‘OLIVIA’ TO OPEN FESTIVAL’S LAST WEEK

The third and final week of the ’87 L.A. International Gay and Lesbian Film/Video Festival begins tonight at 7:30 p.m. with Jacqueline Audry’s exquisite 1951 version of the Colette novel “Olivia,” which was released in the United States as “The Pit of Loneliness.” Like the classic “Maedchen in Uniform,” it is set in a girl’s school and deals with the consequences of repressed lesbian emotions. However, the exclusive finishing school, run by a regal Edwige Feuillere and kittenish Simone Simon, offers a vivid contrast to the stark, severe academy of the German film.

Indeed, so frilly and feminine is the luxurious Feuillere-Simon establishment that it could easily pass as a high-class bordello, circa 1870-1880. For years the school has run smoothly enough, with Feulliere keeping her feelings in firm check while Simon’s chronic jealousy of her partner takes the form of an equally chronic hypochondria. But sure enough, there one day arrives a girl (Marie-Claire Olivia) who sets off serious reverberations.

“Olivia” is a triumph of subtlety and delicacy, and it is a special treat to hear Feuillere, a grande dame supreme, reciting Racine’s “Iphigenie.” Among the fine films repeating this week are “Westler” (9:30 p.m. Wednesday) and “Mala Noche” (9:30 p.m. Thursday). Among the many videos to be screened Friday at EZTV are those of Canada’s Mark Verabioff, whose work is marked by wit, economy, sensuality and imagination. For more information: (213) 273-2675. The Four Star: (213) 936-3533. EZTV: (213) 657-1532.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive’s glorious “Homage to the Cinematheque Francaise” (1936-1986) continues Thursday at Melnitz Theater with Jean Epstein’s 1923 film of Balzac’s “The Red Inn” (at 5:30 p.m.) and Germaine Dulac’s 1924 romantic melodrama “The Artist’s Soul” (at 7:30 p.m.).

A film theorist whose small but influential body of work is considered among the most experimental in all silent cinema, Epstein brought to the Balzac novel a terse, timeless immediacy and a highly developed sense of image and structure, light and shadow. Taut and intimate, it begins with a guest at an elegant dinner party in 1825 spinning a tale of fate and ill-gotten gains that is to have special significance for the increasingly uncomfortable host.

Unlike “The Red Inn,” “The Artist’s Soul” is dated but no less entertaining for being so. It’s a heady tale of a dreamy, aspiring playwright (M. Petrovich) who falls in love with a young, vivacious London stage star (Mabel Poulton) for whom he has written a play. Alas, the playwright is married (to a determined martyr) and the actress has a jealous, immensely wealthy benefactor plotting in the wings.

For all its silent-movie emotional extravagance, “The Artist’s Soul” is a work of genuine passion and considerable style and scope. Ticket information: (213) 825-9261.

The Fox International will present in the Canadian Film Tour a different feature every night for a week starting Friday. Independent film making can get tedious and self-indulgent, as is well-known, but two of the first three offerings in this series tend to break new ground in those aspects.

John Paizs’ “Crime Wave” (Friday) stars him as a nerdy would-be screenwriter. As if his own story weren’t boring enough, we’re actually treated to the unfunny vignettes--e.g., the Jimmy Dean-like fate of an Elvis impersonator--he dreams up.

Another film designed to drive you up the aisle is “Memories” (Sunday), the first feature of Bachar Chbib, who has three short films in the Gay and Lesbian festival. “Memories,” a kind of surreal punk fantasy, has to do with another would-be writer who comes to Montreal and falls for a mercurial would-be artist, who spends much of her time seeking objets trouves in garbage heaps.

Of a far higher order, fortunately, is Patricia Gruben’s grueling, rigorous “Low Visibility” (Saturday), which centers on the attempts of doctors and therapists to communicate with a near-silent, possibly brain-damaged young man who may be a survivor of a plane crash. Gruben, whose film has an accumulative power, manages to raise disturbing implications from the man’s predicament. Information: (213) 396-4215.