by KEVIN LAFOREST, SARAH ROWLAND and MARK SLUTSKY

Ladies in Lavender

Pure senescent cinema: a movie about old ladies, for old ladies. Some ladies - mind you, none other than Judi Dench and Maggie Smith - star as spinster sisters living in a coastal English town in the late 1930s. Based on a short story by William J. Locke and directed by Charles Dance (you might recognize him as an actor - he was in Alien 3, The Last Action Hero, Gosford Park and about 60 others, and this is his directorial debut), Ladies in Lavender is a well-intentioned and very... nice movie, though it's a bit of a snoozer.

Dench and Smith's peaceful life is interrupted one day when a young man Andrea (Daniel Brühl from Good Bye Lenin!), who speaks only Polish and German, washes up on the shore. The two take the pretty young castaway in, and both become quite taken by him, especially Dench, girlish for her years. Andrea turns out to be quite a whiz on the violin, inciting the interest of a German tourist (Natascha McElhone), sister to a famous violinist. And thus our young prodigy must make a choice.

Ladies in Lavender moves along at a leisurely clip. Smith and Dench (and the rest of the cast, for that matter) are good as always, but unless you've been warned by your doctor to keep your heart rate down, I'd look somewhere else for an afternoon's entertainment. (MS) Opens Friday, May 27

Le Fantôme de l'opératrice

This is a very original picture, cross-editing bits and pieces from hundreds of corporate films produced by the telecommunication industry throughout the 20th century. It mostly focuses on how the phone companies exploited female operators ("the voice with a smile") until they were found to be obsolete.

Director Caroline Martel witnessed the last days of these invisible workers in her 2001 documentary Dernier Appel before Bell Canada replaced them with those dreadful automated voice systems. For this new project, she's gone back as far as 1903, researching the history of these women through the short movies their employers pumped out over the years.

Martel cleverly subverts archival footage that was originally intended as training or promotional material. A lot of it is ridiculously sexist and dated, designed to make spending hours in front of a switchboard connecting lines for miserable wages seem oh so glamorous. We also learn that the reason they hired women was because they figured they would leave after a few years to get married and make babies, thus likely not to unionize.

Le Fantôme de l'opératrice has an almost sci-fi feel, the operators appearing like disembodied voices imprisoned in an increasingly complex network of machines. Adding to the surreal mood is the score courtesy of an Ondes Martenot (an early electronic musical instrument), and the phantom-like narration by local actress Pascale Montpetit. (KL) Opens Friday, May 27

Speed filming, mini-fests and a shockumentary

If none of this week's new releases appeal to you, there are plenty of local film-related events coming up. Patricia Kearns will present XS Stress: Teens Take Control at Concordia Sunday, May 29. The local filmmaker's stripped down 28-minute educational doc chronicles the hectic and sometimes tragic lives of several anxiety-riddled high school students, including an over-achieving fembot learning to shut out homophobic remarks on the way to class; a suicidal crusty punk bouncing from one foster home to another; and a misdiagnosed dyslexic coming to terms with her learning disability. For more info, visit www.nfb.ca

The same weekend, Cinémathèque québécoise will screen 20 restored Oskar Fischinger shorts - some of which have never been seen before - as part of a one-night (Friday, May 27) homage to the influential avant-garde animator. For more info, visit www.cinematheque.qc.ca

On May 27 and 28, the Parc will screen Mondo Magic, aka Magia Nuda, a '70s shockumentary about third-world occult practices - worth checking out if only because it is rumoured to be the only film to make John Waters gag. See repertory listings for showtimes.

And finally, 48 Hours: it's not just the title of Eddie Murphy's last good movie; it's also the amount of time that 12 teams of aspiring filmmakers will have to write, shoot and edit a short for the third annual 2880 Film Blitz. This year's secret theme won't be revealed until Friday, May 27 at

7 p.m. sharp. Exactly two days later the contestants will screen their masterpieces at La Tulipe. Spectators are encouraged to put their two bits in for the Audience Choice Awards. For more info, visit, www.2880.ca (SR)

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