BACARDI BLACK REVIEW FILM
CALENDAR
Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s latest work was one of the most accomplished achievements of 1993. A photographer is sent on an assignment to Armenia to take twelve images of historic churches for a calendar. He and his wife are both second generation Armenians who live in Canada. She can speak the language, he can’t and so, as they travel with a guide, she translates.
The film is a tale of betrayal, breakdown of communication, confusion of identity and regret. From behind his camera lens, the main character witnesses his wife and the interpreter fall in love in twelve consecutive static settings — while he waits for the correct light, they
0" DEADLY GROUND
Action hero Steven Seagal: he’s lean, he’s mean, he’s. . . ecologically sound. Yes, after five films in which the thinking man’s Chuck llorris lust kicked the shit out of low-life criminal scumbags, here’s one in which he kicks the shit out of rich capitalist scumbags who are destroying the delicate balance oi the eco-system. Of course, he uses the same brand oi vicious martial artistry, iirepower, booby traps and explosions as before, but this time there’s a message.
Ii snake-eyed, snakeskin-booted oil magnate Michael Jennings (Michael Caine) fails to get his giant Aegis One drilling platform and refinery on-llne within thirteen days, the oil rights revert to the eco-iriendly ‘Eskimos’
(sic). llowever, following an oil spill 0" "‘3‘" mm": 1"" "m" "my? a “ma”. wander off into the idyllic distance of and the death oi a veteran rig : characterisation and speechrtvino his perfectly positioned frame. This is foreman, lied Adair-style "the. l" Slim"! contrast to his Shefl' intercut with footage of
troubleshooter Forest Tait (Seagal) - a Shell) fighting style, seagel’s portrayal director/writer Atom Egoyan, as the good iriend to the native Inuit people ill the eceloglcal issues tends towaflls photographer back home in Toronto, a
Calendar: ‘butiiul. funny. yet proiound'
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- is set up as the fall guy for an I Vague. sweeping fleslmes- l'he year later. Without his wife - played alleged sabotage plot. Through his lalfllahle. ll slightly halVe. message by his real-life partner, Arsinée love. to the rigid picture-postcard mmionship with an (mm chief and his 3 therefore sits a mite uncomfortably Khanjian — he pathetically tries to frames in which he watches, activist daughter Masu (Joan Chen), ! alongside the standard issue shoot- recreate the distance and intimacy he voyeuristicalli, a woman. a 00""th Tait learns that he is the spirit warrior ( outs and mefla'expleslehs- Having shared with her, through a series of and a People he doesn't llhdefstahtl. who must teach the on men to wear ' indulged Seagal this time out, Warner evenings spent with foreign-speaking the medium acts as the boundary at the bear’. However, when the crude ; Bros are demanding their commercial female dinner dates. the character’s and the viewer’s hits the fan, he eschews the cosmic in 5 Pound 0t lleSh With his next Pfeieet, Calendar’s creative economics reality. A heelllltlll. funny. Yet favour of ‘cold, hard reality’: ie, a shit- lhe deeidedly unambitious Under heralds a new direction in low-budget Proteund tilm, Calendar is load of weapons and explosives. 3 Siege 2- (Nigel Floyd) i movies. Shot on film and video, the Intoxicatingly good. (Beatrice Colin)
Directing for the first time, Seagal i ; tonn. sound and camera placement Calendar (15) (Atom Egcyan. does himself few favours, staging the (in Deadly Ground (18) (Steven Seagal, ? play an integral part in the plot. From ArmenIa/Canada/Germany, 1993) Atom action scenes with great skill but ? US, 1993) Steven Seagal, Michael : the grainy video of an endless sea of 590W", ArSInee Khanjian, Ashot falling down on the woolly plot Caine, Joan Chen. 110 mins. From Fri Sheep 0" a hillSide Which is a Mantlah- 72 l“lhs- Wed 16 and Thurs exposition, rudimentary i 11. General release. ‘ metaphor for the main character’s 17. Glasgow: CFT.
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rm warm 'l mu “51mm; ‘ . _
’MON" PYTHON ° ‘ ~ i
in u riotous lime lruvel romedy' .
JEAN RENO 0 CHRISTIAN CLAVIER 0 VALERIE lEMERCIER DIRECTED ev JEAN-MARIE POIRE
semen wrrii ENGLISH suermes :LE'VKRQ‘JJII. )1. 51111-1,
FROM FRY 11 V f GLASGOW FILM THEATRE EDINBURGH FILMHOUSE J
The List 1 i--24 March 199417