ARTICULATE `HENRY FOOL' A BRILLIANT MODERN PARABLE.

Byline: Janet Maslin The New York Times

The affectless precision of Hal Hartley's previous work is absolutely no preparation for the brilliance and deep resonance of his ``Henry Fool.'' Here is a great American film that's no more likely than ``Nashville'' to turn up on the American Film Institute's Top-100 hit parade (where ``Rocky'' outranks ``The Searchers'') but will linger where it matters: in the hearts and minds of viewers receptive to its epic vision.

Without forsaking the clean, spare look and hyperreal clarity that are so much his own, Hartley moves into a much larger realm than was used in his earlier works. This film aspires to be a meditation on (among other things) art, trust, loyalty, politics and popular culture. With utter simplicity, and with unexpectedly intense storytelling, it achieves all that and more.

Shot so beautifully by Michael Spiller that its squalid Queens, N.Y., settings assume an instant mythic quality, ``Henry Fool'' is a perfect modern parable. It begins with the utter degradation of Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) and the mysterious appearance of a stranger who may be his salvation.

``Get up off your knees!'' orders Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan, a stage actor making a swaggeringly good screen debut), barging into the basement apartment in Simon's house and instantly taking up residence. Henry's arrival would be Faustian even if it were not, thanks to the basement hearth, greeted by a fiery glow.

The scarecrow-thin, owlish Simon (the haunting Urbaniak bears a deliberate resemblance here to young Samuel Beckett) works as a garbage man and takes heaps of abuse from much of the neighborhood. That includes his heavily medicated mother (Maria Porter) and his slatternly sister Fay (played with deadpan, nonchalant wit by Parker Posey, in one of her best roles). Simon is so silent that his response to this literally and figuratively grim existence is a mystery until Henry urges him to write down his thoughts.

Henry describes his own huge, unpublished work, known variously as ``my opus'' or ``my confession,'' with supreme grandiosity. ``It's a philosophy,'' he tells Simon. ``A poetics. A politics, if you will. A literature of protest. A novel of ideas. A pornographic magazine of truly comic-book proportions.'' The work's mystique comes from Henry's cagey unwillingness to let anyone see it.

Simon's writing also remains hidden at first (and always wisely hidden from the audience). But as it starts to emerge, its effects are astonishing. The mute girl at the local World of Donuts, this story's cultural and culinary mecca, reads a few words and she suddenly sings. A girl who once bullied him becomes a literary groupie in a beret. A waitress with conservative political leanings is offended.

``You brought on my period a week and a half early, so just shut up!'' complains Fay, after typing Simon's manuscript. When the Board of Education denounces Simon's poem as scatological (in a film that insists on a few wild gross-outs of its own), Simon and Henry share a proud handshake. ``An honest man is always in trouble,'' Henry has announced early in the story, and an honest artist is, too.

``Henry Fool'' is its own testament to the power of words, even as it merges the fortunes of its characters in a wonderfully ambiguous final gesture. Hartley's splendidly articulate screenplay (which won a prize at Cannes this year) is as exacting as his visual style. Even more than its story of private genius and public opinion, the dialogue itself offers proof that every word matters.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Henry Fool'' (R; profanity, sexual situations and some grossly scatological details).

The stars: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Hal Hartley. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: Two hours, 18 minutes.

Playing: United Artists Warner Center, selected theaters.

Our rating: Four Stars.