Sueh predictably soft targets as the cliches 0t populist romantic dramas and the inC'JCUS nature of the fashic" world. Dialogue spells out the screenplays 'lessons'. riarnely the need in iriatters of the heart to accept other peoples imperfections. while the fixation on beautiful people means that the story itself resembles a superficial roriiantir; fantasy. Shooting on digital video. Klapisch allows Seu/ corirre tOi/s cineiiiatographer Dominique Collin to play around with film speeds while he fiddles with chronological structure and throws in bursts of magic realism, all to little or co; effect. (Tom Dawson.
I GFT. Glasgow from Fri :3 May Fi/rnliouse. Edinburgh from Fri 79 Map. See profile in listings.
DRAMA DON’T COME KNOCKING (15) 110min COO
Wim Wenders and Sam Shepherd reunite two decades after they locked horns on the resonant Paris. Texas. This time out Shepherd - in addition to writing the screenplay - stars as washed-up actor Howard Spence. Famous for being a lonesome cowboy. on and off-screen, Spence absconds from the shoot of yet another lacklustre Western in search of something more meaningful. It’s a jOurney that takes him - via a visit to Mama (Eva Marie Saint) - to the small town of Butte where. in his gun-totting days, he had a fling with a barmaid (Jessica Lange) and sired a young brat Earl (Gabriel Mann). In hot pursuit is a bondsman (Tim Roth) from the film company and a mysterious young girl (Sarah Polley).
Those familiar with the work of these collaborators will be unsurprised by the film's themes of family dysfunction and absence. Wender's America is. as always. drawn with the grime found under fingernails. The backdrops are towns well past their prime. When Earl throws his medley of furniture out the window. it sits on the street for days: no one cares or calls the police. Only the casinos and dens glisten.
These moments are picturesque but. like the characters that inhabit the frame. lack cohesion. The protagonists look like they‘ve taken the wrong turn in a movie lot. finding themselves on Wender‘s set instead of a David Lynch film. They're an intriguing bunch. but their postulating and wandering end up on the inane road to nowhere. (Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from Fri 28 Apr.
DRAMA LOVE 4- HATE (15) 86min 0
Another Asian and British cross- cultural romance in the tradition of East is East. Ae Fond Kiss and Bend lt
Like Becklirin‘. This time the Asa" is 17-;,'r;ar-olrl Naseerna Sat“. "a Await and her love interest s Adair: Tsiv‘ Hudson. .vhose famil, are BNP
throug i and through. \‘v’riter d"et';tor Dominic Out of Control Saxage tries tr: llllX things up b, “VOL‘JNTQ in an Asian brother iWas Zakiri who iiistreats his secret white girlfriend Michelle iNichola Burleyi. But it's Savage who ends up being the bigot and an unasbarned misogynist. Both girlfriends are puppets who Jump when their boyfriends tell them to do so. There is the ludicrot s suggestion that Asians take advantage of being the new post 9 1 l pariahs: two boys claim llOlOTlOt“, Will make it easier to pick up white girls. The race message - that Asians who abandon their family traditions should be feted while those who aren’t convinced by the melting point shOuId be beaten up - would make Norman Tebbit proud. Gallingly. Savage probably believes he's promoting multicultiiralism. Alas. his sermonising is well past its sell-by date.
(Kaleem Aftabi
I Selected release from Fri :3 Mai:
DOCUMENTARY
METAL: A HEADBANGER’S JOURNEY
(15) 96 min .000
What Cinematic representations of heavy metal culture can you bring to mind? The bohemian rhapsodies of Wayne's World? The grimy Comic Strip's Bad News? The deadpan histrionics of This is Spinal Tap? Not exactly posmve are they? Even the best of late: Jack Black hamming Led Zep up for the kids in School of Rock cast him as a dweeb who can't do his job properly. This was among the reasons why Torontonians Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen set about making this intelligent. inSightful and. most of all. purposeful documentary about the true roots and evolution of heaw metal music and Culture.
