FILM LIST
abiding interest in the mediation of these emotions through modern video technology. and the result is a personal cinema that‘s both richly textured and curiously moving despite its surface austerity. Speaking Parts offers his most elaborate narrative to date. Lisa (Arsinee Khanjian) is a hotel maid besotted with Lance (Mark McManus). an androgynous gigolo provided for the entertainment of the hotel‘s female guests. but who‘s also an aspiring actor whom Lisa watches as an extra in a number of low-budget videos. Lance. however, is more attracted to Clara (Gabrielle Rose), a screenwiter who wants to cast him in her next film. an autobiographical piece about her brother‘s death. When she goes off on location, they can only keep in touch by video-link. and the aspirations of all three characters are to be affected by the machinations of the film‘s egotistical producer. ‘What I look for in films is a structure and a language that really underlines the inherent mystery of any contact between human beings. which celebrates the complexities and the unfathomable motivations behind our actions.‘ the unusually forthright and articulate Egoyan
explains. Although some viewers can find the uncompromising thematic saturation of his work more than usually testing, his justification is that ‘there has to be enough resonance for me not to get bored with the material for the two years I‘m committed to the project. It’s very important that the films be richly layered and have a multitude of different interpretations that are consistent with the structure of the piece.‘
Critics usually point to the importance of video technology in his films (and in Soderbergh’s movie) as evidence of its alienating influence on contemporary social relationships, but this it seems is hardly Egoyan’s intention. ‘All that stuff about video distancing us from each other is pretty much self-evident. What I’ve tried to do with each film is to find a further complexity in the potentiality of these tools. I only see video as a way of representing an alternate consciousness, a dream world, a world of images and memories. This is for me what the video texture represents.
‘The film is very much about the need we feel to make objects of our own private mythologies, to bring
these images that we contain within ourselves into a realm where they become objects and can be made explicit to other people. The impulse behind Speaking Parts was highly emotional and came out of my experiences while making Family Viewing, which was a film very much based on personal history. I was troubled because it brought up many issues in my own life that were so unresolved. I felt disturbed at having exploited that history and yet in the course ofthe film I seemed to set up this resolution that was both fantastical and highly liberating.‘ Considering his words a little, he
adds that ‘no one in Speaking Parts is as analytical as one can be while discussing it. Lisa, Lance and Clara all move by a certain drive until they get hurt, so the problem with talking about it later is that you schematise things and lose sight of the reason it is necessary for you emotionally. Of course, the film does invite and bear analysis but that wasn‘t my intention in making it. A curious thing really.‘
Speaking Parts (18) is at the Glasgow | Film Theatre from Mon 30 Oct until Sat4 Nov. See Film Listingsforfull details.
l 4?
SONIISI'I OIXJGNI
LZOMISZJIOXHM
assassination. See review. Edinburgh Filmhouse 28-29 Oct.
I CINEMA IN THE SOVIET BALTIC REPUBLICS Well researched and presented survey otliIm-making in this part of the USSR. Not surprisingly, the theme of national identity versus centralised control is a persistent one. See New Beginnings section. Glasgow Film Theatre from 28 Oct.
I OLD GRINGO (15)Jane Fonda in producer/star mode. caught up alongside Gregory Peck’s Ambrose Bierce and idealistic young captain Jimmy Smits in a Mexican revolution-set romantic drama. See teature. Glasgow Odeon and Edinburgh Dominion lrom 27 Oct.
I THE RAINBOW (15) Ken Russell's prequel to ‘Women in Love’ has Sammi Davis as a young schoolteacher on a Lawrentian journey towards sell-realisation. Amanda Donohoe is herbisexual mentor, Paul McGann her soldier suitor. See review. Glasgow Odeon lrom 3 Nov. I SHIRLEY VALENTINE (15) Pauline Collins as a middle-aged housewile rediscovering herself on a Greek beach in Lewis Gilbert's screen version 01 the acclaimed Willy Russell play. Tom Conti isthe shag-happy Mediterranean type. See feature. Cannons and UCI Clydebank from 27 Oct.
I SPEAKING PARTS (18) Canadian whizzkid Atom Egoyan‘s cerebral variation on the sex. lies and videotape routine is a story 01 personal manipulation within the film business. See feature. Glasgow Film
Theatre 30 Oct—4 Nov.
I TWO MOON JUNCTION
(18) New lilm lrom Zalman
King. creator at ‘91/5
Weeks'.
goes that little bit Iurther
'with this glossy bonklest set
inthe Deep. Deep South. Sad really. Cannonslrom3 Nov.
The List 27 October — 9 November l98915