Human faces in a political standoff

Several of the most highly touted films in the American Cinematheque’s 10th annual Recent Spanish Cinema series, which begins Friday at the Egyptian, were unavailable for preview, but the most potent offering could well be a landmark documentary, “Balseros,” screening Tuesday. Surprisingly, filmmakers Carles Bosch and Josep Maria Domenech had the freedom to move back and forth between Cuba and the U.S. They were following seven people, among an estimated 44,000 to 55,000 people, who in 1994, with the collapse of the Cuban economy after the fall of the Soviet Union, were willing to risk their lives traveling on homemade rafts to follow their dream of a better life in the United States. The filmmakers couldn’t have imagined a script better than this real-life drama.

The film covers a tremendous amount of territory, emotional as well as geographic, as first of all we experience the full impact of the hardships of Cuba’s poorest citizens and the further cruelty experienced by families separated for years by the political standoff between Cuba and the U.S. The main emphasis is how the resilient balseros manage to forge new lives in the U.S. With “Balseros,” the line between documentary and drama vanishes.

Also epic in scope and equally impressive, Heinrich Breloer’s two-part, three-hour “Deadly Game” (Todesspiel) launches the “German Autumn: Terrorism in Film” series Tuesday at the Goethe Institute. This prize-laden 1997 made-for-German TV docudrama is a superb example of the form. An exceedingly complex series of events that traumatized West Germany in 1977 has been dramatized with an admirably clear, terse you-are-there immediacy and interwoven with forthright interviews of the many key people. The final touch is the exceptional care in casting: the match-ups between the actual people seen in archival clips and those who play them verge on the uncanny. The blend between new footage and old is similarly nearly seamless.

On Sept. 5, 1977, industry leader Hanns-Martin Schleyer, 62, was on his way to work in Cologne when his car was ambushed by members of the Red Army Faction, among Europe’s most feared leftist guerrillas.

The kidnappers demanded the release of Andreas Baader and two other faction leaders from prison, and safe passage to a country of their choice.

West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his aides decided to play for time to locate and rescue Schleyer. The already tense negotiations escalated dramatically when a group of Palestinian extremists got into the act, hijacking a Lufthansa plane bound from Mallorca to Frankfurt with 86 passengers and asking for $15-million ransom and the release of the three imprisoned faction leaders.

The protracted ordeal is at times grueling, but viewer patience is amply rewarded, especially for its insight into Schmidt, determined to stand fast in facing a terrible dilemma.

*

Screenings

What: “Balseros”

Where: American Cinematheque, Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Info: (323) 466-FILM

What: “Deadly Game” (Todesspiel)

Where: Goethe Institute, Suite 100, 5750 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Info: (323) 525-3399