Friday, October 1

FILM | The Haunted Castle

Director F.W. Murnau’s precursor to his best known work, Nosferatu, The Haunted Castle is a tightly confined drama that takes place in a day at the shadowy Castle Vogelod. The film is set several months after a murder, when mysterious circumstances bring together key suspects and a host of peculiar characters. Enjoy one of the master’s earliest silent works with live piano accompaniment by Ukrainian HFA composer in residence Yakov Gubanov. Tickets $6. 9 p.m. Harvard Film Archive. (BBC)

MUSIC | Wilco

The first time I listened to Wilco’s latest effort, A ghost is born, I couldn’t wrap my head around this latest bout of sonic curiosity. I was immediately turned off by drearily oblique opener “At Least That’s What You Said” and the whirring pomposity of “Less Than You Think.” But focusing on its quieter moments, I am pleased to find some of the higher songwriting peaks of Tweedy’s career, from the muted distress of “Wishful Thinking” to jangly Clear Channel cutdown “The Late Greats.” Unofficial concert poet laureate of Chicago Thax Douglas will be sorely missed, but the inevitable “Heavy Metal Drummer” sing-along will not. Opening are hot hot hot indie experimental rockers Fiery Furnaces. Tickets $25-30, available at www.wangcenter.org. 7:30 p.m. Wang Center for the Performing Arts, 270 Tremont St., Boston. (BBC)

MUSIC | The Black Keys

Ohio natives and White Stripes relatives The Black Keys bring their Midwestern blues-inspired rock to The Paradise in support of their latest and greatest album, Rubber Factory. San Francisco garage act The Cuts provides support. 18+. Tickets $15. 9 p.m. Paradise Rock Club. (EAG)

MUSIC | Damone

Boston’s own punk rock group Damone take the T.T.’s stage tonight. Named after the character from the 1982 comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Damone is touring off its spring 2003 debut From the Attic, released on RCA. Opening for Damone will be The So and So’s, Stargazer Lily, The Knee-Hi’s, The Pinkslips and Drab. 18+. Tickets $8. 9 p.m. T. T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline Street, Cambridge. (SLS)

MUSIC | Flogging Molly

A delightful mix of traditional Irish folk music and surging punk rock, the Los Angeles-based Flogging Molly presents some of the best music the Warped Tour lot has to offer. Fronted by Dublin native Dave King, this sextet sports a fiddle, accordion and mandolin. These guys know how to rumble with the best of them, but some of their finest moments come during their sweeping, heartfelt ballads. Their third album, Within a Mile of Home, was released just last month and continues the magnetic style they first displayed on their debut, Swagger. 18+. Tickets $17.75. 7 p.m. Avalon Night Club, 15 Lansdowne Street, Boston. (SLS)

READING | The Boundaries of her Body

Award-winning journalist Debran Rowland will be discussing her newest book on the troubling history of women’s rights in America. Ms. Rowland reveals the realities of the biology of a woman and how it has controlled her legal rights. Free. 3 p.m. Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave. (JJH)

READING | Susan Stewart

The National Book Critics Circle award-winning poet will read from her work as part of the Woodberry Poetry Room Series. Free. Photo ID required. 7p.m. Lamont Forum Room, Lamont Library. (JJH)

THEATER | The Blue Room

David Hare’s fascinating and intricately crafted adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde made waves in 1998 with its scintillating high profile run on Broadway. The play is a satiric and penetrating look at the ideals, fallacies and experiences of love and sex in a society filled with lust and treachery, but tempered with the consistent yearning for a lasting connection. Tickets $18. 8 p.m. Actors Workshop Proscenium Theatre, 327 Summer Street, Boston. (JJH)

Saturday, October 2

MUSIC | Further Seems Forever

The Floridian group Further Seems Forever was originally fronted by emo poster boy Chris Carrabba. He went on to start his own band, Dashboard Confessional, and catapult to fame and fortune. But Carrabba’s old band continued to make its Christian-tinged power pop with new singer Jason Gleason. With three albums under its belt, Further Seems Forever seems to have proved its staying power. Opening up the stage are The Kicks, Brandston and Moments in Grace. 18+. Tickets $13. 6 p.m. Axis, 13 Lansdowne Street, Boston. (SLS)

