TODAY AT AFI FESTIVAL

Following are the Times’ recommendations for today’s schedule of the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival, with commentary by the film-reviewing staff. Information: (213) 480-3232 or (213) 520-2000.

Highly recommended:

“Pictures of the Old World”(Czechoslovakia; Director: Dusan Hanak; Cineplex Odeon Fairfax, 11:30 p.m.). Hanak’s documentary of peasant life in the Slovak region--banned for 17 years by the old regime--has some of the limpid, overpowering beauty James Agee and Walker Evans achieved in “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” The images are monochrome, dappled with light and shadow, the faces old and weathered. The tales, simple and sturdy, tell of hard lives and quiet endurance. A great, sad, wonderful film, one to be seen and cherished.

“Landscape in the Mist”(Greece; Director: Theo Angelopoulos; Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza, 9:30 p.m.). Seemingly the simplest of Angelopoulos’ stories: Two runaway children journey over highways and railroads through a dreamy, desolate Greece in search of their mythological father. All the director’s work echoes through it; even the Traveling Players reappear. This film, winner of the top prize at the 1989 European Film Awards, is a modern masterpiece; no movie lover should miss it. (Critic’s Choice, with The Times’ Michael Wilmington.)

“The Beekeeper”(Greece; Director: Theo Angelopoulos; Century Plaza, 11:15 p.m.). Like all Angelopoulos’ work, this contemporary road movie is hauntingly sad, mysteriously beautiful.

Recommended:

“Monday Morning”(Bulgaria; Directors: Irina Aktasheva, Hristo Piskov; Fairfax, 7 p.m.). Another long-banned film, this comic drama about a shipyard crew chief’s romance with a delinquent girl has the vibrancy and spirit of the better ‘60s Italian and British comedies.

“Def by Temptation”(U.S.; Director: James Bond III; Century Plaza, 7 p.m.). Two veterans of Spike Lee’s “School Daze”--cinematographer Ernest Dickerson and actor and now writer-director Bond--whip up a potent little horror-fantasy about a rapacious vampire and a young man of the Lord. Probably the best movie ever released by the defiantly sleazy Troma Inc.

“The Long Way Home”(U.S.; Director: Michael Apted; Goodson, 7 p.m.). A priceless subject revealed with dispassionate skill: East meets West with the Leningrad rock band Aquarium.