Pere Portabella's Warsaw Bridge is about everything under the sun. It explores the thrills of living in a big city, the glitter of high society, the beauty of architecture, the beauty of the human body, and the mysteries of the earth, air, fire, and water. In one scene, a biochemist describes to her students the processes that might bridge the inorganic with the organic. In another scene, a novelist describes to a pretty reporter (long hair, pen and pad in hands, short dress, long legs) his theory of literature and the place of the writer in postmodern society. Warsaw Bridge, which is set in some city in Spain, was made in 1990, just at the point when a new Europe emerged from the Cold War. The director also captures the emergence of the computer world, digital culture, and the globalization of urban space.

All of this excitement happens around the cold corpse of a man. His body—the center of a plot that includes opera singers at a busy fish market—is on a table being examined by a coroner. The cause of his death is something of a puzzle, and the solution to that puzzle is revealed in the last two or so minutes of the movie. Portabella's film is made just for people who can never get enough of the essence of cinema, which is, of course, photography. The director de fotografía, Tomás Pladevall, is the brightest star of Warsaw Bridge. .

Northwest Film Forum, Sun—Wed at 7, 9 pm.