‘LaCiudad,’ ‘The Boys’ shine at film festival

Second annual Maine International Film Festival Railroad Square Cinema Waterville

“La Ciudad” — July 10 and 11

David Riker’s “La Ciudad” is a powerhouse of a film that ranks as one of the year’s best.

Shot in luminous black-and-white and using nonactors in almost every role, it is a remarkable achievement of filmmaking that restores one’s faith in the art of filmmaking — particularly after audiences have been deluged with a never-ending blitz of disappointing summer blockbusters, including “Big Daddy,” “Instinct” and the truly wasteful “Wild, Wild West.”

Those films were manufactured to give audiences trite, unchallenging, formulaic “entertainment” that takes no risks because the writing has no soul. But not “La Ciudad.” This film will likely make audiences feel uncomfortable, question their relationships with the outside world, look hard at man’s inhumanity to man, perhaps even change their lives.

The film does what literature cannot do — its stark, haunting images allow immediate access into New York City’s Latin American immigrant community. In a series of four seamless vignettes, it focuses on the disenfranchised, those men, women and children who fled Mexico for the United States in hopes of finding a better life.

That elusive dream comes to no one in “La Ciudad”; if anything, the dreams many carried thousands of miles from their native homeland have only fallen headlong into nightmare: One man is killed when a building collapses on him, a sweatshop worker is desperate to raise $400 so she can save her dying daughter, two young people find love only to lose each other, a homeless man is unable to send his daughter to school so she might have a chance at a better life.

It has been said that many live lives of quiet desperation; director Riker knows this and respects it. His film is a poignant reminder of those overlooked individuals struggling to make it on society’s fringe. It is not to be missed.

Grade: A

“The Boys” — July 10 and 12

Just as John McNaughton’s low-budget film, “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” illuminated evil by stripping away its charismatic face, director Rowan Woods follows suit with “The Boys,” a tense Australian drama that gives violence free reign.

Based on Gordon Graham’s acclaimed play, the film follows Brett Sprague (David Wenham), a fiercely troubled man recently released from prison who is unprepared for a greatly changed home life: One of his brothers has split from his wife, another brother’s pregnant girlfriend has moved into his mother’s house, Brett’s own girlfriend (Toni Collette) is in a moody funk, and his mother has taken in a Maori drifter.

It’s a troubling stew punctuated by its excellent performances and Woods’ effective use of time — he fragments it, splits it, stretches it and shortens it to reflect the deep fragmentation of his characters’ lives.

Unsettling and wholly realistic, “The Boys” is less about its characters as it is about their all-consuming rage. Mirroring “La Ciudad,” it’s about how the absence of hope has the power to destroy lives. But there’s a big difference in “The Boys” — here, the characters have no pride, no dignity, no self-respect. They don’t blame themselves for their problems, but the world, which translates into a harrowing tale of violence and bloodshed that eventually burns itself out.

Grade: A-

ON VIDEO

“Hilary and Jackie”

Anand Tucker’s “Hilary and Jackie” puts a bright face to genius, darkens it with madness and then destroys it forever with illness.

The film — gorgeously shot and beautifully told — is an unflinching look at the famous cellist Jacqueline du Pre (Emily Watson), who rose to fame in the 1960s while her sister Hilary (Rachel Griffiths), a talented flutist, was forced to turn her back to the stage and devote herself to marriage and family.

Lofted throughout by Jackie’s signature piece, Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, the film is a haunting, artistic triumph that perfectly understands the strength and fragility of the artist. It knows what “Amadeus” and “Shine” knew — that madness sometimes brims just beneath the surface of artistic creation. It was partly this madness, coupled with her struggle with multiple sclerosis, that caused Jackie to damage what never should have been damaged: the relationship with her sister.

Indeed, when Jackie tells Hilary in one particularly mean-spirited scene that there’s nothing at all special about her, Hilary”s response, measured and leveling, seems coolly justified: “If you think for one moment that being an ordinary person is any easier than being an extraordinary one,” she says to Jackie, “you’re wrong. If you didn’t have that cello to prop you up, you’d be nothing.”

Such devoted sisters have rarely been this beguiling.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His film reviews appear each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS. Each Thursday on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today” and “News Center Tonight,” he appears in The Video Corner.