Retrospectives From Greece, France : Movies: UCLA offers an opportunity to see 35 unfamiliar Greek films, while the American Cinematheque presents recent French gems.

On Thursday, the UCLA Film Archive will launch “CineMythology: A Retrospective of Greek Film,” while the American Cinematheque will present “Cahiers du Cinema Selects Recent French Films” Friday through Sunday.

Apart from a few Melina Mercouri movies and some of the films of directors Michael Cacoyannis and Theo Angelopoulos, the Greek cinema, present as well as past, is one of the least familiar among European countries even though it dates back to the silent era.

Consequently, “CineMythology,” in Melnitz Theater, offers a unique opportunity to see 35 Greek films, two of which are silent--the 1931 version of the ancient pastoral romance “Daphnis and Chloe” and the 1932 “Social Decay,” the first and, for a long time, the only Greek Marxist film, centering on a student who becomes a union leader when he’s forced to give up his studies and become a tobacco worker. (They screen Sunday at 7:30 p.m.)

This week’s offerings that were available for preview are Stavros Tsiolis’ 1988 “Invincible Lovers” (Thursday at 9:30 p.m.) and Nikos Koundouros’ 1956 “The Ogre of Athens” (Sunday at 2 p.m.). The first is a highly visual mood piece about a solemn, paunchy 12-year-old (Tassos Miliotis) who runs away from an Athens orphanage and heads for the city of Tripolis. Along the way he crosses paths several times with a kindly, lonely 30-year-old woman (Olia Lazaridou), who finally wins the boy’s trust.

Despite the warmth and wry humor in their acquaintance, the film is really about the boy’s resolute, solitary pursuit of his destiny. At all times a beautiful film, it is also occasionally wearying; there hasn’t been so much near-interminable walking about since Antonioni’s “La Notte.”

“The Ogre of Athens” is a stunner, even when its full meaning remains elusive for the American viewer. Dinos Iliopoulos stars as a shy, 40ish bank clerk whose life is turned upside down because of his uncanny resemblance to a notorious criminal. The film is a fable, shot through with irony, paradox, comedy and tragedy, that has stinging and complex political implications for the chaotic Greece of the ‘50s.

Two films that have had some local exposure are Costas Ferris’ 1984 “Rembetiko” (Saturday at 7:30 p.m.) and Tonia Marketai’s 1984 “The Price of Love” (Saturday at 9:30 p.m.). Ferris’ highly evocative film is at once political and biographical, a study of a great singer of rembetiko music, a once-suppressed traditional Greek music of protest and lament. The film’s music is as rich as its color--and its people. Hard to follow at times but worth the effort.

Marketai tells a lusty, passionate tale, set in turn-of-the-century Corfu, depicting the seduction of an impoverished young woman (Annie Loulou) by a handsome wastrel (Stratas Tsopanellis) and her growing determination to take charge of her own destiny.

Information: (310) 206-FILM.

French Knockouts: The French have been reluctant to make films available to the American Cinematheque for preview, but it succeeded in obtaining a pair of knockouts, Arnaud Desplechin’s “La Sentinelle” (screening at the Directors Guild Friday at 9:30 p.m. following the 7 p.m. showing of Claude Chabrol’s “Betty”) and Jean-Claude Brisseau’s “Celine” (Saturday at 5 p.m.)

A complex and truly original film, “La Sentinelle” on the surface is the story of a young medical student (Emmanuel Salinger) adjusting to life in Paris after spending years in Germany as the son of a diplomat. At the outset, however, two tremendously jarring incidents--Salinger’s exceptionally harrowing interrogation by a seemingly deranged border patrolman and his discovery of a mummified head in his luggage--let us know that we’re in for more: For all its Hitchcockian twists, “La Sentinelle” is lots closer to Jacques Rivette’s “Paris Belongs to Us”; the Cold War may be over but its paranoia lingers on dangerously.

The intimate, exquisite “Celine” is a beautiful and serious celebration of the transcendent power of friendship as a wise and compassionate nurse (Lisa Heredia) dedicates herself to rescuing a suicidal young heiress (Isabelle Pasco). In its invocation of the supernatural “Celine” is far more persuasive than “Olivier, Olivier.”

Information: (213) 466-FILM.