The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 66

San Francisco Examiner SAN FKANOSCO INTfWNAriONAl FILM The Examiner goes to the festival 3 Bombs, thrills and comedy 'VI! E-2 Friday, March 21, 1986 ns'tt i tr i i tX UA. Scene of mind-boggling Soviet bureaucracy In 'Blue Mountains' "i His children watch the old man float off to exile on a raft In 'Voyage to Cythera' Voyage to Cythera the building's walls and ceilings are growing larger by the day. All of this points to a disastrously funny climax. This rumbling, absurdist farce is definitely worth the climb. Michael Heaton The film opens Sunday at 4 p.m.

at the Palace of Fine Arts. It repeats Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Come and See (Idi 1 smotri). U.S.S.R., 1985.

In Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Elem Klimov. "Come and See," the story of a Russian boy who witnesses the astation of his family and country' by the Nazis in World War II, is spectacular and vivid account of-those atrocities. Director Klimov uses the face of; young Florlan to reflect the horror" as the boy ages dramatically over, the course of events. The movie is 142 minutes of lushly photographed Nazi obscenities.

While the movie is technically, and the director's point is well made, "Come and See" takeaway too long a look. Michael Heaton, The film opens Sunday at 6 p.nv at the Palace of Fine Arts. Festival schedule The films reviewed below open at the San Francisco International Film Festival Saturday and Sunday. Half Life Australia, 1985. In English, and Marshalle.se with English subtitles.

Directed, produced, written and photographed by Dennis O'Rourke. In this gut-tearing documentary, Dennis O'Rourke makes the case that during the test of the hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, the United States purposely let residents of nearby atolls be exposed to radiation poisoning, as a higher form of laboratory animal. O'Rourke makes his case veil, mixing interviews with '50s news-reels and blast footage. There is no narration, just occasional text accompanied by a sad Polynesian guitar. U.S.

officials never get to rebut, but all is fair in documentaries. A physicist who knows the Marshalls told me that the poisoning was accidental, due to bad forecasting and the fact that the bomb was twice as powerful as expected. "You can accuse us of stupidity," he says. "But not of malevolence." O'Rourke accuses the U.S. of both, and the case for stupidity is particularly well made, using excerpts from the old the-bomb-is-good-for-you Atomic Energy Commission propaganda films, which are always good for a dark laugh.

The interviewing of the people caught on the atolls islanders and Americans is hypnotic in its matter-of-factness. If you listen closely to the islanders' Marshallese, you hear such borrowings from English as "bubble gum," "July," "atomic bomb," "radiation," "radioactivity," "iron room" and "cancer." That's the American legacy to the gentle people of Rongelap and Utirik atolls. An islander says it well: "Americans are smart at doing stupid things." Rob Morse The film opens tomorrow at 5:15 p.m. at the Palace of Fine Arts. It repeats Wednesday at 7p.m.

at the racific Film Archive. But that just turns out to be a vain attempt at glory by association. Michael Sragow The film opens tomorrow at 9:45 p.m. at the Palace of Fine Arts, Blue Mountains (Golubye gory). U.S.S.R., mi In Georgian with English subtitles.

Directed by Eldar Shenga-laya. Don't let the title of "Blue Mountains" throw you off. No Siberian wilderness epic here. This comedy about the mind-boggling bureaucracy of a Georgian publishing house is about as funny as Russian subjects get these days. A writer has brought by copies of his new story, "Blue Mountains," for a read.

The editors can't wait to get at it once the business at hand is dispatched. The business at hand? One editor, when not stuck in the elevator, is forever trying to remove a painting from the wall behind his desk. Another will read it as soon as he finishes his chess game. A third won't read manuscripts on the principle that it will ruin his judgment The editor-in-chief, forever ducking out to meetings and banquets, has been waiting for the manuscript for months and then leaves it at the bank. A year later, while the paper chase continues, another ignored writer, a kind of rejectee-in-resi-dence, mentions that the cracks in This film opens tomorrow at 9 p.m.

at Opera Plaza. It repeats Sunday at 1 p.m. at Opera Plaza, and Thursday at 8 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. False as Water (Falsk som vatten).

Sweden, 1985. In Swedish with English subtitles. Directed and written by Hans Alfredson. This surprisingly heavy-handed psychological thriller operates on the unwilling suspension of disbelief. You don't buy any of its premises, but about midway through, the cat-and-mouse mechanisms of the plot start to generate an unpleasant, sadistic tension that almost passes for suspense.

