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- lne uniclal Versmn ( 15)(T.uis Puenzo.Argentina.1985)Hector Alterio. Norma Aleandro. Hugo Arana. Guillermo Battaglia. 112 mins. Alicia is a middle-aged. middle-class woman whose perfectly ordered world has gone largely untroubled by the years of military rule in Argentina. Her husband’s entrepreneurial talents have flourished through close government contacts. she teaches only the most orthodox of approved lessons at a private school and a beautiful adopted daughter. Gabi. completes a happy scenario; ignorance is truly bliss.
Then a beloved school chum. Ana. returns from exile abroad and tells how she had been tortured by the regime. suspected ofsubversion. She also explains how some children of imprisoned couples had been bargained away for the right price to an acceptable couple. The conversation plants a seed of suspicion in Alicia‘s mind as to
figures. Any resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. husband Joe di Maggio. Einstein and Commie-hater Joe McCarthy is purely intentional. Terry Johnson's stage-play presents ideal material for Roeg‘s characteristically dense explosion of ideas in this examination ofpersonal identity. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
o Kidnapped (U)(Delbert Mann.UK.1971)Michael Caine. Trevor Howard. Gordon Jackson. 101) mins. Caine makes a surprisingly dashing romantic hero in this acceptable version of two Stevenson novels partly filmed in Scotland. Strathclyde: Ayr. Odeon.
o The Lite and Death of Colonel Blimp (U)(Michael Powell 8; Emeric Pressburger.UK.1943)Anton Walbrook. Deborah Kerr. Roger Livesey. 106 mins. See captions review.
0 Lilelorce(18)(Tobc Hooper.UK.1985)Steve Railsback. Peter Firth. Frank Finlay. 101 mins. See captions review. Edinburgh; Odeon. Glasgow; Odeon.
o A Love in Germany ( 15) (Andrzej Wajda. France/Germany. 1983) Hanna Schygulla. Set during the Second World War Wajda‘s film tells a true story of an illicit love- affair between a small-town shopkeeper and a Polish P.O.W.
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' Argentina’s Inside Story
Gabi‘s parentage and confronts her with the fact that the lives of people she knows intimately have been irreparably damaged by military rule. With the blinkers removed she has to countenance the unthinkable and her quest for knowledge unlocks a process of self-awareness and politicisation that affects every aspect ofher life.
The best films in this genre make complex issues accessible to a wider
' audience by focusing attention on an
individual reaction to a broader canvas ofevents. With admirable clarity The Official Version starkly illuminates the dark corners of regimes built on brutality and the suppression of basic rights and shows how the durability ofsuch regimes rests on the tunnel vision of acquiescing citizens. It uses a tragic personal dilemma to make us uncomfortably aware of the ease with which injustice thrives
(Allan Hunter) Edinburgh; Filmhouse.
Her fellow-villagers resented their liason and ensured that the heavy hand of the Gestapo was informed. His comrades in incarceration were shocked by his act of betrayal and plotted his execution.
One incident offers a richly provocative starting point for a film that examines the human casualties of historical inevitability and the culpability ofordinary people in allowing Nazism to flourish. The parallels with contemporary Poland are never overstated but always felt. Glasgow: GFT.
0 My Bloody Valentine (18)(George Mihalka.Canada.1981)Paul Kelman. Lori Hallier. Neil Affleck. 91 mins. Gory Friday the 13th clone in which a coalminer axes his way through an unsuspecting cast list. Glasgow; Grosvenor.
0 A Nightmare on Elm Street ( 18) (Wes Craven. 1984. US) John Saxon. Ronee Blakely. Heather Langenkamp. 91 mins. Watch out. watch out. there‘s a steel-clawed bogeyman about. And guess what his favourite hobby is‘.’ No. not raffia work. but slicing up that by now endangered species the American teenager. Familiar stuff but imbued with a leavening of wicked black humour and the blurring ofwaking and dreaming
spreads a feeling of unease. Superior schlock. Edinburgh: ()deon.
0 Not for Publication ( 15)( Paul Bartel.US.1984)Nancy Allen. Don Peoples. Laurence Luckinbill. 87 mins. A scandal sheet journalist dreams ofestablishing her credentials as a serious investigative reporter in this weak farcical comedy which comes as a disappointment after Bartel‘s Eating Raoul. Edinburgh; Classic.
0 Pale Bider(15)(Clint Eastwood.US.1985)C|int Eastwood. Michael Moriarty. Carrie Snodgrass. 115 mins. See caption review. Edinburgh; ABC. Glasgow; ABC. (‘larkston Rd; ABC. Sauchiehall St; Grosvenor. Strathclyde: Ayr. ()deon: Greenock. ABC; Hamilton. ()deon; lrvine. Filmcentre: Kilmarnock. ABC: Saltcoats. La Scala.
