive man, living in strange indolence at a Swiss luxury hotel, finds himself wrenched out of his shell during a romance with the hotel’s free-spirit bartender. The consequences are dangerous, the story engrossing, the ending blood-chilling. A big hit at Cannes, this elegant mystery-romance has a polish and stylistic confidence surprising for a director making only his second film; Sorrentino is one of the finds of this fest. (In Italian, with English subtitles.) 6:45 p.m. Mon., Landmark (also 6:15 p.m. Tue., Landmark). — M.W.
A few more
“Mrs. Henderson Presents” (star)(star)(star)1/2 (Stephen Frears, U.K.). During World War II, London’s Windmill Theater thumbed its nose at Hitler by presenting a decorous tableau vivant brand of topless revue. This charming backstager from director Frears, working with a script by Martin Sherman, is a flavorsome affair of real feeling and much juicy acting, topped by Judi Dench, playing the theater’s owner, and Bob Hoskins as the theater manager. 6:45 p.m. Mon., AMC River East 21. — Michael Phillips
“Protocols of Zion” (star)1/2 (Marc Levin, U.S.) Levin’s documentary sets out to explore why/how some people hold Jews responsible for Sept. 11, but ends up trying to cover the entire history of anti-Semitism and asking a much more general question: Why does the world still hate the Jews? For the answer, Levin talks to his checklist of Jew-haters: Muslim community leaders, skinheads and African-American men in jail. A worthy topic to explore. 6: 45 p.m. Mon., Landmark (also 7 p.m. Tues., Landmark). — Allison Benedikt
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“How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company and Enjoy It” (star)(star)(star) (Joe Angio, U.S.). Not a great documentary perhaps, but certainly one with an endlessly fascinating subject: author/playwright/songwriter/filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles (“Sweet Sweetback . . . “), who comes furiously alive in this blend of new interviews and black-and-white archival footage. Angio shows Van Peebles in his odyssey from Chicago to San Francisco, Holland, France and back to the U.S.; he finally emerges as mix of commercial entertainer/revolutionary artist and folk hero, as well as hustler/Casanova/provocateur. The interviewees include Spike Lee, Elvis Mitchell, Gordon Parks and Van Peebles’ filmmaker son, Mario. (In English and French, with English subtitles. 7 p.m., Mon. AMC. — M.W.
“Border Cafe” (star)(star)(star) (Iran/France; Kambozia Partovi). Shot in the neo-realist style common to most of the best new Iranian films, this warmhearted, earthy, feminist drama tells the sympathetic, convincing but saddening tale of a bullied widow who breaks free, running her deceased husband’s old cafe right across the street from her paternalistic brother-in-law (who expects her to marry, not rival him). Temporarily, she beats his chops. The ensemble cast, shot and directed with Altmanesque ease and casualness, really wins you over. (In Greek, Persian and Turkish, with English subtitles.) 8:30 p.m. Mon., Landmark. — M.W.
“Summer in Berlin” (star)(star)(star) (Andreas Dresen, Germany) Two smart, attractive young women share an apartment in summertime Berlin: It sounds like the stuff of glamorized romantic comedy. But writer-director Dresen, a previous Chicago Festival prize-winner for “Grill Point,” handles the material in ways you don’t quite expect, with dry intelligence and a realistic, improvisatory touch. He also drives the story in edgy uncomfortable directions: questioning relationships, delving into sexual violence. “Summer” beguiles, but it also provokes. (In German, with English subtitles.) 9 p.m. Mon., Landmark. — M.W.
– “Free Zone” (star)(star)(star)(star) (Amos Gitai, Israel). Perhaps the best film yet by the great contemporary Israeli director Amos Gitai, “Free Zone” stars Natalie Portman and Cannes best actress winner Hanna Laszlo as two of the three women — American, Israeli and Palestinian (Jordanian actress Haim Abbass) — traveling together in a cab to the Jordanian Free Zone. They’re all excellent, and the film itself, shot in Gitai’s usual virtuoso long-take style, is both aesthetically pleasing and dramatically exciting. Gitai crafts a near-perfect moral-political parable of the present world crisis (In English, Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles.) 9 p.m. Mon., Landmark — M.W.
“TransAmerica” (star)1/2 (U.S., Duncan Tucker). Felicity Huffman (of “Desperate Housewives”) does a brave turn in the role of a transsexual Bree, who, right in the midst of the hectic process of changing from man to woman, takes a break to reunite with his/her long-lost son, a druggie/bisexual hustler, and drive him back to Los Angeles, in the middle of mounting gender confusion and predictably colorful characters. Compassionate but seedy. One of the weirder road movies but not one of the better. 9 p.m. Mon. AMC (9:15 p.m. Tues., Landmark) — M.W.