Stories within stories and plays within plays feature prominently in Olmi’s late works, perhaps never more dazzlingly than in this rapturous blend of Chinese opera, high-seas adventure, and fairy tale. On a rain-soaked night, a timid young man mistakenly enters a Chinese brothel where he is mesmerized by a most amazing sight: an opulent stage production about the legend of a vengeful female pirate that shifts magically between layers of reality. A sensuous and surreal spectacle, Singing Behind Screens finds the director leaving his neorealist roots behind once and for all in favor of sumptuous, fully transportive fantasy.