BACARDI BLACK
SCOTTISH FILM
I Shelter Screening: A framed four— sheet poster from Reservoir Dogs featuring Harvey Keitel. plus other goodies. including an extremely rare framed poster from ll'ings (2/‘Desr’re will go on auction before a charity screening of Wirn Wenders's new movie. Faraway So (‘lose at the Cameo in Edinburgh on Friday l. Poet and playwright Liz Lochhead will introduce the proceedings and act as auctioneer. All the money raised from the bidding and all of the box office takings will go to Shelter. the charity for the homeless.
Tickets cost £5. and further information
is available from the Cameo on 03l 228 4l4 l.
I Camp lamps: Inspired by the use of Lava Lamps in Pedro Almodovar's latest kitsch offering Kiko. Glasgow- based Contract Nice House have sponsored the Glasgow Film Theatre‘s Spanish Season and July brochure. Andrew Harrold. of the Princess Square shop. reckons that ‘kitsch is probably being developed and updated through Almodovar's medium and into a
serious international language of interior design.‘ Needless to say. Nice House stocks the forementioned items along with Alessi products and other stylish goods.
I Double Exposure: Young British filmmakers could get their first break into television courtesy of a new BBC initiative. Called Double Exposure. the scheme will allow newcomers to develop skills in collaboration with leading professionals from the industry. The first stage involves a script competition. with lS—30-year-olds living in Britain who have never written for television before being invited to submit an original screenplay of between 30—50 minutes duration.
‘What we‘re looking for is raw talent.' says Rachel Purnell. Editor of BBC TV‘s Youth Programmes. ‘Power and vitality count for everything. A good script is the most important ingredient in television drama . . . by involving other technical skills at a later stage. we have our sights set on helping to nurture the talents of what may turn out to be a whole new generation of lilmmakers.‘
The deadline is 31 July. and entries can be sent to any ofsix regional production centres. including BBC Scotland in Glasgow. Further information and application forms can be obtained by sending a SAE to Double Exposure. BBC TV. 23 New Mount Street. Manchester M4 4DE. The most outstanding script from each region will be selected for production and shown on BBC2 in l995.
_ ECA oEanE snow
Human eccentricities and shitting perceptions ot the outside world are the two strongest themes to emerge irom Edinburgh College oi Art’s 1994 collection oi graduation tilms and videos. Work produced by the Department oi Visual Communications’ Film/TV and Animation sections was on show at two screenings at the Edinburgh Filmhouse, with iurther opportunities to catch this package and other projects cropping up during the annual Degree Show at the end oi June. In iact, a wander around the television screens in the College proved a more rewarding experience, as displays oi production photographs, storyboards, sketches, props and even theses placed the moving images in the larger, more telling, context oi preparation and execution.
Sarah Cavron’s Headless Wonder and Kenneth Simpson/Morag McKinnon’s Hoppla show a twisted humour that’s not iar irom existential despair as
oi the sell and tamin bonds. The iamiliar iace oi Jon Pertwee captures the eccentricity at age and imaginative wiseness in Dan Sellars’s celebration oi iirst and second childhood, Cloud Cuckoo. Chris
Dooks’s The Sound Di Taransay reveals ‘
a deeper, more searching love tor land and culture than any TV nature documentary could ever hope ior. Alex
audience and leaves a lasting chill in its depiction at modern madness. The animation is also widely inventive, irom the hilarious Lego train travels oi Bill Case’s The Warp And The Wett, to the genius oi Evelyn Blackwood’s The Man Who Mistook His Wiie For A Hat, the manipulative imaging technique oi which suits its subject matter at
alternative perception tar better than they examine, respectively, perception
the play, opera or book. Brilliant, wide-ranging, challenging,
f entertaining - the list oi superlatives could go on and on. Stumbling over a ' iew gems hidden in a seli-indulgent,
inaccessible heap might have been
‘ expected; to discover that every
individual piece oi work has its own merit and that the College’s output as a whole is at such a consistently high standard is heartening and inspiring.
liorris’s All The World creeps up on the 5 (Alan Morrison)
sponsored by BACARDI BLACK
um:- FRENCH cmssrcs
In the year that marks the centenary ot his birth, it’s a joy to rediscover Jean Henoir’s early masterpiece, Boudu Saved From Drowning (Artificial Eye, £15.99). Michel Simon shows comic genius as a tramp who brings chaos to a bourgeois home atter being rescued irom the Seine. A gem irom the early 1930s, it’s much more appealing than its Hollywood remake, Down And Out In Beverly Hills.
