FILM LIST
term for a Turkish immigrant and a ‘Kanakerbraut’ is a woman who goes with Turks. the latter term with obvious connotations of prostitution. The film focuses on one such woman. Lissi. and the unemployed Paul who both long for a better existence, and gained the West German Film Prize for best director. Part ofa series organised in collaboration with the Goethe Institut and entitled New German Directors (see panel). Edinburgh; Filmhouse o Kangaroo (PG) a (Tim Burstall. Australia. 1986) Colin Friels, Judy Davis, John Walton. 110 mins. Respectful. long-planned film version ofthe autobiographical DH. Lawrence novel. Absorbing, nicely photographed and well-acted it remains too detached and portentous to fully engage the viewer’s concern. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
0 The Killers ( 15) (Patrick Roth, W Germany, 1981) 40 mins. Two down-and-outs in Berlin. one an ex-insurance salesman who now sleeps in a railway wagon. decide to try their hands at a little burglary. Patrick Roth. another New German Director. reinvents the language of Lang and Murmau to create a hellish vision ofa Berlin underworld. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
0 King Kong’s Fist ( 15) (Heiner Stadler, W Germany, 1984) 80 mins. A second-rate film critic sees a rediscovered silent masterpiece at a film festival and discovers that a projectionist friend knows the whereabouts ofthe director. Visiting the veteran film-maker the hack also finds out that it was the latter who built the original King Kong‘s fist. A must for all second-rate film critics. methinks. Glasgow; GET
0 Liletorce (18) (Tobe Hooper, UK, 1985) Steve Railsback. Peter Firth, Frank Finlay. 101 mins. Set in 1986, the arrival of Halley’s Comet is the prelude to an endearingly daffy yarn about vampires from outer space drawing the very lifeforce from our humble planet. Suave scientist Finlay, butch SAS colonel Firth and telepathic astronaut Railsback are ourintrepid heroes.
0 The Man Who Jumped To His Death (15) (Benno Trautmann. W Germany. 1984) 97 mins. As a man considers committing suicide he reconsiders his curious and agonising past. Strange look at human nature which won the coveted Max Ophuls prize for achievement in direction. Part ofthe New German Directors season. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o The Mission (PG) (Roland Joffc’. UK, 1986) Robert De Niro. Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally. 125 mins. ln 18th-century South America a Papal Prelate is called in to resolve a territorial dispute between Spain and Portugal. An Oscar
winner for Chris Menges‘ breathtaking cinematography. Lothian; Cannon Falkirk. Strathclyde; Cannon Greenock, Cannon Kilmarnock. Kelburne. Odeon Hamilton.
0 Mona Lisa (18) (Neil Jordan. UK, 1986) Bob Hoskins. Cathy Tyson.
I —
lnspecteur Lavardin (15) (Claude Chabrol, France, 1986)Jean Poiret. Jean-Claude Brialy, Bernadette Laiont. 100 mins. One suspects that the discerning lnspecteur Lavardin would have found the British translation oi his last movie a trifle vulgar. Poulet Au Vinaigre became Cop Au Vin — a neat little tranglais pun, many of us might acknowledge. He, however, is a man oi utmost taste and discretion -the type who knows precisely how he likes his eggs tried, and is tar lrom backward in re-issuing the appropriate instructions when they arrive in front of him slightly overdone. That the next movie has his name as itstitle, doubtless appealsto his vanity and more than makes amends.
lnspecteur Lavardin is Claude Chabrol’s latest provincial ‘policier’. Its gentle, deliberate pace, wrynhumour
INSPECTEUR LAVARDIN
an mannered charms set it a world apart from its unruly urban relatives— iast and bruising cop flies like La Balance.
The gentleman lnspecteur and his talthlul gendarme, Vigouroux, are
called upon when a iamous Catholic writer is murdered. Lavardin is surprised to learn that the widow is an old flame. She lives in a large house with her daughter Veronique and brother Claude. Each is lessthan iorthcoming with straight answers. Each, it appears, has something to hide. Finding himself constantly iobbed oh, the detective resorts to a iew underhand tactics at his own, uncovering a sordid rural nest oi sex. drugs and rock ’n’ roll in the process.
