Quotes of the Day

The London Film Festival has a timing problem. Because it's always so late in the year (this year's started yesterday and goes on until Nov. 6) its most prized possessions are often hand-me-downs from Cannes, Toronto and Venice. But this can also be a source of strength. Since all the major festivals have already had their say and you already know what you're supposed to think about big buzz films like Jane Campion's In The Cut, London's festival offers the perfect chance to experiment. There's plenty of mediocrity in this year's line-up — who goes to a film festival to see Freaky Friday? — but a little digging can turn up some gems.

Like James' Journey to Jerusalem, the first fiction feature by Israeli documentary-maker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz. The film follows a young African man's pilgrimage to the Promised Land, where he's forced to work as a cleaner. Blissfully innocent and unerringly honest, he soon befriends his Israeli boss's father and becomes the favorite trusted employee. But when he starts his own business on the side, money, greed and power take hold. As James, South African Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe is a real charmer, with a magnificent smile and wide eyes that don't quite hide the wisdom underneath. He's instantly likable, making his corruption all the more heartbreaking. But Alexandrowicz obviously shares his lead's unshakable optimism, because the film ends in a gloriously shameless up-note, the kind that's sorely lacking in cinema today.

Darker but no less engaging, is Peter Webber's Girl With a Pearl Earring, which imagines the story behind Johannes Vermeer's famous painting, as depicted in the best-selling novel by Tracy Chevalier. With each shot drawing on the soft color and studied composition of Vermeer's paintings, this beautiful film is almost swallowed up by its own imagery. Luckily, there's just enough room for some surprisingly nuanced acting. There's been Oscar talk surrounding Scarlett Johanson (whose lips rival Angelina Jolie's as Hollywood's most luscious) for her part in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, but she could just as easily grab the golden guy for her turn as the girl in the painting: subtle, delicate, unintentionally sexy. The chemistry between her and a brooding Colin Firth is almost indecent.

Also heavy on stylized visuals is The Saddest Music in the World, an ode to early 20th century cinema, all grainy stock, hazy frame edges and tinny sound. Isabella Rossellini is spectacular as Lady Port-Huntly, the greedy, legless-but-glamorous brewery owner who starts a competition to see which country makes the saddest music in the world: "If you're sad and like beer, I'm your lady." Although the film carries Canadian director Guy Maddin's trademark weirdness — one character takes advice from her tapeworm — it's bound to find a wider audience than any of his earlier work, like the nightmarish Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary. They'll come just to see Rosselini standing on a pair of glass legs filled with beer.

For Academy Award nerds, this is a good chance to take a look at what other countries are putting forward as the best they have to offer. Norway's Kitchen Stories and Osama, the first film out of a post-Taliban Afghanistan, are both up for nomination as Best Foreign Language Film this year. In Kitchen Stories a 1950's scientist studying the kitchen habits of single Swedish men breaks the rules and befriends his subject. Tomas Norström as the shy, sweet scientist and Joachim Calmeyer as the gruff farmer he's observing make an endearing odd couple, the funny center to Bent Hamer's satire on the importance of communication in the fight against scientific rationalization of the soul. On the other side of the world (or, at least, what feels like it), Osama sees a young girl disguised as a boy (and renamed Osama) so she can find a job to feed her family and ends up being sent to a Taliban training camp. Director Siddiq Barmak relies heavily on pathos, but redeems himself by filling the screen with stunning images — a river of women in blue burqas, a baby with a deformed leg limping down a silent hallway — and coaxing a quietly powerful performance from his young lead.

And as for In the Cut, the buzz is warranted — this erotic thriller is a triumph for both director Jane Campion and Meg Ryan. As a lonely English teacher who gets caught up in a murder investigation and discovers true passion with the mysterious detective, Ryan comfortably sheds her all-American gal image and sinks right into the sweat and grit. This is where Ryan's acting career really starts, thanks to Campion's unforgiving eye. The director stays in close to her actors, usually not on their best sides, rarely putting more than two people in a shot and keeping the atmosphere electrifying and claustrophobic. No room for melodrama here. The only downfall is the predictable ending, but a successful thriller doesn't have to be a good whodunnit. Sometimes it's just about how fast your heart is beating.

That can wait, though. With postage and handling fees, a ticket to see a festival film costs more than it will when the same film goes on general release. So why not hold off on those multiplex-bound movies (forget about Freaky Friday altogether) and spend that money on a long-shot. After all, taking chances — and making discoveries — is what film festivals are all about.

• JUMANA FAROUKY
• Take a risk at this year's London Film Festival