Leila and the Wolves (Heiny Srour, 1984)

Cast: Nabila Zeitouni, Rafik Ali Ahmad, Raja Nehme, Sabah Obeid, Samar Samy. Emilia Fowad, Ferial Abillamah. Screenplay: Heiny Srour. Cinematography: Curtis Clark, Charlet Recors. Film editing: Eva Houdova. Music: Bachir Mounir, Laki Nassif. 

Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour's Leila and the Wolves is a fascinating journey into the 20th century history of the conflict in Lebanon and Palestine. Nabila Zeitouni plays Leila, who is mounting an exhibition in London on the role of women in the heavily male-dominated struggle. She imagines herself, wearing the same white dress she wears to the opening of the exhibition, wandering through time and space as events in the conflict unfold through the eyes of women contributing however they can to the liberation of the Palestinians. In one scene, the women throw flowerpots and pour boiling water onto the enemy troops as their run beneath their balconies. In another, they take an active role by staging a mock wedding that allows them to smuggle weapons and ammunition to the men doing the fighting. Finally, young women emerge as actual combatants. Srour's film is a collage of newsreel footage and reenacted scenes, with symbolic touches such as a crowd of women shrouded and veiled and seated on a beach as a kind of silent chorus on the action.  

24 City (Jia Zhang-ke, 2008)

Joan Chen in 24 City

Cast: Jianbin Chen, Joan Chen, Liping Lü, Tao Zhao. Screenplay: Yongming Zhai, Jia Zhang-ke. Cinematography: Yu Wang, Nelson Lik-wai Yu. Production design: Qiang Liu. Film editing: Kong Jinglei, Xudong Lin. Music: Yoshihiro Hanno, Giong Lim. 

Jia Zhang-ke's 24 City takes a docufictional approach to the history of modern China, telling the story of the conversion of a former aircraft parts factory into a planned community, and by extension commenting on the past, present, and implied future of the country and its people. Jia mixes scenes in which actors impersonate factory workers and members of their families with scenes in which the actual workers appear before the camera. The stories are sometimes painful, as in the one in which a woman tells how she was separated from her little boy during the war and never saw him again, and sometimes poignant, such as the narrative of a smartly dressed, contemporary young woman who was shocked to witness the unpleasant conditions in which her mother worked. Their narratives are interspersed with musical sequences and snippets of poetry, including some lines by W.B. Yeats that prove oddly resonant. The result is an absorbing journey into a world unfamiliar to most of us. 

Chain (Jem Cohen, 2004)

 Cast: Miho Nikaido, Mira Billotte. Screenplay: Jem Cohen. Cinematography: Jem Cohen. Film editing: Jem Cohen, Davey Frankel. 

Look at something familiar -- a word, a face, a tree, a building -- long enough and it becomes something alien, an arrangement of shapes and lines. Look at it for a while longer, and it can begin to take on a significance you've never found in the object before. That's what Jem Cohen's Chain does to one of the most familiar and banal of American institutions: the shopping mall. For some it's a place of comfort and convenience, while for others it's an emblem of consumer capitalism. For the two very different women who are the focus (not the protagonists, certainly not the heroines) of the film, it's a bit of both. Tamiko (Miho Nikaido) is a Japanese businesswoman who sees the shopping mall as a place to be exploited for the profits of the company she works for. Amanda (Mira Billotte) is a homeless runaway who sees the mall as a place to be exploited for mere survival. Adroitly manipulating images filmed at malls all over the country, Cohen first deconstructs the shopping mall and its welter of familiar corporate logos, and then, through juxtaposing what happens during the days Tamiko and Amanda (who never meet) spend in this ambiance, allows viewers to bring their own significance to an unlikely place. The result is eerie and revelatory.

Saving Face (Alice Wu, 2004)

Joan Chen and Michelle Krusiec in Saving Face

Cast: Michelle Krusiec, Joan Chen, Lynn Chen, Jin Wang, Guang Lan Koh, Jessica Hecht, Ato Essandoh, David Shih, Brian Yang, Nathanel Geng, Mao Zhao, Louyong Wong, Clare Sum. Screenplay: Alice Wu. Cinematography: Harlan Bosmajian. Production design: Daniel Ouellette. Film editing: Susan Graef, Sabine Hoffman. Music: Anton Sanko. 

Alice Wu's Saving Face is a pleasant mixture of family drama and romantic comedy that never quite gets the two genres to work together and doesn't break any new ground for either of them. It plays on the usual themes of stories about immigrant families adjusting to American life, particularly clashes between tradition and change, old and young, queer and heteronormative. Only the fine performances of its cast really hold the movie together.