Enlightenment Guaranteed

A Phoenix pick

When Doris Dörrie directs, it's more like amusement than enlightenment guaranteed. Since making a name for herself with her sprightly Men, in 1985, Dörrie has advanced the woeful cause of German film comedy with a number of jaundiced but genial looks at the human condition, showing an especially acute and sympathetic insight into the male half of it.

Enlightenment Guaranteed is one of her more engaging and lingering efforts. Two brothers -- boorish family man Uwe (Uwe Orhsenknecht) and finicky new-ager Gustav (Gustav-Peter Wöhler) -- head off to a Zen monastery in Japan after the former's wife dumps him. There they learn detachment the hard way: they get lost in Tokyo and lose all their money, and by the time they make it to the harsh rituals and regimens of their final destination, their experience is almost anticlimactic. Dörrie shoots it all on digital video; the result ranges in effect from coy to poignant. But this tactic wasn't necessary -- the low-key comic performances of the leads and Dörrie's bittersweet irony guarantee the film's humanity. Screens Saturday, September 16 at 6:45 and 9 p.m. and Sunday, September 17 at 12:45, 3:15, and 5:20 p.m.

-- Peter Keough

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Film Festival Feature Films

| A Fight to the Finish: Stories of Polio | A Man is Mostly Water | A Trial in Prague | Blessed Art Thou | Charming Billy | Enemies of Laughter | Enlightenment Guaranteed | The Exorcist | Harry, He's Here to Help | Into the Arms of Strangers | Just Looking | Ratcatcher | Seven Girlfriends | Two Family House | The Yards | You Can Count On Me |

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