Stories Set on the World’s Shifting Stage

The broad impact of the West upon China in the post-Cultural Revolution decade of 1979-1989 is explored in Jia Zhangke’s 192-minute “Platform,” the opening feature in the UCLA Film Archive’s New Chinese Cinema: Tales of Urban Delight, Alienation and the Margins.

The point of the film, which screens Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater, is that the flowering of popular culture, nurtured most importantly by music, has achieved a spiritual liberation for young Chinese but at the expense of moral norms. The film traces these quietly wrenching changes upon a group of young actors in a small provincial theatrical troupe, first glimpsed performing one of those corny, fervent musicals celebrating the greatness of Chairman Mao; they end up doing a Vegas-type revue featuring songs from the Hong Kong hit parade.

At the same time the troupe is introducing pop songs into its act, “Platform’s” key figure, the moody Minliang (Wang Hong-wei) is becoming increasingly disturbed that one of his colleagues, Ying Ruijuan (Zhao Tao), is being pressured into an arranged marriage. “Platform,” which takes its title from an ‘80s pop song, is as observant as it is demanding, and a film of cumulative power. (310) 206-FILM.

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Among three films directed by Krsto Papic screening Wednesday at the American Cinematheque’s Wednesdays in Croatia is his most recent, the pitch-black comedy “When the Dead Start Singing.” The bitter, caustic irony of Papic’s vision and the comic absurdity of his ingenious plotting is positively bracing. Cinco (Ivo Gregurevic) and Marinko (Ivica Vidovic) are two middle-aged Croatians from the same village who share an apartment in Berlin in 1991. Cinco, who had emigrated for economic reasons, misses his wife so desperately he decides to play dead and ship himself back home in a coffin, thereby securing benefits from both home and abroad. Marinko, a political exile, also pines for his wife. They both wind up back in Croatia only to find that war is reaching the village about the time they are. Tragicomic in the fullest sense of the word, “When the Dead Start Singing” is a brilliantly sustained high-wire act of a movie, unpredictable, zany yet credible. At the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., at 7 p.m. (323) 466-FILM.

The Cinematheque had such an enthusiastic response to Joe Massot’s 1969 “Wonderwall,” when it played in its Mod & Rockers series both this year and last, that as part of its new venture into film distribution, it will be presenting the film as a midnight movie at the Sunset 5 starting Friday; it will also play the New Beverly Cinema on Wednesday and Dec 7. “Wonderwall,” which has a shimmering, free-flowing sitar-laced score by none other than George Harrison, was never released in the U.S.

Jack MacGowran stars as an eccentric, self-absorbed scientist who views life through a microscope until he starts drilling holes in the wall of his cluttered apartment so that he may eavesdrop on his new neighbors, a fashion model (Jane Birkin), who has transfixed him with her beauty, and her unfaithful rock star boyfriend (Iain Quarrier). “Wonderwall” is a triumph of whimsical production design, featuring the brightly hued, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic style at its most imaginative and charming, and it is being presented in a restored version that includes a theme song recently rediscovered in Harrison’s vaults. Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd. (323) 848-3500; New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd. (323) 938-4038.

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The Laemmle Theatres’ excellent Documentary Days series continues with Simeon Soffer’s “Fight to the Max,” which screens Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Sunset 5. Soffer shows how boxing has brought hope, meaning and discipline to the lives of the inmates of Louisiana’s state prisons, and his film unfolds from the point of view of ex-con turned IBF heavyweight champion Clifford (the Black Rhino) Etienne, who also narrates the film. Significantly, all but one of the boxers are black; indeed the state prisons’ inmate population looks to be about 98% black, and its guards composed of about the same percentage of whites. Soffer probes the combination of poverty, despair, broken homes and drugs--part and parcel of racism--that has landed so many young black men in jail. “Fight to the Max” is infectious and poignant, the boxing matches staged amid much spontaneous dancing, an occasion so joyous and liberating that losers are cheered along with winners. However, you wish this film brought home as strongly as the Oscar-nominated “The Farm: Angola, USA” that Louisiana’s harsh practices give inmates little chance to continue their rehabilitation outside prison walls. “Fight to the Max” screens Dec. 9 and 10 at 11 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica (310) 394-9741.

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Six years before Mae West dared to call a play “Sex,” Thomas Ince produced and Fred Niblo directed a 1920 film called “Sex,” starring pioneering screen vamp Louise Glaum as a New York cabaret star, the mistress of a married man. Steeped in period atmosphere, the film ultimately regards Glaum as a home-wrecker who gets her just deserts, but what gives it its edge is that in truth she is simply a blunt, honest woman who doesn’t realize her own vulnerability. Tonight’s showing of “Sex” is the first of the Silent Movie’s Thursday Vamps series, continuing through December. Screenings are at 8 p.m. (323) 655-2520.

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Poor white trash deserves better than the unfunny comedy “Poor White Trash,” which opens Friday at selected theaters. Tony Denman plays a trailer park kid smart enough to want to go to college yet dumb enough to let his pal (Jacob Tierney) involve him in a holdup that goes awry. Soon Denman’s mother (Sean Young, wearing the worst wig in southern Illinois) is helping the boys in a robbery spree that is to pay for the services of Tierney’s slick, good old boy attorney (William Devane) and for Denman’s tuition.