Capsule movie reviews: ‘Beautiful Islands’ and ‘Farewell’

In capturing the beauty and culture of three far-flung islands endangered by climate change, “Beautiful Islands” director Tomoko Kana has created more of a travelogue with a message than a satisfying documentary. Though its stirring imagery and evocative human interactions sincerely attempt to reflect global warming’s effect on the South Pacific’s Tuvalu (the world’s fourth-smallest country); Venice, Italy; and Shishmaref, Alaska; the film’s lack of effective structure or unifying narration — not to mention a more discerning editor than Kana — make for a mostly uninvolving sit. In short, it’s pretty but dull.

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FOR THE RECORD:
“Farewell” review: A review of the movie “Farewell” in Friday’s Calendar section misspelled the last name of director Christian Carion as Caron. —

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The filmmaker spends 30 or so minutes on each distinctive island (plus an overlong coda back on Tuvalu), leisurely presenting their postcard-like vistas, native populations and local traditions and livelihoods. These amorphous introductions eventually give way to several eye-opening examples of how increasingly high tides, attributed here to global warming, are affecting each area: Tuvalu is considered to be the first country ever to sink, while Venice’s canals are seen overflowing to almost surreal effect and Shishmaref residents ponder mass emigration before their beloved land vanishes from erosion.

This is vital information, to be sure, but also too complex and potentially sweeping to impart without context or professional punditry. Note to Kana: A picture isn’t always worth 1,000 words.

— Gary Goldstein

“Beautiful Islands.” MPAA rating: PG for some violent images involving animals, brief nudity, language and smoking. Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes. In English, Tuvaluan and Italian with English subtitles. At Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

Spy games duringthe Cold War

With Russian spies making headlines, it’s not a bad time to hop into the way-back machine and revisit a slice of Cold War espionage with the French import “Farewell.” The fictionalized account of an extraordinary episode of espionage that helped cripple the Soviet Union, “Farewell” offers intrigue, simmering tension and Fred Ward doing a goofy impersonation of Ronald Reagan.

OK, so that last part isn’t so hot. But for the majority of its leisurely running time, Christian Caron’s twisty thriller sports a smart sophistication along with an amazing story that’s all the more remarkable for its relative anonymity in history books.

“Farewell” follows the relationship between two men — disillusioned KGB agent Sergei Grigoriev ( Emir Kusturica) and Pierre (Guillaume Canet), a low-level French engineer based in Moscow. It’s 1981, and Grigoriev (based on KGB spy Vladimir Vetrov) wants his teenage son to have a better life, so he decides to leak a passel of secrets to the French, using Pierre as his conduit. Family man Pierre doesn’t want to be a spy but quickly learns that he’s pretty good at the deception inherent in the enterprise.

Caron expands the story to provide a bit of political context, but the appearances of Ward’s Reagan and French President Francois Mitterrand (Philippe Magnan) and Willem Dafoe as the head of the CIA needlessly distracts from the bond at the heart of the film. Played by well-known directors Canet and Kusturica, the leads give “Farewell” a humanity that also speaks to the high stakes at hand. They’re fantastic.

— Glenn Whipp

“Farewell.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. At select theaters.

Getting byduring Depression

“Kings of the Evening” is a warm, beguiling picture boasting an array of splendid portrayals. Set in a small racist Southern town, in which the Great Depression only worsens things for poor blacks, an aura of uplift emerges as a collective response to these dire conditions gradually grows. Director Andrew P. Jones co-wrote the screenplay with his father, Robert Page Jones, who drew upon his youth during the Great Depression.

Fresh off two years on a chain gang — for having stolen a pair of tires so worn as to be worthless, Homer Hobbs ( Tyson Beckford) takes a room in a boarding house run with a firm hand by Gracie ( Lynn Whitfield), a weary but stunning middle-age woman who’s had some hard knocks. Shy, guilt-ridden and shabbily dressed, Homer has not begun to discover himself but is lucky to land a job at a cement factory. Sweet-natured Clarence ( Glynn Turman), barely surviving on slow-to-arrive government checks, feels marginalized to barely existing. A man confident he always has an angle, Benny (Reginald T. Dorsey) is a sharp dresser but is also jobless. Pretty, vivacious Lucy (Linara Washington) works long hours as a sweatshop seamstress and dreams of having enough money to open a dress shop. An incident from her past, however, endangers not only her but also her fellow boarders and Gracie.

— Kevin Thomas

“Kings of the Evening.” MPAA rating: PG for thematic elements, language throughout, some violence and smoking. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. At Mann Plant 16, Van Nuys; AMC Pine Square 16, Long Beach; Regency’s South Coast Village 3, Santa Ana.

Youth sports,motors division

Called the Little League for professional racing, the World Karting Assn. is a storied training ground for NASCAR. It’s also the backdrop for Marshall Curry’s finely tuned documentary “Racing Dreams,” which takes a sympathetic look at three kids whose stock car aspirations and zest for speed must also contend with the realities of a fast-approaching adulthood. The competition scenario — in this case, WKA’s five-race national championship held over the course of a year — is a familiar one for personality-driven docs, but Curry’s impressionable, charismatic young subjects are impossible not to care about.

Annabeth is a gangly, boy-crazy, 11-year-old racing fanatic with eyes on gender role-smashing, Danica Patrick-like fame. Josh, 12, is a behind-the-wheel natural and budding professional who’s already practicing his interview skills. The sport’s priciness, meanwhile — which necessitates an early skill at fundraising and securing sponsorship — means this could be the last year for 13-year-old Brandon, a troubled kid from a poor, broken family. The film doesn’t always follow up on its more interesting issues: safety, technique, financial hardship, even the sport’s history. But the emotional dynamics of its trio of formative hopefuls, and their touching relationships with the parents or guardians who work hard at enabling their passion, set a solid pace.

— Robert Abele

“Racing Dreams.” MPAA rating: PG for some thematic elements and brief language. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes. At Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood.

Trying to delivermessage amid mayhem

The Viking saga “Valhalla Rising,” from the brutally stylish Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, has the bones of an action epic but the soul of something cultier. Mads Mikkelsen, memorable in Refn’s gripping crime trilogy of “Pusher” films, plays a mute, disfigured pagan slaughterer named One Eye who opens the film as a captured gladiator with head-crushing talents. After a vicious escape, he befriends a boy (Maarten Stevenson), then tags along with a band of proselytizing Christian warriors eager to find (and plunder) the Holy Land.

Thicker than the mist-laden griminess of the early scenes are the portentousness of Refn’s chapter titles (“Men of God,” “Hell,” “The Sacrifice”), One Eye’s coagulated-red visions of the future, and the defiantly minimalist storytelling as the crusaders’ boat lands them in a suspiciously picturesque and uniquely dangerous New World instead. After the caged-dynamo expressiveness of Refn’s bruiser biopic “Bronson” last year, his mythic reach here — complete with a score of metal-rock ambience — is not without its photographically rich moments, and Mikkelsen has serene menace down cold.

But as a weird and occasionally arresting meditation on violence, nature and destiny, you sometimes wish Refn’s gift for Ridley Scott-level mayhem had won the battle over his much iffier Werner Herzog leanings.

— Robert Abele

“Valhalla Rising.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes. At Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood.

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