FESTIVAL FILIVI
Lost Highway boyfriend when his 'real’ girlfriend
first it 1H: returns from a holiday abroad.
After five years, David Lynch is back Through this series of disasters, Liz -
with more white picket fences and played with gusto by the charming
Crackling cigarette tips — icons that Danielle McCormack — soldiers on.
signify we’re in typical weird territory. Around her, director Harry Sinclair
Lynch has honed his st0rytel|ing skills paints a portrait of modern New
to perfection With this tale concerning Zealand that is at once surreal and
a musician’s nervous breakdown. authentic. A winner from start to
Further plot exposition isn’t easy, as the finish. (Deirdre Molloy)
auteur of the surreal's warped I TOp/ess Women Talk About Their
imagination seems to delight in Lives, Cameo 7, Thu 74, 70.30pm,
defying logic. Suffice to say Lost Cameo 2, Thu 27, 7pm, £6 (£4).
Highway plays wrth recognisable
American genres — the road movie, the Mother And Son
horror film, the teenage angst flick. * **
The point is to experience Lost It’s not enOtigh to call Russian director
Highway, not look for meanings, and Alexandr Sokurov’s latest an ’art film’;
it’s here that the startling imagery and this truly is him as art. Gazing at the
fabulous music — mixmg dub, cool Jazz first scene, in which a young man sits Afterlife: Ian Holm and Sarah Polley in The Sweet Hereafter
and thrash metal — come into their at the bedside of his dying mother, is
own. Terrifying, funny, bizarre. like watching a painting come to life The Sweat Hereafter
(Miles Fielder) and reveal the story held Within its ** *‘k‘k
I Lost Highway, ABC 2, Mon 7 7, frozen image. The plot is minimalist in The story of a small community coming to terms with the loss of its
6.30pm, £6 (£4). See feature. the extreme but, like a poem, the children in a freak accident will have strong resonances in post-Dunblane emotions are concentrated and Scotland. When the school bus skids off the road and crashes into a frozen
Cameleon profoundly moving. There is not a lake, 3 remote Canadian town is left devastated. British actor Ian Holm
at it 1f single shot here that hasn't been plays a lawyer who hopes to represent the parents in a negligence claim
Rural Wales during World War II, and painstakingly crafted or stylistically against the bus manufacturers, but he is driven more by personal demons
the presence of AWOL soldier Delme treated, and so story, mood and look caused by a tense relationship with his junkie daughter, than by a sense of
Davis is an open secret along the row are completely unified, resulting in a justice for the good of the community.
of cottages where his mother and film that is drenched in sadness and From its opening titles on, Atom Egoyan’s latest is a film of pure,
younger brother live. It’s a close-knit isolation. (Alan Morrison) melancholy beauty. It avoids the media cliche of 'a community united by
community and Delme's already I Mother And Son, Fi/mhouse 7, Thu tragedy' and reveals how individual responses to grief are as likely to push
complex relationships wrth his 74, 4.30pm, Fi/mhouse 2, Mon 78, neighbours apart as bring them together. As in Exotica, Egoyan creates a
neighbours are challenged by his 5 30pm, £6 (£4) time-shifting structure that allows us to see his characters' emotional
outwardly cowardly leTaVIOLlr. . wreckage before the key event itself, leading the story away from
Although most of the Welsh Insomnia sensationalism and into the truth of human lives. To this end, the director
archetypes are present, director Ceri 3 it * i it couldn't be better served by his cast, particularly regular Bruce Greenwood
Sherlock has the gumption not to g The Seven-style Opening murder and a and Holm, whose restrained, multi-Iayered performance is devastating.
present them as stereotypes. A tad too scene as pivotal to the plot as James (Alan Morrison)
earnest and with too pat an ending, : Stewart's rooftop chase in Vertigo I The Sweet Hereafter, Cameo 7, Mon 77, 8pm; Cameo 7, Sat 76, 5.30pm, £6
Came/eon is nonetheless beautifully I mark out Insomnia as one of the most (£4).
shot and contains a wry sense of l compelling thrillers of the year. But this
humour to offset its exploration of the effects which traumatic events have on character. (Thom Dibdin)
I Came/eon, Cameo 7, Tue 72, 3pm; Cameo 2, Sun 77, 7pm, £6 (£4),
Topless Women Talk About
Norwegian film also finds considerable , .
