The Desert of Forbidden Art
Wisconsin Union Theater, Friday, April 16, 5:30 pm
This captivating documentary recounts the story of Igor Savitsky, who risked the gulag to help save Soviet culture in spite of itself. The Kiev native saved some 44,000 works by Soviet artists who had been deemed degenerate or anti-Soviet, preserving both art and reputations.
Savitsky (1915-84) collected for decades, transporting these artworks deep into the deserts of northwest Uzbekistan, where they might be safer from Stalin. He endured an often desperate existence to establish a museum containing one of the world's largest collections of avant-garde Russian paintings and drawings, along with thousands of central Asian artifacts and contemporary works.
Alas, Savitsky's efforts are now threatened by regional instability and the collection's desperate need for restoration. But this gripping film is a compelling testimonial to art and the human heart from which it derives. (D.M.)
Dzi Croquettes
UW Memorial Union Play Circle, Friday (1 pm) & Saturday (10:45 pm), April 16 & 17
The early 1970s were not a great time for freedom of expression in Brazil, thanks to the repressive government. But in So Paulo, an all-male troupe of singers and dancers called Dzi Croquettes made tart satiric points and helped open the door to gay liberation. The troupe's strength was the choreography of Broadway refugee Lenny Dale, and marvelous footage in this documentary captures the dancing along with the men's flamboyant costumes and gorgeous physiques. The details are told (and, too often, retold) in interviews with former Croquettes and with fans - among them Liza Minnelli. The wild 1970s gave way to the sober 1980s, and it's sadly easy to guess why some Croquettes weren't interviewed even before the talk of "gay cancer." (K.B.)
Eggshelland
Monona Terrace, Sunday, April 18, 1:30 pm
Eggshelland is one of those "quirky project" documentaries, and if you love the genre, it's a rewarding look at the place where enthusiasm meets obsessive compulsive disorder. "Eggshelland" is what the Manolio family of Cleveland, Ohio, calls its annual home Easter display. The film follows their endeavor of conceiving, designing, and constructing pop-culture and Easter scenes to be made completely out of enameled eggs stuck on pegs in their front lawn. There's no religious fervor at play here; that is, Eggshelland itself seems to have become the Manolio's religion. The film ends up being a meditation on the meaning of art, family, devotion, invention and love. (L.F.)
Historias Extraordinarias
UW Memorial Union Play Circle, Wednesday, April 14, 7 pm
Writer-director Mariano Llinas's low-budget, high-concept 245-minute epic of desperate happenstance and unfathomable consequences is a tour de force that defies labels. The movie reels you in on loose strands of braided narrative that grow ever more taut as its three stories unfold.
Rich in wrong turns and decoy plot devices, often intimate in its detail, sometimes violent and always fantastic, it is loaded with assumed identities and wild swerves. Around every corner is a nervy twist: a lion, an inscrutable map, an old man who talks too much but then is silent.
Depending on your disposition, these stories may leave you feeling toyed with or suckered. But if you can surrender to the extraordinary, its reward is enormous delight and satisfaction. (D.M.)
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Orpheum main theater, Thursday, April 15, 8 pm
The title of this well-made documentary comes from Henry Kissinger's assessment of former defense analyst Ellsberg, who in 1971 leaked Pentagon documents revealing the lies undergirding the war in Vietnam. It feels like an overstatement, as does much of the film, which is loaded with references to dire consequences (Ellsberg: "I might never see my children again, except through thick glass") that did not occur (the charges against him were thrown out). Yes, Ellsberg's action was heroic, but it was also, as is stressed at every turn, the right thing to do. It's a film that might make some viewers eager to find opportunities for heroism in their own lives. Or at least buy a "Question Authority" T-shirt. (B.L.)
Mother
Orpheum main theater, Sunday, April 18, 7:15 pm
This year's fest features a series of films by the South Korean director Joon-Ho Bong, including his searing and superb latest, Mother. Hye-ja Kim is the title mom, an acupuncturist who is a little too close to her mentally disabled son (Bin Won). He's coerced into confessing he killed a schoolgirl, so Mother looks for the real killer in a story that's a little bit Psycho, a little bit Murder, She Wrote. The details grow ever more lurid as Mother investigates, and it's a testament to Kim's skill that her character remains sympathetic even as she makes increasingly appalling choices. (K.B.)