Sunday, October 3

MUSIC | Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra

Boston’s Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra kicks off the season with a Gala opener featuring pianist Ursula Oppens performing Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto. The program also includes a world premiere work by Amy Williams. Free pre-show aperitif, half-hour of chamber music. Tickets $45/$29/$19/$9; $2 off students and senior citizens; $5 off WGBH members; 2 for 1 Outings and Innings; $9 student rush, day of concert, cash only. Harvard Box Office (617) 496-2222. 3 p.m. Sanders Theatre. (JSG)

MUSIC | Branford Marsalis

Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his quartet celebrate the release of their new collection, Eternal. Marsalis’ collection is “aiming for what Billie Holiday could do, which was to get to the emotions of each song.” Tickets are $37.50/$30 general; $22.50 students (limited availability). Harvard Box Office (617) 496-2222. 8 p.m. Sanders Theatre. (JSG)

MUSIC | Mates of State

Husband and wife duo Mates of State perform their lovers’ rock with synthesizers and drums at the Middle East. Boston bands Victory at Sea—celebrating the release of their new album—and Helms open. Shenzou 5 and the Firebird Band provide further support. 18+. Tickets $10. 7 p.m. Downstairs at the Middle East. (EAG)

Monday, October 4

READING | Will in the World

Professor Stephen Greenblatt, editor of the Norton Shakespeare, will be reading from his newest book Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. Beforehand, join him for a reception to raise a glass. Sponsored by the Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University English Department and the Harvard University Art Museums. Free. 5 p.m. Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave. 6 p.m. Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway. (JJH)

READING | The Impossible Will Take A Little While

Paul Rogat Loeb will speak on his citizen’s guide to keeping hope alive in a time of fear as part of the Cambridge Forum. The book includes contributions from Maya Angelou, Tony Kushner, Pablo Neruda, Henri Nouwen, Marge Piercy and Desmond Tutu. Free. 7:30 p.m. First Parish Church, 3 Church Street. (JJH)

FILM | The Maltese Falcon

The Brattle begins its Film Noir 101 program with arguably the first and the best film noir. Legendary director John Huston (Key Largo, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) debuts with his own adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s 1929 classic pulp fiction novel of the same name. Hard-boiled San Francisco detective, Sam Spade (Bogart), goes head to head in search for the elusive statuette against the femme fatale (Astor), the “fat man” (Greenstreet), and his fair-weather partner (Lorre). It was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay) and deserved all of them. This is one of the best films ever made. Tickets $9. 5:00, 7:15, 9:45 p.m. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street. (SAW)

Tuesday, October 5

FILM | All About Eve

Anne Baxter plays a an aspiring actress who will do anything to get ahead, including carefully climbing her way into the inner circle of the biggest Broadway star of the time (played by superstar Bette Davis). Luckily, she has more than pluck on her side. She also has a cynical big-name critic on her side (George Saunders) who understands the game better than anyone else and is bringing her into the big-leagues for his own murky reasons. All About Eve is billed as the ultimate backstage story, and it deserves the recognition. A fun and crass and campy exploration of the American desire to be famous. Tickets $6. 9 p.m. The Harvard Film Archive. (SAW)

MUSIC | John Cale

Though perhaps best remembered for his avant-garde work with The Velvet Underground, John Cale goes it alone Tuesday, when he brings pop cuts from HoboSapiens—his best and most accessible album in decades—to the Paradise stage. 18+. Tickets $20. 8 p.m. Paradise Rock Club. (EAG)

Wednesday, October 6

DANCE | Raymonda

The Bolshoi Ballet and Orchestra are performing Raymonda, the classic romance featuring the timeless pas de deux “Grand Pas Hongrois.” In an earlier review of a performance at London’s Coliseum, Ballet.co magazine said, “The choreography and its execution was elegant and refined.” Tickets $45-92, available at www.wangcenter.org. 7:30 p.m. Wang Center for the Performing Arts, 270 Tremont St., Boston. (BBC)

