Reel Wrap

And Along Came Tourists: This quiet film follows Sven (Alexander Fehling), a German twentysomething who does a year of civil service working at the Auschwitz Museum in Poland, an experience he shares with writer-director Robert Thalheim. Perhaps because he knows his subject so well, Thalheim doesn't force the material. Even while bicycling through former death camps, Sven and his love interest, Ania (Barbara Wysocka), somehow find humor; their onscreen chemistry is reminiscent of Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday — torrid because of its surprising tenderness. Thalheim, whose theater training has obviously shaped his adept sense of scene, allows the complicated relationship that still exists between Germany and Poland to leak into the plot through the characters themselves, rather through any hand-of-God contrivance, and the result is the opposite of that in most contemporary American cinema: a film that gains steam as it progresses, until it seems unfair that the characters should disappear at the end. We were just starting to get to know them. — P. Scott Cunningham March 3 at 5 p.m. Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach; 305-674-1040. March 8 at 9:30 p.m. Regal Cinemas South Beach, 1100 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach; 305-674-6766.

Leave Her to Heaven: Shot in 1945 at the pinnacle of the film noir era, Leave Her to Heaven is a hilariously strange mixture of Technicolor, Sirkian melodrama, and the kind of brutal fatalism mastered by Sam Fuller. Gene Tierney was nominated for an Academy Award for her leading role as Ellen Harland, a woman driven mad by jealousy. Eight years later, Tierney herself was receiving shock treatments at a mental hospital in Connecticut, so audiences have always wondered how much of it was really acting. By all accounts, Tierney was as intelligent as she was gorgeous, and it's a tragedy (the kind Hollywood is expert at producing) she never regained form after her hospitalization. Modern audiences with a more sophisticated sense of mental illness might snicker at the campier moments (a certain rowboat scene comes to mind), but there's no denying that Tierney's inexhaustible energy permanently locks one's eyes to the screen. It's also worth mentioning you'll probably never have another chance to see a fully restored print of this film on the big screen with 35mm projection, and after adjusting to digital pixilation, you will definitely drink in the vavoom of cinematography's golden age. — P. Scott Cunningham March 3 at 7 p.m. Bill Cosford Cinema, University of Miami, Coral Gables; 305-237-3456.

Barcelona (a Map): Through a series of conversations among a dying man, his wife, and the three people who are renting out rooms in their apartment, Barcelona (a Map) ekes out a disjointed narrative of incest, loss, and disappointment. The disappointment, however, is yours, for the connections between these characters are as inscrutable as the floor plan of the space in which they're living. The script deals mostly in empty aphorisms, and the hefty backstory has no appreciable effect on the present-day action. Almost as quickly as a woman reveals her brother is actually her son, the information is dismissed with a shoulder shrug. Within another minute, a character is setting a handkerchief on fire with his mind, but not even this phenomenon can get anyone to leave the apartment. The film lays claim to the great tradition of highbrow European cinema, but is actually just a telenovela with better lighting. —P. Scott Cunningham March 4 at 7 p.m. Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach; 305-674-1040.