I remember the Falklands War; it was 1982 and we (the UK) defended the rights of the people who lived on the island against the Argentineans who tried to impose their rule on a British dependency. That was the way we saw it and we won. I have never seen the alternative version – this was war, although never declared such by either side; there are always alternative versions. Enlightened by Fire (Illuminadas Por El Fuego) tells the story from an Argentinean perspective.

Esteban (Gaston Pauls) is called to the hospital when one of his fellow soldiers, Vargas (Pablo Ribba), attempts to kill himself, twenty years after the end of the war. Nearly 300 Argentinean veterans have committed suicide, which is almost equal to a third of their total casualties. As Vargas lies in a hospital bed in a tiny tiled cubicle that already resembles a morgue, Esteban is forced to revisit his memories of the islands and the conflict. The film is shot in a series of flashbacks as the action switches between the busy Buenos Aires streets and cafes and the bleak windswept islands where the soldiers were stationed in cramped underground dugouts. Esteban recalls the cold, hunger and misery they endured with fellow soldier, Juan (Cesar Albarracin) who was killed on the battlefield.

Because Bras Cubas actually does very little, this film about his life relies upon style rather than substance. Posthumous Memoirs (Memórias Póstumas) is based on a late 19th century novel by Machado de Assis, which is considered to be a Brazilian masterpiece, and is said to borrow heavily from Laurence Sterne’s Tristam Shandy. As in that novel and recent film interpretation, the narrator constantly intrudes upon the story, with direct appeals to the viewer as he interrupts and analyses the action. He says that audiences follow stories to escape life, and he starts his tale at the end because he is a writer and wants to make his story more ‘interesting and modern’. You soon realise that, despite being a foppish dandy, Bras Cubas (Reginaldo Farias) doesn’t do anything apart from ruminate on random tangents and indulge in shallow philosophies. He eventually dies while trying to invent a miracle poultice, but he never actually gets around to it, and I’m not giving anything away there, because he tells us that at the beginning. Cubas says he leaves life with no deficit or surplus, but although nothing really happens, this film is full of delightful incidents. It is filmed in Sao Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and Portugal, with beautiful buildings and settings. The interior scenes look deliberately staged; with wigs and costumes, empty rooms and wooden floors, they resemble a theatrical experience. The music of Mozart and Bach underscores it all with sumptuous sound of waltzes and other period dances. I can see why it won several international film awards, and its excellence lies in the fact that it is almost impossible to explain.—Kate Blackhurst

Possible Loves (Amores Possíveis), a rom-com Brazilian style, presents a fresh slant on the Sliding Doors concept. Fifteen years ago, Carlos (the ridiculously handsome Murilo Benicio) had a date at the movies with his classmate, Julia (the equally beautiful Carolina Ferraz) who he was in love with. She stood him up and life went on. But it went on in three different ways and fifteen years on we are presented with three different versions of Carlos’s life, into each strand of which Julia reappears. One of the situations is Carlos’ real life; one is not; and the third is the way he wants it to be. The question is which is which? Both lead actors present three alternative characters and their mannerisms, looks and speech patterns are so different that at first you may not realise they are the same person. But they are the same person, which is the point. The film suggests there is no such thing as fate or soul-mates. In all three scenarios, Carlos and Julia end up with similarities in their interactions, as two people aren’t destined to be together but have to work hard at a relationship. No matter what the circumstances, you will always be the same person and will return to the same place. Carlos is a drifter in all three versions and, unable to make big decisions, he leaves them up to his beautiful wife, gay partner or domineering mother respectively. The bard said “The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings”. Director, Sandra Werneck, may not have Shakespearean pretensions, but the theme is similar. Filmed in Rio de Janeiro, the colour is a little dull and the picture looks slightly retro, although the film is only six years old. It is refreshingly non-Hollywood and as such is able to handle straight and homosexual relationships with equal sensitivity, sexuality and humour. This is a feel good film without too much depth but it does put a smile on the viewer’s face, and won the 2001 Sundance jury prize in Latin America cinema. If that’s what you go to the pictures for, you will be entertained, although you may feel slightly cheated that the credits are cut off half-way through.—Kate Blackhurst

Lassoed with a malignant tumor at the film’s outset, Romain, the 30-something too-good-looking nub of Time to Leave, initially goes for haute calm in the face of death: Meeting with a doctor, after collapsing on a photoshoot, there’s a glint of expectation as he inquires, “Is it AIDS?” – as if, under the brim of gay fatalism, disease was simply another lauded accessory. But despite the kid’s composure soon giving way, Ozon’s encounter with his self-hatred remains surprisingly by-the-book: For every sideswipe with nihilism incurred, liability is safely pillowed by the fact that, well... the dude’s dying. So basically, this is like Blow-Up in reverse, where all the metaphysical unrest has been internalized. Which means the obvious problem becomes not who died but how to die – or live, rather, with such a drastically shortened lifespan. Unfortunately, for Ozon, the answer to that question comes all too easily, as a blend of biblical Samaratism and new-age sex therapy; bullied into doing Right, Romain re-makes the deathbed he lies in, only to find it eagerly co-opted by a married couple.

A Tony Gatlif virgin, DIANE SPODAREK soaks in the sights and sounds of the director’s latest gypsy excursion, Transylvania.

The horrors of the Apartheid are brought alarmingly back into focus with Phillip Noyce’s Catch a Fire, a film based on the courageous life of Patrick Chamusso. DIANE SPODAREK reviews.

At the World Cinema Showcase, DIANE SPODAREK follows two defiant Swedish women into the sunset in Colin Nutley’s follow-up to Queen of Sheba’s Pearls, Heartbreak Hotel.

Classic shmassic. If anything, The African Queen stands as testament to the poverty of having a budget: When Powell and Pressburger wanted the Himalayas, they retreated to their London studio, turning lurid backdrop shooting into the approximation of a fever dream. Huston meanwhile, with the facility to fly a cast to Africa, trails the heart of darkness, and returns with a video-diarist’s program of interests: So that what you get are turgid shots a-plenty of wildlife dopily standing around, the light a flat, unchanging, democratic blue. Nevertheless, the area’s elements, in all their scintillating dullness, prove enough to transform Hepburn from tight-buttoned choirgirl into rope-gnashin’ first mate, as she charts the titular vessel on its course to blow up German ship, the Louisa. That she ends up in Bogart’s arms along the way seems less a question of revelation than reflex: the changeover gradated with the suddenness of a cough. Yet, for all the boxing-match hype surrounding their pairoff, genuine rapport becomes a one-note engine, driven by the sight of Bogart again and again falling playvictim to Hepburn’s butch lack of compromise. With so little to feed on, the two are inadvertantly reduced to signifiers; which means that Huston does finally stumble on an undertow of decay – that of his own stars. And would it be too much to say that, once Bogart begins fighting off a swarm of insects darting the screen (and resembling print scratches more than insects), it's like an outtake from Bill Morrison’s Decasia, the actor staving off the inevitable demise of his own image?—David Levinson

Lurching to the rhythm of the Deep South, Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan pairs Samuel L. Jackson, a blues-playing Christian, and Christina Ricci, a girl trying to untangle her tingle. DIANE SPODAREK watches the unlikely partnership unfold.