TODAY AT AFI FESTIVAL

F ollowing are The Times’ recommendations for today’s schedule of the American Film Institute International Film Festival, with commentary by the film reviewing staff. Information: (213) 466-1767.

Highly Recommended:

“FRANCISCA”(Portugal; director Manoel de Oliveira; 12:30 p.m.). An immaculate, disturbing tale of Portugese high society in the 1850s: Two men in love with one woman, an elopement, an estrangement. The characters philosophize in stiff, splendid tableaux; we are immersed in a world whose laws and bonds are so rigid that the final tragedy seems inevitable--last course of an elegant, yet terrifying, banquet. Based on two well-known books--one by Camilo Castelo Branco, (an actual member of the triangle), the other by Augustin Bessa Luis (“Fanny Owen”)--this film shows Manoel de Oliveira at his most assured, stylish and personal, in a milieu he knows flawlessly. (Michael Wilmington)

TRIBUTE TO BERNARD HERRMANN: “MUSIC FOR THE MOVIES”(United States; Josh Waletzky; 3:30 p.m.). Bernard Herrmann’s film music was unmistakable: eerie, exciting, pulsing with menace, throbbing with joy or anguish, his scores perfectly complement great movies by Welles (“Citizen Kane”), Scorsese (“Taxi Driver”), and, most of all, Alfred Hitchcock (eight films, including “Vertigo,” “Psycho” and “North by Northwest”). Josh Waletzky’s film unsparingly shows Herrmann’s light and dark sides: his perfectionism, temper and final betrayal by Hitchcock himself. The panel discussion afterwards features composer David Raksin, writer Norman Corwin and others. (M.W.)

“IL CAPITANO”(Sweden; Jan Troell; 4:15 p.m.) Jan (“The Emigrants”) Troell’s “Il Capitano” is a small, stark, minimalist, dead-honest and engrossing account of a young Scandinavian couple’s crime spree (based on a real-life ‘80’s incident) that ended in three murders. Troell’s unpushed suggestion is that boredom, not greed, envy, anger or lust, drove the pair...A curious twist at the end raises the question (as reality did) of who led whom on the trail from joy rides to slaughter. (Charles Champlin). CRITIC’S CHOICE with Champlin.

“A TALE OF THE WIND”(France; Joris Ivens, Marceline Jordan; 7 p.m.). This magical, shimmeringly beautiful film becomes a posthumous tribute to pioneer documentarian Ivens, who, just before he turned 90, returned to China to photograph the wind, as it sweeps over the Gobi Desert. “Tale” is a metaphysical testament and an exquisite record of a man involved in a near-mystical coming to terms with his own mortality. (Kevin Thomas)

“CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS”(France; Francois Truffaut; 9:30 p.m.). Francois Truffaut’s giddy, scintillating 1983 comedie noir finds Fanny Ardant striding off to work while boss Jean-Louis Trintignant goes duck-hunting--and plunges into dizzying developments and plot complications past comprehension. An affectionate homage to Hollywood B mystery thrillers, based on Charles (“Dead Calm”) Williams’ “The Long Saturday Night.” (K.T.)

Recommended:

“INNOCENTS ABROAD”(United States; Les Blank; 9 p.m.). Les Blank is the perfect documentarian for this record of an American group on a two-week bus tour of Europe (“22 cities, 10 countries in 14 days”). Most filmmakers would condescend; Blank instead listens to what they have to say . . . humble before Europe’s ancient riches. The hero of his piece: the acutely perceptive British tour guide Mark Tinney. (K.T.)

LES BLANK: THREE SHORT FILMS (United States; 3:45 p.m.). Three ethnographic shorts on regional American music--and, since it’s Blank, food as well. Two are gems: “Julie,” about a delightful North Carolinian mountain woman, born in 1903, and “Marc and Ann” about two staunch custodians of Cajun culture. The longest, “Puanama,” on fabled Hawaiian composer Irmard Farden Aluli, is more tentative, less immediately fetching. (M.W.).

“JOHNNY SUEDE” (United States; Tom DiCillo; 9:15 p.m.). A New York street sub-culture of rock wanna-bes, caught with deadpan wit and a nicely maintained tone of wry compassion, by debuting writer-director Tom DiCillo--who photographed “Stranger Than Paradise.” Brad Pitt (“Thelma & Louise’s” randy hitchhiker) does the funniest James Dean knock-off in years; the rest of the cast are equally on target. This is a prime American Indie in a weak AFIFEST ’92 crop. (M.W.).

“BENILDE: VIRGIN AND MOTHER”(Portugal; Manoel de Oliveira; 6:15 p.m.). De Oliveira’s 1974 portrayal of the vagaries of sexuality and religion in 1930s Portugal. Like Anna Magnani in Rossellini & Fellini’s “The Miracle,” it follows the fortunes of an expectant woman who believes herself divinely impregnated. This unscreened film--one of De Oliveira’s most awarded and popular--is recommended sight unseen. (M.W.)

Others: “Deadline in Seven Days” (1:15 and 6:30 p.m.). Surreal, murky, and deadly boring Armenian film about a nightmare coverup in a totalitarian government. (K.T.) . . . “The Giving” (1:45 p.m.). Overweeningly pretentious and amateurish tale of an L.A. banker/computer genius overcome by a self-destructive obsession to help the homeless. (K.T.) . . . “All My Husbands” (6:45 p.m.). Coy, ultra-silly French copy of slick American comedy thrillers, with a marital crisis oddly resolved when the husband masquerades as a super-crook. (M.W.) . . . “Sao Paulo, SP” (8:45 p.m.). An interesting, but unexceptional, documentary on the mushrooming Brazilian metropolis. (M.W.).

All screenings are at Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex , 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica.