The cinematography by Zhao Fei is fabulous. The Almodovar twist on dislocated family life, baroque and bizarre, has perhaps never been so fine-tuned. The director, whose work has been banned in the former Soviet Union, is not on the same planet as Nikita Mikhalkov, whose rollicking ''The Barber of Siberia'' opened the festival, out of competition. Moloch'' takes place in the spring of 1942. We see no campaign planning or sounds of battle, but characters who are living in an elaborate theater of war, shot in part in the original fortress.
Servants scuttle, clouds roll by outside, a bird dips.
Sokurov's film makes no attempt at psychology, moods break out on faces like storms. There is eerie beauty, surreal graininess. But if I lose, even the lowest nobody will use me as a doormat.'' - In a more traditional vein, Michael Winterbottom's ''Wonderland'' is a mosaic tale of a loveless couple and their three daughters who are looking for love. Shot in Super-16 in natural light with a small crew on narrow streets and in Soho pubs, Winterbottom worked with the cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who has a background in documentary film. So the group portrait may look gritty, but it's surface grime, not true heart.