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The Attempt Veteran filmmaker Jorge Fons, whose nonlinear storytelling has made him a groundbreaking figure in Mexican cinema, spins several narratives around the 1897 assassination attempt on President Porfirio Diaz by the anarchist Arnulfo Arroyo. Subplots transpiring after the event highlight the government’s corruption and the Mexican press’s self-censorship, while extended flashbacks chronicle Arroyo’s radicalization. Unfortunately Fons does no more with the story than if he had told it chronologically: the film plays like a collection of scenes shuffled by an expert card dealer. Despite all the political fervor onscreen, the drama is often surprisingly quaint. Fons fetishizes the period decor with a lot of warm lighting and close-ups of fabric, making his movie feel like an animated diorama. 125 min. —Ben Sachs Wed 4/6, 8 PM, and Fri 4/8, 8:45 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre.
Embargo Like a short film stretched out to feature length, this low-key fantasy contains plenty of charming ideas but offers no organizing purpose to bind them together. A working-class inventor builds a state-of-the-art device for creating digital images of feet, only to have this quixotic invention made even more irrelevant by an oil embargo that wrecks the Portuguese economy. For every cliche about absent-minded scientists (the protagonist takes apart household appliances in his spare time, his wife complains of being neglected, etc.), director Antonio Ferreira deploys some fresh idea to keep the film interesting (particularly in the sound design, bringing music in and out unexpectedly). This is a mixed bag, but I found it agreeable enough. In Portuguese with subtitles. 80 min. —Ben Sachs Sun 4/3, 7:15 PM, and Tue 4/5, 6:45 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre.
Transit Love Yet another shaky-cam feature about the romantic frustrations of educated 30-somethings. If there’s anything to distinguish this one, it’s a better than average score (tunefully combining flamenco and chamber pop) and a generally resourceful use of bohemian locations in Buenos Aires. Otherwise this is the usual self-regarding stuff about how the rootlessness of 21st-century life keeps bourgeois types from having steady relationships. Director Lucas Blanco tries to paper over the thin material with a number of flashy devices, such as computer-generated maps that introduce the setting of almost every scene. More than simply distracting, they make the movie feel like an advertisement without a product. 91 min. —Ben Sachs Thu 4/7, 6 PM, Univ. of Chicago Doc Films.