0 Police Academy ll:Their First Assignment (PG) (Jerry Paris. US. 1985) Steve Guttenberg. 87 mins. Rookie recruits from the said establishment are unleashed upon an unfortunate neighbourhood being menaced by delinquent youngsters. So~called comedy brings a new resonance to the word ‘mindless‘. but people seem to like it. Can‘t think why. Glasgow;
ABC. Sauchiehall St.
0 The Princess( 18) (Pal Erdoss. Hungary. 1983) Erika ()zsda 113 mins. Just out of school. 15-year old Jukta and several of her friends leave the hardships of a rural existence in search ofbetter times in Budapest — but things are never that easy. A bleak and harshly realistic account of urban deprivation. using non-professional actors and monochrome photography. this is a powerful addition to recent Hungarian cinema. The relentlessness of the characters‘ misfortunes and their plucky responses to them reaffirms one's belief in the human will to survive in true neo-realist tradition. Edinburgh: Filmhouse Glasgow: GET.
0 A Private Function ( 15) (Malcolm Mowbray. 1984. UK) Maggie Smith. Michael Palin. Denholm Elliott. Bill
Pale Rider (15) (Clint Eastwood, US, 1985) Clint Estwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, 116 mins.
During the Calilornia gold rush a community at prospectors is harried and persecuted by a local businessman determined to acquire theirvaluable mineral rights by hook or crook. Alter another brutal raid by his hired thugs a young girl prays for a miracle. Divine intervention materialises in the lorm ot taciturn preacher Eastwood who has an old score to settle.
Eastwood‘s return to his homeground ol the western has produced a grandiloquentclassic, in the traditional mould, similarto Shane in which a stranger reinvests a community with a sense of purpose and sell respect. Pale Rider is a moral
Paterson. Liz Smith. 93 mins. Yorkshire. 1947. Royal Wedding celebrations abound and the fattening of an unlicensed pig for a grand civic do provides just the right opportunity for ambitious music teacher Maggie Smith to ascend the social scale aided and abetted by meek chiropodist husband Michael Palin, Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
- Rambo: First Blood Part II ( 15) (George Pan Cosmatos. US. 1985) Sylvester Stallone. Richard Crenna. ()6 mins. Stallone returns as Vietnam vet John Rambo released from incarceration to undertake a covert government mission to determine whetherother veterans. listed as Missing in Action. may still be rotting in Vietcong prison camps.
If you can distance yourself from the extreme right-wing politics and don‘t object to the glorification of violence as entertainment then Rambo will provide a taut action film directed at an exhilarating pace with Stallone's brainless brawn as potently charismatic as ever. Nothing succeeds like excess. Edinburgh: ABC. Dominion. Glasgow ABC.Clarkston Rd;
ABC. Sauchiehall St. 0 Bed Dawn ( 15) (John Milius. US. 1984) Patrick Swayze. C. Thomas Howell. Lea Thompson. Harry Dean Stanton. 114 mins. Reds aren't just under the bed they‘re landing in our kids‘ school playgrounds in this hysterically implausible anti- communist tract. Never fear. a group ofall-American youngsters have taken to the hills. initiated themselves as ‘Wolverines’. and are prepared to combat the commie hordes when a US invasion is staged via Cuba with Russian support. A rampantly silly venture that treats its audience with contempt and makes Rambo look sophisticated. Glasgow: GET.
0 The Shooting Party ( 15)(Alan Bridges.UK. 1984)James Mason. Edward Fox. John Gielgud. Gordon Jackson. 96 mins. Langorous evocation of a country weekend in Edwardian England on the eve of the epoch-changing World War. Blandly unoriginal but superbly performed
Preaching Western Values
elements as it upholds values that Eastwood himsell clearly holds dear about the sanctity of the land, the value of labour, the incorruptibility ot the good and the power 01 love.
Bruce Surtees low-light photography is superb capturing with crystal clarity the expanse of a snowy landscape and equally at home enhancing the intmacy at a campfire conversation. Eastwood the director continues to grow in stature allowing his lellow actors the lreedopm to truly inhabit their roles and showing line judgment in pushing Eastwood the actor so close to parody without disappointing an audience’s expectations of what an Eastwood character should be and do. impressive in every respect, Pale Rider certainly made my day.
(Allan Hunter)
lilm imbued with mythic Biblical
24 The List 4— l 7 October