Dunn. a 30 year-old anthropologist and lifelong metal fan explores the origins of the music. the reasons for its development as a genuinely international alternative Culture while celebrating its early pioneers and Current practitioners. This in itself could have been rather dry and. to be fair, of limited interest. so in the Spirit of Morgan Spurlock, the arc of the film follows Dunn on his own adventure of personal discovery around the world
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l“)<llf‘t’ii trues». and ’1' t‘tlt‘. ‘i‘lmr'sl‘i‘t‘lss The filmr'iake's also 'itaiiagie to .lrais. 5:. enligt‘fer‘iinL; rtiir‘rliis: :ns about till t itl stit:i::tilt‘..res. the effects ‘l .'.t‘ii i" extei‘d far Le. .nrl the ""“§"er
‘Mark Rribertsoni
I Selected 'ei’ease f'o't‘ F" .1“? All’
See rr‘te". leu. {woe-14
l.lUSlC"«L OPE Pr‘x'liw‘flfit l‘i’ U CARMEN EKHAYELITSHA (12A) 120mm oooo
Opera on film. iust look at those three w0rds. they might as well say 'oysters on tripe' or ‘caViar on cacas'. It's not that Cinema is in any way a lesser artistic form than opera - it's Just that some things. like some people. are best sticking to their own. Opera on film has been the undoing of many filmmakers from Bergman. Losey. ROSi. Zeftirelli to even the great Luigi Comencini, so the prospect of another modern adaptation of Bi7et's Carmen is about as welcome as glandular fever
it comes as some Surprise then that Mark Dornford May's community theatre-ish film DTOJBCI developed and set in a South African township 20 miles Outside Cape Town is something of a delight.
Featuring a whole plethora of well fleshed ladies and gentlemen banging Out Bizet's opera in the Xhosa dialect lthe tongue click at the end of each word is compulsOryi in the shebeens and dusty roads of Ekhayelitsha. U Carmen is imbued with a kinetic energy it's hard not to be impressed by. The unuSLial casting, the thoughtfully controlled direction iaugmented through some expert handheld cameraworki and intelligent backstOrying transcend all ones worst fears. And although May's film should be open to accusations of gimmickry derived of middle class 9th it still deserves to stand next to Penny Woolcock's remarkable MacBeth on the Estate as a ,lUSilllCaIlOT‘l of why it's sometimes OK to take it to the streets. lPaul Dale)
I Filmhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 5 May. See interview. page 43.
Film
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Freedomland its) t 13min
0. Joe Roth, the man behind the exeCrable Christmas With the Kranks and American Sweethearts chances his arm mth this Richard Price iC/OCkers. Ransomi SCreenplay. based unSurpriSingly on one of Price's Own novels. When single mum Brenda's iJulianne Moore) son disappears and is believed to be dead. an African-American man from the proiects is blamed. Step fOrward detective Lerenzo Council (Samuel L Jackson) and a missing child research unit to try and prevent a raCial controversy. Overerught. sloppily plotted but interestingly strident and air. kward race relations drama. General release from Fri 28 Apr.
Slither (15) 95min 0.. Ex Troma employee James Gunn delivers up a remarkably assured blend of 508 B Move and zombie horrOr flick in this entertaining tale of what happens when a meteorite hits a small town and paraSitic worms are unleashed. General release from Fri 28 Apr.
In the Mix (12A) 95min
O R88 star Usher makes his debut in this anaemic mix of mob movie and romantic comedy. When a Mafia don (Chazz Palminteri) recruits Darrell iUsheri to play bodyguard for his daughter. Dolly (Emmanuelle ChiriQi), things get Out of hand. Directed by the ever unreliable Ron The Adventures of Pluto Nash Underwood. this was clearly such a shite prospect that even the usually open minded Will Smith passed on it. General release from Fri 5 May.
The Moguls (15) 96min
0.. A bunch of middle age men from a small US town band together to make an adult movie and misadventure and hilarity ensue. Funny and Oddly whimSicaI comedy from upcoming screenwriter turned director Michael Traeger. The Moguls is greatly enhanced by an excellent male cast that includes Jeff Bridges. Joe Pantoliano. William Fichtner and Ted Danson. For innocent minded porno fans everywhere. General release Mission Impossible III (12A) 125min 00 Third time out for secret agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and this franchise is really beginning to lose its lustre. The cod-political/oblique storyline deals with a nasty arms dealer (played rather improbably and hamin by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his attempts to take over the world. Directed JJ Abrams. the man behind TV shows Lost and Alias. M/3 has has a troubled passage to the screen and it shows. Not least in the aneamic script from the same team who gave us the diabolical Legend of Zorro. General release from Fri 28 Apr. See Big Picture, page 17.
27 Apr-t ‘ Ma, 29% THE LIST 45