MUSIC | Q and Not U

Passionately political Washington, D.C. band Q and Not U hit up Cambridge, playing stylistically varied and utterly danceable rock. Even more overtly political Joan of Arc—of Chicago—open, as do unknowns La Mi Vida Violenta. Tickets $10. 7 p.m. Downstairs at the Middle East. (EAG)

READING | The Turkish Lover

In the third segment of her memoirs, Esmerelda Santiago writes about her years after high school. It is a time of immense change for the young woman, who inch-by-inch gains independence from her sprawling family and strong-willed mother, only to fall into the arms of an equally possessive older man who dominates her life for nearly a decade. Free.  6:30 pm. Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave. (JJH)

Thursday, October 7

FILM | Stay Until Tomorrow

Winner of the Rhode Island International Film Festival Screenplay Competition, Stay Until Tomorrow is the opening screening for the 29th Annual New England Film and Video Festival. It tells the story of Nina (Eleanor Hutchins), a former teen star on a popular soap opera who takes to a life of cavalier globetrotting after her star fizzles out until she finds solace in childhood friend Jim (Barney Cheng). Director Laura Colella developed the film with the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Lab. Tickets $8, $6 with student ID. 7:30 p.m. Coolidge Corner Theatre. (BBC)

MUSIC | Kings of Leon

The southern rock outfit Kings of Leon is a family affair. The group is comprised of the three Followill brothers and their cousin. And they take the name Leon from the names of their father and paternal grandfather. But before the quartet shows off its Nashville-flavored tunes, Tennessee’s the Features takes the stage as the opening act. The psychedelic rock group recently saw the release of its debut full length, Exhibit A. 18+. Tickets $15. 7 p.m. Axis, 13 Lansdowne Street, Boston. (SLS)

FILM | Double Indemnity

Billy Wilder (The Apartment, Some Like It Hot) brings his considerable directorial panache to the Brattle’s continuation of the Film Noir 101 program. Indemnity is adapted by Wilder and master noir writer Raymond Chandler from James M. Cain’s novel. Barbara Stanwyck stars as the femme fatale (a staple of the entire series) who seduces a mild-mannered insurance salesman into murdering her husband for the insurance money. Men, be careful what dates you bring. They may learn something. Tickets $9. 7:15 p.m. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street. (SAW)

Ongoing

FILM | Anatomy of Hell

For those who think that French people aren’t fans of freedom, this new film from notorious French auteur Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl, Romance) proves the French are at least big fans of sexual freedom. Brillat adapted from her own novel, Pornocratie, which begins with a random gay man stopping a random woman from slashing her wrists in a club bathroom. In return, she offers to pay him to watch her in her most private moments: she hopes he can began to understand her by watching “from the angle from which she should never be viewed.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, this leads to some extreme behavior—sexual and otherwise—that tries to challenge assumptions by provoking. According to Breillat, the emotional richness of the intimacy makes this a deep character study. Some might call it a narsty porn flick. You be the judge! Tickets $9. Oct. 1, 2 and 3. 5:30, 7:30, 9:30 p.m. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street. (SAW)

THEATER | Antigone

Passion. Politics. Pride. In times of fundamental threats to the security of a nation, at what point does the state’s safety take precedence over the individual freedoms and personal consciences of its citizens?  In this gritty new adaptation of a classic story of a young woman who must follow her own heart and defy the law of the land, the timeless themes and uneasy questions of loyalty, patriotism and personal morality are illuminated afresh in a vivid contemporary context. Tickets $28. Oct. 1 and 2 at 8 p.m. Oct. 3 at 3 p.m.  Nora Theatre Company at Boston Playwrights’ Theater, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. (JJH)

THEATER | Les Contes Fantastiques

Marcel Marceau, the world’s greatest mime, dazzles audiences first in a solo act, and then with company in three “fantasy tales”—“The Wandering Monk,” “The Masquerade Ball” and “The Tiger.” Tickets $45, members $35, student rush $12. Oct. 1 and 2 at 8 p.m. Oct. 3 at 2 p.m. Oct 3, 5, 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St. (JJH)

