REVIEW FILM
SCOTTISH FILM
I Mobile Cinema: Film fans in the Highlands have become winners after the Scottish Arts Council pledged a two-part award from the National Lottery funds for a mobile cinema to be based in lnvemess. Based on the French ‘cinémobile' design, the touring 1 unit is essentially a 40ft articulated 1 lorry which unfolds into a lOO-seat i luxury 35mm cinema. complete with 15ft wide screen. superb sound and air- I conditioning. Latest releases — as well
as films programmed for local communities. tourists and schools — will now become available in rural areas previously isolated from * Scotland‘s screens.
I Cameo Shorts: Following the success of Mr Morris, Stand Up and Blue Christmas as supporting shorts to main features at Edinburgh's Cameo Cinema. the call is now out for submissions for a season of Scottish shorts to play alongside Trainspotting in March and April. Films not funded by traditional sources are particularly welcome in order to create a diverse programme; 16mm combined prints are preferred. although. depending on the work received. video projection may be 1 possible. Contact Scottish Shorts Season at the Cameo Cinetna. 38 Home Street. Edinburgh EH3 9L2.
I Video Information Proiect: A new six-month training course in video production for unwaged people begins at VIP froru Friday l2 February — with benefits unaffected. For two days per week (Mon/Wed or Tue/Thurs) for
twenty weeks. training will be given in all aspects of video production. with the opportunity to gain Scotvec modules in video production and research. The course is also open to the deaf and hard of hearing. Contact Robert Booth on 0141 550 2485.
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I Culloden Peter Watkins' rarely screened drama-doc account of the end
of the Jacobite Rebellion comes to the
Edinburgh Filmhouse on Sat 13 and
Sun 14 Jan. Hailed for its
unconventional ‘newsreel' approach
; when it first appeared on television in
1964. the film still stands out for its
juxtaposition of modern war reporting styles. fictionalised historical set pieces i and hard-hitting political commentary.
Also screening is ian Wyse's Fall From
(ii-are. which deals with the aftermath
of the battle and Bonnie Prince Charlie's retreat to the Highlands.
EEE_% Readyibr
wilderness after Gregory’s Girl) and neanderthal Gladiator ‘Wolf’, The Bruce offers an alternative portrayal
of the legend and character of Robert ' The Bruce than that given by Angus McFadyen in Bravehearf.
‘We come to redress the balance,’
says Sandy Welch, who takes the title
role. This is his first torai into cinema:
Oliver Reed sets his sights on Bannockburn
Cromwell Productions - the team responsible for Chasing The Deer- have used their idiosyncratic fund- raising methods to bring another chapter of Scottish history to the big screen. Individual sponsors have invested £1000 each in The Bruce in exchange for a role as an extra in the latest ‘tartan western’ to rear its warrior head. With a cast which includes 0llver Heed, Brian Blessed, Dee Hepburn (back from the
: ? after more than a decade as an
integral part of the Citizens Theatre Company. ‘I haven’t seen Bravehearf. I
didn’t want it to influence my
portrayal. But I think it’s a bit early to
be making comparisons between us
and the major blockbusters.’
Nevertheless, the film’s producers are excited at the prospect of an audience already revved up by the Mel Gibson epic and Rob Roy. lot that they lay any claims to greater historical accuracy. ‘We take nothing but historical liberties,’ says producer Bob Carruthers. ‘There are so few primary sources that we don’t know how Bruce spoke or acted. We make no excuses for that; it’s a piece of drama, not a history lesson.’
Cromwell Productions are already
preparing two further projects
1 involving Scottish legend and
literature. Brian Blessed will make his : directorial debut with Macbeth and
Oliver Reed is earmarked to portray
Sawney Bean, Scotland’s answer to
Hannibal Lecter. In the meantime, The Bruce makes Its mark as a film of the people with premieres for the general public all over the country, Including Glasgow on 1 Mar and Edinburgh the
1 followlng day. (Fiona Shepherd)
ANTONIONI
During the brash glitz and disgraceful commercialism of the 1995 Academy Awards ceremony came a single moment of cinematic splendour. Director Michelangelo Antonioni received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and as he 1 - stepped onto the stage, hindered by the effects of a severe stroke, a
VIDEOS
i i i i l
compilation of scenes from his movies I
was played across the world — film at its most artistically powerful.
flow available on video, Chronicle 0! 1 A love (15, Arrow £15.99) was Antonioni’s first feature, made in 1950, and it set the tone for what has been described as the ‘metaphysical dismay’ that haunts all the director’s works. A bored, rich woman and her impoverished lover (both of whom are i linked to another death in their pasts) 3 conspire to kill her husband in this dark and well-plotted mystery of 1
desires.
