TODAY AT AFI FESTIVAL

F ollowing 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) 466-1767. Highly Recommended:

“THE VOICE OF THE MOON”(Italy; director Federico Fellini; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Goldwyn Theater, 8 p.m.). Fellini’s reputation has dipped mysteriously in recent years, but “Moon,” based on a fanciful novel by co-scenarist Ermanno Cavazzoni, is a strong candidate for AFIFEST 91’s best movie. Set in a small Italian town, in a landscape dominated by spectral moonlight and brilliantly crowded day--with a story seemingly enclosed in dreams within dreams--it pivots on the usual Fellini theme: lovers, clowns and fantasizers (including wispy Roberto Benigni) vs. the world. Few Fellini admirers should be disappointed. His most costly movie, it’s also easily his most visually spectacular. (Michael Wilmington)

“THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL”(Finland; Aki Kaurismaki; Nuart, 7 p.m.). Kaurismaki’s harsh tale of a downtrodden factory girl who finds her Prince Charming, only to wake up with a blond toad, suggests post-modern Hans Christian Anderson and a pop-culture Robert Bresson--with a mean sense of humor and without the Catholic intensity. It’s very spare, very bleak, very cold, very blue. Few cities have ever looked more pitiless and barren than Helsinki does here; few actresses glow with such sullen, beaten-down radiance as Kaurismaki’s match girl Kati Outinen. Recommended:

“I HIRED A CONTRACT KILLER”(Finland; Aki Kaurismaki; Nuart, 9 p.m.). A distraught French national in London (Jean-Pierre Leaud, at his most morose) is discharged from his job, bungles several suicides and hires a contract killer to finish the job. Even as he discovers life is worthwhile--and romance possible--the killer, dying himself, keeps fiercely pursuing him. It’s a great idea, but Kaurismaki isn’t yet thoroughly comfortable in English. The film’s often admirable mix of comedy and horror, irony and despair, doesn’t always click. Others: “The Long Conversation With a Bird” (AFI Warner, 6:45 p.m.) and “Diary for My Father and My Mother” (Music Hall, 9 p.m.), unscreened for critics, are the latest by two brilliant Eastern European directors: Poland’s Krzysztof Zanussi and Hungary’s Marta Meszaros . “A Little Stiff” (Monica 4-Plex, 7 p.m.) is an austere, minimalist, quietly observant study of an excruciating, unrequited UCLA love affair . . . a good debut. (Michael Wilmington)