The hero is a philandering publisher. Convinced that his wife has turned cool toward him because she's having sex with his partner, he enters into a serious affair with one of his authors, a popular, mildly unbalanced poet. They set up an obscure romantic hideaway a tenement apartment. Soon doors start slamming shut (and kettles overheating) when they shouldn't. But rather than whisk his lover out of there remember, she's slightly loony, anyway the publisher urges her to stick it out I thought it poetically just that he gets punished worse than she does.

The whole movie, with its combination of bourgeois satire, murder and moralism, is like middle-level Chabrol. I was let down partly because the opening minutes contain a spoken reference to Sam Peckin-pah's blood thriller, "Straw Dogs." (Taxidi sta Kithira). Greece, 1984. In Greek with English subtitles. Directed by Theo Angelo-poulos.

An old man returns to his native Greek town after 31 years of exile in Russia. He quickly becomes the village pariah. His wife greets him with affection and his now grown children with bewilderment. But he's aged without sustenance from his roots, and now, in his dotage, he craves a return to the soil. He refuses to sell the family' land for a development scheme The populace, eager to escape poverty, turns on him for his stubbornness and remoteness, and banishes him from the community.

The synopsis smacks of social realism, but the visual style of this extraordinary film elevates the material almost to mythic stature. If there's a star here, he is probably cameraman Giorgios Arvanitis. "Voyage to Cythera" is an anthology of remarkable cinematography. Arvanitis favors sweeping pans, infinitely held long shots and delirious 360-degree turns. Angelopoulos moves the narrative from past to present with consummate ease and never reduces his characters to mouthpieces for either change or tradition.

The old man is as much a mystery at the beginning as he is at the final shot: He and his wife, huddled on a raft, recede into the mists of the open sea, destined to become the stuff of legend. Allan Ulrich voice of Tango" (1985 U.S.), by Lynn O'Donnell; "Steven Berkoff (1985 Britain), by John Carlaw, all 8:30 p.m.,; McBean Theatre at the Exploratorium. "A Summer at Grandpa's" (1984 Taiwan), by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 9:15 p.m., Pacilic Film Archive, Berkeley. OTHER SUNDAY AFTERNOON-PROGRAMS: "The Mystery of Picasso" (1975 France), by Henri-Georges Clouzot, noon, Palace of Fine Arts. "Nuts In May" (1975 Britain), by Mike Leigh, 1 p.m., Opera Plaza.

An Alternoon with Danny Glover, 1:30 p.m., Palace of Fine Arts. "Wives" (1975 Norway), by Anja Brelen, 3:30 p.m., Pacific Film ArC chive. "Home Sweet Home" (1981 Britain), by Mike Leigh, 4:30 p.m., Opera i Plaza. "Wives Ten Years After" (1985 Norway), by Anja Brelen, 5:45 p.m., Pacific Film Archive. "Oliver Messlaen: The Music of Faith" (1985 Britain), by Alan 6 p.m., McBean Theatre at the Exploratorium.

OTHER PROGRAMS PREMIERING TOMORROW: Seminar: "Beyond Boundaries: The Black Experience In Media," 1 1 a.m., Opera Plaza. "Gone to Earth" (1950 Britain), by Michael Powell, 1 p.m., Palace of Fine Arts. "After Winter" (1985 U.S.), by Sterling Brown; and "Still We Dance," (1985 U.S.). by Ashley James, 2:30 p.m., Opera Plaza. Seminar Femme Helmers, 3:30 p.m., Opera Plaza.

"Meantime," (1983 Britain) by Mike Leigh, 4:30 p.m., Opera Plaza. "Glenn Gould: A Portrait" (1985 Canada), by Vincent Tovell and Eric Till, 6 p.m., McBean Theater at the Exploratorium. "Faces of Women" (1985 Ivory Coast), by Desire Ecare, 7 p.m., Opera Plaza. "Wives Ten Years After" (1985 Norway), by Anja Brelen, 7:45 p.m., Palace of Fine Arts. "Ian McKellen: Diary of a Year" (1984 Britain), by Kim Evans; "The The difference is comfort DontPutAUYour BasteLTheRerl EggpInOne Easter Sale.

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