Character Actress Watching

This week I saw the lush downbeat "Funny People" by Judd Apatow (kudos to Adam Sandler for his multi-dimensional character and Seth Rogen for his fascinating, morphing features; I was an extra in the SFO escalator scene and ended up on the cutting room floor); "The Hurt Locker" by Kathryn Bigelow (she's an amazingly gritty director who makes a real case for some men's addiction to war); and several shorts by Cuban filmmakers. I may be on the verge of a movie binge.

The Cuban movies - "Gozar, Comer, Partir" (Have a Good Time, Eat, Leave) by Arturo Infante; and "Tres Veces Doz" (Three Times Two) - three short stories by Pavel Giroud, Lester Hamlet, and Esteban Insausti - are each fascinating in their own way, and have a distinctly 1960s and 1970s European feel, an art style captured and frozen in time, sort of like the old cars on the city roads and the shabby chic Havana buildings. At every turn the filmmakers criticize their county's culture of isolation, take on the universal agony of aging in the West, and the damages of love. They also portray lonely lives in a busy workers' Havana that seems to promise so much more. The story of a young photographer who finds a mysterious woman in his film prints makes for a stylish ghost tale that also questions the effect on youth of a country stranded in time.

To explore the works of Cuban filmmakers go to La Peña Cultural Center on Shattuck each Wednesday evening this month. Click the title above for their Web link and schedule.