Of conflict and con artists

NEXT week, the American Cinematheque series of new Argentine films is showcasing some of the South American country’s biggest recent hits, including a long-awaited cinematic exorcism of the Falklands conflict and a tribute to director Fabian Bielinsky, who died this year.

From a historical perspective, the two-month Falklands War between Argentina and Britain is a blip in the grand scheme of global contretemps. The issue of the archipelago’s sovereignty wasn’t even resolved (and still isn’t). But as the bruising if uneven “Iluminados por el Fuego” (An Enlightened Fire) makes clear, for a conscript in the middle of battle, and long after, there are no small wars, only sudden, unforgettable brushes with hell. Tristan Bauer’s film, which won a Goya award in Spain and will be shown at the Egyptian Theatre, takes a grim view of Argentina’s physical and psychological handling of the 1982 conflict, perhaps none so disturbing as the fact uttered in opening narration by journalist Esteban (Gaston Pauls) on the way to the hospital after hearing of a fellow ex-soldier’s suicide attempt: that more veterans of the war have taken their own lives than died in combat.

Esteban’s flashbacks to the war are a grimy nightmare of cold, sadistic superiors and the bonds that arise in a foxhole when morale is nonexistent. Few war films, it feels, have etched so complete a picture of strategic and emotional collapse, culminating in the ferocious British night assault on Mt. Longdon that, even in this cinematic age of brutally real combat scenes, stands out for its depiction of whizzing, exploding chaos. Only the current-day scenes lack a sense of dramatic purpose, although the protagonist’s memorial visit to the Falklands at the end features a haunting metaphor for the uneasy truce: a beautiful beach cordoned off and unusable by anyone because, as Esteban’s British driver calmly says, it’s still a minefield.

The Aero in Santa Monica, meanwhile, is honoring writer-director Bielinsky by showing his two features, the internationally successful con artist flick “Nine Queens” (remade in the U.S. as “Criminal” a few years ago) and his unusual thriller of last year, “El Aura.” The latter is not as flinty and dramatically rewarding as his first film, preferring to weave in and out of its crime-genre trappings with moodily subjective sequences consistent with an off-center lead character, a reserved, epileptic taxidermist (Ricardo Darin) with perfect-crime fantasies who stumbles into the role of robbery mastermind on an ill-fated hunting trip. Probably the most leisurely paced heist drama in recent memory -- with aspirations to Antonioni-like meditations on landscape and existence -- it is nonetheless an engaging puzzler, as if Bielinsky were poking a well-worn genre to see if its cracks might produce something transcendent. It doesn’t always work, but this intricate effort should serve as a solid legacy for a gone-too-soon filmmaker with a taste for provocation.

Armenian work

Today is the only day for this year’s Arpa International Film Festival, also at the Egyptian, which spotlights the work of Armenian filmmakers -- whether making a silly, silent horror spoof like Shant Hamassian’s short “The Slowww Zombie” or documenting the stories of genocide survivors, as Apo Torosyan does in “Witnesses” -- but also includes international films. Of interest in the latter category is Monica Haim’s first-person documentary “Awake Zion,” an adventurously fun exploration of the “unsuspecting kinship” -- historically and culturally -- between reggae and Judaism. (It’s not just the extreme hair and rhythmic chanting, and it has origins in slave histories and geographical readings of the Old Testament.) The journey takes Haim, herself a roots reggae-loving, Miami-born Jewish girl, from Rasta outposts in Jamaica to the dancehall scene in Tel Aviv to the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, popularity of Orthodox Jewish reggae star Matisyahu, and, as you might suspect, is set to a propulsive, infectious soundtrack. What shimmers, though, is the hopefulness of those who embrace similarities, who view spirituality in terms of commonality instead of apartness.

‘Coffee Date’

Remember Wilson Cruz, the angel-faced, sweetly funny gay teen from the seminal television series about high school, “My So-Called Life”? If not, you’ve got some renting to do. If you do, there’s substantial pleasure in seeing Cruz play co-lead in the film “Coffee Date,” a modestly enjoyable buddy-romance comedy -- showing next week as part of the Egyptian’s Outfest Wednesdays -- about the accidental, then invigorating, then farcically treacherous friendship between Todd, a straight single guy (Jonathan Bray) and Kelly, a gay salon owner (Cruz). Writer-director Stewart Wade has breezy fun with the everyone-thinks-Todd’s-gay stuff -- the laughs are smartly about over-acceptance instead of repulsive panic -- and stumbles with the expected sexual experimentation angle. Overall, though, it’s a nimbly acted, blessedly raunch-free and sensitively amusing portrait of modern male bonding, considerably aided by Cruz’s smile, a winning feature with all the conspiratorial camaraderie, charm and vulnerability it carried alongside Claire Danes in early ‘90s prime time.

weekend@latimes.com

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Argentina -- New Cinema 2006

* “Iluminados por el Fuego”: 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

* “Nine Queens” and “El Aura”: 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

Arpa International Film Festival

* “Awake Zion”: 11:30 a.m. today; “Witnesses”: 6 tonight; “The Slowww Zombie”: 11:45 tonight.

Where: The Egyptian Theatre

Info: (323) 663-1882, www.AFFMA.org

Outfest Wednesdays

* “Coffee Date”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: The Egyptian Theatre

Info: (323) 466-3456, www.americancinematheque.com