(Pictured: “Hunt for the Wilderpeople”)

Six days, 14 movies and 550 miles of traveling later, I’m finally back in Spokane after an enjoyable but exhausting week at the 42nd annual Seattle International Film Festival. I wasn’t enthusiastic about everything I saw, but nothing was an outright disaster, and even the failures possessed admirable qualities. I’ll run down two of the three films I saw yesterday (I don’t have much to say about the third, “Paul à Québec,” though it’s quite good in its own gentle, modest way), and I’ll list every movie I saw and an accompanying letter grade at the bottom of this post.

“Hunt for the Wilderpeople” – One of the better narrative features that I saw at SIFF, this spirited lark from New Zealand writer-director Taika Waititi is a sweet coming-of-age comedy by way of a breathless chase picture.

After bouncing from one foster family to another, pre-teen troublemaker Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is placed in the country home of prickly Hec (Sam Neill) and his doting wife Bella (Rima Te Wiata). Right as Ricky is starting to feel comfortable, Bella dies unexpectedly, and Ricky escapes into the nearby bush before child protective services can take him back into custody.

Hec chases Ricky into the forest, which leads a militaristic social worker (Rachel House) to think that the kid has been abducted by his foster uncle. A manhunt ensues, with Hec and Ricky narrowly evading capture from the police and a group of advantageous hunters looking to collect the reward for Hec’s arrest.

Though nowhere near as unhinged and riotous as Waititi’s previous film, the vampire mockumentary “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” is, like Ricky himself, a tenacious ball of energy. Waititi’s camera whip pans and smash zooms every which way, so that the movie often resembles a scrappier, shaggier Wes Anderson comedy. “Wilderpeople” has already been a huge success in its native New Zealand, and it played like gangbusters to the sold-out SIFF crowd, so I’m anticipating this one to become a sleeper hit in the States. It’s impossible to dislike.

“The Bitter Stems” – This is a real find, a moody, darkly comic Argentinian noir from 1956 that was recently rediscovered and beautifully restored by the Film Noir Foundation.

In this lost classic, a cynical newspaper reporter named Alfredo (Carol Cores), looking to break away from the industry, goes into business with Liudas (Vassili Lambrinos), a fast-talking Hungarian bartender who offers phony journalism correspondence classes to wannabe reporters. Liudas says he wants to make enough money to move his wife and kids to Argentina, but Alfredo soon becomes convinced that his newfound friend is pulling a fast one on him.

Projected in lustrous 35mm at SIFF, “The Bitter Stems” (“Los Tallos Amargos”) is one of the most visually arresting noirs I’ve ever seen, with a smoky, shadowy style that pays obvious homage to German expressionism and Gregg Toland’s deep focus photography in “Citizen Kane.” If you’ve ever read an O. Henry story, you’ll be able to anticipate most of the film’s twists, but part of the joy of watching a plot like this unfold is relishing in its cruel, twisted ironies.

If this ever ends up on DVD – or, preferably, at a repertory screening near you – it’s absolutely worth checking out.

This year’s SIFF offerings:

“Author: The JT LeRoy Story” B+
“The Bitter Stems” A-
“The Brand New Testament” A-
“Burn Burn Burn” C+
“Complete Unknown” C
“Creepy” C
“Gleason” A-
“Hunt for the Wilderpeople” B+
“Kilo Two Bravo” B+
“Morris from America” B-
“Paul à Québec” B
“Tag” B
“Wiener-Dog” C
“Zoom” B-