Asia Pacific Media Center Offers Four Outstanding Films

The Asia Pacific Media Center will present a revival of Wu Yigong’s “My Memories of Old Beijing” (1983) on Saturday at USC’s Norris Theater at 1 p.m., followed by Dariush Mehrjui’s “Pari” (1995), a stunningly effective transposition of J.D. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” to contemporary Iran that was screened recently at UCLA.

Sunday brings two splendid films in their premieres: U-Wei bin HaajiSaari’s “The Arsonist” (1994) at 4:30 p.m., a Malaysian adaptation of William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” that’s as impressive as “Pari”; and, at 6:30 p.m., Yoshimitsu Morita’s “Haru,” a contemporary love story from the director best known for “The Family Game” (1983), an outrageous yet subtle spoof of the westernized Japanese bourgeois.

A superb period re-creation, the exquisite, astonishingly expressive “Memories” is an imaginative evocation of a child’s first awareness of life’s injustice as she grows up on the outskirts of the Chinese capital in the ‘20s.

As fluid and graceful as “Memories,” “The Arsonist” stars Khalid Salleh as a fiercely proud Javanese immigrant rubber plantation worker in Malaysia, a man whose rage at the shabby treatment he receives from his employers drives him to burn their outbuildings. He pays scant attention to his wife and other three children but is obsessed with raising one of his sons (Ngasrizai Ngrasi) into his own image. What emerges is a psychological portrait of conflict as the boy at once understands and respects his father yet also has an ever increasing awareness of the sheer self-destructiveness of his father’s behavior.

It takes effort to get into “Haru,” about a young woman (Eri Fukatsu) and a young man (Masaki Uchino) who connect via the Internet, because there is a barrage of Japanese intertitles composed of e-mail exchanges with English subtitles underneath. Yet the messages gradually become part of the flow of this lovely film as suspense and concern mount as to whether these two attractive people, so seemingly perfect a match from our perspective, will ever actually meet. Timelessly romantic yet as fresh as tomorrow, “Haru” is a film of elegance, humor and poignancy. (213) 743-1939.

Vietnam Revisited: In 1970, independent filmmaker Robert Kramer, working with the filmmakers collective the Newsreel, went to Vietnam to shoot “People’s War.” His 1993 “Starting Point,” which will screen at the Nuart Saturday and Sunday at noon, is a beautiful, highly personal film diary of his return visit more than 20 years later. “Starting Point” presents a flow of stunning images that take the measure of the devastation and loss wrought by the war, yet it celebrates the indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese people. (310) 478-6379.

Burroughs Shorts: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Low Dives and Formal Feasts: William S. Burroughs on Film,” which runs Friday and Saturday evenings through this month, commences Friday at 7:30 p.m. with a program of shorts. Included are Nick Donkin’s poignant 22-minute “The Junky’s Christmas” (1995), which Burroughs narrates as Claymation figures enact a junkie’s struggle to get a fix on Christmas Eve in Manhattan; and Gus Van Sant’s darkly witty three-minute “Thanksgiving Prayer” (1991), in which Burroughs blasts the betrayal of America and its dreams while his face is wreathed in sentimental patriotic imagery. Also included is that classic of the underground cinema, Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie’s “Pull My Daisy” (1959). You may not be able to stick it out through Conrad Rooks’ pretentious “Chappaqua” (1966), an alcoholic heroin addict’s odyssey, in which Burroughs is featured. (213) 857-6010.

Growing Up: New at the Sunset 5: Aaron Speiser’s “Talking About Sex” (Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m.), a breezy take on yuppie love, riddled with sexual hang-ups, starring a sparkling Kim Wayans. “Apocalypse Bop” (Friday and Saturday, midnight) turns a high school reunion into a mildly amusing supernatural event. (213) 848-3500.

The insufferable “The Four Corners of Nowhere” (Grande 4-Plex, Friday through Sept. 13) leaves no cliche of self-absorbed Gen-X angst untouched. (213) 617-0268.