The Human Resources Manager, by Israeli director Eran Riklis, is reminiscent of older-school art films. It serves up a broad humanistic lesson with absurdism and black comedy more sad than barbed, with political and social criticism in evidence but secondary to the characters' inner lives.

The title character (Mark Ivanir) works at a corporate bakery in Jerusalem when news arrives that a lower-echelon employee, Yulia, has been killed in a suicide bombing, which will result in a newspaper story embarrassing to the company. The manager's boss (Gila Almagor) orders him to do damage control, and he ends up accompanying the victim's body to her homeland.

Walter Addiego / San Francisco Chronicle