Arthouse films

Opening this week on the local specialty film circuit:

'The Pink Hotel' Rating 3 out of 4

For his first feature, local filmmaker Chris Hefner finds inspired locations for a mystifying and satisfying period piece set in a luxury hotel on New Year's Eve "during the war." For deluxe old-time ambience, "The Pink Hotel" features scenes shot at local landmarks such as the Windermere House, the Willowbrook Ballroom and the Music Box Theatre.

Costumed in vintage wear, Hefner's characters include a loudmouth Hollywood director, a diva pulling out her teeth and a concierge planting sticks of dynamite. From Alain Resnais' "Last Year in Marienbad" to Pat O'Neill's "The Decay of Fiction," posh hotels have furnished avant-garde and experimental filmmakers with grand metaphors. One tip-off here is Hefner's "Additional Dream Material Suggested By" credit.

Another bona fide appears in the end credits: "'The Pink Hotel' was shot entirely on Kodak Super-8mm Film." The grainy, shadowy, flickering black-and-white look evokes David Lynch, Guy Maddin and European cine-expressionists from the 1920s. Flight is a leimotif.

Hefner opens with a "L'Ortolan Prologue," an exquisite animation by Lilli Carre about a surreal gastronomic rite that sacrifices dainty French birds. Later, an aerialist act by the duo Ambidextrous Acrobats flits into view. At other times, phantom zeppelins -- crafted from the skin of beached whales, we're told -- travel overhead in double exposures.

"The Pink Hotel" is scored by Tommy Johnson, with curious songs by Daniel Knox, a projectionist at the Music Box. The gothic vibe of the sound design, though, is overdone. For the world premiere of "The Pink Hotel" Knox will perform an overture on the Music Box organ, accompanied by Hefner on musical saw. The filmmaker will also screen two of his shorts.

No MPAA rating. Running time: 70 minutes. Screening at 9:45 tonight at Music Box.

'Prisoner of Her Past' Rating 3 out of 4

Decades later, a son tries to find out how his mother survived the Holocaust. He fails, but "Prisoner of Her Past" succeeds as a documentary about his attempt.

Ten-year-old Sonia apparently hid from Nazis in rural Poland. A year and a half later, she was found barefoot and frostbitten, and never said where she had been. Fast forward to 2001, when this Skokie widow was diagnosed with late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder, and placed in a Northbrook facility. She fears the Nazis still hunt her.

Chicago filmmakers Gordon Quinn and Jerry Blumenthal of Kartemquin Films begin with a still photograph of Sonia. The blinds on her nursing home window cast diagonal shadows upon her face, suggesting her memory remains behind bars. The camera slowly moves inward, never to yield her past. By the end of this 57-minute chronicle, all that her son, Howard Reich, an arts critic for the Chicago Tribune, has uncovered are old snapshots from her childhood.

Reich travels to Eastern Europe and talks to his mother's aunt and cousins, as well as a psychiatrist and New Orleans schoolgirls traumatized by Hurricane Katrina. Jazz is an atypical choice for scoring a Holocaust-themed documentary, but Reich covers jazz for the Tribune.

Sonia Reich came to the United States in 1947, married a Buchenwald survivor in 1953 and raised two children. Now she repeatedly insists she is not a prostitute. Her son can only wonder what sexual trauma may underlie her outbursts. In a wrenching irony, she denies he could have written a book about her. She spurns a copy of his The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich: A Son's Memoir. No doubt she will not watch his poignant film, either.

No MPAA rating. Running time: 57 minutes. In English and Polish, with English subtitles. Opening today at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Howard Reich will attend screenings, with Quinn, Blumenthal, composer Jim Trompeter and Chicago Tribune photographer Zbigniew Bzdak also attending select screenings.

Asian American Showcase

The Asian American Showcase of indie dramas and documentaries continues through Thursday at the Gene Siskel Film Center. There's a free panel discussion titled "Byte This: Surviving the Digital Age," co-sponsored by the Department of Asian American Cultural Affairs, Columbia College Chicago. ??? In addition, "Sunsets Revisted" co-director Tadashi Nakamura, Giant Robot publisher Eric Nakamura and Bay Area songwriter Goh Nakamura are scheduled to appear at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Film Row Cinema at 1104 S. Michigan.

"Mr. Sadman" (Rating 2 out of 4 1/2): L.A. writer-director Patrick Epino pairs a great leading man and a premise just as promising in this topical comedy starring the late Iraqi acor Al No'mani playing Mounir, one of Saddam Hussein's official stand-ins. As the story begins, a knife-wielding assassin scars Mounir's face, so he is out of work. Landing at L.A. in 1990, Mounir tries to find new roles in the United States.

The never-speaking Mounir adopts various American personas: Michael Jordan, Bruce Lee, Prince and Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver." Sadly, "The Sadman" falters with a thin screenplay and weak supporting characters, including an aspiring focus-puller who set up ill-starred auditions for Mounir.

Screening at 8:30 p.m. tonight at the Film Center. In English and Arabic, with English subtitles.

"Lessons of the Blood"(Rating 3 out of 4): Yin-Ju Chen and James T. Hong undertake in-depth deconstruction of historical revisionism as they look at conflicting versions of Japan's bio-terrorism against Chinese civilians from the late 1930s until the end of World War II. (Hong earlier screened his related short, "731: Two Versions of Hell," at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.)

In "Lessons of the Blood," elderly Chinese survivors display their painful pus-leaking sores, the aftermath of exposure to germ warfare as children under Japanese occupation. Structured into 11 "Lessons," this far-ranging documentary offers an astonishing variety of newsreel, educational, TV, propaganda and Hollywood footage along with insightful commentary. History is revealed as an open wound.

Screening at 6 p.m. Wednesday. In English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, with English subtitles.

Bill Stamets is a locally based free-lance writer and critic.

Photo: "The Pink Hotel"