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. All screenings at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset. Information: (213) 466-1767. Highly Recommended:

“JAMON JAMON”(Spain: 1992; Director Bigas Luna; 1:30 & 6:45 p.m.) A Bunuelian sexual phantasmagoria by Luna, which also suggests the dark comic small-town nightmares of Jim Thompson, Calder Willingham or the Coen Brothers. Rich boy and bar-owner’s daughter defy class strictures to fall in love, reaping the consequences: a horrendous plot by the boy’s clinging mother, exploding into crazed passion and fiery chaos. Best known for baroque horror films like “Anguish,” Luna is alive to all the lurid sparks and erotic flashpoints of this story. It’s genuinely scary, hot and absorbing, and the trio of actresses (Stefania Sandrelli, Penelope Cruz and the outrageous Anna Galiena of “The Hairdresser’s Husband”) are maddeningly sexy. One of the more unbuttoned Silver Lion winners in the history of the Venice Film Festival. (Michael Wilmington)

“PAIN OF LOVE”(Denmark; Nils Malmros; 1:40 & 6:50 p.m.) Malmros (“The Tree of Knowledge”) is both filmmaker and physician; he brings a doctor’s cool, unflinching insight to this quietly terrifying tale of a manic-depressive girl and her downward slide from brightness to night. Spoiled darling of a rich family, Anne Louise Hassing’s Kirsten is somehow hollow inside, her luckless passion for a flirtatious high school teacher, Soren, exposing the eggshell-thin footing on which her happiness lies. This is a story about passion and madness, love unto death, done with a modern sensibility: Malmros makes it achingly real, annihilatingly true. (M. W.)

“EIGHT TRAY GANGSTER: THE MAKING OF A CRIP”(U.S.; Thomas Lee Wright; 4 & 9 p.m.) Documentarian Wright takes us right inside a South-Central Los Angeles family deeply afflicted by gang involvement, but miraculously

not destroyed by it. The central figures are 26-year-old Kershaun Scott, convicted of murder at 14, but now a community activist; his older brother “Monster” Kody, serving time for assault and the author of a just-published autobiography, and their strong, forthright mother, a loving single parent who did all she could to save her sons from the gangs. A scary, thoughtful film. (Kevin Thomas)

Recommended:

“A PLACE IN THE WORLD”(Argentina/Uruguay; Adolfo Aristarain; 4:05 & 9:05 p.m.) Picked as one of five foreign language Oscar finalists for 1992, then disqualified in a squabble over its origin, this rich memory tale of a boyhood in the sheep-land by longtime Argentine action specialist Aristarain has the sure-handed structure, performances and style of the better American Westerns and family dramas of the ‘50s and ‘60s. There’s something soothing about its expertise. Frederic Luppo, Aristarain’s usual star, is the idealized father; his son-narrator passes through the trials of thwarted love, political corruption, anti-Semitism and blasted illusions. An old-fashioned entertainment--of a particularly satisfying kind. (M. W.)

“THE FENCING MASTER”(Spain; Pedro Olea; 4:15 & 9:15 p.m.) Is love a sword fight? Olea’s lustrous, ultra-polished period film, set in an 1868 Madrid in the throes of political turmoil, gives us a perfectionist fencing master and his star pupil: the bewitching lady-of-mystery who wants to learn all his tricks and make him drop his guard. Agatha Christie might have dreamed up this convoluted plot, which turns into a wild blend of romance, murder mystery and intrigue, but she would have sprung many more surprises. Still, it’s fun: classy trash in impeccable settings. (M. W.)

Others: “Our Twisted Hero” (South Korea; Park Chong Won; 1:50 & 7 p.m.) Tyranny in microcosm: South Korean schoolchildren get a history lesson from their North Korean refugee teacher.