‘Map of the Human Heart’

Vincent Ward’s beautiful and ambitious 1993 release is a startling epic of cultural seduction that tries--and often succeeds--to catch a massive chunk of our century in micro- and macrocosm, to chart the deep emotions of its people and to soar up and scan the landscape in which they’re trapped. Two mixed-race Inuit bond as children in a Montreal Catholic hospital school, are separated, and then meet again in London during the last stages of World War II. There, Avik (Jason Scott Lee), who has become an aerial photographer, and the memorably sensuous Albertine (Anne Parillaud) continue what amounts to a lifetime of frustrated longing (Cinemax Wednesday at 8 p.m.)