Bergman. Gregory Peck. Leo G. Carroll. 11] mins. Psychiatrist
1 Bergman delves into the tormented
' psyche ofamnesiac Peck. a suspected killer whose innocence she
also doubts. ‘ ' Innovative Salvador Dali dream
sequences. resplendent Miklos
Rosza music and Hitchcock‘s master
touch prevent a ropey plot from
running offthe rails. Edinburgh;
EUFS
0 Sugarbaby(15) a? (Percy Adlon.
W. Germany. 1985) Marianne Sagebrecht. Eisi Gulp. Toni Berger. 86 mins. See Caption Review. Edinburgh: Filmhouse o Sunless ( 15) (Chris Marker. France. 1983) 100 mins. A visually exhilarating collage of material shot by different cameramen all over the world. from fascinating footage of Japan to shots filmed on the locations of Vertigo in San Francisco. is pieced together by Marker into an extraordinary meditation on personal memory. Edinburgh: EUFS 0 Sweet Liberty (PG) (Alan Alda. US. 1985) Alan Alda. Michael (‘ainc. Bob Hoskins. 107 mins. Small town history professor Alda juggles domestic disharmony and professional problems during a summer visit from a Hollywood film unit intent on turning his serious tome on the American Revolution into a work of ‘popular appeal‘. Nothing revolutionary here. just an acceptably pleasant comedy-drama that affectionately lampoons the movie business and updates Alda‘s running commentary on the self-deceptive foibles of human relationships. Edinburgh: Dominion 0 Three Women ( 15) (Robert Altman. US. 11(1mins.1n a hot springs community two female nursing assistants at a clinic move in together. A pregnant artist silently paints fescoes in their apartment house. Eventually the three become entwined in a bizarre relationship. 'l‘riumphantly peculiar Altman work concerned with role-playing and personal psychology (perhaps). Glasgow; GET 0 The Three Worlds of Gulliver (U) (Jack Sher. UK. 1960) Kerwin Mathews. Jo Morrow. June 'I'horburn. 99 mins. Washed overboard during a storm Dr Lemuel Gulliver drifts towards the land of Lilliput whose inhabitants are only six inches high.
Magical children‘s adverture-fantasy. a condensed and softened version of Swift but still good fun thanks to Ray llarryhausen‘s Dynamation effects. Edinburgh; Filmhouse o The Times of Harvey Milk (15) (Robert Epstein. 1984) 87 mins. Oscar-winning documentary on San Francisco‘s first openly gay elected official. his assassination by a rival politico and the shameful scam that followed. TV footage. eye-witness testimony and interviews combine in a fascinating and compelling eye-opener. Strathclyde; Haldane Film Society 0 Top Gun ( 15) (Tony Scott. US.
1986) Tom Cruise. Kelly McGillis. Val Kilmer. 110 mins. Cruise is
'1,
14 The List 17 — 30 October
Mitchell. an independent-minded
cuss with a murky family background but a wiz in the air. McGillis is a leading aeronautics expert who never does that sort of thing with students but is willing to make an exception for hunky Tom.
The patriotic scntimentsof the film may provoke nausea. the corn is knee-high on the ground but. in the skies. Top Gun really takes offwith some spectacular dogfight sequences. Glossy in the Miami Vice tradition. the film is mindless. mainstream entertainment at its most seductive with camera and audience left drooling over bodies both mechanical and human. Glasgow; ABC Sauchiehall Street. Edinburgh; ABC. Lothian: ABC. Strathclyde; ABC Greenock. ABC Kilmarnock 0 Under the Bridges (PG) (Helmut Kautner. Germany. 194-1) llltimins. German Cinema: Seven Decades. Seven Films — the Forties. Two river bargemen manage to fall in love with the same girl in this atmospheric drama 0 Vertigo (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock. US. 1958) James Stewart. Kim Novak. 126 mins. Agrophobic detective Stewart retires from the force and is engaged privately to follow a woman with whom he falls hopelessly in love. An audacious mystery and a classic study of male perversity. Vertigo proved an impeccable swansong for the Stewart-I’litchcock team.
__,FILM LIST
hotshotNavy Pilot Pete‘Maverick‘ l Edinburgh;p‘i|mhousc
l 0 West Side Story (PG) (Robert
Wise. Jerome Robbins. US. 1961)
Natalie Wood. Richard Beymer. Rita Moreno. 152 mins. Disregarding the inadequate central performances and the inordinate running time this is a vibrant screen adaptation of the Broadway hit. setting the Romeo and Juliet story amidst rival gangs in New York. The musical score includes Maria. America and Something‘s Coming and the film received ten ()scars. Edinburgh; EU FS 0 When the Wind Blows Raymond Briggs‘ devastatingly dark comic-strip about 21 cosin familiar old couple dutifully preparing fora nuclear attack is now a full—length animated feature scheduled fora wide release next year. Directed by Japanese-Irish filmmaker Jimmy Murakami. the film utilises the vocal talents ofSir John Mills and Dame Peggy Ashcroft and features music by David Bowie. Roger Waters and Paul 1-lardcast1e.