VISUALS | New VES Faculty 2004-2005

The Carpenter Center welcomes new faculty with an exhibition of their work. The roster includes Judie Bamber, Christian Bonnefoi, Carson Fox, Frank Gohlke, Jacqueline Hassink, Sue Johnson, Malerie Marder, Lorelei Pepi and Katy Schimert. There will be a reception for the artists Thursday, Sept. 23, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Free. Through Oct. 10. The Carpenter Center. (JSG)

VISUALS | X

Architect Alejandro Aravena presents X, his largest United States exhibition featuring ten projects. The exhibition also presents the entries for the ELEMENTAL competition for the design of public housing projects in Chile. A lecture on the topic of ELEMENTAL will be given by Aravena October 12 at 6pm in Piper Auditorium. The exhibition opens October 6. Gund Hall Gallery. (JSG)

VISUALS | Dependable Objects

The Busch-Reisinger Museum presents an exhibition of sculpture by artists who were ambivalent toward the media. “Dependable Objects” presents the works of German artists beginning in the 1960’s including works by Franz Erhard Walther, Hans Haacke, Charlotte Posenenske and Gerhard Richter. Through January 2. The Busch-Reisinger Museum. (JSG)

VISUALS | To Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty

The Winthrop collection has traveled around the world and is back at the Fogg with the spectacular exhibit “To Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop.” The exhibition features masterful painting and sculpture by such world-renowned artists as Blake, Degas, Gericault, Ingret, Monet, Pissaro and Renoir. Fogg Museum. (JSG)

VISUALS | Dutch and Flemish Drawings

For those who can never get enough of Peter Paul Rubens, the National Gallery of Canada has provided a study on view at the Fogg. Approximately 70 Dutch and Flemish works are presented alongside the Rubens including a Rembrandt drawing. Dutch landscapes are prominently featured. Through October 17. Fogg Museum. (JSG)

Movies

First Daughter

“Focus, Sam. You are at a frat party.” With that beautifully written command, it is clear we have taken another trip to teen movie land.

Some teen movies are so bad they are great—epics of historical grandeur like She’s All That or Bring It On deserve a place in any respectable time capsule—First Daughter is not one of these. It’s just bad.

Katie Holmes stars as Samantha Mackenzie, the daughter of the president who yearns for a normal life, away from the prying eyes of the press and secret service. If this plot seems eerily like this past spring’s Mandy Moore dud Chasing Liberty, it’s because it is exactly the same. Literally.

Like a month-old Krispy Kreme doughnut, the sweetness of this coming-of-age film is nauseating from the first bite: Sam and President Dad (Michael Keaton) are introduced via an encounter over a massive, middle-of-the-night slice of chocolate cake and waltzing rendezvous. The scene evokes your typical father/daughter interaction, especially those whose relationships have slightly Elektra-shaded overtones.

Sam, who dresses like a still curly-haired Chelsea Clinton, leaves the next morning for a Berkeley-esque college, where she realizes quickly her dream of normalcy—which entails, in her immortal words, “cruising around in a Volkswagen Beetle with a cooler in the passenger seat holding a bologna sandwich and a beer”— will be hard to achieve.

Part of the difficulty are the two massive Secret Service bodyguards that her two bodyguards are always lurking around protecting Sam. Although one is almost constantly mute—might he possibly end the movie saying something incredibly wise?—codename “Charm Bracelet” resents the intrusive protection.

Luckily, she meets and falls for her older hunky resident advisor, James (all-American boy-next-door Mark Blucas, whose future as a WB star is all but guaranteed), because he makes her feel, well, ordinary in that “Hey I’m just another girl trying my best to sketchily hit on the nearest older male authority figure” way.

