Turned off State Street in Santa Barbara and walked a few blocks up Haley Street to Taka Puna, men’s retro fashion boutique.  Being in this small store, which John Malkovich frequents, I am reminded of his film “The Dancer Upstairs.”  I am reminded of Javier Bardem in the starring role, playing Rijas, the police inspector, trying to track down the leader of the Shining Path insurgency, a man called Ezekiel based on the real terrorist, Guzman.  Based on a true story by Frank Shakespeare, the movie is a beautiful tone poem, set in Peru, shot in the “Altiplano” of Ecuador and Peru, and in Portugal and Madrid.  There are beautiful urban night scenes, with lights and lanterns strung along wonderful Latin Baroque streets, winding up the Lima hillside.  Glass cafes are lit up in the dark, amid the purple night, like French chintz bars shining on Latin Quarter streets.  Soft tones predominate, with Bardem wearing a light gray suit and light green tie, set against the reds and blues of the city.  The most beautiful scene came at the end, at Rijas’ daughter’s dance recital, dancing a Martha Graham piece, her red dress in the elegant mirrored room cascading multiple images.  Rijas makes it just in time, rushing in from his work, and standing in the back, by the door, catching the eyes of his daughter who is happy he made it, a slight smile is exchanged as the Nina Simone’s solo background music starts for the dance number.  The beginning is wonderful, too, in the high Andes, at night, three native Indians hunched together in the front seat of pickup, lights shining ahead on the road as they drive along, icy volcanic peaks visible outside in the moonlight, instrument lights of the dash creating a dim green interior, the occupants speaking Quechua, and Nina Simone’s voice coming over the radio, prefacing a song of hers.   As daylight arrives, you see green fields and high plateau outside and the colorful Indian dress of those in the truck, gray and white rough hewn, hemp sweaters an bowler hats.  The Andean flutes are now playing a rendition of “All Along the Watchtower.”  The film, as it develops, involves an “almost romance,” of Rivas and his daughter’s dance teacher, the unknown terrorist, the two lives intertwined in the backdrop of momentous events, like Hal Holbrooke and Goldie Hawn in “The Girl From Petrovka,” set in Brezhnev’s Russia with dissident intrigue and revolutionary theory woven in.  Both films are romances and narratives of our age, of insurgency.  Bardem’s charisma holds us, a soft policeman with soft but articulate accent, who wants to use the law in a more honest way, rather than being a corrupt lawyer or brutal cop.  He is soft on punishment.  He is not a hero, is just doing his job.  Rijas’ boss comments on Rijas’ Quechua background and concern over treatment of Indians, asking if he has strong feelings about the issue, or, sarcastically, if he is the Gary Cooper type who keeps things to himself.  Rijas answers that yes, he has feelings about the treatment of the native population, but maybe he is also the Gary Cooper type.  Rijas is a cop and also a Quechua, and a lawyer by training.  Laura Morante is superb as the ballerina terrorist and Rijas’ daughter’s dancing teacher.