MOVIE REVIEW : HEAD’Salmonberries’ Goes Off the Beaten Path

Bavarian-born filmmaker Percy Adlon has a special knack for making believable and engaging the seemingly most unlikely friendships and romances.

In “Celeste” he explored a loving bond between the ailing Marcel Proust and his sturdy, unsophisticated but unswervingly devoted housekeeper. In “Sugarbaby” he delved into a romance between a zaftig and confident mortuary worker and a handsome subway train driver, and in “Bagdad Cafe” he established a devoted, mutually supportive tie between an unresourceful stranded German woman and the overworked African American proprietor of a ramshackle motel and restaurant.

Now in the endearing, remarkably assured and stunning-looking “Salmonberries,” a kind of serious--yet humor-spiked--counterpart of “Bagdad Cafe,” Adlon takes on his greatest challenge yet, letting us wonder whether a friendship forged against all odds can turn into a romance. To tell his offbeat story--and just as unexpectedly evoke the need for reconciliation between the reunited Germanys--Adlon has selected a locale even more remote than the desert roadside compound of “Bagdad Cafe.” It’s the actual northwestern Alaskan outpost of Kotzebue, a tiny community of utilitarian tar paper houses, converted barracks and house trailers.

For 21 years it has been home to the local librarian, Roswitha (Rosel Zech), now 45, an elegant, formal East German emigre who has suddenly become the object of the attentions of a youth inarticulate to the point of rage. Not until the youth stops knocking books off shelves and instead abruptly disrobes does Roswitha realize that her suitor is a woman, played by k.d lang (whose haunting song “Barefoot” is heard on the soundtrack). Abandoned in Kotzebue as a baby, she bears the name of the town itself.

Craving friendship, love and a sense of identity, Kotzebue is so doggedly persistent that she breaks down the severe Roswitha’s resistance to the extent that she actually enables this remote woman to confront a tragic past that has had her in its thrall the entire time she’s been in Alaska. Roswitha’s only joy has come in gathering salmonberries, but her increasing reclusiveness means that her shelf-lined bedroom is now crowded with jars of the preserved berries that she had intended to give away. With the utmost sensitivity, Adlon raises crucial questions of cultural and sexual identity.

There are a couple of deft moments from the late Chuck Connors as Kotzebue’s seedy foster father and a wrenching scene played almost wordlessly by German actor Wolfgang Steinberg, but “Salmonberries,” gorgeously photographed by Tom Sigel, is by and large a two-character story, and novice actress lang is as impressive as the veteran Zech. After lang asked Adlon to direct a music video for her, he wrote the script of “Salmonberries” especially for her. Unaccountably, this prize-winning film has had to wait for more than two years for a theatrical release.

* MPAA rating: Unrated. Times guidelines: It includes adult treatment of a lesbian in love with an ostensibly straight woman, and some coarse language.

‘Salmonberries’

k.d. lang: Kotzebue

Rosel Zech: Roswitha

Chuck Connors: Bingo Chuck

Wolfgang Steinberg: Albert

A Roxie release of a Pelmele FILM Gmbh production. Writer-director Percy Adlon. Producer Elenore Adlon. Line producer Jamie Beardsley. Cinematographer Tom Sigel. Editor Conrad Gonzalez. Costumes Cynthia Flynt. Music Bob Telson. “Barefoot” performed by k.d. lang. Production designer Amadeus Capra. In English and German, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

* At the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379, through Wednesday.