The annual festival, featuring 20-plus film screenings along with musical performances and other events, runs through Nov. 19 and will be held at multiple venues around the city.
The thing about FAR EAST is the emotional stakes are never high. Unlike MADAME BUTTERFLY where we are faced with a scorned woman and an illegitimate child, here we never see the soldier’s Japanese lover. And contrasted with FROM HERE TO ETERNITY where an affair is consummated on a wildly active beach, the soldier and his captain’s wife merely brush against each other almost politely rather than passionately.