There have been many documentaries about the Jewish/Palestinian conflict in Gaza, and quite a few of them have appeared at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Precious Life is perhaps the best. Jewish filmmaker Shlomi Eldar has been an Israeli war correspondent for two decades, but in this film he’s become part of the story. A Palestinian baby is born with no immune system in Gaza. Normally the baby would die not long after birth. But under incredible circumstances, Eldar manages to get the baby and his parents through the checkpoint to an Israeli hospital. Together with the Jewish doctor, they manage to raise $55,000 for a bone-marrow transplant procedure from an anonymous Jewish donor who lost his own son in the war. The baby’s parents are in complete disbelief. They’ve been raised to believe that the Jews were monsters. That’s just the setup. The true-life story just gets better from there.

The reason I particularly life this film is that more than any other film, it helped me understand how the people on either side of this conflict see one another. It also shows how deeply one needs to dig into their own beliefs to truly understand people of other cultures and religions. Just believing you’re tolerant and not prejudiced isn’t enough. You have to work hard at it.

Everyday Sunshine is the story of the black/rock band Fishbone that was created by a half-dozen kids who met in a San Fernando Valley high school, all of them bussed in from Watts, South Central LA, etc., during those forced integration years of the ’70s. Fishbone is one of those musicians’-musicians bands that those who really know what’s happening in the music world always know. (I admit that I didn’t know them. I had to ask my bassist son about them.) The band was (and to some extent still is) extraordinary. It’s clear that co-founder Norwood Fisher is not only an awesome musician, but has strongly influenced Flea, Les Claypool and other great rock bassists. Flea, Claypool and a handful of other top musicians appear in interviews that are far more interesting than the usual: “Oh yeah, those guys were great!”

The problems for Fishbone were that they were an amazing live-performance band. Their music just doesn’t work well on audio CD. The band is outrageously talented with an over-the-top eclectic style. They seem so out of control, but everything is musically very tight. An audio recording probably misses the point entirely. The music industry just couldn’t deal with them. The were a punk band, but they were black. They weren’t R&B, they were rock. But it wasn’t the usual blues-based rock. The music is rich, complex and rewarding. Much of it sounds almost Zydeco to me.

Co-directors Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler, both of whom answered questions after the screening, spent years tracking down old footage and old band members. At one point in their history guitarist Kendall Jones left the band to join a cult-like group here in Marin County. The other band members and Kendall’s ex-girlfriend attempted to physically intervene and get him out of there. They were charged with kidnapping and ultimately found not guilty. It’s just part of the wild story of this band’s history, and Anderson and Metzler cover it all.

It’s one of the best rockumentaries I’ve seen. One reason is how brilliantly Anderson and Metzler have pieced it together so non-linearly. It’s not in chronological order. It’s not even in a theme-oriented order. I can’t tell you after just one screening what the sequence of the film is based on, but it works and it works really well. It just flows. And of course, the music is great. You get neither too much music nor too little. It’s just right.

Cessna rated this only a C, so I’d say it’s probably only for those who are musicians (I’m not) or those who are particularly interested in documentary filmmaking. Or if you’re a Fishbone fan, in which it’s obviously a must-see.

This 2009 film from the Czech Republic is a marvelous part-drama, part-thriller about family secrets and Communist-era Czechoslovakia conspiracies. I want to call the movie “charming” but that makes it sound like something cute and fluffy, and it’s definitely not that. The cast are universally superb are all of the technical filmmaking elements. Director Jan Hrebejk is masterful at how he reveals both the background (with thankfully little exposition) as well as the unfolding plot. This one has a lot of twists and turns, and Hrebejk delivers them in that way that’s so satisfying and rewarding to experience. I came out of Kawasaki’s Rose thinking “B”, but the more I thought about it, the better it felt. Try to find this one if you can.

The best thing about the Mill Valley Film Festival (and other festivals) is getting to see those foreign or domestic small films that you just know will never be in theaters. And the best of these are often in the “quirky” category. The Reverse is a stylized black-and-white Polish film set in Stalinist Warsaw. I guess you’d call it a black comedy. It’s black in that there are sinister goings on. It’s a comedy in that the characters and plot are absolutely  zany. The prim-and-proper female lead starts off terrified that she’s going to be arrested for owning a single gold coin. (Holding gold was apparently illegal at this time in Poland.) She shares an apartment with her mother and grandmother, both of whom are trying to find her a husband. Her suitors are not only very odd, they also drive the plot into entirely unexpected territories of secret police, crimes and cover ups in an almost farcical (but yet dark!) style. Recommended.

