INDEX FILM
STANNO TUTTI BENE
(EVERYBODY’S FINE)
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Stanno Tutti Bene (Everybody’s Fine) (12) (Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy, 1990) Marcello Mastroianni, Michele Morgan, Marino Cenna. 126 mins. ‘There won’t be a dry eye left in the house,‘ is the kind of statement that can be interpreted as the warmest of praise orthe direst of warnings, but in the case of writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore it is the most apt in describing the tenor of his unashamedly emotional assaults on an i audience's sensibilities.
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, his valentine to the halcyon days of Italian cinema, won an Oscar as Best Foreign Film and entranced international audiences with its rose-hued nostalgia for the communal joys of the cinema-going experience. There’s a similar bittersweet tone and heavy reliance on sentimentality in Everybody's Fine.
Marcello Mastroianni stars as retired : civil servant Matteo who decides to venture forth from the beauty and seclusion of his picturesque Sicilian village and pay a series of suprise visits on his live tar-flung children (all
named after operatic characters).
His quest covers vast tracts of the country as he journeys to Naples, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Turin and Milan. lnevitably, the reality of his children’s lives tails to measure up to the deceptions and half-truths with which they have kept the old man at arm‘s length. Traversing a country that is untamiliarto him and encountering a series of truths that disabuse him of his cosy lantasies imbues the film’s title with a growing sense of irony.
An unabashed weepie, the film nevertheless boasts a structural elegance, consistent beauty and epic sweep that are hard to resist. Retaining the innocence of youth in the frame of a doddery, garrulous old man complete with snow-white hair and bottle-top glasses, Mastroianni contributes another in a long line of cherishable Indian-summer performances and lends the film a central majesty and
sincerity that might breathe some life back into even the hardest cynic’s tearducts. (Allan Hunter) Glasgow Film Theatre Sunday
1—Tuesday 10 September.
1990) Mel Gibson. Alan Bates. (ilenn Close. Paul Scoficld. Helena Bonham-(‘arten lan llolm. 135 mins. A young man returns home from university to find his father dead and his mother marrying his uncle. Then Hamlet senior‘s ghost shows up. whispering to him of murder most foul. and it's all downhill after that. More than twenty years after Zeffirelli's Romeo .4 ndJulier comes this colourful and lively production of Shakespeare‘s greatest play. with a very strong. mostly British cast and the best performance in years from (iibson in the title role. Edinburgh: Dominion.
I Hangin‘ With The Homeboys ( 18) (Joseph B. Vasquez. US. 1991 ) Doug E. Doug. Mario Joyner. John Leguizamo. Nestor Serrano. 88 mins. Four friends— an angry young black man. a struggling actor. a womaniser and a naive supermarket clerk — go off in search of a good time ona Friday night. It's supposed to be a break from their daily drudgery. but it only brings more trouble. A hit at the 1991 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Glasgow: OFT.
I Hello Hemingway (15) (Fernando Perez, Cuba, 1990) Laura de la Uz, Raul Paz. Marta del Bio. 90 mins. Hemingway's neighbourin Havana in 1956 is Larita. a young, poorgirl
trying to finish high school in order to getto 3 university. While reading l‘lie Old Man And The Sea she draws a parallel between the old fisherman's story and her own life. Glasgow: (if’l‘. IHenryVU’G)(KennethBranagh.LIK. l 1989) Kenneth Branagh. DerekJacobi. ' Paul Scofield. Judi Dench. 137 mins.
There are inevitable associations with ()livier in K.B.'s choice offirst feature.
but he emerges with some credit as both director and performer. This is a much muddier version than its predecessor.
both in the scrappy turmoil of the battle scenes and in the tempering ofzcsty
jingoism with an appreciation ofthe
human cost ofconflict. Portraying the
young king as a careworn. rather sullen warrior. the film seems to offer a more complex reading of the text. even if Branagh's budgetary resources stint somewhat on the grandeur of()livier's charging horses. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Henry: Portrait 01A Serial Killer(18)
(John McNaughton. US. 1986) Michael Rooker. Tom Towles. Tracey Arnold. 80 mins. Based loosely on the true life (and subsequently recanted) confessions of Henry Lee Lucas. McNaughton’s
exemplary film is a harrowing account of
an amoral mass murderer. Scenes of rape
OLD
FRIEND
INVITES YOU
DINNER.
It‘s not often you get to eat out at a landmark. Stonehenge may have many attractions. hut a Seafood I.a.-agne isn't one of them. Nor is St. Paul‘s famed for its Spring (Ihieken Dijon. Yet you can get both dishes at Bridges. the brasserie at another national treasure. The Balmoral Hotel on I'rinees Street. ()ur
menu is amazingly eosmopolitan. ((Iuhan eofTee anyone?) So
do something eornpletely different tonight. ()o A ( somewhere you know like the haek of your hand. w
THE BALMORAL, PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH. FOR RESERVATIONS TELEPHONE: 051 556 2414.
l
The List .‘sll August 7— 12 September 199125