Carnegie Mellon Filmfest: Enter `The Suicide Room' at your own risk

' Suicide Room' (* * * *)

This isn't just the best foreign film I've seen this year, it's the best film, period -- a cutting-edge visual and emotional powerhouse. Its central figure is Dominik, a spoiled-brat high school senior whose permissive father and mother (a government minister and famous costume designer) are too busy with their careers to notice his "issues" -- including the gay inclinations that lead to his outing and humiliation on the Internet. In loco parentis, Dominik seeks love/support online in The Suicide Room, finding it in both the real and virtual incarnations of a troubled girl named Sylvia.

The hypocrisies of his family and a refusal to take his final exams or leave his room increase Dominik's disconnect from reality, propelling him deeper into a realm of self-mutilation and adolescent romanticizing of suicide: the dare to be self-destructive. Brilliantly directed by young Jan Komasa, it's a beautifully edited interweaving of real and virtual, with a great performance by Jakub Gierszal as sexy, laconic Dominik. Equally terrific are Agata Kulesza and Krzysztof Pieczynski as his well-meaning but careless, clueless parents -- subtly, sophisticatedly funny.

The shrink scenes are especially wonderful. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? "Just one -- but with a lot of time and money," comes the answer. Exquisite use of music -- Schubert's "Doppelganger" song, Chopin nocturnes and Mozart's 23rd piano concerto -- further elevates the proceedings.

If "Suicide Room" doesn't get next year's Academy Award for foreign film, there's no justice in the world. Which, of course, there isn't.

This is a devastating, virtually perfect film -- in more ways than one.

(Co-sponsored by the "Through Polish Eyes" Film Festival, the University of Pittsburgh's Russian and East European Studies Center, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Polish Studies Endowment Drive.)

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' Putin's Kiss' (* * *)

The title reminds me of how much trouble Tony Curtis got into when asked what it was like making love to Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot." His infamous answer: "It was like kissing Hitler."

Kissing Vladimir Putin would seem to be only marginally better. It's what 16-year-old Masha Dokhova does at the outset of this fascinating documentary, and it gets her into a lot of trouble even though it also gains her fame and her own TV show in Russia -- on her way to gaining a conscience.

Though Putin is considered a tyrant in the West, he's a powerful, charismatic father figure to millions of young Russians. After famously kissing him on the cheek, Masha became a "celebrity journalist" with no less popular influence than, say, Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber here. Specifically, she became spokeswoman for Nashi, a Russian youth organization promoting nationalist ideals and seeking to "monitor" -- as well as rid -- Russia of "enemies."

The resulting persecution of opposition figures was not unlike similar campaigns under the Soviets. "Nashi" sounds disturbingly close to "Nazi" and, indeed, became disturbingly close to the Hitler Youth groups, while Putin, for his part, has gradually become close to the Communist "cult of personality" autocrats he replaced.

As Masha befriends members of Putin's liberal opponents, she begins to doubt the new party line, especially after blogger Oleg Kashin is brutally attacked by Nashi thugs. Danish director Lise Birk Pedersen's documentary makes it clear that Russia's "special democracy" is no such thing. As Kashin says, you should be ashamed of -- and never join -- any group that marches in formation.

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And briefly...

'The Battle of Warsaw' (* * *): The first Polish feature-length film shot entirely in 3-D -- is a rousing re-creation of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, intertwining the epic defeat of the invading Bolsheviks by the Poles and the fictional love story of young actress Ola with heroic poet-soldier Jan. Directed by Jerzy Hoffman, it's a highly engaging, old-fashioned war movie with excellent battle action and a cast of thousands -- plus a believable-enough (if not quite unforgettable) love story as cinematic glue. (3-D screening Sunday only at 3 p.m., AMC Loews. It kicks off the University of Pittsburgh's Polish Studies Endowment Drive, co-sponsored and supported by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, the Kosciuszko Foundation, and the Polish Falcons of America.)

'El Sicario, Room 164' (* * ½): This is a frightening, bona fide exposé. A typical young Mexican guy -- no better or worse than most -- is offered "the job of a lifetime" with one of the country's most reliable employers: a drug cartel. He gets a nice car, hefty salary, cool place to live, and the decadent lifestyle of his dreams. All he has to do in return is become a slave and cog-in-the-wheel of the world's most brutal enterprise. By the time El Sicario (The Hit Man) figures out he's in over his head, he's on the run and forever needing to wear a mask wherever he goes. In this real-life psychological thriller, reformed Juarez narcotraffic killer, director Gianfranco Rosi takes us into the mind of reformed narcokiller, and into the actual Juarez motel room where he brought and tortured the cartel's victims. The mask he constantly wears fails to cover his trauma -- and guilt -- prompts us to rethink the ridiculously unsuccessful war on drugs that continues to screw up Mexico as well as the United States.

'Whore's Glory' (* * *): This unerotic approach to the complex subject of prostitution won't gratify anybody looking for cheap thrills but sheds real humanistic light on the world's oldest occupation. In triptych form, it explores the globalization of sex for sale in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. Thai girls are displayed for their clients in glass cases. Bangladeshi female merchandise can be had in their own backwater village ghettos. Mexican women are bought and sold in special zones run by druglords and other organized criminals as a ho-hum part of the local culture. The religious and psychological dimensions of it are poignantly chronicled by director-writer-cinematographer Michael Glawogger, whose previous documentaries ("Megacities" 2009, "Workingman's Death" 2005) have similarly opened First World eyes to Third World abuses.