Reviews
DRAMA L’ENFER (HELL) (15) 98min m
Infidelity? Check. Sophisticated. yet neurotic women? Check. EmbraCing every cliche of French Cinema. it may come as some surprise that L'Enfer (Hell) is directed by a Yugoslav. Danis Tanowc (No Man '5 Land). and based on a scenario by a Role. albeit one as avowedly Francophile as Krzysztof Three Colours Kieslowski.
lt spins a tale of three estranged sisters: Anne (Marie Gillain). the youngest. a student in an illiCit affair with her professor. and the eldest. Sophie (Emmanuelle Beart) who is convunced her husband is having an affair. Middle Sister Celine (Karin Viard) has no relationship, voluntarily isolated except as a carer for the girls' severely disabled mother. She thinks things have changed when a young man takes an interest in her. but does his sudden appearance suggest a burgeoning romance or is it linked to a shared trauma from the women's past?
Tanovic doesn't shy from grand set- pieces. but proves less comfortable with the Sinews that give them coherence. Iapsing too often into glossy magazine melodrama rather than the intense and literate tragedy first promised. an impression only compounded by the overblown orchestral swells that soon outstay their welcome.
Kieslowski's legacy is found in the differing palettes used for each sister (courtesy of Le Goat des Autres cinematographer Laurent Dailland) but the claustrophobia of the elegant apartments and arrondissements. coupled with the skewed camera smack of Hitchcockian homage and psychological anaemia.
Raising many questions. about legacy. about pain without martyrdom. and about the games that both children and adults play. the final product is more thesis than film; the devil may have all the best tunes. but someone else got the movies. (Dave Martin)
I Selected release from Fri 21 Feb. See feature. page 75.
CLASSIC REISSUE
ARMY IN THE SHADOWS (L’ARMEE DES OMBRES) (12A) 145min moo
Jean-Pierre Melville's hauntingly sombre 1969 French Resistance drama follows the activities of a group of mainly middle-aged resistants in Occupied France during a four month period between October 1942 and February 1943. Avoiding acts of
spectaCUlar her0ism. MeIViIle presents a tWilight world in which the clandestine freedom fighters seek to av0id capture and are forced to eliminate informants
from their own ranks. Save for the
powerful opening sequence of Wehrmacht soldiers marching through the Arc de Triomphe and down the
Champs Elysees. Germans are almost
entirely absent. As with Bresson's A
Man Escaped. the emphasis is less on
historical reality than conveying the spirit of the Resistance.
Melville masterfully handles the suspenseful set pieces. including the escape of Gerbier (the superb Lino Ventura) from the Gestapo headquarters at the Hotel Majestic. and the daring attempt dreamt up by Mathilde (Simone Signoret) to rescue a tortured prisoner by posing as a German ambulance crew. In many ways Army in the Shadows resembles one of the director‘s own gangster pictures (Le Cercle Rouge. Un Flic) - the chilly colours. the movingly restrained performances. the blurring of moral boundaries (nowhere more evident than when a teenage traitor is strangled to death with a towel). and the iconographic details of hats. guns and cars. Suffused in a mood of pessimism and futility. it illustrates Melville's own belief that “man is always defeated.‘ (Tom Dawson)
I Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 14— Thu 20 Apr.
DOCUMENTARY GLASTONBURY (15) 138min em
Released during the music festival's year off. Julien Temple's engrossing. kaleidoscopic documentary portrait of the event is the next best thing to actually being there. Unlike the annual/biennial television coverage. Temple's film is no concert movie (although it does feature plenty of performance footage. from David Bowie's delighted return to the main stage after 30 years to Billy Bragg berating politicians at the back of a dirty wee tent). Rather. it ‘5 about the event itself and the droves of peOple who attend it.
Using mainly punters' home movies.
Temple has recreated the experience of spending three days in those muddy fields in Somerset With a series of offbeat. occaSionally touching. often hilarious snapshots. the accumulated effect of which is remarkably evocative. What might othenNise have been a freewheeling mess is organised Within a framework that mirrors the three-day.
three-night festival (but cleverly cuts
back and fonh across its three-and-a- half decade history). This is all contextualised wrth historical footage
detailing the spiritual legacy of the land.
the growth from a modest gathering of 1500 music lovers in 1970 to the largest event of its kind in the world and the political and economic fortunes and misfortunes of Glastonbury. It's an honest. warts-and-all ponrait (even farmer and festival founder Michael Eavis isn‘t let off the hook) of a rightly legendary event. (Miles Fielder)
I Cineworid Renfrew Street, Glasgow from Fri 14 Apr.
DOCUMENTARY UNKNOWN WHITE MALE (12A) 91 min 0”
Before he made this contentious documentary. director Rupert Murray used to make vox pop videos for advertising agencies. the aim of these filmed surveys and interviews being that they would ultimately (after heavy editing) manipulate the truth enough to persuade clients to go with an idea. With this in mind it takes a whole desert of salt to swallow the premise of his debut feature.
In July 2003 ex-pat stockbroker turned photographer Doug Bruce woke to find himself on a subway train headed for Coney Island with no knowledge of who he was or where he was going. Having suffered what turned out to be an immensely rare case of retrospective amnesia. Bruce presented himself to the nearest police station. As relatives were traced and Bruce slowly returned to the life he no longer recognised. his old London- based friend Murray was there to record every agonising step.
Whether it's fake or real. Murray has fashioned an altogether compelling portrait of a nice middle-class man's second chance at life. Like Jonathan Caouette's far superior Tarnati’on. Murray's film uses a rough assemblage of old footage. new interviews. video diary and quirky (though mostly cheap) post-production digital effects to artfully structure an enquiry into identity. memory and loss. It is. however. impossible to feel anything for so privileged a protagonist. one who cannot lose. whichever side of the cognitive abyss he eventually falls. (Paul Dale)
I Gf-T, Glasgow, from Fri 21 Apr.
Film news to keep you amused
I To kick off a fantastic new Donald Cammell (pictured, right) season there will be a book launch for A Life on the Wild Side, a new biography of the great Scottish filmmaker on Monday 24 April at Filmhouse. Donald‘s brother David will be in attendance to introduce some of the movies. Visit filmhousecinema.com and fabpress.com
I Steven Spielberg has teamed up with the Fox network to launch a Pop Idol-style reality TV programme searching for filmmaking talent. The show will be called On the Lot and will be broadcast later this year or early next. It's currently only open to American contestants but there are murrnurings about a possible UK version. So get your film entries ready and Rough Cuts will keep you posted.
I East Lothian is leading the way for very young movie moguls. A group of pupils at Whitecraig Primary School have made a movie. Put together with the support of East Lothian Council Arts Service, Filmhouse, The List, independent filmmaker Brian English and coordinator Marjory Sweeney, it was shot over six weeks with the children doing everything. The short film is called POP! and will be premiered on Friday 28th April at Filmhouse at 10.30am.
WIN A KOREAN CULT GEM
South Korean writer/director Ha Yu invokes the spirit of Bruce Lee in this stylish. semi- autobiographical coming of age saga set in SeOul in 1978. Brimming with martial arts related extras. Once Upon a Time in High School will be released on DVD (£16.99) by Premier Asia on 17 April. but we have five c0pies to give away. To be in with a chance of winning one simply send an email marked “HIGH SCHOOL’ to promotions@list.co.uk by Wednesday 26 April. Please include your address and daytime phone number. Usual List rules apply.
13-27 Apr 2006 THE LIST 43