In this fairy-tale world, Sam gets a little wild as she celebrates her new freedom with James by eating cotton candy in an amusement park unchaperoned, sliding down a waterslide with her clothes on and spending a date in a rowboat, holding a pink parasol as he holds a small fishing rod. There is one particularly moving scene where Sam eats a slice of pizza and, as the grease slides down her throat, remarks that it “tastes like freedom”—at which point I teared up, remembering my own first taste of delicious grease freedom.

In truth there are some phenomenal moments in the spirit of the great teen movies of yore—a wasted Sam table dancing at a pimps and hos party while dressed as Pamela Anderson, a bizarrely homoerotic fraternity striptease involving the American flag, and some unwholesome shots of Katie Holmes’s famed cleavage—but sadly these scenes are too infrequent and not nearly ridiculous enough to carry the audience through Sam’s tedious series of trials and tribulations.

Yes, people take her picture, the boy she likes hasn’t kissed her yet and her ethnically ambiguous slut of a roommate (who accentlessly claims to hail from Alabama) draws on her family portrait. In the words of Vanessa Kerry: “There are pictures of my breasts all over the internet!”

Ultimately, First Daughter takes itself too seriously, is not compelling enough to be serious and most tragically does not have one choreographed dance number to redeem it. Watching Holmes in this utterly shallow role, I feel secondhand embarrassment reminiscent of Jenna and Babs’ stand-up at the Republican National Convention. (EMK)

The Forgotten

What if a normal and recognizable woman suddenly went to war with her world, trapped by memories that conflicted with what the people she trusted would have her believe, fighting for the truth as she felt it in her core, struggling to prove that her son was more than just a figment of post-miscarriage depression? This, the trailer for The Forgotten, splashed across the screen to intrigue and thrill me as I waited to be entertained by the indie music and muted palette of Garden State last month. That scene where the protagonist storms into Ash’s study and pulls off the wallpaper, revealing the drawings of his disappeared daughter, may be one of the most brilliantly constructed seat-fillers I’ve ever witnessed, and most of the friends I’ve asked would agree.

Beyond its potential for fun, it had the makings of an intelligent paranoid thriller. It could reflect our times and connect with the uncertainty so many of us feel about what’s really going on in our world. The key was Julianne Moore’s desperate call for empathy, for believers: I wanted to believe. On this evidence alone, I was willing. But, as is too often the case in this era, it was a sleazy bait and switch scheme—I found nothing spectacular or terrifying in The Forgotten, only government agents scrambling to hide a conspiracy and scrambled plot lines trying to hide a lack of creativity. My faith was clearly unfounded.

It seemed the film would be about the intricacies of the human mind, the ways in which memory can edit itself to protect us, how it can warp our perception of our lives to the extent that what is true for one person is considered delusional by those around her. The Forgotten teased me with echoes of Memento and The Sixth Sense and stirrings of Conspiracy Theory, with all the necessary ingredients for a philosophically sound, psychologically wrenching treatment of the division between reality and our experience of it. Still, although it begins on the right path, it quickly took the one most traveled by: it devolved into the kind of typical thriller I never would have wasted an hour and a half of my own life watching.

Such a failure occurred despite the guarantee a seemingly competent cast should offer. Although Moore can be shrill and fragile in some films, her Telly Paretta is a likeable everywoman. Gary Sinise, as Telly’s therapist, is appropriately authoritarian, with a dose of compassion and an otherworldly magnetism, while her husband, ER’s Anthony Edwards, with the benefit of limited screen time, appears to be phoning in his support from another planet. Dominic West plays Ash Correll, the father of another “forgotten” child and Telly’s partner in revealing conspiracy, with self-confidence in his bearing and sufficient limits on his emotional pull.

The acting may be only good and not outstanding, but the film is flawed not because of the actors but due to the product they’ve been asked to deliver. To take just one example, Ash is not only Lauren’s father and Telly’s companion but also, serendipitously, a former New York Ranger, complete with the physical prowess and lightning reflexes necessary to foil the plots of men in black and extraterrestrial beings alike.

