Festival ’90 : MOVIE REVIEWS : Vivid South American Images

More than 100 films and videos representing 25 Pacific Rim cultures are being screened through Sunday. Highlights of programs today and Thursday are reviewed here:

Today

Lizards’ Tales Chile

Today, 7:30 p.m. at AFI, 2021 N. Western Ave., Hollywood ; Friday , 7:30 p.m. at Melnitz Theater, UCLA . Juan Carlo Bustamente’s three tales are poetic, sensual and linked by themes of flight, death, desire and the persistence of memory. All three are also striking mood pieces marked by a deliberately disjointed sense of time. They are not overtly political, yet are steeped in the atmosphere of paranoia. Even though Bustamente tends to be arty and is resolutely solemn, his film generates real impact.