One Crazy Ride
UW Memorial Union Play Circle, Thursday, April 15, 7:30 pm
Despite being warned that it does not exist, a handful of Mumbai motorcycling enthusiasts set off in this documentary to find a rumored but unmapped route through Arunachal Pradesh, a state in far northeast India.
Undeterred by reports of regional hostilities, they load up their bikes and muster them over tracks that range from rutted dirt to barely discernible - crossing low rivers, rickety bridges and soaring Himalayan passes.
The bikers' easygoing approach transforms obstacles and mechanical breakdowns into experiences worth appreciating. Viewers get the vicarious privilege of visiting remote outposts and meeting people they would never otherwise encounter, along with the reassurance that vast silent landscapes and unmapped tracks like these still exist in the world. (D.M.)
Paddle to Seattle
Wisconsin Union Theater, Sunday, April 18, 1:30 pm
This antithesis of the self-important expedition doc follows two dudes who build their own sea kayaks and set off on a 90-day, 1,300-mile traverse from Skagway, Alaska, to their title destination by way of coastal British Columbia. J.J. Kelley and Josh Thomas sometimes come across as a couple of chuckleheads out for a lark, but if they find themselves in over their heads on occasion, they're also resilient and engaging while waiting out relentless storms packing 30-knot winds and intimidating coastal tides.
The backdrops are glorious, with glaciers and mountains rising from the sea and vast, wild coastlines dotted with isolated, remote outposts. The adventures include tense encounters with grizzlies and titanic cruise ships alike, a courageous experience with lutefisk and the closest kayak-whale encounters I've ever seen on film. (D.M.)
Sweetgrass
Orpheum main theater, Saturday, April 17, 11 am
This slow-paced documentary focuses on sheep and their herders in Sweet Grass County, Mont. It blends scenes of breathtaking beauty, like a field of sheep amid light falling snow, and casual brutality, like the animals being brusquely sheared and their newborns harshly tossed. There is no narration and little explanation, as the cameras track the rituals of the ranch and a summer sheep drive to public grazing lands, a grueling task that pushes one herder to an emotional breaking point. The film completely shears away the romance of sheep ranching, and exposes the humans as the most miserable creatures it depicts. (B.L.)
The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls
Orpheum main theater, Thursday, April 15, 6 pm
Don't reduce this one to the "yodeling lesbian twins" tagline (but when they do yodel, yowzah, can they yodel). Jools and Linda Topp are out lesbians who have a comedic country music act, and since they're from New Zealand, comparisons to Flight of the Conchords are inevitable. The songs are both funny and infectiously listenable, but it's the political dimension that sets the Topp Twins apart from a novelty act.
The sisters have long worked for gay and Maori rights and breast cancer awareness. While the film incorporates archival footage from their appearances at 1980s gay rights protests, there's too little sense of how being out lesbians could have been difficult at the time. (There's also not enough on their range as sketch comedians; go to YouTube to see more.) The Topp Twins is in the mold of "irrepressible spirit" biography, although no less entertaining for it. (L.F.)
Waking Sleeping Beauty
Wisconsin Union Theater, Saturday, April 17, 11:30 am
The Disney studio's animation comeback in the 1980s and '90s - do we really care? We do, and that's a tribute to this documentary's playful approach to its subject. Created by mischievous company insiders Don Hahn and Peter Schneider, Waking Sleeping Beauty shows how a group of upstart business people and artists pulled Disney animation out of its long slump with the likes of Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Home movies introduce us to the goofy animators who toiled long hours in cramped quarters with no respect, only to find themselves with a 1992 Oscar nomination for Beauty and the Beast. "We came to the Oscars in our rented tuxes and fancy ball gowns," Hahn says, "and all I could think of was, 'How did we get here?'" (D.R.)
