l l
28 The List 6- l9 May I994
FILM INDEX
I Video Access Centre: Watch out! They're coming towards you. video cameras in hand -- it‘s ‘The Dawn Of The Video U pstarts‘. It's not. however. a nasty that will have David Alton scrambling for ever tougher legislation. but a highly inventive collection of four
BACARDI BLACK
years’ work by Edinburgh’s Video Access Centre. The screening. which is part of the city's Spring Fling festivities. takes place at the Filmhouse at 6pm on Fri 6 and 3pm on Sat 7.
With shorts and extracts ranging from pop promos to experimental animation. comic dramas to educational documentaries. VAC has given budding filmmakers the opportunity to hone their talents while producing some very watchable material indeed. Personal favourites from this collection include Katrina McPherson‘s graceful Sit-(mp. Heather Banks‘s Lost Soul Band promo. an extract from Pilton vampire thriller Blood Junkies and Stephen Chester‘s hilarious duo of Dead Natural and Dial .S' For Slingback. ()ther viewers can satisfy their tastebuds with the other delights in this l3()-minute programme.
VAC is also about to begin a weekly Women's Pie-production Course and is ‘ holding a Creative Lighting Course on Sat 7. For further information on these events and other VAC activities, contact 031 220 ()220. or write to Video Access Centre. 25a South West Thistle Street Lane. Edinburgh EH2 IEW.
I Boltanski short: Students at Duncan of Jordanston College have captured on lilm the installation of Christian Boltanski's Lost Property exhibition. which runs at Glasgow‘s Tramway until l2 June. The five-minute. time-lapse short will be screened at the OFT with Japanese yakuza thriller .S'onaiinc. See Listings for times.
I SSVF: Due to misinformation. it was wrongly stated in last issues ‘Rushes‘
i that Euan Morrison. who took a Dead llatural
workshop at the Scottish Student Video
Festival in Glasgow. was editor of Dr
, Finlay. Morrison was. in fact. trainee
editor on the programme; Chris
' Buckland is the editor and Lynn
l Morrison the assistant editor. SSVF and
| The List apologise for any inconvenience caused.
:— Dog’s life
Vicious dogs on the end at leashes have long been part at the harder end ol Scottish working-class culture, but during the 80s they took on a more ominous significance as drugs took hold at several estates. It was, perhaps, an inevitable jump to big money being made on dog lights - the modern equivalent of a medieval blood sport. Kathy Crombie’s script for Daddy’s Gone A-llunting - one of this year’s Scottish Film Production Fund/BBC Scotland Tartan Shorts - taps into this phenomenon, liltering it through the eyes ol a twelve-year-old
girl.
Gemma lives a lonely lile, all but ignored by her mother and lather, who are either lighting themselves or paying more attention to the menagerie ol animals that lills their house. Played by new discovery Fiona Kennedy, oneol Paisley Youth Theatre’s 500 members, Gemma is happier in her own imaginary world, where she is able to lay down the
rules.
‘lt’s a very male thing,’ says Crombie — whose plays include Lambrusco Nights - ol dog-lighting culture. ‘But, on the other hand, women play a role in it, leeding the dogs and cleaning up after them. Maybe driving the men to and lrom the lights, providing drinks and sandwiches. ll you lived in a household that was dominated by a dog, how would you react it you were a child? It you lelt that you had no power?’
It wasn’t just handling the (admittedly domesticated) pit-bull that gave director Morag Fullerton headaches when the lilm was shooting last month in Drumchapel; the location was something ol 3 mini-zoo. ‘The problem was managing it so that we didn’t have the kitten in at the same time as the dog,’ she explains. ‘But a lot ol the animals were okay. The lerret’s attitude was just “Cameras, lights. . .so?”. And the snakes, the tarantula, the praying mantis, all those kinds at things, they didn’t bat an eyelid.’ What was that adage about 2 working with children and animals?
3 (Alan Morrison)
3 Daddy’s Gone A-llunting will be seen in cinemas and on television later this lyean
sponsored by BACARDI BLACK
PETAIN
rule.
