NYFF: Four Nights with Anna

The 2008 New York Film Festival's first real dud. After 17 years, Polish veteran Jerzy Skolimowski delivers a murky, repetitive movie that plays like an involuntary parody of an Eastern European art film.

A damaged, bumbling worker at a hospital crematorium played by Artur Steranko (who happens bear an uncanny resemblance with Mr. Bean, if Mr. Bean burnt more body parts) quietly stalks a woman for whose rape he was once falsely imprisoned.

He slips sleeping pills into her sugar and spends nights in her room, where he paints her toenails and repairs her cuckoo clock. The ending raises more questions than it answers -- if you're still paying attention. [Jürgen] *

More on Four Nights with Anna from the filmlinc blog, Slant, Glenn Kenny, and David Hudson's roundup at GreenCine Daily.