REVIEW FILM
WE DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT
_ an enemy of the state purely on account of his comfortable lifestyle. Zhang pushes these ironies to the To LIVE fore as he continues to focus on
After the contemporary setting and Fugui’s family through Mao’s ‘Great semi-documentary style of The Story leap Forward’, where the metal in the
0f flul .lu - Zhang Yimou’s partial puppets should be melted down to compromise with the Beijing make two bullets, to the ‘Cultural authorities - To live (ilouzhe) marks a Bevolution’, where the feudal return to the wider timescales and archetypes of emperors and
socio-political tapestries that feature princesses in the shadowplays in the director’s earlier, more openly become a threat to the revolution. To
critical works. live contains more humour than, say,
The film begins in the 1940s, with liaise The lied lantern or other recent dissolute playboy Fugui (Ge You) Chinese movies which cover the same losing his father’s mansion, his wife epic time-frame - The Blue Kite and . . : .llazhen (Gong ll) and his social Farewell My Concubine - but Zhang nan, tat. mm,- standing through gambling debts. also shows that the ironies of political Argentinian director
Maria Luisa Bemberg was 58 and a grandmother before she made her first feature. although her
i previous documentaries
Taking on a new career as a shadow excess can cause much pain and puppeteer, Fugui regains the respect unnecessary suffering at a grass-roots of Jiazhen, but is soon seconded into level. The director’s muse, Gong li, the Nationalist army, then captured by has more of a background role,
the Communist forces, whom be leaving Cannes Best Actor Award d t i l h d entertains with makeshift puppet winner Ge You plenty of room to excel ! SEO’SEZEV‘ES a shows. Carried along like flotsam in as the type of common individual determined to “rangith ever-changing political waters, he whose face and body reflect decades . the portray,“ 0} women in returns home to his wife and young of political and personal upheaval. : her country's macho family as a hero of the revolution. (Alan Morrison) ; cinema. Set in the late There he witnesses the public To live (12) (Zhang Yimou, China/Hang : 1840s. her third feature. execution of the man to whom he had Kong, 1994) Ge You, Gong li, lliu Ben. : Camila (1984) told of the lost his inheritance, but who now, 125 mins. From Fri 14: Edinburgh E 9”“me PhYS'Ca! and under the new regime, is considered Cameo. i To live: “ironies to the tore’ ‘ "‘lcncc‘ual “QW‘O” Of a — j priest by a socialite. Two 1} a ‘. ~ ., s : fussy step-pop (Christopher McDonald) 1 years, late“ M”: M‘W had ., . , r . . . . moved on to the 1930s A“... I . - or . H is allergic to all things furry. Before and Pcromsm' whiie the 9 I i i V?" know its rogue capucmn monkey director's last work — l, Ahh, yes: the cuddle factor. That age- i Fingers has dropped out of a tree right The Worst 0pm (1990) — om premise that cute, fluttban pets 1 into her lap. The problem is the moved further back in sen movies—thankstn the 1 blessed thing is an incurable thief, tth to ttjveal the . overwhelming urge to get up there and i trained in PiCk'PockeiTY W said ' film?“ rcfiess'on Of squeeze, fondle and nuzzie some ; scene-Chatting QYPO KBitel- 7 , (ti “:1;er jam“; “in” ' _' 2 It's all blindingly obvious mixing - ‘m p0“ “an? “82 -e -8 impish mongrel, mog or marmoset is i o r o . Cruz by the misogymsuc recycled once more in this limp i HOIIYWOOA'S "tsutierab'e Obsessmn Inquisition.