Alter a post-war period when almost the entire population ol France made claims to have been in the Resistance, French cinema is now owning up to the roles its population played in collaboration with the German lorces. Even as relatively recently as 1974, Louis Malle’s Lacombe lucien touched more raw nerves than an already sensitive nation could be comfortable with. But now comes Petain, a lactual account of the French government’s period of internal exile at Vichy, which irons out the crumpled details ol history surrounding the octogenarian military hero Marshal Petain’s puppet
This is a lilm about politics, not war, and in some ways it is closer to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar than your typical soldiering epic. Petain is shown as a power-hungry egotist; his advisers, lor the most part, happy to put personal comlort belore the good ol the country. What comes over very
Jacques Dulilho as Petain
clearly is that the Vichy regime positively encouraged persecution ol Jews and Communists, and did so in the name at the French people. Although at times straying into the wordiness at a history lesson, Petain proves that war is never the black- and-white world of heroes and villains that most films and books would have us believe. (AM)
Petain (15) is released by Tartan Video, priced £15.99.
I Jack Be llimlile (18) An immediate cult bit when it played the arthouse circuit a few months ago. this Australian supernatural
“ETHI- l
thriller plays up the bleakly gothic fairytale
elements. A brother and
sister are separated when children; now an adolescent. Jack sets out on a bizarre revenge trail that leads him to his sibling. Somewhat overwrought. it does convincingly create a world of its own. (Tartan) I You'll have to make your own mind tip with Michael Winner‘s Dirty
2 Weekend ( l8. Polygram) -- one of the worst films
ever or a genuine attempt to place black comedy
beside brutal feminist
revenge slayings'.’; Mario Van Peebles highlights the role of the black cowboy as MTV meets Sergio
. Leone in l’osst' ( l5. Columbia Tristar); and Kevin Kline steps in as
President and look-alike in fabulous comedy Dave (15. Warner).
I Violent Cop (18) A mega-star back home in Japan. ‘Beat‘ Takeshi Kitano (see Screen Test review of Sonatina) is the one to watch in the action movie world. As director. he sets the drugs and police corruption narrative of Violent Cop on a slow burner. letting the pressure simmer until a warehouse shoot-out finale sends those Reservoir Dogs home with their tails between their legs. As actor. he is the definitive dispassionate hero in a world ofcoldly detached violence. This one sends thrills to parts other movies can‘t even dream of. (lCA Projects U299) I Black Orpheus ( l5 ) A winner at Cannes. the Oscars and the US box office back in the early ()(is. this updates the ()rpheus/liurydice story to Rio when the carnival is at fever pitch. lilements of classic myth are placed amongst the realism of Brazilian daily life. creating the sense that these lovers are fated and that the tragedy of romance is inevitable. lts lively bursts of tnusic and colour are in complete contrast to the black-and-
white. self-referential tone
m l
of Jean Cocteau's Testament d’Orphée.
More a personalised study
of the identity and
ongoing rebirth of the
' each)
poet than a telling ofthe myth as in the earlier ()rp/ir‘c. its blend of intellectual wit and cinematic trickery is also less substantial. (Connoisseur £15.99
I The Wind 0i Amnesia (IS) A richer and more intriguing plot than usual in this Manga release. as an alien wind wipes away the sum of human knowledge. knocking the world‘s inhabitants back to prirnative instincts. ()ne boy finds himself with the
mission of restoring in his fellow humans the power
of reason at a time when
survival of the fittest is all that matters. The video
' equivalent of a
compulsive page-turner. (M anga i l 2.99)
I Tabu ( 15) When the men behind the camera
are a German expressionist and a renowned documentary filmmaker. then the result may be expected to pull in different directions. But M urnau and lilaherty's efforts gel rather well: the latter"s interest in the daily life of Tahitan pearl fishermen is the foundation for the former's classically tragic love story that touches the darker aspects of the local culture ~ the ‘tabu' of the title. (Tartan £l5.99)
I Nudge. trudge. wink. wink -- 2S-years-on. the first series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is available on two video volumes ( l5. BMG Video £12.99); racial conflicts erupt in turn-of-the- century Australia in Fred Schepisi‘s magnificent The Chant 0i Jimmie Blacksmith ( ts. Arlhouse U299): Alain Resnais has fun with audiences' perceptions of the characters and events in pretentious arty comedy Providence ( is. Tartan £l5.99); Bergman's widescreen classic The Seventh Seal is available in a form cheaper than the current box set (PU. Tartan i l 5.99); and Richard (ier‘e may or may not be who he says he is in Sommersby ( IS. Warner L' l 3.99).