AFI FESTIVAL : The Lyricism of Theo Angelopoulos

Following are The Times’ recommendations for today’s schedule of the American Film Institute International Film Festival, with commentary by the film-reviewing staff. All screenings, except where noted, are at Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica. Information: (213) 466-1767.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:

“THE SUSPENDED STRIDE OF THE STORK”(Greece; director Theo Angelopoulos; 7 p.m.). More astonishing film lyricism from Angelopoulos, the cinema’s modern master of the long take and a poet of Angst and alienation. Set in a town near the Greek-Turkish border, its title refers to a one-legged stance from which you can either progress or retreat; the script--perhaps too symbolically--traces the dilemma of a journalist who believes a vanished politician has resurfaced as a refugee. There are three veterans of Antonioni’s “La Notte” here: actors Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau and co-scenarist Tonino Guerra. But the mood is pure Angelopoulos--even at the end when a wedding scene on opposite riverbanks forces him, for a change, to use cross-cutting. The people, the soldiers, the countries themselves, seem lost under a cold blue sky: figures in a landscape who only delude themselves that they are masters of the Earth and their destiny. (Michael Wilmington)

“A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY”(Taiwan; Edward Yang; 3:15 p.m.). Taiwanese cinema should have been on the art-house map after Hou Hsaio-hsien’s brilliant “City of Sadness” won the Venice Film Festival; instead, U.S. distributors passed it by. Yet Yang’s film is almost as impressive: a three-hour epic of Taipei junior-high street gangs, based on a real-life 1961 chronicle of vendetta, love and murder. Like Hsaio-hsien, Yang takes a relentlessly cool, distanced approach to sensational material--the violence keeps exploding in still frames and out of darkness--and his social canvas is broad; an exhaustive, even frightening, backdrop of many-leveled Taipei society. It’s a superb film. The title comes from Elvis’ “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”: a song used several times, with devastating irony and poignancy. (M.W.)

“BIX: AN INTERPRETATION OF A LEGEND”(United States-Italy; Pupi Avati; 9 p.m.). Avati (“The Story of Boys and Girls”) decided he wanted to be a jazzman at age 7, after hearing the swing 78s the American GIs brought to postwar Bologna; he decided he wanted to make films after his clarinet gig failed and he saw “8 1/2.” Both his obsessions are joined in this heartfelt bio of cornet great Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke, a small-town, middle-class white boy who died of alcoholism at 28--and whose Davenport, Iowa, family considered his addiction to “colored” music a disgrace. The ingeniously convoluted structure owes something to Eastwood’s “Bird”--but “Bix” is as deceptively bright and colorful as “Bird” was dark and despairing. (M.W.)

“THE KISS OF DEATH”(Great Britain, 1977; Mike Leigh; 9:15 p.m.). Leigh’s whimsical, puckish sense of humor comes to full flower in this story of Trevor (David Threlfall), the “dead quiet” undertaker’s assistant and his attempts at romance. Socially awkward enough to make Ernest Borgnine’s Marty look like a practiced seducer, Trevor’s shambling forays into the rituals of courtship have to be among the most humorously uncertain in the history of cinema. (Kenneth Turan)

“TIME HAS NO NAME”(Sweden, 1989; Stefan Jarl; AFI Goodson, 4:30 p.m.). This lyrical study of a small Swedish farm is another of Jarl’s poignant, inwardly angry looks at older, or more human, ways of life under assault from “progress.” The seasonal flow, the beauty of the land, the link between man and nature: All these seem threatened by the local government’s anti-agricultural policies and by the swallowing up of the tiny into the large: the new streamlined, super-corporate, agribusiness complexes. It’s a sad, lovely film, whose tacit plea is for a recognition of life’s wholeness, over the brutality of economics. (M.W.)

