April 13
The Wind Journeys (****) Ciro Guerra's film starts out painfully slow, but once it kicks into gear it turns into a sublimely paced, magical road movie about a weary traveling musician trying to return a cursed accordion to his master, and the poor teenager who follows him across Colombia on his task. The devil-horned accordion was supposedly won from the devil in a piqueria (think battle rap, but with accordions — one of the films best scenes), but Guerra plays with this mythology wonderfully. He pokes fun at the Caribbean mysticism and gullibility, but leaves us unsure about the truth. — RB (4 p.m., Regal Winter Park; also 4:30, April 18 at Regal Winter Park)
Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields (****) Here is a surprisingly engaging rock-doc, considering that its focus is on a man that even the filmmakers admit exists as equal parts fanboy effusion and willful obscurity. The former camp will find Strange Powers to be the most revealing of uncomfortable insights into their hero's brain, thanks mostly to the decades-old back and forth between the glum baritone and his manager-pianist Claudia Gonson (only she can manage to make Merritt seem human). Filled with grit and honesty, Strange Powers lulls watchers into submission exactly as Merritt's songs do: sweetly and smartly.
— BM (9:30 p.m., Regal Winter Park; also 9:30 p.m., April 17 at Enzian Theater)
