Film
:A'tT/AS ( :J‘HAU/A
THE PIANO TUNER 0" EARTHQUAKES
(12A) 99min 0..
l)erinsylvanrrrarl identical twins. ‘.urrr:;r|r¥.l‘.. puppeteers and stop frame .‘tlllllléttfll‘, Stephen and Timothy ()uay. AKA the (.luafi, firothers y‘all probably algvayt, be best known as the men .vho made Peter Gabriel's
S/l,vlgelrarrrrrrlv vrdeo. {,et their (,ornrnerrral work auras only ever a gateway to get their more avant garde prorerts off the ground. lherr‘ brilliant Itltlf) feature debut Inst/lute Herr/.'rrrrerrt.'r diyrded (:lneastes but no one doubted the brothers' Invention or‘ br/arre talent. Ien years on, they return nvrth this dark, £IIIII()§3()II(3II(j tale about an opera singer. an evrl doctor and a piano tuner who rs forced to r'arse rnusrt: tronr the dead. it's a vrsually ravishing. rnorose. mildly unsettling attarr but. unlike the works of Guy Maddrn tilie Sadr/est Music in the World. Archangel) or even Matthew ()rerrraster Barney. wrth which this shares some similarities. The Piano loner ol [-artliguakes feels
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THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
(15) 80min .00.
Director Noah Baumbach is better known for his work as
insubstantial arid underfunded .'.’Ill|47 rnducrng the kind of boredon‘r ft‘at car only be bred of erudrtron and pretension «Paul Date,
I FrilH/l()ti$t:. EU/llUt/lgl‘ twin Fr 7—iyfon 70 Apr only
REAL LIH; DRAMA SHOOTING DOGS (15) 115mm .00
Between April and June 109-1. the world stood by as one of the ‘.'.orst genocides ot the 20th century was visited upon minority Tutsrs b, Hutus in Rwanda. The ethnlt, tension between these clans can be traced back to Rwanda's Belgian colonists who. in 1916. decreed that Tutsrs were a higher race — much to the chagrin of the Hutus The genocide w; s sparked by the death of the Rwandan president .Juvenal Habyarrmana. a Hutu. whose plane w; s shot down above Kigali airport. lutsrs were wrongly blamed (an investigation later proved that incumbent president Paul Kagame r a Hutu » had most lrkely ordered the attack) and the upshot was the massacre of over 800.000 innocent souls.
The second filth by Scottish filmmaker Michael CatonJones to be released this fortnight (the other being Basic Instinct 2)) tells the mostly true story of what happened at the Ecole Technique Otfrcrelle (ETOl. a Kigali high
sct‘ool. which Father Chr:stopher Jolie Hurtu I)t?lllg.')l\ runs with the help 0‘ young teacher Joe Connor rHugh Dancyi \“v’hen thousands of lutsls and the UN take cover in its grounds, both men have to make life—changing decisions.
Urldoubtedh the best film (Eaton Jones has made since 1093‘s 7hrs
Boy's Lite. Shoot/lit Der s can certarnl .1 .l )r
be accused of dodgy liberal ascetrcs but David \‘Volstencrott tries to deal wrth this in hrs solid and thought- provoking script. But he rs also a writer versed in the dynarrrrcs of televrsron and hrs script follows some fairly well trodden and cliched character arcs. Shooting Dogs rs ultimately a film best viewed as a gateway rnto a troubling lesson from history. If you are interested your next step should be to seek out Peter Raymont's remarkable 2004 documentary Shake Hands wrth the Dew/. (Paul Date)
I Croewor/tl Rent/ow Street, Glasgow and Fl/rrrlrouse. Edinburgh from Fri 3 I. See profile. page 4:3.
Cates) finds relief by discovering new ways to jerk off. Baumbach, like his pal Anderson, concentrates on characters and moral conundrums over melodramatic
plot points. In doing so he brings a unique angle to
co-screenwriter on Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou than the three films (Kicking and Screaming, High Ball and Mr Jealousy) he directed in the mid-90$. After an eight-year hiatus his return to the directing chair sees Baumbach revisit painful childhood demons.
His parents, sometime film critic Giorgia Brown and novelist Jonathan Baumbach, had a messy divorce in the 19805. In The Squid and the Whale their doppelgangers are Jeff Daniels and the ever-impressive Laura Linney. Daniels plays Bernard, 3 once acclaimed novelist whose star has long since waned and who now works as a university professor. His career crisis is thrown into stark perspective when his wife starts to have success with a novel of her own. The resulting demise of their marriage has a profound affect on their two children. Sixteen-year- old Walt (Rodger Dodger’s Jessie Eisenberg) behaves erratically at school and his 12-year-old brother Frank (Own Kline - son of actors Kevin Kline and Pheobe
46 THE LIST 30 Mar—13 Apr 2006
depicting divorce on screen, one that spits in the eye of the conventional clashes seen traditionally in stories of this ilk, Kramer vs Kramer perhaps being the most famous example. In revelling in quirky habits and stubborn attitudes, the on-screen relationships are depicted with a realism that seldom appears in American cinema. Comedy is found in the most tragic of moments, particularly once Bernard starts shagging a college student (Anna Paquin) and his scrapping wife sets up with their son’s tennis coach (William Baldwin). The Fila headband-wearing tennis coach confirms what was already obvious, that Baumbach wants this to be his The Royal Tenenbaums. He falls just short of this lofty goal. Suffering from an over-adherence to (80$) period detail and an insufficient budget, The Squid and the Whale is nevertheless an acerbic and occasionally kookin brilliant work. (Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from Fri 7 Apr.
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