L’Avvenfura (PG, Connoisseur £15.99) f is perhaps the director’s best known Italian film, the deliberately paced tale of a disinterested affair that begins between a man and a woman when his lover (her friend) disappears on a boating cruise. The mystery itself is a red herring: Antonioni is more interested in examining the empty
of Rome.
L’Ecllsse
them against large, bleak landscapes. L’Eclisse (PG, Arthouse £9.99) is
generally seen as the final part of a loose trilogy begun with L’Avvenfura (with La Matte in the middle), and
: again it is a study of a strained relationship set against a symbolic backdrop - here the decaying beauty
Perhaps Antonioni’s finest t achievement in matching psychological mood to surroundings is ’ to be found in II Deserfo Basso (15, Connoisseur £15.99), in which Monica Vitti plays a married woman who has an affair shortly after a nervous breakdown. The director uses misty, mystic colour techniques to alienate his characters from the industrialised world around them - they fail to adjust, ironically, to their man-made present. A hauntingly beautiful
emotions of his characters by placing masterpiece. (Alan Morrison)
I Burnt By The Sun (15) The gradual slide from the glory of the 1917 Revolution into the terror of the Stalin dictatorship is concentrated into the events of a single summer's day in 1930s Russia. The country household of a popular army officer is disrupted when his wife‘s former lover - now a government informer — arrives with an untold agenda. The sense of tragedy is immense: a sunny. idyllic opening gives way to a darker. more uncertain reality. An Oscar winner. a. masterpiece and possibly the best film released theatrically in 1995. Also available to buy at £15.99. (Guild/Fox)
Burnt By The Sun: ‘a masterpiece’
RETAIL
I Who’sThe Man (15) Two crap Harlem barbers are enrolled in the New
) York Police Academy.
graduate to the force. and
get onto the case of a
crooked property developer in their old
j neighbourhood. Tire ’ streetwise Laurel and
Hardy routine by Doctor Dre and lid Lover makes this hip-hop (rather than just hip) whodunnit a good bit more approachable than other rap spoof comedies; but at times the musical ensemble -- which includes cameos by Ice—T. Salt ‘n' Pepa. Public Enemy. Queen Latifah and many others — makes it seem like a loud and happy party at which you recognise faces. but you're left by yourself in the corner. (Tartan
f I 2.99)
I I Like It Like That (15) More funky sounds on the soundtrack (although it's a Latin groove in this case) as debut director Darnell Martin brings a woman's perspective to a Spike Lee world. Harassed young mother Lysette is forced to take ajob with a record company when her husband goes tojail. but this working girl has to get over obstacles of sex. class and race. Sparky and full ofenergy. (Columbia
Tristar £ 10.99)
I Stagefright ( 18) A
worthy successor to Dario
Argento‘s throne. Michele
Soavi made this solidly constructed slasher in 1986: ten years later. UK
1
fans can get their hands on the uncut version. A deranged ex-actor serial killer escapes from psychiatric hospital and stumbles into the rehearsals of a musical about — guess what — a masked serial killer. There's no real tension or mystery involved, just a deliciously gory build-up of set pieces — strangulation! knives! chainsaws! (Redemption £13.99)
I Love And Human Remains ( 18) Twin narrative prongs of sexual uncertainty and ongoing serial killings come together in [)enys Arcand's screen version of Brad Fraser's play. While the two plots don't always sit comfortably together, the thematic unity — of the dangers of love and the turn-on of murder — is perfectly realised for a 90s audience. Sharp ensemble playing and arty. stylised dialogue add to the proceedings. (Electric £15.99)
I Kabuto (15) A legendary martial arts hero discovers a reign of terror in his childhood village. as samurai action takes on a supernatural dimension and an Eastern Gothic style. A good. tight adventure story is strengthened by striking imagery and a pervasive black magic mood. (Manga £9.99)
The List 12-25 Jan 1996 27