In Wheeler Auditorium

Admission: $2.50

Calm Prevails Over the Country

Filmed in Portugal, Calm Prevails Over the Country is a powerful political parable describing a police crackdown in a resistance-riddled Latin American country. With ruthless irony, the film carries the notion of the police state as a prison to its logical conclusion: by the end of the film, the government, in its zeal to restore “calm” to the country, has placed virtually the entire able-bodied population under arrest. The stage is set for a final act of heroism that is as moving as it is unassuming. Director Peter Lilienthal and his noted cameraman Robby Mueller (The American Friend) create a raw, rough-edged look which makes Calm Prevails one of the cinema's most harrowing authentic portrayals of the nature of fascism. “An intensely interesting film, very measured and clear at the beginning, full of the precisely observed details of daily life that in the movies are the equivalent to life's small talk, and then, quite suddenly, a poetic parable of implications that extend beyond the political.” -Vincent Canby, New York Times