The best aspects of the film are all there in that wickedly misleading trailer: the disconnect between Telly’s memory and that of those around her and the viscerality of our shock as she reveals the history beneath the façade in Correll’s daughter’s room, demonstrating the Oz-like nature of the world they inhabit. As it progresses, however, these ideas and feelings recede into the background, pushed out by car chases, government conspiracies, and, of all things, aliens.

Certainly, I got some shudders and had to jump in my seat a few times, but I hadn’t come for that—and even for a thriller it didn’t make much sense, by film’s end. The Forgotten turned out to be the kind of film from which you can expect to walk away at least with a vision of the darker side, of the stuff of nightmares and dystopian visions, a new cinematic trick in your bag of coping mechanisms for what life throws at you.

The end here, though, is sunny—a grave stylistic misstep. In a climate of uncertainty, where parents are never sure their children will survive to come home, a film that builds up their brightest hopes is merely pandering. At the end, we see the crazy lady isn’t actually crazy: It’s her world that is insane. The validation of her fears should have been enough of a conclusion, and in our world it would have been, but, for The Forgotten, it was not. (ABM)

Head In The Clouds

Within the first ten minutes of Head in the Clouds, you realize the significance of the title. It’s about idealism at both ends of the spectrum: the idealism of political activism and the idealism of political apathy. From there, the movie goes on hammering you with that idea of idealism for as long as you’re willing to stay put in front of the screen.

Charlize Theron, in a starkly contrasting follow-up to her role in Monster, embodies this second kind of idealism as Gilda Bessé. Gilda is the kind of clichéd wise-cracking beauty that can only exist in movies: she’s bold, intelligent, entirely immodest and incredibly provocative. Her only fault, as far as her love interest Guy (Stuart Townsend) can see, is that she lives “in a cocoon” and completely ignores the caustic contemporary politics that consume his passions; she doesn’t care about anything or anyone beyond herself and those immediately close to her. This often translates into meaningless amorous relationships of convenience that further her various careers or otherwise allow her to continue to live in the manner to which she is accustomed. Normally, this would look like superficiality, but with her it’s merely incorruptibility. She’s a girl who just wants to have fun.

Leading a life of careless fun, however, can be difficult when you live in Paris during the 1930s. To the south, the Spanish Civil War is raging with the fascist Nationalists slowly crushing the Republican freedom fighters, and just ahead lies the impending Nazi invasion of France. Although she is eager to ignore these things, Guy and her Spanish roommate Mia (Penelope Cruz) won’t allow her to, by constantly moping and debating over the most recent news reports and, ultimately, by leaving her to join the Republican Army in Spain. Guy and, to a lesser degree, Mia obviously (far too obviously) represent the deluded idealism of the enraged youth just itching to make a difference.

In the end, everyone in this movie has their head in the clouds in one way or another: the characters, the director, and the viewer, because there’s no way that this movie is going to work. While the film has its merits, it falls flat on most fronts. In addition to having fairly poor production value—the bulk of the “stunning” Parisian backdrops are clearly matte paintings—the movie’s three primary characters never achieve humanity; they start out as and remain types. Gilda is the extroverted and rambunctious bohemian socialite, Guy is the wide-eyed British schoolboy with a conscience, and Mia is the long-suffering martyr who has made it through the school of hard knocks and is turning around to take another long lap. Even real-life lovebirds Theron and Townsend fail to make their on-screen relationship believable. It’s impossible to either identify or sympathize with their tumultuous affair.

Head in the Clouds makes a feeble and heavy-handed stab at depth and profundity, and, to its credit, it nuances the subject matter enough to show that things weren’t quite so clear-cut as all Nazis are evil and Allies are good, but it just gets in way over its head. Maybe that would have made a better title. (SNJ)

September Tapes

As Iraq dominates headlines and political conversation, director Christian Johnston would have us remember America’s other war—the increasingly peripheral conflict in Afghanistan. Johnston’s assessment of the original War on Terror largely echoes Sen. John Kerry’s recent charge that official assertions of stability and freedom in Iraq constitute a “fantasy world of spin.”

