Best of the Fest

Medicine for Melancholy
(Barry Jenkins, USA)

Part mood piece, part awkward love story, and part sociological exposé, San Francisco writer-director Barry Jenkins' debut feature is some kind of wonderful. This day in the life of a young African-American couple (Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins) begins when they wake up the morning after they meet at a house party. Shot in timeless black-and-white, ranging across the city from the Marina to the Tenderloin to SOMA, the movie is simultaneously a laid-back sketch of a stutter-step courtship and a scathing comment on what it is to be black, middle-class, and invisible in San Francisco. The tone, though, is wistful rather than angry. This is the rare film that is as thoughtful as it is sensual, as attuned to personal epiphanies as it is to social injustice. Vaguely reminiscent of Charles Burnett's Los Angeles–set classic, Killer of Sheep, Medicine for Melancholy joins the short list of essential San Francisco indie films that includes Steal America and Revolution Summer. It deserves the wide audience, however, that eluded those movies. Michael Fox
At the Sundance Kabuki Wed., April 30, 9:15 p.m. and Wed., May 7, 3:30 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Tue., May 4, 8:15 p.m.

Still Life
(Jia Zhang-ke, China)

Jia Zhang-ke, the preeminent cine-chronicler of contemporary China, returns with his fifth feature, an eccentric guided tour of postapocalyptic Fengjie — the ancient river city largely flooded and partially rebuilt several years ago as part of the monumental Three Gorges Hydro project. But the movie is also an open-ended progress report. There are two protagonists and a pair of parallel narratives. In one, a stolid miner (Han Sanming) comes downriver in search of the bought wife who left him 16 years before and the daughter he has never seen. In the other, a young nurse (Zhao Tao) arrives in Fengjie to look for a husband who has been too busy making his fortune to stay in touch. Much of Still Life is simply devoted to these characters as they wend their respective ways through eerily half-demolished (or half-built) neighborhoods. Deconstruction would seem to be Fengjie's main industry: Old buildings are blown up, workers are sometimes obliged to remove unwilling tenants by force, and job-related injuries are rife. Without unduly belaboring the point, Jia suggests a pervasive, free-floating corruption. Everything is for sale. Money trumps all. But what's striking about Still Life is its micro-analytical curiosity: Judgment seems suspended — like the bridge that magically lights up over the Yangtze or the unlikely tightrope walker glimpsed in the movie's last shot. J. Hoberman
At the Sundance Kabuki Fri., May 2, 6:30 p.m. and Sun., May 4, 9 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Tue., May 6, 8:45 p.m.

Up the Yangtze
(Yung Chang, Canada)

The rising waters behind the Three Gorges Dam, under construction since 1994, submerge older communities and have displaced a million people — "the small family sacrificing to help the big family," a slogan repeated like a mantra throughout Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze. Yung's documentary centers on a 16-year-old peasant girl who works on a cruise ship for tourists, and whose family ekes out a living on the edge of the rising river. Along the way we visit other people displaced by the dam, glimpse some protests, and see the cruise ship in operation. The fat, clueless Midwesterners peopling the boat fit every negative cliché you've ever imagined about Ugly Americans abroad. One striking scene finds a gibbering tour guide touting a Potemkin village of suburban-style housing allegedly used by displaced peasants, all of whom are conveniently absent while "farming." The complaisant visitors survey the tacky decor, worthy of a HGTV cable show on fixing up your add-on, and murmur about how lucky those farmers are. The film's focus is on Yu Shui, the middle-school graduate who yearns to go on to higher education, but whose family's desperate financial need forces her onto the boat. There, her name changed to Cindy, she gradually assimilates into the world of English lessons and makeup, crying as she is assigned to wash dish after dish after dish. Gregg Rickman
At the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 12:30 p.m.; Tue., May 6, 5:45 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Thu., May 8, 8:55 p.m.

Vasermil
(Mushon Salmona, Israel)

In the desert development city of Beer-Sheva, a melting pot far from the cosmopolitan hubs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, new immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union vie with native Israelis for tiny scraps of opportunities. Fractured families, petty crime, racism, and resentment are pervasive, with little prospect of improvement. This isn't news to Israelis, but Mushon Salmona's terrific, tough-minded drama is an eye-opener for Americans. Three diverse teenagers cross paths through a stolen pizza-delivery scooter and a soccer team, gradually forming delicate bonds of trust and respect. Despite the conscientious efforts of teachers and coaches, the Ethiopian soccer prodigy Adiel, the Russian Ecstasy dealer Dima, and homeboy Shlomi are trapped by the combination of weak and unhelpful parents, peer pressure, and illegal activities. Instead of raising the stakes with cheap jolts of violence, Salmona adds layer after layer after layer of character development to cement our involvement with the smart but overmatched teenagers. The film brims with echoes of hip-hop, but it isn't trendy or derivative so much as solid street. Michael Fox
At the Pacific Film Archive Wed., April 30, 6:30 p.m.; at the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 1 p.m.; Mon., May 5, 6:45 p.m.; and Wed., May 7, 7 p.m.