REVIEW FILM
WITTGENSTEIN
This guide to the coolest 20th century philosopher that Britain has any claim over is a home-grown intellectual’s dream scenario. Co-scripted by student fave Terry Eagleton, produced by left-wing TV hack Tariq Ali, and presided over by the Ull’s most academically credible director Derek Jarman, it’s the sort of made-for-TV movie with an instructional motive that would attract three such guru- like figures.
Arranged in inescapany ‘Jarmanesque’ tableaux — gaudy but neat fancy dress, artfully ruffled fabrics, sly and passionate performances from a cast including Tilda Swinton and Michael Gough -
the plot begins in 19th century Vienna.
Here the miniature Ludwig (you can tell he’s a philosopher because he looks like the Milky Bar Kid)
introduces us to his family, a Martian, and some elementary philosophical analyses - in that order. Then it’s on to Cambridge, where our hero takes a dim view of aesthetic chit-chat, departs for a succession of lonely and inhospitable locations where he produces the work he disowns in later life, then dies, back in Cambridge, of
cancer.
Enloyable and moving though these vignettes are, the cinematic limitations of trendy academia are clear. Wittgenstein is a little too large a subiect for 75 minutes of film and, aside from a few generalised platitudes, precious little of coherent explanation is offered. Jarman’s staging is as watchable as ever, but the strength of the film is biography rather than enlightenment. (AP) Wittgenstein (15) (Derek Jarman, UK, 1993) Karl Johnson, Michael Gough, Tilda Swinton. 75 mlns. From Sun 11: Glasgow Film Theatre.
.. E plantation owner Deneuve represents H the imperial hast as a "I’m"
_ émoochE
iThat’s right, lndochine rather than ! Vietnam. The very title, plus Catherine l Deneuve’s name above it, let you know
,1, what to expect - post-colonial ; ? nostalgia with very nice frocks - and ‘ , that indeed is what you get with llegis
’Wargnier’s luxuriant exercise in Francophile reminiscence. Set in the
A 305 (decades before the French had
5 their asses whipped at Dien Bien Phu),
' enlightened and fundamentally
, elegant enterprise; a comfortable vision for a big, soft sofa of a movie, more interested in glossy romantic
angst despite its efforts at portraying
the stirrings of nationalist fervour.
La Catherine suffers impeccably, of course. She runs her rubber operation with a firm hand, shoos away the
\ . 5‘ 1' Wittgenstein: ‘home-grown lntellectual’s dream scenerh’
OLIVIER OLIVIEB
amorous interest of the local police chief like she was swatting a fly, then falls passionately for throbbing young naval officer Vincent Perez — an ill- fated, nay tragic affair that ends when her adopted teenage daughter Camille runs off with him to (gasp!) join the anti-French revolutionary movement.
lleedless to say, it all ends in tears, elaborate crowd scenes and further blasts from Patrick Doyle’s overheated Wagnerian score, forcing the audience to realise (it they haven’t already) that not all the French films we see in Britain are worthy art movies. Some of them are (ust trashy mini-series with subtitles. (TJ)
lndochine (12) (Regis Wargnier, France, 1991) Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, Linh Dan Pham. 154 mlns. From Sun 18: Glasgow Film Theatre. From Fri 23: Edinburgh Cameo. A special preview screening for list readers takes place at the Cameo on Sat 17 at 12.30pm.
()lii'iw' ()Iii'icr is the latest feature from Polish-bom director Agnieszka Holland. who recently hit pay dirt with Europa
Europa. The two films share more than a so- good-they-named-it-twice
moniker. however. cribbing their tastefully
twisted plots from the stranger-than-fiction stew
of iniquity that is Real
Life. This time, the storyline is based on a French newspaper article. A
bourgeois family from the provinces has its already precarious equilibrium
irrevocably disrupted
when the cherubic nine- year-old ()liyier goes missing. last seen heading off into the woods bearing goodies for his ailing grandma (and he wears a
I red capjust in case you
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
Twenty-four years on, and those Pennsylvanian zombies are still coming to get Barbara. Into the graveyard stumbles that familiar undead shape, and it’s like meeting an old friend. George Romero’s groundbreaking movie crawls from the grave in the form of a remake by horror fx grandmeister Tom Savini that’s far more intelligent and terrifying than the other zombie rip- offs that have oozed their rotting flesh onto the market. The original drew on late 60s’ images of shambling Vietnam soldiers and the shoot-’em-in-the- head post-Kennedy nightmare; for the 90s, we get a toughened-up heroine in the liipley mould and a more apocalyptic scenario. Savini, making his directorial debut, does well to balance the gore with some meaningful bickering between the survivors. (AM)
flight of the Living Dead (18) (Tom Savini, US, 1991) Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles. 92 mins. From Fri 9. Glasgow: MGM Parkhead. All llCls.
miss the analogy). Daddy heads off to Africa to escape his unhinged spouse. and the family fabric doesn't knit together again until six years later when a rent boy admits to the Parisian police that he is ()livier. (‘ue return of father. unbridled glee of mother. sullen suspicion ofjealous sibling Nadine and a couple of unsettling twists before the equivocal conclusion. By which time the 5 peculiar plotting. ,5 levocatiye photography and shrewdly-judged 4 performances 7- the latent ’ perception and leasing ¥ sexuality of the kids _ juxtaposed with their .r , slighin hysterical parents . ~ have meshed to produce j i a film as intriguing as it is bizarre. Or should that be bizarre bizarre? (Fiona Shepherd) ()lii'ir'r ()lii'icr ( 15) (sterner/{u HUI/(ind. France. [993) I’runt‘rn'x ('ltm'l. Hrigillr' an'mn. (in‘guin' ('u/in. [05 minx. I’l‘rnn Sun //.' (i/ugxrm‘ I’ll/n 'l'lu'uln'. l-‘mm Wed
28: Edinburgh Film/muse. '
flight of the living Dead: ‘intelligent and terrifying'
'l‘he Li's—1‘63: 2” kin-iii «m 17