REVIEW FILM

CRUSH

llooted firmly in the offbeat tradition of Antipodean female directors such as Jane Camplon and Gillian Armstrong, Alison Maclean’s debut feature is as unlikely a tale as you could expect. Dark-haired Lane trashes the car in which she and i blonde literary critic Christine are ' travelling to meet author Colin; with Christine in a coma, the recklessly g sensual Lane ends up in the bed of the ; increasingly besotted writer by way of ; a brief and manipulative friendship with his fifteen-year-old daughter Angela. :

The opening hour of the film is slow, ; oblique and disjointed, as Maclean l carefully diverts sympathy away from j the headstrong Lane. The emotional turmoil entangling the four central players is as fetid as the suiphurous springs of lloterua, which forms a stunning backdrop to the unstudied posturings of a set of fumbling, i (Maclean’s own word), Crush is the awkward personalities. The action kind of movie whose atmosphere flips between the writer’s home, where . doesn’t depend on local colour, but a Angela and Lane are enveloped by 3 fusion of character, landscape and their increasing tension, and the local 5 style that makes it, eventually, hospital, where the teenager develops i absolutely compelling. (Andrew a proprietal relationship with the , Pulver) brain-damaged victim. i Crush (18) (Alison Maclean, iiew

At about the 60-minute mark, though, i Zealand, 1992) Marcia Gay Harden, all the manoeuverings click suddenly Caitlin Bossley, William Zappa. 97 into focus, and the film transforms mins. From Sun 21: Glasgow Film into a ferocious, stricken drama, as i Theatre.

Crush: ‘as unlikely a tale as you could expect’ Angela and Lane battle it out to the end. Despite its ‘regional’ credentials

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Sherlock Junior: “stone-faced impassiveness and hair-raising stunts’ I

Charlie Chaplin may have grabbed all r Hollywood egomaniacs of the time by g the publicity in recent months, 80 this : playing nearly every part - including a timely revival will remind audiences twelve-man minstrel chorus and a a BVelfllhele that the Silents lllllltllced . theatre audience. More sophisticated 3 more than one comic genius. In fact, yet is the Love Nest, a rib-tickling along ltltth Chaplin and Hamid llovd. fantasy short in which he is dumped Buster Keaton tanned an tlltelttlaf by his girl and takes a solo boat trip to : triumvirate that dominated the : console himself. Ho prizes for Hollywood bad factories. Sherlock E guessing the ending, but, as with any : Junior. M1924 Vintage. is a perfect well-timed pratfail, it matters little "ample lit the Stone-tacelt that it’s telegraphed years in advance. ; lmpassiveness and hair-raising stunts All the prints have been restored by a = that typified Keatllll’s Olltllllt- “Stet is 5 French team of cinephiles and given a down-on-his-luck movie 5 an effects soundtrack which is Ptolecthllllst. booted out fit his Hill’s .. apparently the realisation of a project house after being suspected of ; cherished by Keaton after he saw stealing her father’s watch. Exploiting é some Jacques Tati. wnile Chaplin . ln-camera trickery with dealing f revels shamelesst in schmaltz, i ingenuity, he’s projected into an on- Keaton’s fun is endlessly Slime" metllltlalha (move over. Purple 3 experimental, packed with effects and Rose of Cairo) where. in the guise of a =' a hoot to boot. (Andrew Pulver) celebrated detective, he outsmarts the monks Who flamed him and. Sherlock Junior (ll) (Buster Keaton, us, i naturally, gets the girl. | 1924) Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire. f Also up for delectation is a short, The 45 mins. From Fri 19: Edinburgh ' Play llouse, where Buster satirises the l Filmhouse. {

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