The eighth annual European Union Film Festival, with entries from all 25 member states, continues Friday, March 11, through Thursday, March 24, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800. Tickets are $9, $7 for students, and $5 for Film Center members. Following are listings through Thursday, March 17; a full schedule is available online at www.chicagoreader.com.
Brides
South
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The manager of a laundry, artfully played by Monic Hendrickx, gradually turns into a monster in this 2004 Dutch drama. She makes out on the job with her new driver, he leaps up after discovering that one of her breasts is a prosthesis, and her employees, thinking he’s assaulted their beloved boss, lock him in the boiler room. Which is where the manager leaves him–for days. He’s still screaming with thirst when she visits his wife to find out more about him. Director Martin Koolhoven treats the manager’s wildly implausible behavior so nonjudgmentally he almost seems to endorse it–his film has an odd power but also an unpleasant aftertaste. In Dutch with subtitles. 88 min. (FC) (2:00)
This 2004 portrait of a marriage by French director Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women, Under the Sand) follows the lovers through five stages of their relationship, beginning with divorce and ending with the first sparks of romance. Austere and formally complex, the drama may nevertheless be Ozon’s most accessible film due to the physical attractiveness and vitality of the intelligent couple (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Stephane Freiss), whose actions and pain resonate more deeply as windows open onto their motivations. The narrative power actually increases as the savagery of their love plays out backward through time, charging their final walk into the sunset with a quiet catharsis. In French with subtitles. 90 min. (AG) (3:45)
The Welts
The latest feature (2004) by Swedish eccentric Lukas Moodysson (Lilya 4-Ever) looks at the sex trade from the perspective of a pornographer. In Swedish with subtitles. 98 min. (8:15)
