Screenings in British Film Festival : Today and Saturday

Following are capsule reviews of screenings in the American Film Institute’s BritFest during the UK/LA ’88 Festival. All screenings are in the Mark Goodson Theater on the AFI campus in Hollywood.

‘THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT’

Fri, March 19, 8:45 p.m.; Sat., March 20, 6:30 p.m.; Goodson. Film and music fit like hand and glove in this short, pungent “neurological opera” by Michael Nyman, based on the brilliant medical mystery cases of Oliver Sacks published under the same title. Sacks himself, looking just like an Edward Lear character, sets the story of a musician who grew unable to recognize familiar objects but could restore the balance to his life through music. Witty, cerebral, already celebrated, the film seems a perfect note on which to close the festival. RECOMMENDED.