Mexican-born Alejandro González Iñárritu is clearly one of the best directors, worldwide. Consider Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. His new film, Biutiful is his first film in four years and may be his best yet. It is stunning in every way. If you ever doubted the acting skill of Javier Bardem, this will put an end to you concerns. He’s terrific, as is everyone else in the film. The cinematography, sound and editing are also near perfect. Iñárritu was here for a long Q&A session, during which he accurately described Biutiful as a visual poem. It’s about a relatively regular man who is put into situations that require him to be (or at least try to be) quite heroic. Not in the big-hero kind of way, but just how he tries to save or rescue others in his life. The film takes place in a gritty area of Barcelona that tourists and even the natives rarely see, and this sets the stage for the moral and ethical challenges Bardem’s character must face. I’m writing this review about half-way through the Mill Valley Film Festival, and this is the one film so far that I think you should go out of your way to see.

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A more accurate title might have been John Lennon’s Mother. Let’s face it, making a film about the childhood of a famous person ain’t easy. This one started out simplistic but grew on me over the course of the movie. I guess director Sam Taylor-Wood felt he had to include those cute reminders of who John Lennon was, how he met McCartney and Harrison, etc., but I could have done without the cute stuff. Luckily, the film gets past that and focuses on Lennon’s totally messed up childhood. He’s played by Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) who does a more-than-credible job in a challenging role. Cessna and I both kept expecting that big chord that starts out Hard Day’s Night. Thankfully, Taylor-Wood showed restraint and never succumbed to including Beatles tunes in the soundtrack. Don’t go out of your way for this one, but don’t avoid it either.

I didn’t know the story of Conviction going into it. The film is based on one of those Innocence Project “DNA frees the wrongly convicted” stories that made the Oprah and Larry King rounds a few years ago. Hilary Swank delivers a superb performance as the sister of (Sam Rockwell), service time for murder. Rockwell is also very good, but it’s a small part compared to Swank’s. What I particularly liked about this film is that although one generally knows where this is going — there aren’t any major plot twists along the way — director Tony Goldwyn keeps you interested. It’s beautifully paced and the cast are all good. Swank is so good, that I predict a real shootout between her and Annette Bening for the Best Actress statue.

Eric Bishop, an English postman, is divorced from two wives. His son is in trouble with gangsters and the rest of his life is crumbling around him. The one bright note: he idolizes footballer Eric Cantona. Then one night while Bishop is smoking a joint he stole from his son’s room, Cantona suddenly appears to offer life advice. This sets the tone for Looking for Eric, which from then on oscillates between tragedy, comedy and crime/violence, building steadily towards a terrifically satisfying climax.

At first I didn’t understand where this film was heading. Steve Evets is great as Eric Bishop, but at first we see only that the character is a pathetic mess. It would be difficult to watch were it not for the appearance of Cantona (playing himself) and other comedic moments. As we learn more about Bishop, his family and his great Full Monty-esque friends, and as Bishop learns more about himself, we’re completely sucked in. It’s an excellent script and all of the performances are first-rate.

I should be more familiar with director Ken Loach’s long career, but unfortunately I’m not. If Looking for Eric is representative of Loach’s previous films, I look forward to seeing them.

Soundtrack for a Revolution is one of the best documentaries of the U.S. civil rights movement. Structurally, the film glides smoothly between three styles: newsreel and stills, interviews and musical performances. The manifestations of all three are excellent.

The music is the new twist, and hence the title. The film includes traditional songs performed on camera in a recording studio (ie, not merely as background) by artists such as John Legend, the Roots, Joss Stone — okay, she’s white but never sounds like it — Richie Havens and Wyclef Jean. Most of the performances are very good and the audio quality is top-notch. Not only does the music support the rest of the film, it also serves to punctuate it, thereby avoiding the usually steady (boring) pace we’re all used to in historical documentaries.

The interviews are also excellent. They’re actually short monologues by the people who played lead roles in the movement. We don’t have Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., of course, but included are Andrew Young, Julian Bond and John Lewis among many others. (I hadn’t realized the extent to which Lewis was a part of the story.)

Finally, the historical footage and stills are also great. Director Bill Guttentag said they not only found previously unused material, but that they spent a tremendous amount of time in digital cleanup of what they used.

Beyond the good execution of each of these three styles, the reason Soundtrack for a Revolution works so well is because it’s so personal. Of all the films and stories I’ve seen about the civil rights movement, Soundtrack is by far the one that helped me understand why people did what they did to bring about change in America. And I don’t mean people in the group sense, but what it meant to the individuals, both famous and relatively unknown. I came away with a much greater appreciation for what these people sacrificed and what it meant (and still means) to them.

It appears this one is headed for the trifecta: theatrical release, DVD and public television. It’s ideal for the latter: political/cultural history combined with period music. Documentary meets the Oldies shows.

Yesterday was the North American premiere of This is the Husband I Want (Gho Mala Asala Hawa) at the Mill Valley Film Festival and if it were up to me, it was also have been closing night. I enjoy an occasional Bollywood flick, but this is an awful film. No reason to tell you more. If it comes to your town, stay home and watch reruns on TV.