AFI FILM FEST: THE FINAL WEEK

T he following are capsule reviews of this week’s screenings at the AFI Film Festival of Los Angeles. Screenings take place at the Los Feliz Theater, 1822 N. Vermont Ave., Hollywood, except where noted. Tickets and information: (213) 520-2000 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. TUESDAY

“Macario” (Mexico, 1960, 6 p.m., Barnsdall). This delightfully stylized and lustrously photographed (by Gabriel Figueroa) fairy tale is the work of Roberto Gavaldon--a fine, now fairly unknown Mexican film maker--who was Bunuel’s contemporary during the ‘50s, and even briefly directed in Hollywood. Gavaldon has a thoroughly assured, classical style; the mood here recalls Clair’s Hollywood comedies and Tourneur’s horror fantasies. It’s both fable and social satire: A starving peasant--whose wife steals him a turkey--is tempted successively by the Devil, God and Death; his fate, in the hands of the ascetic, playful Death, is divertingly instructive. Recommended.