Film
FESTIVAL FILM continued
The Wounds (Rane)
*** *
Lazy shorthand for director Srdjan Dragojevic’s (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame) trawl through former Yugoslavia's recent troubled history, as seen through the eyes of two teenage gangsters, would be Mean Streets meets Trainspotting. With its tale of the rise and fall of two petty criminals, its Christian iconography (crucifixon wounds), a techno soundtrack and crude humour (such as a coke- snorting grandmother), these comparisons are valid. However,
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Dunkirk spirit: Thomas Vincent’s Ka
Dragojevic has an ulterior motive: to illustrate, in an uncompromising fashion, the elimination of a whole generation of youth from his war- ravaged nation. A harsh lesson learned and a tough film to depict it. (Miles Fielder)
. The Wounds, Filmhouse 7, 27 Aug. 9.30pm; Filmhouse 3, 28 Aug, 9pm. £7 (£4.50).
Victor . . . Pendant Qu’il Est
Trop Tard *‘k‘k
With a colour scheme of putrid greens and dulled reds, and a story of a
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maval, Cameo 3, 28 Aug, 7.30pm, £7 (£4.50)
young boy (Jeremy Chaix) on the run from abusive parents, Sandrine Veysset’s film looks set to provide us with an abject hour and a half. Any movie which opens with a kid witnessing his tied-up mum having sex doesn't suggest happy families. However, as with Veysett’s earlier Will It Snow For Christmas?, there’s potential humanity in the grimmest of stuations. Chaix kips down with a tough, yet tender prostitute, who begins to shield him from life’s many miseries. (Tony McKibbin)
l Victor. . . Pendant Ou'il Est Trop Tard, Filmhouse 7, 28 Aug, 70pm, £7 (£4.50).
I Could Read The Sky
* **
Nicola Bruce’s adaptation of Timothy O’Grady and Steve Pykes’s photographic novel, shot in double- exposure by cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, is an old man's wade through the muddy layers of memory. Since all his teacups, as well as other inanimate objects, are infused with images of the past, his impaired sky- gazing skills are not surprising. The portrayal of a textured web of mental wanderings is admirable. Unfortunately, the mumblings of this old man are as transparent as the often overlapping visuals. Bleak, though with occasional moments of beauty, this is perhaps only for the
very patient. (Judith Ho) I I Could Read The Sky, Cameo 7, 27 Aug, 3pm, £7 (£4.50).
Skin Flick
A 1k *
Using hardcore gay pornography as the raw material for a unique brand of satire, Bruce LaBruce embraces and subverts cliched skin flick scenarios - the public toilet, the kitchen bonk, the workman come to fix the plumbing. You could say he has his cock and eats it, indulging in on-screen eroticism (complete with erections and cum shots, but no graphic close-ups of penetration), while attacking the iconic image of the skinhead. The mixed film and video formats give the film its energy, but it’s not as funny, jaw-dropping or inventive as LaBruce’s masterpiece, Super 8 7/2. (Alan Morrison)
I Skin Flick, Filmhouse 3, 27 Aug, 9pm, £7 (£4.50).
Gregory's Two Girls
i: * *
Twenty years after almost single- handedly reshaping modern Scottish cinema with That Sinking Feeling and five years after his last film, Being Human, Bill Forsyth delivers his sequel to the enormously popular Gregory’s Girl. John Gordon Sinclair reappears - in virtually every scene — as the endearineg awkward Gregory,
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THE COUNTRY CRUELLA
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FROM SEPT 3 GLASGOW Film Theatre 0141 332 6535 o OdeonGLASGOW 0870 5050 007 o EDINBURGH Filmhouse 0130 228 268
Charles 5. Button
****
"Altman's best since ‘Short Cuts'
is an ABSOLUTE DELIGHT"
MARIE (lAIRE
"A DELICIOUS COMEDY"
WOMAN’SJOURNM A Robert Altman Film
THE SUSPE
Patricia Neal
CT