JIM reviews film "GIRAFFES" [ + talks about FREE film to screen 8-12-09 in Chicago ]

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“GIRAFFES” – Going Crackers over animals is a Caper to behold = Rating: 7 of 10 stars.
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This was the 9th in the FREE every-Wednesday Summer series of foreign films hosted by the CHICAGO INT’L. FILM FESTIVAL at the Cultural Center.

The Israeli film’s name is based on the animal-shaped charms hanging on a necklace of a woman (Efrat) who gets involved with an attack that’s investigated by a policeman who chances to be friends with a lawyer she starts to tell her story to (& gets sexually involved with). Also entangled in the caper story are 2 women who lived in her building: Avigail expects to be picked up by someone she doesn’t know, but accidentally gets in the wrong car & is taken to a film shoot that Dafna is supposed to go to. Dafna gets in the other car that comes to their building, & wrongly goes on what’s supposed to be a blind date that artist Efrat was to have (with the lawyer she later talks to about the killing!) Yes, it is an often-complicated weaving of story lines— but it’s nevertheless fascinating as the stories start to become clearer & more definite.

[ Next Wednesday 8-12-09, the FREE movie is a film from Argentina called “THE OTHER” about a guy who decides to take the identity of a man who turns up dead in his car & who thus reinvents himself with a new life. People were turned-away this week, so best to arrive EARLY to get a seat! ]