This special preview will be introduced by the film‘s producer John Coates who will also present highlights of previous work from the 'l'VC studios including Yellow Submarine and The Snowman. The screening will be followed by a Guardian Lecture with Coates and Raymond Briggs. Glasgow; (iFl‘. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Witness ( 15) (Peter Weir. US. 1985) Harrison Ford. Kelly
McGillis. 112 mins. A young Amish boy is witness to murder. The investigation leads a cop into a brush with another culture. a touch of romance and the expected police corruption. Atmospheric. impeccably acted and beautifully orchestrated. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Yellow Earth ( PG) (Chen Kaige. China. 1984) Xue Bai. Wang Xequi. 89 mins. Kaige's extraordinary film debut feature centres on the clash between the traditional values and rituals of a remote mountain tribe and the new-fangled ideologies ofa Communist soldier sent in 1939 to study peasant culture.
What marks the film apart from other Chinese works on the same themes is the aesthetic daring with which it takes the profoundly curious and hauntingly beautiful images of the Shaanxi and their art and transforms them into a cinematic experience ofextravagant colour and movement which has few peers in comtemporary film-making. Highly recommended. Edinburgh: Filmhouse
0 Yesterday Girl ( 15) (Alexander Kluge. Germany. 1966) 88 mins. ()ne of the key films by the forgotten hero of the New German Cinema. Alexander Kluge. this incisively funny study ofan East German refugee at large in the West concentrates on the German facility for creating an ‘official' history far removed from actual experience. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
Captive (18) (Paul Mayersberg, UK, 1986) lrina Brook, Oliver Reed, Xavier Deluc. 98 mins. Poor little rich girl Rowena (Irina Brook) whiles away her days, a virtual recluse in the gothic
, home of her devoted father, business
tycoon Gregory Le Vay (Oliver Reed). Lured into the grounds one evening she is abducted by a trio of terrorists and held captive. Subject to sensory deprivation, torture and various humiliations, she discovers that their aim is not to extract a large ransom for her return but to induce a frame of mind that will question the meaning of her singularly pointless existence. The young trio who share her similarly privileged background are seeking a kindred spirit to join their ranks, not anothervictim.
Undertheirtutelage, Rowena unravels her life; the smothering adoration of her father and her docile acceptance of the way things are. Liberated from her self-imposed restraints she is allowed her freedom but chooses to remain with her new friends. Relentlessly pursued by her
father and the authorities she remains '
steadfast in her newlound strength despite the threat of incarceration or death.
The directorial debut of noted scenarist Paul Mayersberg, Captive is an initially beguiling mixture ofJean Cocteau-like fairytale opera and Patty Hearst-inspired contemporary drama. Rowena is clearly the heroine of the film’s original title, locked away in a
"E
Disney-like castle, who progresses from dependence to independence in the course of her experiences. The film is basically about self-discovery, self-assertion, the recognition of one's value as an individual and the need to break free of parental dominance. A substantial theme but one that is systematically obscured by the director’s treatment. His characters never once engage the sympathies; the young terrorists and Rowena appear merely spoilt brats with too much time and wealth on their hands to have to engage in the more mundane demands of life. The tortures employed on Rowena are unpalatany and dubiously staged, reeking of gratuitous excess and misogyny, whilst the coating of designer gloss over the proceedings seems singularly counter-productive. DesignerVoytek and photographer Mike Southon have created a
seductively symmetrical world of coffee table imagery where everything has an air of pretty unreality and prelension. The result is a disembodied, vacuum-packed film whose essence is merely skin deep. Provocative, teasing and elliptical, Captive certainly provides food for debate and will engender extreme and hostile reactions. It‘s just a shame that the film is ultimately so unsubstantial,
a case of less than meets the eye with a
bad aftertaste.
And yet, perversely, it is the sort of film, with a tangible sense of imaginative attack, whose absence in the canon of British cinema we critics often mourn. Looking at the reviews of ‘Captive’ and of Michael Powell’s ‘Peeping Tom‘, one is struck bythe similarities. The revulsion of today i may yetturn into the adulation of i twenty years’ time. (Allan Hunter) 1
I