FILM REVIEW
SCOTTISH FILM
Carl Masson and director Ewan Morrison. Blue Clirisnnus. based around Elvis Presley‘s flying visit to Prestwick Airport. will be screened nationwide on Channel 4 m er the
Christmas period (it appeared on Scottish Television on Christmas Day last year). and has already been sold to France. Belgium and the Republic of Ireland.
I The Shooting Gallery Scottish iiiptit into Channel 4's Wednesday late night season of top quality shorts from around the world continues on
a Wednesday it \memher with Hannah Robinson‘s li’r'lut'. a tale of desire.
, embarrassment and cigarettes III a
f cramped train compartment. The ‘I-ove Htiits‘ programme also includes a quartet of Australian shorts shown at this year's Drambuie Edinburgh Filrri Festival and Party Line. which won the
VIDEOS M.
FASSBINDER
In the dozen or so years before his . early death at 36, writer-director-actor ‘ Rainer Werner Fassbinder created a prolific body of work for stage and screen. As a gay man, unhappy with his own appearance, he often felt uncomfortable in the relative affluence of West Germany, and several of his characters share his own sense of being a social misfit. Fox And His Friends (15. Connoisseur Video, £15.99) comes from the mid- 70s period when Fassbinder was gaining an international reputation as a filmmaker, and the director gives his best acting performance as a former fairground worker whose lottery win That sense of alienation was taken to catapults him into an unfamiliar world 3 a more stylised extreme in of bourgeois pretentions. Perhaps Fassbinder’s 1970 movie The American
Fox And His Friends
I BAFTA Scotland Awards .Aberdeen
plays host to the biannual BAFI‘A Scotland Awards on Sattrrday 4 November. with a broadcast of the event on Scottish Television the
following night. The rise iii activity in the film industry north of the border is certainly reflected in the list of nominations. which also covers a range of television dramas. documentaries and news programmes.
The competition for Best Film exemplifies the diversity of Scotland‘s cinematic output: Being Human from director Bill Forsyth. undoubtedly one of the founding talents of the current Scottish industry; Rob Roy. one of a handful of Amcrican-financed big budget movies to shoot here. but under a Scottish director. prodtrcer and writer. and Slur/lon- (have. the flagship of the country‘s young filmmakers.
The Best Short Film award also brings together rising names and established figures: Latin I’m A Dark Room was written by playwright and poet Liz Lochhead; Fridge. already the recipient of a number of awards. was written and directed by actor Peter Mullan. and Blue Christmas. the only non-Tartan Short of the trio. comes frorn producer
Festival's Young l‘ilrnmakcr Award in I993. I Location Brochure A new brochure
E highlighting potential film locations in
Edinburgh and the Lothians has won the top prize in the City and County category at the Association of Film Conrmissioners International marketing awards in his Angeles. With 30 pages of glossy colour. the brochure - funded by LEEL and Edinburgh District Council — showcases castles. country houses. Old/Georgiair/Victoi'ian/Modern
Edinburgh and other notable locations { in the Lothian Region. Filming In 5 Edinburgh Ami Lin/nun is available
‘ from the Screen Industries Office on
()1 RI 228 5960 or can be viewed on the Internet at
http://w w w.ehs.hw.ae.uk/(ilmhtml
I Sharing Stories Europe's foremost co-production eyent takes place at the Moat House Hotel in Glasgow from l7—l9 November. Details about the programme and registration are available from Sharing Stories. Filmhotisc. 88 Lothiarr Road. Edinburgh. EH3 9BZ ((il3l 229 8453/28 5960).
W MR MORRIS
Such a clever, unexpected, instant hit that it went from Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show to Closing Gala of the 1995 Drambule Edinburgh Film Festival within a couple of months, Stephen Murphy’s Mr Morris can now tickle the funny bones of a wider audience.
Set in the corridors of academia, the film follows the arrival and preparations of Mr Morris (Steve Mctlicholl) leading up to the first lecture of the day. Mr Morris is a fastidiously dressed and precisely mannered chap, and his role is as vital as any in the learning process.
Murphy is a bit of an auteur - he directed, wrote, produced and designed the film, as well as writing its very effective music - and he has a bizarrely funny outlook. With the simplicity of a quick cartoon strip, Mr Morris is a delightfully teasing little piece. Hopefully other young filmmakers will also receive such
‘*
Mr Morris: ‘delightfully teasing’
support from local cinemas. (Alan Morrison)
Mr Morris screens with living In oblivion at the Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, from Fri 17. Fraser MacDonald's Stand Up has the same support slot from Friday 10- Thurs 16.
surprisingly, the film doesn’t push to the forefront specifically gay issues: Fassbinder is more concerned about the exploitation of the working class by the supposedly cultured. It’s not that Fox comes over as gullible; his emotional openness is his downfall, the key element in a tragic melodrama ‘ that charts a growing sense of loneliness and isolation from any
social group.