RECOMMENDED:

“RAMPAGE”(United States; William Friedkin; 1 and 9:30 p.m.). The most conventional film Friedkin ever made, this is a well-crafted, straightforward message drama, based on fact. Michael Biehn stars as a Stockton deputy D.A. prosecuting an especially savage serial killer, whose trial questions the validity of the “insanity” defense and beyond that, the morality of death sentencing. (Kevin Thomas)

“FRIDA--STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART”(Norway; Berit Nesheim; 3:45 p.m.). A surprise: In a world far away from John Hughes’ Wilmette, this Norwegian teen domestic/romantic comedy pivots around its 13-year-old heroine’s discovery of Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving” and her consequent nonstop kvetching and meddling. Are Scandinavian kids more literate, or do U.S. movies avoid IQ in the name of consensus? In any case, the heroine (Maria Kvalheim) is a lithe, smart charmer, and director Nesheim so adept at glossy surfaces and human connections that the film glides by--brightly, breezily. (M.W.)

“THE END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER”(New Zealand; Ian Mune; 6:30 p.m.). Bruce Mason’s memory play about a New Zealand boyhood is a local classic, but while Mason performed it as a monologue, writer-director Mune (“Came a Hot Friday”) gives it the full-bore Spielberg treatment. (M.W.)

“THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL”(Czechoslovakia; Jan Sverak; 6:15 p.m.). Czechoslovakia’s 1992 Oscar finalist is, like “Golden Weather,” heavily Spielberg-influenced; in this case, style almost overpowers content. It’s another nostalgia piece, based by co-star-writer Zdenek Sverak--the director is his 26-year-old son, Jan--on a boyhood reminiscence, hugely inflated. The worst elementary class in recorded history--they might have been coached by “Problem Child”--drives one teacher to the asylum and then falls madly in love with the whip-cracking, philandering martinet who replaces her. Overscaled but amusing; it’s the talented young Sverak’s first feature. (M.W.)

“JERICO”(Venezuela; Luis Alberto Lamata; 8:45 p.m.). Revisionist epic, in the mood of Herzog’s “Aguirre”: A 16th-Century Spanish friar accompanies some conquistadors on their new World explorations and winds up assimilated into the “savage” local tribes--who prove gentler and more tolerant than their brutal invaders. Strong on every level--pictorial, historical, dramatic--it’s a fine feature debut for writer-director Lamata. (M.W.)

Others: “The Soul Is Greater Than the World” (Sweden, 1985; Stefan Jarl; AFI Goodson, noon.). Unscreened: A Jarl documentary on Sweden’s world-class discus thrower, Ricky Bruch, whose outspoken opinions on drug use among the sports elite cost him an Olympic berth; “Moonrise” (New Zealand; David Blyth; 1:20 p.m.). The Munsters’ Al Lewis--now 81 and still spry--as a lovable vampire, camping it up with bloodless kids and obnoxious adults. Occasionally cute. (M.W.); “The Knife Behind the Fan” (Germany-Japan; Brigitte Krause; 1:30 p.m.). Unscreened: A portrait, in action and interview, of one of Japan’s most controversial performance artists, feminist-radical Genshyu Hanayagi, who twists traditional styles into iconoclastic shows. (M.W.); “Wadeck’s Mother’s Friend’s Son” (United States; Arnold Barkus; 4 p.m.). This labored comedy--with a “Green Card” plot in a “Stranger Than Paradise” mode--finds its comic style halfway through: a bit late. (M.W.); “Van Gogh’s Ear” (Netherlands; Tony Garcia; 6:45 p.m.). American experimental theater troupe, in throes of dissolution in Amsterdam, scores an unlikely hit. Nice idea; shallow, broad, often grating treatment. (M.W.); “San Juan Story/The Bell” (Puerto Rico; Kevin McCarey/Noel Quinones; AFI Goodson, 2:15 p.m.). Four Latino shorts, mostly about cultural alienation, none of which hit the mark. (M.W.); Canada in Brief (Canada; AFI Goodson, 6:45 p.m.). One of the best shorts programs. Four Quebecois selections, including “Lea,” a lyrical cross-generation suspense piece, and “They Have Walked on the Moon,” an engaging circa-1969 coming-of-age tale. (M.W.); Dramatic Moments (United States; AFI Goodson, 9 p.m.) Unscreened: Four student films whose common themes are alienation or loneliness.

Seminars: 10:45 a.m.: Finding Independent Film Finance and Distribution. 1:15 p.m.: Licensing Music.