Lavardin’s style is at best unorthodox; he combines cultural .‘elicacy and physical ‘rigour‘ with all the iinesse ot a ballet-dancing rugby player. His original solution in this Classy, entertaining ‘whodunnit', conllrms both his own engaging eccentricity and that of the movie as well. (Simon Cunlitte)
Michael Caine. 104 mins. Hoskins gives a heartrending, much lauded performance as the ex-con with a battered heart in this brilliant thriller/film noir from the exceptionallytalented Jordan. Not to be missed. Glasgow; GFT. Edinburgh; Dominion
o The Mosquito Coast (PG) (Peter Weir. US, 1986) Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix. 119 mins. A black-edged reworking of
the Swiss Family Robinson as inventor and self-righteous know-it-all Ford rejects the decline ofwestern civilisation to build his own paradise in the jungles ofSouth America. Unfortunately, it isn't as idyllic as it sounds but he is not a man to admit defeat . . .
0 Not Nothing Without You ( 18) (Pia Frankenberg, W Germany, 1985) 80 mins. A well-off single mother and her son move in with a poor Portugese family to be ‘closer to the
OVER ll'HE TOP
Over The Top (PC) (Menahem Golan, US, 1987) Sylvester Stallone, Susan Blakely, Robert Loggia. 92 mins. You can fool some of the people some of the time but, lithe American response is anything to go by, it appears that the great mass of cinemagoing punters have finally lost their appetite for Sylvester Stallone's well-worn underdog-makes-good sermons. Over The Top is a particularly noxious. grossly sentimental specimen of the breed; an arm-wrestling version oi Rocky with additional mawkish dollops otThe Champ.
Big Sly is a rippling torsoed, gentleman oi the highways Lincoln Hawk, a truck driver with a penchant for arm-wrestling and a limitless supply of platitudes. Although long estranged from his wife Christina, the terminally-ill woman asks him to rush their son Michael to her bedside, hoping that the cross-country journey will reconcile man and boy. It does, but momma expires. leaving Lincoln to tight oil the wicked designs of nasty gramps who demands custody of Michael. Lindoln needs some loot to secure the boy’s luture. But wait, the world arm-wrestling championships are coming up in Las Vegas. The currentchampion has been unbeaten for live years and is easily TOOlbs brawnierthan Lincoln, but he isn’t Sylvester Stallone and he didn't co-wrlte the script so he stands no chance whatsoever.
The film has one virtue in the
pleasant Nevada scenery, otherwise this is an execrable, meritricious experience. Dreary pantomime melodrama, it features a moronic script, lamentable performances and a tatal lack of pace, involvement or interest. Susan Blakely has a thankless task as Christina, David Mendenhall as the interminably blubbering Michael, is some blandly cute product on an acting-by-numbers academy and Stallone is relentlessly Stallone. The film displays neither novelty nor subtlety and doesn’t so much wear its heart on its sleeve as gift wrap it in a Valentine card and hop you on the head with it. OverThe Top? Below the belt. (Allan Hunter)
pulse ofsociety‘, and she comes to befriend an ageing student-type, thwarted in ‘68 but now with dreams entirely his own. This witty examination of modern day West German politics won the highly-regarded Max Opuls prize for direction and is another in the New German Directors series. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
0 9% Weeks ( 18) (Adrian Lune. US. 1985) Kim Basinger. Mickey Rourke. 113 mins. Divorcee Basinger becomes a slave to love when she succumbs to the well-disguised charms ofsmug commodities broker Rourke. Such is the extent of her addiction that she willingly submits to the numerous humiliations and domination games that he deems essential to their relationship. Lovely to look at. empty-headed ‘designer bonking‘. Glasgow; Grosvenor
0 Olympics ’40 (Poland. 1980) A ‘refreshingly different war film‘ based on true events in a multi-national POW camp in 1940 when the rebellious inmates attempted to run a substitute for the projected but cancelled Olympic games. The commandant is against the idea but the Polish organiser is determined to outwit a man he has already competed against in 1936. Strathclyde; Haldane Film Society 0 On TheWall(15) (Lutz Konermann. W Germany. 1983) 96 mins. A man serving a life sentence is released from prison for a day‘s holiday. the first time he has been outside for over thirty years. and finds himselfconfronted with a world he has all but forgotten and
. now cannot understand. Lutz
Konermann won the German Film Prize for best director with this touching study ofa man estranged from society. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Otello (U) (Franco Zeffirelli. Italy. 1986) Placido Domingo. Katia Ricciarelli. Justino Diaz. 123 mins. Zeffirelli pulls out all the stops to inject some cinematic vigour into the stuffy climes offilmed opera. The result will probably offend the purists and is unlikely to win hordes
The List 3 — 16 April 13