Gallivant , (15) 60 mins ***
In the age of the video diary and wall- to-wall Michael Palin travelogues, the combination of the two forms in a feature-length record of a journey round the coast of Britain was inevitable. What was not, was that the result should be quite so extraordinary and transparent.
Andrew Ketting took his 85-year-old grandma Gladys and seven-year-old daughter Eden, packed them in a camper van with a Super-8 cameraman and sound recordist and went gallivanting off from Bexhill On Sea. They filmed what they saw, the people they met, each other and, most notably, Gladys and Eden.
Because Eden suffers from loubert’s
Family business: Gladys Morris and Eden Kotting in Gallivant
Syndrome, the film could have been hopelessly sentimental or brave. But Kbtting refuses to let those sorts of emotions get in the way. Instead, he focuses on the incidental and mundane. Much of the film is projected at high speed, so villages flash by, tides ebb and flow and the camera team jerk past as if they were in an ancient movie.
Gallivant might be too long for its dramatic tensionless structure and there is not nearly enough of Gladys and Eden towards the end. But KOtting occasionally allows a delicious sense of silliness to invade the screen which makes you feel you were there.
(Thom Dibdin) l Edinburgh Fi/mhouse, Mon 77—Thu 20 Nov. See preview, page 25.
Up On The Roof (12) 101 mins in
Cross Peter’s Friends with The Flying Pickets and you’ve got Up On The Roof, the tale of five friends who meet at college in the 70s and form an a cappe/la singing group. As we catch up With them in the 80s and then in the 905, we notice the dramatic changes in their personalities, as the Shifting sands of careers and relationships mould their growth. While the bonds between them are altered, one thing remains the same: they can still come together to belt out those unaccompanied 70s love songs. Adapted for the screen by British theatre director Simon M00re, Up On
Pooling power: the cast of Up On The Roof take it easy
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The Roof falls into the common trap of stage to screen transposition: hanging on to rather too many theatrical conventions. Not only is it structured into three distinct ’acts', but the cast of newcomeis deliver their static staged performances With a noticeably amateur edge.
It may be a great tale of long term friendship and it features some classic songs, such as ’Band Of Gold’, 'Love To Love YOU Baby' and ’l'm Not In Love', but in the cinema, a story peppered With endless musical performances is about as entertaining as a car journey peppered With red traffic lights.
(Beth Williams) I Selected release from Fri 7 Nov
new releases FILM
Deep Crimson
(18) 114 mins ****
If the plot of Deep Crimson appears to ring more than the odd bell, don't be too - surprised. The based-on-fact tale of two .V social and physical misfits - Coral (Regina i . Orozco) is a ’fat disgusting pig,’ Nicolas , (Daniel Giminez Cacho) is obsessed with I his baldness - forge a murderous alliance with the disposal of rich women on their minds. The film in question is the recently re-released, late 60s monochrome thriller The Honeymoon Killers.
Whereas the earlier work, directed by Leonard Kastle, was a bleak, low-budget and often painful—to-watch chiller, Arturo Ripstein’s Mexican/French/Spanish collaborative production is warmly hued, darkly humorous and positively slick in comparison. Yet, bleak remains the overriding adjective to describe Deep Crimson, which was given its first outing during September’s Latin American Film Festival.
While the real-life diabolic duo — Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez, dubbed the ’lonely hearts killers' — met their ends through a surge of volts courtesy of the state, their filmic demise arrives in more desolate surroundings, evoking the fugitives of Gun Crazy. Not the film to see if you’ve just made out your last will. (Brian Donaldson)
I Edinburgh Fi/mhouse, Wed 79 8r Thu 20 Nov.
Daniel Giminez Cacho and Regina Orozco in Deep Crimson
Chasing Amy
(18)111mins ****
Side-stepping the commercial/creative compromises that stymied the shambolic Mall Rats, writer/director Kevin Smith confirms in spades the early promise of Clerks with this typically wry, surprisingly mature, and often moving look at twentysomething relationships.
That’s not to say it isn’t bloody funny, quite the contrary. However, the risque humour about such enlightening subjects as 'injuries sustained while going down ~ . on one's male/female partner' is less scattershot, the sexual emotional »' . ’ contradictions more subtle and the flu... ¢ 0.“.z,“‘=_~3"§' human. behaV'OU.’ “‘9’9 Comp'ex' Ben Affleck and Joey lauren Adams in
The initial twrst IS havrng would-be ChasingAmy liberated male Holden (Ben Affleck) fall madly in love with fellow comic book artist Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), whom he quickly discovers prefers gals to guys. Cue major crisis of masculinity, compounded later by a chronic case of ’Before She Met Me' paranoia — concerning the hugely experienced Alyssa's multifarious lesbian and heterosexual lovers.
Not to mention the wedge that Holden's initially unrequited desire drives between he and his lifelong male friend Banky (Jason Lee), whose hitherto platonic feelings suddenly manifest a latent, not to say troubling, homo-erotic dimension.
Fortunately, Jay and philosopher friend Silent Bob turn up near the end, the latter summing up Holden's difficult situation with a typically sage anecdote about his own former girlfriend, Amy. (Nigel Floyd)
l Selected release from Fri 7 4 Nov See preview, page 24.
Video Revuew Page
Don't fret when you turn the page and The List’s snappy video review section isn't there. It's a case of fast-forward for those rental and retail tapes, which now have a regular slot in the new, beefed-up back section of the magazine. In this issue, check out the pros and cons of Madonna in Evita, the Pet Shop Boys in concert, monster scares in The Relic and the juicy bad behaviour enjoyed in the first series of This Life. Each issue, we’ll keep a small screen eye on the big new feature films, movie classics from the archives, comedy chuckles, music chart toppers and TV ratings grabbers. It's all..on . page 109.
This life's Daniella Nardini and Jack Davenport
7—20 Nov 1997 THE LIST 27