海角大神

A documentary about Orson Welles鈥� artwork and the fictional story of a convict who forms a bond with a horse are two of the films that won over Monitor film critic Peter Rainer during March.

鈥楢sh Is Purest White鈥� burns with quiet, incandescent force

In the extraordinary Chinese director Jia Zhangke鈥檚 鈥淎sh Is Purest White,鈥� there is not a moment when one does not experience the moment-to-moment passage of time, its slow sweep and quiet epiphanies. This is not the sort of movie that offers up immediate gratifications, though there are some of those. Instead, it moves along with a steady grace. Its ruminative power creeps up on you.

We are first introduced to Bin (Liao Fan), a small-time gangster, or聽jianghu, in the coal mining village of Shanxi. His girlfriend, Qiao, played by Jia鈥檚 wife, Zhao Tao, who has appeared in almost all of his nondocumentary movies, enjoys being a gangster鈥檚 moll.聽Bin is brutally set upon by a rival gang and she saves his life when she disperses the attackers by firing an illegal gun into the air. Because she was in possession of an illegal firearm, she receives a five-year prison sentence. Bin never visits her in prison and is a no-show when she is finally released. With an almost fated compulsion, she sets out along the Yangtze River, to a village at the foot of the Three Gorges Dam, to find him.聽Zhao is remarkable in a complex role that, by the end, reveals what she is fully capable of.

Jia鈥檚 movies, which also include 鈥淎 Touch of Sin鈥� and (my favorites) 鈥淪till Life鈥� and 鈥淭he World,鈥� all express in varying degrees his abiding theme: China鈥檚 transition from traditionalism to the corruptions of freewheeling capitalism. He can be heavy-handed about this, and I鈥檝e never quite understood why such a progressive artist should hold such nostalgia for a time when the Cultural Revolution was still in force. Thankfully, 鈥淎sh Is Purest White鈥� is among the least didactic of Jia鈥檚 films.聽Grade: A- (This movie is not rated.)

鈥楾ransit鈥� unfolds an imperiled world with echoes of our own

海角大神 Petzold鈥檚 鈥淭ransit鈥� is a fascinating paradox: an anti-romantic romance. It may have the surface trappings of a 鈥淐asablanca,鈥� but it鈥檚 closer to 鈥淰ertigo.鈥澛�

The source material, about French refugees fleeing the Nazis, is a 1944 novel, set two years earlier, by the celebrated German-Jewish expatriate writer Anna Seghers. By contrast, Petzold鈥檚 film takes place in a vaguely present-day limbo.聽Georg (Franz Rogowski, who looks remarkably like Joaquin Phoenix and has some of the same striking presence) is asked to smuggle identity papers to a famous German author named Weidel but he discovers that Weidel has committed suicide. Georg makes it to the sun-baked seaport of Marseilles with the intention of locating Weidel鈥檚 wife, Marie (Paula Beer). There he is mistaken for Weidel by the American consul. And so begins an impersonation that has the deliberate trappings of a Kafka nightmare.

If Petzold had simply filmed Seghers鈥檚 novel as a wartime period piece, it would have lacked resonance. But he recognizes the story鈥檚 expansive contemporary allusions. He鈥檚 too cagey a filmmaker to hit you over the head with these allusions, and yet there are moments when only the most blatant symbolism will do.聽Grade: A- (In German and French with English subtitles.)

鈥楾he Eyes of Orson Welles鈥� focuses on director鈥檚 artwork

鈥淭he Eyes of Orson Welles鈥� is a digressive, idiosyncratic, and altogether fascinating documentary by Mark Cousins. The focus of the new film is Welles鈥� little-known artwork: the sketches, watercolors, and oil paintings that he rendered throughout his life.聽It seems almost comically unfair that, given his great gifts as director and actor, Welles should also, as it turns out, be a marvelous artist.聽

The crux of Cousins鈥� movie is that Welles the filmmaker was first and foremost a visualist. Still, Cousins goes in for a lot of wild speculation. He聽had access to a treasure-trove of material from Welles鈥� youngest daughter, Beatrice, as well as material from archives at the University of Michigan. They include storyboard sketches Welles made for several of his films. Seeing the sketchbook origins of a scene is like being privy to the first stirrings of a great symphony.聽

I hope that, just as there was a book last year of Stanley Kubrick鈥檚 great early work as a still photographer, some enterprising publisher will see fit to grace us with a thick tome of Welles鈥� entrancing artwork. Grade: B+ (This movie is not rated.)

鈥楾he Highwaymen鈥� retells 鈥楤onnie and Clyde鈥� story

鈥淏onnie and Clyde鈥� is one of the landmarks of Hollywood cinema, so it takes a healthy dose of chutzpah to revisit that territory. 鈥淭he Highwaymen鈥� does just that 鈥� sort of. Instead of focusing on the two elusive outlaws whose two-year bank-robbing spree galvanized Depression-era America, it retells the story from the point of view of the lawmen who ambushed and killed them.聽Is it as good as 鈥淏onnie and Clyde鈥�? Of course not. But it鈥檚 a solid, straightforward piece of work featuring a pair of first-rate, lived-in performances by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson that lift the film above its class.聽

Movies about violence rarely deal with its psychological consequences. Just pull the trigger and move on. In 鈥淭he Highwaymen,鈥� the filmmakers give violence its due.聽The film also functions as a kind of counterweight to the folk hero myth that 鈥淏onnie and Clyde鈥� perpetuated.聽

One more word about Costner: His performance in this film, coming after his fine work in TV鈥檚 鈥淵ellowstone鈥� as well as the films 鈥淗idden Figures鈥� and 鈥淢olly鈥檚 Game,鈥� among many others, is yet another note-perfect rendition. At his best, Costner both exalts and complicates the strong and silent types who crowd, often to diminishing effect, so much of our American movie mythology. Grade: B+ (Rated R for some strong violence and bloody images.)

Performances in 鈥楾he Mustang鈥� have the sharp tang of authenticity

The background for 鈥淭he Mustang,鈥� starring Matthias Schoenaerts, is a federal government program in which, to control overpopulation, several hundred wild stallions are periodically rounded into holding facilities and trained by prison inmates for sale at public auctions. This might seem like a fairly unpromising setting for a movie, but this debut feature by Laure de Clermont-Tonnere is a solid, if somewhat predictable, drama about a convict, Schoenaerts鈥� Roman Coleman, who bonds with a mustang while serving out his prison time in the Nevada desert.聽

The director has a good eye for semidocumentary detail, and the performances, which also include Bruce Dern as a veteran trainer, Gideon Adlon as Roman鈥檚 estranged daughter, and especially Jason Mitchell as a fellow inmate and trick rider, all have the sharp tang of authenticity. Grade: B+ (Rated R for language, some violence, and drug content.)