Nazi ‘Danger’ Tops Super 8 Works

Filmforum will present tonight at 8 at LACE Chicago photojournalist and documentarian Bill Stamets showing a retrospective of his Super 8 work.

A highlight will be “Novo Dextro: Purity and Danger,” a raw, vital record of the American Nazi Party’s “anti-queer, pro-life” rally held in 1982 in Chicago’s Lincoln Park in response to the city’s annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade. The paranoia and ignorance of the white supremacists is truly scary: One after another spews out messages of hatred not only for gays but also Jews, blacks and communists. Everywhere they perceive conspiracies and impending “race wars”; Stamets interviews far fewer gays and Jews, yet, by contrast, they speak with an intelligence and compassion that registers far more strongly.

“Novo Dextro” isn’t just talking heads, however, and Stamets gives his film a sense of everyday life with punctuating images of crashing waves, ducks in the water, people on horseback, etc., creating in the process a dynamic collage. An opening segment features images of violence, ranging from urban unrest to clips from “Psycho,” with voice-over commentary by Laurie Anderson.

Stamets will also show “Harold Is Gone,” his coverage of Mayor Harold Washington’s funeral, and his work-in-progress on this year’s presidential conventions, which he will present along with “Presidential Appearances.” This records the 1988 candidates on the campaign trail and is most notable for showing how effectively Jesse Jackson was able to communicate with rural, white Iowans. Information: (213) 663-9568.

The 1989 “Winter War” (“Talvisota”), which screens Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in UCLA’s Melnitz Theater as part of a series of Finnish films, is a classic war picture, at once intimate and epic, majestic and numbing. It commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Finns’ brave stand against Russian invaders, which began Nov. 30, 1939. It is a grueling, superb and altogether rewarding achievement, with glorious cinematography and exceptional sound.

It also has a whopping 196-minute running time, yet is so absorbing that it does not seem overly long. Its strength is in its simplicity. In bringing his novel to the screen, writer Antti Tuuri and director Pekka Parikka strive for an understated realism that takes us right into daily life in the trenches.

The result is a collective portrait of sturdy, resilient men, most of whom are taciturn farmers sustained by a strong sense of community, a deep reverence for God and an earthy sense of humor. “The Winter War” is a dignified tribute to those Finns who banded together to resist an invasion of their country against a mighty, although cumbersome and ill-prepared, oppressor. Information: (310) 206-FILM.

For Halloween, the UCLA Film Archive will present, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Melnitz Theater, Universal’s amusing, campy Spanish-language version of “Dracula” (1931), shot back-to-back with its 1931 Bela Lugosi classic (and utilizing long shots from it). Carlos Villarias and Lupita Tovar star.

First shown at USC a year ago, Juan Mora Cattlet’s venturesome, awe-inspiring “Return to Aztlan” concludes the UCLA Film Archive’s Contemporary Mexican Film series Sunday at 9:30 p.m. in UCLA’s Melnitz Theater. Spoken in Nahuatl, the ancient Mexican tongue, the film is rich in authentic ritual and music and is believed to be the first feature film to take us into the pre-Columbian world of the Aztecs without any European on hand to serve as our guide.

It is very much a film to be intuited rather than followed. At its heart it is simple enough: A young Aztec (Rafael Cortes) must go on a perilous journey to distant Aztlan to pray to a certain goddess for rain to end a yearlong drought. When he finds her, she tells him she is just an old peasant woman hoping for the return of her long-missing son; for him she is nevertheless a rain goddess.

To watch this stately film unfold with its stark beauty and measured pace is to sense that one is witnessing how myths are born, occurring anywhere when two different groups of ancient--or modern, for that matter--peoples encounter each other, bringing with them their own assumptions, beliefs and practices that have evolved over uncharted time in an attempt to make sense of capricious nature and the mysterious universe. Filmed in part against Aztec pyramids, “Return to Aztlan” brings alive a long-vanished world.