Filmed entirely in Afghanistan, “September Tapes” investigates American progress in that nation and offers compelling evidence that claims of success there have been thoroughly fictionalized. Inexplicably, however, Johnston chose to fictionalize his exposé, creating an elaborate ruse in order to criticize what he seems to view as a far more elaborate—and more pernicious—ruse. The result is a bizarre and unconvincing distortion of otherwise mesmerizing original footage.

The film purports to be a series of eight tapes obtained from Northern Alliance forces after “the last known battle involving the leaders of al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.” It remains unclear whether the Northern Alliance is responsible for the slick slow-motion editing.

The tapes chronicle the efforts of American documentary filmmaker Don Larson, dazed and embittered by his grief over losses in the Sept. 11 attacks, to understand, record and possibly join the hunt for Osama bin Laden. He is accompanied by his translator, Wali Zarif, and a curiously laconic cameraman who is either a failed attempt at comic relief or simply an emblem of the film’s utter weirdness.

Larson (who goes by “Lars”) and Zarif are invented characters, played by actor George Calil and actor/producer Wali Razaqi, respectively. They are part of Johnston’s actual five-man crew, which skillfully uses the roleplay to gain access to warlords, bounty hunters, and Northern Alliance members who believe they are being interviewed for a genuine documentary.

If only they were. The impassioned disputes that erupt at the mere mention of Osama bin Laden, the disturbingly jaded views of American motivations held by our supposed allies among the Afghans and the palpable danger of an arms dealer’s shed after dark are all powerfully unsettling. The inability to determine the loyalties of men standing on barren hillsides with rifles is eerily evocative of the American predicament in Vietnam. Watching the crew careen through Kabul amid real machine gun fire at least equals, and perhaps eclipses, the thrill of elaborately staged action.

But the film’s fictional portions are as poor as these moments are brilliant. The script and acting conspire to deny the Larsen character any credibility. His voiceover commentary is both gratingly juvenile—“a real bounty hunter”—and absurdly hard-boiled—“what might just be our VIP pass into the shitstorm?”. He has the mentality and combat skills of a commando, but the profession and body art of a hipster. Larson’s real physical courage is entirely at odds with his recurring self-conscious pose, pensively staring out from a Jeep while exaggeratedly drawing on a cigarette.

Although Razaqi, who essentially plays himself as a capable guide and translator named Wali returning to Afghanistan from America, is somewhat better, he finds himself at the center of a series of contrived scenarios. The fictional Wali’s sudden declaration that the 9/11 attacks are attributable to American foreign policy choices is a perfunctory nod to political debate. Later, his decision to voice his skittishness in a meeting with hostile arms dealers is implausibly foolish.

Most distressingly, the foibles in the fiction of September Tapes prompt a host of all too easily answered questions that distract from the substantive reflection that the film would otherwise promote. The viewer asks himself: Why does Lars have a trace of a British accent? Because Calil is English. Why do Lars and Wali, formally introduced at the start of the film, immediately act as if they have known each other for some time? Because Calil and Razaqi have. Would Lars be better off without his iPod during machine gun skirmishes with the Taliban? Yes, despite the iPod’s role in the film’s off-color quasi-twist ending.

The scripted story’s sheer ridiculousness forces these and other oddities to the forefront. Time would be better spent contemplating the American role in the disarray that Johnston so effectively captures in the non-fiction filming at the movie’s core.

Johnston aims to debunk the myths of the Afghani situation—Lars asks accusatorily, “Where’s the US military? Where’s CNN?”—and seems to want to extract the truth of U.S. foreign policy from its many layers of spin. So he should probably know better: Fictionalization obscures meaning, marginalizing from the public consciousness what deserves a place at the forefront. The stateside studio is the place for genre experimentation; original footage of a war zone’s unseen chaos speaks for itself. (DL)

—Happening was compiled by Steven N. Jacobs, Emily M. Kaplan, Doug Lieb, Alexandra B. Moss, Ben B. Chung, Julie S. Greenberg, Elan A. Greenwald, Jayme J. Herschkopf, Sarah L. Solorzano and Scoop A. Wasserstein.