SCREENING ROOM : ‘Dark Side’ Shows Bright Side of AFI Fest

In 1987, Argentine filmmaker Eliseo Subiela caused a stir with his thoroughly distinctive “Man Facing Southeast,” a tragedy of faith and betrayal in which a young man suddenly turns up in a mental institution, claiming to be a data-gatherer from outer space. His new film, “The Dark Side of the Heart,” which screens today at the AFI Film Fest at 4 and 9 p.m. at the Monica 4-Plex) is no less striking, a beautiful, surreal meditation centering on a handsome young poet (Dario Grandinetti) who falls in love with a beautiful, well-educated prostitute (Sandra Ballesteros) only to be confronted with her firm insistence that their relationship remain strictly business. Yet she’s the first woman he meets who fulfills his only requirement: that while making love they fly through the air!

Meanwhile, Death (Nacha Guevara), an attractive woman, keeps urging the poet to get a job and do something constructive with his life before it’s too late. The key sequence of this highly sensual and erotic film, however, takes place in a restaurant, where over a meal with his ex-wife the poet starts realizing that love is a matter of giving freely and expecting nothing in return, of accepting people as they are and, above all, of understanding that the need to experience it is essential no matter what the cost. This is a demanding, dreamy film, well-worth the effort. (“Man Facing Southeast” screens at 1:30 and 6:40 p.m.)

Nijole Adomenaite’s “The House Built on Sand” (at the AFI Film Fest today at 1:40 and 7 p.m.) is a beautiful, leisurely Russian film that asks even more concentration on the part of the audience but is also rewarding. An elliptical, languorous mood piece set in the increasingly grim ‘30s, it focuses on a group of people, artists and socialites with artistic pretensions who gather at a rural dacha in a kind of salon, the one place where people could feel comfortable expressing themselves freely.

This exceedingly subtle film centers on two very different women, the plain, awkward Sonia (Elena Shackova) and the dark, elegant Ada (Elena Shiffers), who cannot resist playing a cruel trick on her feckless friend.

Paul Morrissey’s 1972 “Women in Revolt,” screening at the AFI Film Fest Friday at 3:45 and 9 p.m.) holds up well as a sendup of the the overly solemn aspects of women’s liberation while at the same time depicting the indignities to which women are routinely subjected. Andy Warhol drag superstars Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn play three dizzy types who form PIGS (Politically Involved Girls) only to have Candy, a Kim Novak idolator, cut out to pursue Hollywood stardom; the trademark blend of Warhol/Morrissey outrageous humor and camp pathos retains its charge. There are lots of the typical Factory nudity and casual orgying; Martin Kove, long before he became well-known on TV and in mainstream movies, turns up in the altogether as Curtis’ lover.

Theatix: (213) 466-6972.

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In “A Poor Little Rich Girl” (1917), which the Silent Society is presenting tonight at the Hollywood Studio Museum, 2100 N. Highland Ave., marks Mary Pickford’s first film portrayal of a child. You have to wonder where her 11-year-old Gwendolyn got her spunk even to try to stand up to overwhelming forces of indifference and oppression.

Ensconced in a Manhattan mansion palatial enough for a Vanderbilt, little Gwen, neglected by her parents, is left to the far from tender mercies of a strict governess (Marcia Harris). “A Poor Little Rich Girl” is very much a Victorian cautionary tale, but it has been told with style by Maurice Tourneur, one of the major directors of the silent era. The film is one of the great collaborations between Tourneur and pioneer art director Ben Carre, whose rightly ornate interiors reflect the nouveau riche tastes of the self-absorbed parents. Carre’s artistry soars in an extended, enchanting “Wizard of Oz”-like nightmare sequence, in which the forces of dark and light battle for Gwen’s very life.

There will be a personal appearance by Maxine Elliott, who appeared in the film.

Information: (213) 874-2276.