Bemberg's latest feature has a much less specific
episode of kiddy-craft. The only oddity that a is? familrglitches can be in this girl-monkey, Til-style drone is i solved thh a solid chm-was and
that the bad guy _ a scummy min. 3 group hug with the he-couId-almost- Argentinian setting and its European gypsy with untraceable ; be-human frolics of a fifteen-inch P8th dreiis/t‘tltvgzonlxgnts accent _ is played by that man at i monkey. With the abundant breath or i $h‘igetiii’i’]: the {05338501 layers, Harvey Keitel. Predictably ' The “0" King "Wing d0“ its "9"", ,0 {much 5,, women as enough, he unbalances the whole 4 this “ninfaginaiivev senilme'fta': ? equals, but on the unusual sappy event. ' lumpen “me monkey tale w'" imd romance between suave
"tom Birch is a ween, witiI tamiiy natural selection leaving it out in the - bachelor D'Andrca tfouble. "at only has her mum cald. Hey, it’s a jungle out there. "an (Marcello Mastroianni) Rogers) remarried, now she has an ' "athanl . ‘1“‘1 Young “‘3” irritating half-brother and, well, what . MONKEY Tumble (U) (Franco Amumr r Charlotte (Alejandra
. . . , ~ - K itei Podesta). The film may be with those hormones going boom, its "Sr 1994} "W3 3W": "3"“ e r different in style, content
. . " "t ' 3" getting a bit too much. What she Mimi Rogers. 96 mins. From Fri 14. and (one, but it Sim Monkey Trouble: 'unimaginatlve. sentimental needs is a sweet, cuddly pup, but he, i Strathclyde. UCIs. Champions marginaiised figures.
For years Charlotte’s mother (a sympathetic performance by Luisina Brando) has tried to impose silence on the town. to the extent of banning the word ‘dwarf ‘ and burning fairy tale
_ l sooner have they established a
l delicate domestic balance than the THREESOME I third bed in the dorm is taken up by At first glance you’d be forgiven for misplaced female Alex, whose name : thinking that ""88 0' Hearts got here has caused a bureaucratic error. While 9 "Mi 3 BaldWin (Stephen. not William), the rest of the campus are envisaging ; a Wilt Peaks Chi“ (Lara F'Yflfl Boiler closed doors shenanigans that range i
not Shetilvn Penn) and a say third from Anais llin to the Marquis de Sade, books. But Bemberg's party (male Josh Charles, not female our trio are coyly working out their film itself has a fairy tale “"1 [infilti- The publicity boasts ‘one incompatible desires, culminating in a quality. a sense of sad 9'". two guys, three possibilitieS’ - therapeutic ménage a trois. “Chammem that filters well, arithmetic was never my strong Beginning as |itt|e more than a W393“ "‘6 Wide“ 131‘”: point, but even I make that four. if we bumbling adolescent’s fantasy, the fgpgefisig’ 3'26, 8 assume that the film’s title indicates film stumbles through some incredibly home, in the worm of a one Chat“, the" the assumption '5 condescending and patronising circus where physical that "’3 “'9 llllY'Ofl'flllY cOIflbinatiM scenes about attraction before slowly uniqueness is celebrated. that’s missing. And, sure enough, emerging into something a little more that Charlotte finally finds despite nods towards homosexual complex. It’s all far from convincing, “9' Pk“ (Pmc‘a dilommas, this is indeed a film that however, running on clichés of a W‘ISO") , ' dam to be challenolno but never fabled student life rather than X: 0,07, i521?“ really has the conviction to upset the psychological truth. (Alan Morrison) Lori: Bemberg. a 3m“ q"°- Thmsoms (18) (NIde Fleming. US. Argentina/Italy, 1993)
At the start of term, Eddy and Stuart 1994) Josh Charles, lara Flynn Boyle, A ~' . ‘ ~ Marcello Masiroanni. find themselves reluctant roommates Stephen Baldwin. 93 mins. From Fri 14. A " Luisina Brando. at college; Eddy is serious and shy, Glasgow: oileon, MGM Parkhead. Alejandra Podesta. 102 Stuart Is a graduate of the Beavls and Edinburgh: Odeon, uci. Strathclyde: . , mitts mest" 15= Butt-Head school of etiquette. llo ucts, mnmm; ‘dares to n. mummy Glasgow F tlm Themat-
Tlu- l .ist 7—70 October i004 19