Challenging ‘Evenings’ Opens Festival

The ninth Los Angeles International Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, always an exciting and richly varied event, commences a 10-day run Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Directors Guild, 7920 Sunset Blvd., with filmmaker Rudolf van den Berg’s exceedingly subtle and challenging “Evenings,” in which Thom Hoffman is superb in a deeply interior portrayal of a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality in a dour Dutch town in the ‘40s.

Another highlight of the opening weekend is the intensely theatrical, Masterpiece Theater-ish (but very entertaining) “Portrait of a Marriage,” more accurately a portrait of the tempestuous aristocratic writer V. Sackville-West (Janet McTeer), tormented by her all-consuming passion for the seductive, amoral Violet Trefusis (Cathryn Harrison) while truly loving her devoted husband, writer-diplomat Sir Harold Nicolson (David Haig), who is himself bisexual (but a great deal calmer--and, yes, hypocritical--about it). This handsome, period-perfect high-grade soap opera, adapted by Penelope Mortimer from Nigel Nicolson’s 1973 book about his parents, screens in two parts, Saturday at 9:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 p.m.

The way in which the AIDS crisis has galvanized the gay and lesbian community emerges in a number of documentaries, among them Graham Henman’s thoughtful and stirring “The Silent War” (Saturday at 7:30 p.m.) and Stuart Marshall’q equally challenging “Over Our Dead Bodies” (Sunday at 7:30 p.m.). With the experimental, highly demanding “Massilon” (Thursday at 7 p.m.), William Jones juxtaposes his bleak account of growing up gay in a small Ohio city with lyrical images of that community. The personal gradually gives way to the political as Jones delves into how homophobia and the ignorance that goes with it are embedded in our very language.

Jenni Olsen’s “Homo Promo” (Thursday at 10 p.m., again on Saturday at 2) is a collection of movie trailers, amusing yet disturbing in its implications of the ways in which gays and lesbians have been marketed (and exploited) on the screen over the decades.

On a lighter note there’s Rene Dakota’s “American Fabulous” (Friday at 7 p.m., again on Thursday, July 18, at 7:30) featuring the amazing yet persuasive reminiscences of Jeffrey Stouth, an outrageous, gutsy blue collar Truman Capote, who rides around Columbus, Ohio, in a chauffeur-driven black ’57 Caddie while telling us of his zany, often dangerous adventures on the road, in drag clubs and truck-stop cafes. Also notable: Ron Peck’s landmark 1978 “Nighthawks,” about the coming out of a young English schoolteacher--regarded as Britain’s first true gay feature--screens Saturday at 4:30 p.m.

The festival is crammed with more than 100 separate offerings. For a full schedule: (213) 650-5133.

When Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” which returns Friday at the Nuart for a one-week run, arrived in America over 30 years ago, it proclaimed that there was an exciting new generation of film-makers in rebellion against the traditional, genteel French “cinema of quality.” In dedicating his film to Monogram Pictures, one of Hollywood’s venerable B-picture studios, Godard was in effect announcing that “Breathless” had been made fast and cheap; more important, the dedication signified Godard’s concern with American pop culture and its enormous impact on young French people.

“Breathless” is just as fresh and startling as it was when it was first released. Godard’s restless, shoot-from-the hip style hasn’t become dated by one iota, but because we’re more familiar with it, it’s easier now to appreciate just how truly extraordinary are Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, who seem to be living rather than acting their roles. A lean, sexy one-time boxer, Belmondo plays a Parisian car thief who has just shot a cop, and Seberg is a well-read American with literary pretensions who is currently hawking Herald Tribunes to help pay her rent.

Belmondo, whose crook has a terrific sense of style, is enormously attractive to women and knows it. His charisma allows him to live recklessly and impulsively; his hero is Humphrey Bogart. He is as romantic as Seberg is practical, but because this supposedly very cool criminal is so enthralled with Seberg’s would-be writer, in large part because she’s American, he fails to perceive her true nature. It’s not too much to say that Belmondo and Seberg emerged as screen icons in this landmark film, whose place in the history of world cinema is indeed secure. Showtimes: 478-6379.