REVIEW FILM
E- AUTOBUS
Bored with his surroundings and the friends who tease him about his affections forJuliette (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Bruno (Yvan Attal) decides to take his destiny in his own hands and prove that ‘she‘s worth doing something crazy for‘. Revolver in hand. he hijacks the local school bus and orders the driver to follow the route. miles out of his way. that'll reunite him with his beloved. Understandably. the teacher on board (Kristen Scott Thomas) is concerned for the safety of her primary age charges. for as the police start tailing the vehicle and the media get wind ofthe incident. pressure is clearly mounting on the volatile Bruno. Yet the longer the journey goes on. the more she comes to understand that he‘s less a dangerous psychotic than an ordinary bloke who. for once in his life. wants the rest ofhumanity to register that he exists.
On one level. Rochant's film is an accessible and exciting heist picture in a fairly l-Iollywood manner. pumping up the tension with considerable aplomb and bringing offthe difficult trick ofgenerating audience sympa‘thy for its gun-toting protagonist. As the net inexorably draws in around him. both the teacher and the driver begin to feel not a little admiration for Bruno’s grand anti-heroic gesture and perhaps too a touch ofsadness that
Autobus: ‘an accessible and exciting heist picture’
their own everyday lives may never burn with such passion. Rochant is clearly going from strength to strength. but what‘s more memorable here is Yvan Attal‘s incandescent performance as the not-quite-in-control hijacker who gets more than he bargained for with
a busful ofscreaming French schoolkids. (Trevorlohnston)
A utobus (15) (Eric Rochant, France 1991) Yvan Attal, Kristen
Scott- Thomas, More Berman, Charlotte Gainsbourg. 95 mins.
From Sun 28: Edinburgh Filmhouse.
a ' reen lege
PLAYBOY
“The New York movie
to end New York movies... a stylish exercise in cool”
J. Hoberman PREMIERE
VEGA FILM/RUTH WALDBURGER presents
ml in the making”
ERIC ROCHANT Writer-director, born 1961 in Paris. Attended IDHEC tilm school between 1981—83, winning a Cesar (the French BAFTA equivalent) in 1987 Ior his third short, Presence Feminine. His debut teature A World Without Pity won a turther Cesar tor Best First Film in 1989 and the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc the same year.
‘In A World Without Pity I simply described the milieu and the friendsI saw around me every day. Whenever young people appeared in the movies I watched, they always got it wrong. I wanted to get it right, to put on screen something that would speak to and for my particular generation. This new film is part of the same desire, although it‘s really by chance that I came across the subject matter..l knew I wanted to work with Yvan Attal again, and for whatever reason I remembered this newspaper story I‘d read several years ago about a guy who actually did hijack a bus to impress his girlfriend.
‘Naturally, the leading character in Autobus is a logical outgrowth ofthe actual facts. but I don‘t consider it to be a film just about young people. It transcends that idea of ‘the youth problem‘ because a lot ofolder folk who're probably a little more ideologically aware still feel as detached from society as Bruno. In France today, there’s no real sense of a political discourse going on. The wheels of powerjust keep on turning, but the politicians have left people on their own.
WINNER” t
d\ BEST FILEIar Locarno 1991 '
ll"an SW
A S M O O T H COMEDY...
A film by TOM DiClLLO
Starring BRAD PITT ATHERINE KEENER CALVIN LEVELS ALISON MOIR NICK CAVE and TINA LOUISE
AZAR PICTURES/ARENA FILMS SA/STARR PICTURES Executive Producers RUTH WALDBURGER and STEVEN STARR ced by YORAM MANDEL and RUTH WALDBURGER Written and Directed by TOM DiClLLO An Artificial Eye Release
The List19June-21uly 199217