Reviews
DRAMA EVIL (15) 114min 000
This Oscar-nominated Swedish film. based on the nation's most Widely read novel. deals with corruption and violence in a private school outside Stockholm around the late 1950s. Sent to Stjarnsberg boarding school for boys for his constant schoolyard brawling, leather jacket-clad juvenile delinquent Erik (Andreas Wilson) is victimised by the older boys while the teachers turn a blind eye. Not wanting to disappoint his beloved mother with yet another expulsion. Erik (who's also a victim of an abusive step-father) refuses to resort to violence. and instead undertakes a campaign of civil disobedience.
Director and co-writer Mikael Héfstrbm's adaptation of Jan Guillou's novel focuses on the theme of abuse begetting abuse and the breaking of cycles of violence. As with the book. the film also refers. indirectly. to corruption in the wartime Swedish government. which maintained an uneasy alliance With the Nazis.
It's a handsomely mounted film that's very cinematic With its visual styling based on American youth dramas of the 19508. Rebel Without a Cause. The Wild One. etc. And in its lead. model and actor Wilson. Ew/ has a charismatic and strappingly handsome protagonist. But while the film boasts a liberal. pacifist message. it also revels in the Violence and abuse it professes to criticise. Thus. there are numerous. extended fight scenes. all very brutal and very bloody. Moreover, the film works towards a climax which pits Erik against the head boys dishing out the abuse. setting the audience up for the voyeuristic pleasure of watching the villains get their bloody deserves and making good on that somewhat hypocritical promise. (Miles Fielder) I UGC, Edinburgh from Fri 24 Jun and UGC. Fienfrew St, Glasgow from Fri 8 Jul. See interview, page 48.
DOCUMENTARY
ANDREW AND JEREMY GET MARRIED
(15) 75min .0.
There’s nowt as queer as folk and that‘s certainly true of Jeremy and Andrew. the two middle-aged gay protagonists in Don Boyd's candid documentary. Opposites attract and yOu couldn't find two more different gay men than Andrew and Jeremy in
terms of class. background and interests.
Jeremy is a 70-year-old luvvie writer, who glories in Shakespeare and show tunes. Andrew is 20 years his junior and has been a gay- basher. a bus driver and a heroin user. That the two men love each other abundantly is made clear by the film as it follows them in the year leading up (‘0 their wedding. From gay pride parades in Brighton to Palm Springs. to very different houses in privileged Chelsea to a south London council estate. the happy couple bicker. hold hands. choose the arrangements and generally indulge in all the rituals any married couple to be would.
Boyd (My Kingdom. Twenty-- One) is an unobtrusive filmmaker and. along the way. many interesting questions arOiind fidelity in long term relationships. cottaging. aversion therapy and gay meiis' relationships to their families are explored. The Only pity is that the film WOuld work as well on the small screen as at the movies. (John Binnie)
I Filmhouse, Edinburgh on Sat 25
and Mon 27 Jun. GET. Glasgow from Tue 28— Thu 30 Jun (showrng as part of the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival).
WAR DRAMA BROTHERHOOD UAEGUKGI)
(15) 148min 0000
In the West the Korean War has always been about the misdemeanours of M'A'S'H's Hawkeye and co. Tales about the Korean war were quickly rendered unfashionable when American involvement in South East Asia became all about Vietnam. ln most of the films about either war. tales concerning the indigenous population were nearly always ignored.
It has taken a war film made in Korea to buck this trend. Kang Je—gyu's Brotherhood was inspired by a documentary that the director saw in 2000 in which an old crippled woman who has been waiting for news about her missing husband for 50 years is carried to an excavation site where his remains have been located. Upon arrival she cries endlessly at finally getting closure. Likewise Brotherhood starts with Jin-Suk (Won Bin) travelling to a graveside where his brother Jin- tae's (Jang Doriggun) remains have reportedly been found. The film Jumps back 50 years and we learn how the brothers' liv )s were wrecked by the civil war. It's an epic tale of Jealousy. misplaced love and fraternal infighting that often feels closer in tone to Once Upon a Time in America than Platoon.
Film
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'- "‘- j ~ “1.9.5” ~ .. Tr't'... ’
WHY I LOVE JESS FRANCO PABLO BERGER (pictured), the writer/director of hit Spanish sex
comedy Torremolinos 73, explains why the film is in fact a homage to his favourite Spanish auteur.
‘There is some truth in Torremolinos 73. I mean, everyone in Spain has
heard of the mythic story about the famous actor who made a porn film
with his wife, which became a huge hit in Scandinavia. And as we
filmed, some people thought it existed, some thought it didn’t exist. For
me the film talks about men who are very passionate about filmmaking and directors who make very personal films. For me, the true inspiration is a real filmmaker. It was always Jess Franco. Franco was and is a very prolific Spanish filmmaker and he was all I could think about of when I was writing Torremolinos 73. Franco is the opposite of Alfredo [the character played by Javier camara in the film] because Alfredo only made one film, whereas Jess Franco made over 200. The funny thing about Franco is that he would make double versions of his films for different markets. My favourite of his films is called Vampyros Lesbos because the version shown in Spain was very different from the version shown outside and he was working with his muse Soledad Miranda. Yes, I was definitely thinking of him when I made this film. The funny thing about Jess Franco is that he’s made loads of movies under lots of different names, and particularly in the 19705 and 80s he would move from country to country shooting quickly in order to get his films made cheaply. Sometimes I feel like this is how I would like to work. Ironically, now he lives in Torremolinos. He’s not retired - he’s still active. He’s close to 80, lives with his wife, and he makes films with his wife. I think that Torremolinos 73 is my kind of homage to Franco. I met him once and interviewed him. He communicated his passion of
cinema. He said that “cinema is life” and that he just has to do it. I hope
one afternoon in Torremolinos he will buy some popcorn and go and watch my film.’ (Interview by Paul Dale)
I Torremolinos 73 is showing at Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 24 Jun. See review, page 4 7.
DDOCUMENTARY GUERILLA: THE TAKING a; OF PATTY HEARST
‘ ; (12A) 90min oooo
Robert Stone (American Baby/on) t presents the argument. very
proclaimed urban guerrilla Patty
actually a bunch of rich kid posers. riding high on public infamy. Former SLA member Russ Little recalls that. while watching in disbelief the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst's granddaughter unfold from his prison cell. he wondered whether everyone was stoned. Stone is blessed with a wealth of original archive footage. which >
Matching the riveting story blow by blow is Hong Gyung-pyo's cinematography that is as stomach churningly relevant as Janusz Kaminski's in the opening sequence of Saw/lg Private Ryan. Highly recommended. (Kaleem Aftab)
I UGC Renfrew St, Glasgow and UGC. Edinburgh from Fri 7 Jul.
23 Jun-- 7 Jul 2001') THE LIST 45
ln this radical revision of American pop culture history. British documentarian convincingly, that heiress-turned-self-
Hearst and her Symbionese Liberation Army kidnappers-cum-comrades were