3 Soldier (15, Connoisseur Video, j £15.99). This study of a contract killer is concerned more with mood than themes, genre than personal agenda. I The spare dialogue, black and white : photography and emotionally cold characters are drawn from crime movies and films noirs, but the intellectual approach and on-screen blocking betrays Fassbinder’s
theatrical roots. (Alan Morrison)
I To Live 1 l2) -\ playboy is reduced to poverty. beginning an epic family drama which emphasises the c'uel trick s of fate that (‘hina‘s history ofthe .‘(lth century has played on its people In Iri'e is. in style and tone. halfway between the visual beauty of Raise The Red Lantern tl’(ii and the contemporary social document of The Story Of Dui JUt l5 1 [hang Yimou‘s films not only have vital comments to make on his home country. they are among the finest achievements in recent world cinema. lot a chance to wiii this magnificent trio. see Competitions. tI’olyCiram/Iilectric Pictures Video £ l 5.99 each)
I Spare Me i no Bowling: it's a metaphor for life. When he‘s banned from the competition tour for hitting an opponent. Theo goes out to find his biological father. but comes across love. insanity and the cornmercialisation of the sport. Director Matthew Harrison effectively uses the corruption of bowling (by gambling and illegal dwarf bowling) as a metaphor for the decline of the ptrre American family ethic. It's an odd indie world. for sure. btrt one that's perfectly tuned in to its owti weirdness. (Screen Iidge £12.99)
I D’Artagnan‘s Daughter (IS) Its comedy may be a hit clumsy and it's not at
all sure about its swashbuckling action. but Bertrand l'ayeina-r's rirusketeer romp maybe didn't desery e the complete trashing it wee-tied on :-:'l'.'.!\t‘ 'l'herc s at) tilll o2~tlrite charm to the :ogtirsh role played l y l’hilippe .\3 )ft't‘l. while Sophie Marceau has a sparky pie [irate/it'rrrr appeal. It‘s only 'layermcr himself w ho doesn't appear corrrmitted to the task in hand. tAiitticial
Iiy e “5.99)
I The Small Back Room (PU) Away front the World War II frorrtline. a group of backroom scientists come tip w llli ways to deal v. tilt the increasing sophistication of (iermari bombs; l’ow ell and I’ressbargei”s mos :e is a marvellous character” study of crippled. alcoholic Sammy (David Farrar‘. a thrilling concoction of tension. romance and expressionism (as Sammy's whisky bottle increases in a size consistent with his longing). ()ther wartinre releases are stuffy in comparison: Odette (PC) has Anna Neagle as a British heroine in the French Resistance. San Demetrio, london (PC) has a stricken tanker struggling back to port.
and Angels One Five (U) is g
a slightly dated insight into the early days of the Battle of Britain. (Lumiere £9.99 each)
I To Die For ( iii As safe and iiridtlloclriss as its hetero counterpart 'l‘ru/v. Milt/Iv, Deep/y. 7}! Die
Inn (and we don't mean the Nicole Is'idrnan satire currently out in the cinemas) still manages a tender touch. \Vhen Mark dies of AIDS. he comes back it‘ liaimt his lover Stilton. although Sittioti seems to be pushing aside his grief by returning to the crursrng scene. The final moments slip into high camp. but up to then there's an emotional truth to the III.tIl! pertorrrrances that's trr'.'\p2_‘ctedly touching. (Tartan £l299) I The Black Cat ( 18)
Looser based on the Poe
story ias in a key
character is a cat and it's. eh. black). this I.trcio l-ulci shocker has sortie grisly nioriients and something resembling a coherent. if far-fetched. plot. l-trlcr unsettles the audience with his exaggerated wrdescreen close-tips of eyes (human and feline) and the low tracking shots fioiii the killer cat's point-of-view. It's also a winner on the gore score. (Redemption 1;!399)
I Amateur t is) Four features on. and Hal Hartley ‘s cles erly' crafted dialogue still comes over as the freshest and most amusineg literate thing in the movies Martin Donovan is the anuiesrac w ill) a shady past; Isabelle l'ltrppert the porn-waiting es-riun who helps him. and Elina Lowensohii the sesy enigma at the centre of the eyents. With this Hartley the w riter hints at what might also come from Hartley the director. (Artificial Eye £15.99)
22 The List 3-16 Nov I995