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AFI L.A. International Festival: Capsule Reviews

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Following are capsule reviews of today’s screenings in the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas:

‘The Mother of Kings’

Poland, 1982, 126 minutes 8:45

The title is ironic; the three sons of this working-class Warsaw family are pulled into Communism or petty crime, while their widowed mother continues to have faith in ideals and/or men who unfailingly let her down during the 30-year span of the story, from 1930 to 1956. Begun in 1982, then stopped when martial law was imposed, Janusz Zsorki’s tribute to naive tenacity won a prize for its central actress, Magda Theresa Wojcikz; its brooding black-and-white camera work is splendid, but it is a long sit and a far too predictable story.

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