Day 2 of SpIFF begins 2:30 p.m. Saturday

And so night one of the seven-day 2006 Spokane International Film Festival is through. Those who turned up for the late film, 150 or so of us, were rewarded with a near-two-hour exercise in mental illness titled “Keane.”

Damian Lewis , the actor who played Easy Company’s commanding officer, Dick Winters, in the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” starred as the title character, a disturbed guy who spends the better part of the film walking around, talking to himself. Or, better, muttering to himself.

The guy is obviously disturbed, a fact that becomes too painfully clear as he stalks through New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, badgering workers and passers-by alike with a photo of a 7-year-old girl he claims is his daughter. She’s been abducted, he says, and he needs help.

He needs help all right, only not the kind that’s immediately obvious. Only over time do we realize that more is going on here. And writer-director Lodge H. Kerrigan takes his time with the story, making life as nearly as uncomfortable for us as he does for Keane.

Keane, as I said, talks to himself. He sings a can’t-quite-remember-all-the-lyrics version of The Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself” while demanding that the bartender “Turn it up!” He tries to beat up a guy he picks, as if by random, from those walking by. He breaks into a hotel room so that he can enjoy the life of a parent that he so desperately wants to experience.

By the time the film is over, some of us in the audience had lost a couple of quarts of flop sweat. Is it any surprise that we chose to head home instead of talking over our thoughts, as were invited to do, in the lobby of the Lusso?

But that’s the joy of American independent film. Nothing comes easy.

Day one is over. Three films on Saturday. Can’t wait.