depth in psychological drama, A police i K'ssed l library, a Rubik’s Cube -- but retains an detective (Breaking The Waves's * * * * intOXicating hold deSpite tampering beguiling Stellan Skaarsgard) begins to with weightier subject matter than it Crack up after committing can readily deliver. The star of the piece manslaughter while pursuing a felon is the tube system itself, with the along a shoreline in the blinding Nordic opening shots recalling Hitchcock's
A young girl’s fascination with death and the ritual of burial finds a focus in necrophilia when she becomes a mortuary attendant in later years.
l l
The" L'Ves Summer sun. Bright lights, sterile However, this Canadian debut is closer to i telecommunications maze in Dia/ M * * * * locations, a crisp soundtrack by techno l The Company Of Worves and Heaven/y For Murder (Brian Donaldson) A flop film and a full-term pregnanCy , Outfit Biosphere and a mesmerising Creatures than anything that horror or y I Moebius, GFT 2, Thu 74, 5.45pm; are the pivots on which this spunky ! central performance make this Arctic sexploitation genres could dream up. Film/iouse 2, Sat 76, 8pm, £6 (£4) New Zealand slacker comedy turns. thriller a wonderfully unnerving 2 We seen bodies shining like stars,’ says l Unable to get an abortion and out of experience. (Miles Fielder) Sandra, compelled to express her ; Nil By Mouth love With the biological father, I Insomnia, Fi/mhouse 7, Tue 72, I sexuality in this way, even when it causes ! * * * * twentysomething Liz is sacked from 4 30pm, Fi/mhouse 3, Sat 76, E complications for her lll‘.’ln(},\ boyfriend A 7 Gary Oldman‘s no-holds—barred debut her 10b, and loses her Current 1 72.30pm, £6 (£4). ! difficult stibiect, handled \‘.’llll tenderness ,3 as director is a revelation — an
and dry humour (Alan lvloriison) astonishingly personal take on I Kissed, Fi/mhouse I, lt/ed 73, alcoholism and domestic violence in
‘ ‘4’“ ‘ 4' V . .. I ~: ’ " _ * , 9 30pm, Fi/mhous'e 7, Sat 23, 9 30pm, i working-class south London, Ray ’ '3 ¢ ' ‘ “ - H ' £6 ([4) : Winstone delivers a heavyweight »' i / ' ~ ' . s 2‘ 5 performance as a self-styled hardinan x a. I .' ._ D ..~ . - ' . ‘\ t ' .- .. _ MOGbIUS I who knocks his Wife arOtind (the ’ 7 \ - . , .7 -_ " ' 2 ' * * '* * magnificent Kathy Burke) as if it were If: . _‘ ‘ ‘ . _ : ‘ ‘ 9 ’ '1 The underground trains aren't working 3 his macho, God-given right. In the i . 1 'l . 3 - , in Buenos Aires A not due to smoky pub world he inhabits, self- ‘57“;- _ g 1 government under-investment or .‘iggrandising tales, notions of 'respect’ management incompetence, btit and self-destructive Violence are passed gr I ,x’ " - something rather more sinister. To father-to-son Without any hope of , ./ .1. tackle the problem, subway bosses release. A raw, uncompromisineg » recruit the distinctly tin-Argentine honest work that builds on Ron monikered Daniel Pratt (Gtiillermo Fortunato's edgy camera work and a Angelellii, a topographer whose sustained atmostihere of simmering
Violence. (Alan Morrison)
modus operandi is lialf-mathematics, Strange bedfenows; Miche|e Burgers. Lionel Newton and Baby Cele decide half-ghost hunting. Balhed in luxuriant I Nil 8y Mouth, Cameo 7, Tue 12, three's company in Les Blair's post-apartheid comedy-drama,1ump The Gun yellows and steely blues, the picture is 8pm, Cameo 7, Sat 7 , 8pm, Cameo 7, (Cameo 1, Wed 13, 8pm; GFT 1, Thu 14, 7.45pm). i riddled Wllll puzzles ~ the subway, the 2 Fri 22, 8pm, £6 (£4)
as THE usr 844 Aug l997