Now that the weather has returned to its usual mildness, I wish that I could recall all of the art work that I saw and fine people I met. Memories can be fleeting when withered by such intense heat, but some things do remain lodged in my memory these few days later.

Heinrich Toh’s brightly colored and deeply textured works combined printmaking, photography, and collage to explore the cultural displacement that comes from relocation or travel. Ancient architectural ornament or pattern, stylized human figures of bygone centuries, and old family photographs were layered among more personal, contemporary images to capture the give and take between the self and available languages of expression.

Robert Hargrave’s figures had a new edge and vitality that can be traced to the artist’s recent illness and liver transplant. Painted on weathered boards, his grotesque, square-shaped beings took on the guise of their horrific subject matter. “Overmedicated,” Transplant,” “Dialysis,” and “Death Pig” seemed to be reflections upon the feverish nightmares of recent hospital visits. Joining these were the “Transplants,” a series of strange, amorphous dolls crudely sewn from hospital pants and randomly-placed doll parts. At once grisly and humorous, they both reminded us of the tenuous nature of life and encouraged us to celebrate it.

Jody Niss’s paintings on wood were representatives of three different series of works, all of them worthy of attention. In “Horsegirl,” a smiling young women in western garb stood in a barren, sun-bleached landscape holding a tiny horse (the size of a small dog, actually) on a leash. The Romantic ideal of the wild, untamed West had been diminished — revealed to be something small, tame, and ridiculous. Her two studies of nuns were unsettling, too. In one, a series of elderly, bespectacled faces framed by black and white habits seemed to have settled at the bottom of the hardwood surface. The aged quality of these faces resembled the texture of the hardwood grain which, strangely, seemed to have resolved itself in the center of the work as a female figure. Perhaps I was beginning to hallucinate at that point. In the larger, more surreal painting, a group of nuns rode atop the bottom half of a massive gray horse. The series of smaller works on wood, many of which were sketched and carved, had their own unique energy.

There were many other works that caught my attention during this hot Sunday afternoon at the Bemis. Lawrence Ruelos’ series of small paintings, “Heroes Drink Lattes, Too,” were clever, low-key explorations of superheros in repose. Anna Daedalus, who recently showed at Brian Ohno, had several of her C prints on display. One of these, “Vacuum,” was a rather sophisticated double-exposure depiction of that curious state of consciousness. Jennifer McNeely’s “If I Were Queen . . . ,” an installation of sewn nylons stuffed in translucent plastic tubes, gave traditional minimalist form a jolt of contemporary female self-expression. Crystal Curtis’ body and organ-like forms, crocheted from or held together by thick red yard, made me too aware of my own weary physical condition and convinced me to leave the Bemis for cooler contemplation elsewhere.

If Christopher Doyle's name may be unfamiliar, the Australian-born cinematographer and gregarious personality has lent his visual mark on many films, primarily working in Hong Kong, and honing his compositional style. Doyle, whose impressive credits include work with several filmmakers including Gus van Sant (Psycho), Ki-Yong Park (Motel Cactus), Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence) and recently with Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang for Last Life in the Universe, has an impressionable eye for detail and sensitivity to his subjects. Mostly known for his long-time collaborations with Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai, the work on view highlighted scenes from Wong Kar-Wai's films in this exhibition culled from his on location portfolio.

More than mere snapshots, Doyle's visually rich images are works of art unto themselves. Their portraiture extracts the context of the image with the film's narrative and distills an intimate space with the viewer in a moment in time. Place is important, but only to inform the location — a bedroom, a bar, a hallway. And several of the images seem to suggest the characters inhabit a life past midnight on the edges of an urban demimonde comprised of clubs and restaurants.

These images frame the setting, whether in Hong Kong, Bangkok or Buenos Aires, and posit a glimpse of a private drama captured through his camera and freezes the moment extended by the larger work in the films they are from. Candy colors and neon glow hum under the nocturnal light of noir-like interiors, and express less than iconic portraiture than an ambience imbued by the character's mood. Tony Leung, for instance, stares through the cherry red curtains in a corridor ("The Space of a Kiss, Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love") wearing a sharp black suit in a scene from Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love. In "A Cloud in Trousers, Tony Leung, Happy Together, Buenos Aries" — from Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together — he appears behind French doors near an entry to a Buenos Aires bar, over lit with blue-tinged neon. Maggie Cheung — in "Coming Out?, Maggie Cheung, In the Mood for Love, Hong Kong" — grimaces with the smile of a lover sparked seemingly from a surprised greeting in cozy backlit bedroom in the film In the Mood for Love.

The immediacy of the images are haunting, lingering with familiar faces, but collapse time, cinematic memory and nostalgia together in an eternal present. The context of place, usually an urban interior, conveys a slight melancholic familiarity. Perhaps that's why Doyle's stylish palette is so intensely resonant; color carries a seductive charge when night becomes morning and all is still by 3 AM.

Some standouts have been some of Hong Kong's finest cinema of late, including the hard-boiled police series "Infernal Affairs" directed by Andrew Lau. On Saturday, SIFF presented a full-day "Infernal Affairs" marathon, screening the trilogy back-to-back. "Infernal Affairs" is getting a second run at the Cinerama; last night was the first one, and "IA2" and "IA3" will be screened tonight and tomorrow night, following the first two installments of Peter Greenaway's eagerly-awaited new work, "The Tulse Luper Suitcases."

Also, over this past weekend, "Hero" graced Cinerama's wide-screen canvas. Directed by Zhang Yimou , "Hero" traces the legendary tale about China's nation-building unity some 2,000 years ago set during the emergent Qin Dynasty. Beautifully shot by Christopher Doyle, this epic sword drama kicks the "Crouching Tiger" aesthetic up a notch with some of the finest combination of martial arts choreography and cinematography composition to hit the screen.

Coming up this week, look for Tsai Ming-liang's most recent film from Taiwan, "Goodbye, Dragon Inn", a nostalgic lament for the closure of Taipei's Fu-Ho Grand Theater and the martial arts films that played there. Tuesday, 8 June 2004, 7.15PM, Pacific Place.

"Control Room" is a documentary from Jehane Noujaim ("Startup.com") about al-Jazeera on the cusp of the American-led war against Iraq last year. Thursday, 10 June 2004, 4.45PM, The Egyptian.

Filmmaker Werner Herzog explores obsession with experts on mythological creatures in "Incident at Loch Ness" in a pursuit of the Loch Ness monster. Herzog will be in town to field questions on this one after this World Premiere screening. Thursday, 10 June 2004, 9.15PM, The Egyptian.

Finally, take time out to see Christopher Doyle's photography exhibition this week at Howard House in Pioneer Square. Doyle, from Australia, is a brilliant cinematographer whose credits include "Hero," "Rabbit Proof Fence," "Happy Together," and "Chungking Express." The exhibition is held through 13 June in conjunction with SIFF.

For more information, visit SIFF's web site. Tickets are presently on sale online, and on the third floor at Pacific Place (downtown Seattle) and at the Broadway Performance Hall on Capitol Hill. Films will be screened at the Broadway Performance Hall, the Cinerama, the Egyptian Theater, the Harvard Exit, and at Pacific Place. The festival runs from May 20 through June 13, daily.