The petty hypocrisies oi the bourgeoisie are also held up tor ridicule in louis Malle’s risque but tender-hearted comedy Le Souiile Au Coeur (Electric, £15.99). Despite its controversial subject matter - a tourteen-year-old boy is drawn towards an incestuous relationship with his sensuous mother - this is a sympathetic portrait oi the reckless energy oi youth, where kids drink, smoke, sleep with prostitutes and generally break all the rules that
society imposes.
The latest video release irom that other master at French cinema, Francois Truiiaut, is the still exhilarating Baisers Votes (Artiticial Eye, £15.99), which is teamed here with his 1962 short, Antoine Et Colette. Both follow the ongoing exploits oi Trutiaut’s screen alter-ego
Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre léaud), with Baisers Volés showing more oi a comic edge as our hero ialls irom one job to another. Truiiaut can’t resist an ironic take on the love triangle he sets up, while the stylish quirks oi French cinema irom the 60s mirrors the impetus oi young love.
Yves Robert’s la Cloire De Mon Pore and le Chateau De Ma Mere (Artificial Eye doublepack, £19.99) are less substantial than .lean De Florette and Manon Des Sources, which are also based on the writings oi Marcel Pagnol, but still capture a period charm and the warmth oi remembrance. The beauty oi the Provence countryside looks wonderiul in the widescreen images, bringing France into the homes oi the cinematic tourist. (Alan Morrison)
m i
l
I My New Gun (15) In America. it's not just 1 lipstick that‘s the essential item in a lady‘s handbag. but a neat little shooter. However. the purchase of a gun only brings trouble for Debbie (Diane Lane). especially when weirdo neighbour James Le Gros ‘borrows‘ it fora while. Black comic touches. kooky characters. stylistic eccentricities. but the film
itself is neither funny nor exciting. Writer/director Stacy Cochran falls into the trap of portraying dull suburban life in a way that is too dull for the viewer too. This gun is firing on an empty chamber. (20:20 Vision)
’ I Prince Di Shadows (18)
A former hero of Spain’s outlawed communist cause returns to Madrid in
1962 to carry out an
assassination. but finds his past actions waiting to
g haunt him. Either Terence
Stamp is a master of the
dispassionate enigma or there‘s a distance between him and his role the size
of the Grand Canyon. And ' then there’s Patsy Kensit as a singing. stripping femme fatale. With these flaws on board from the outset. Pilar Miro‘s shadow-filled. double- crossing drama was doomed to failure. but she commits further sins by turning erotic scenes into damp squibs and rushing through the climax of the narrative. Rubbish. (Tartan)
I The Getaway ( 18) Better to stay in and watch this original version of the botched robbery revenge tale than go out and see the inferior Basinger-Baldwin remake (see Screen Test). Sam Peckinpah pummels the action until there's not an ounce of fat left on Jim 'l‘homson's hard-edged story. while Steve McQueen is at his best as the bullish. taciturn anti- hero. The editing is sharper than a new razor. the matrimonial tensions between the main characters giving an unusual twist to the crime genre. (Warner £ l 0.99) I The Falls (PG) Three hours of Greenaway images and commentary. set to the music of Nyman. concerning 92 people whose surnames begin with the letters ‘Fall . .‘ and who have ? experienced the ‘Violent .
Unknown Event’. Absurdist art on film that many may find self- indulgent to the extreme. but which becomes hypnotic as familiar Greenaway themes are played upon like musical variatons. (Connoisseur £15.99)
I The Terence Davies Trilogy (PG) Spare black- and-white images add a bleak simplicity to Davies‘s i'rctionalised semi-autobiography that follows a Liverpudlian clerk from the loneliness
ofchildhood to the loneliness of homosexual
youth to the loneliness of the death-bed. Beautifully
sad. (Connoisseur £15.99)
I La Dolce Vita (15) From the strikingly surreal image of a statue
a of Christ dangling from a helicopter over the roofs
of Rome. through the famous Trevi Fountain
, scene. to the vibrancy of
cafe life. Fellini‘s masterpiece has lost none of its ability to shock and
amaze. More accessible
than his more self- reflective classics. La Dolce Vita shows [I ntuesrro‘s genuine love of the city he made his borne and his strong visual sense for storytelling. An absolute must. (Electric £15.99) I Food and sex are served in several tasty courses. Japanese style. in Tampopo ( 18. Electric £15.99); some excellent gore and monster transformation scenes lift Devil Man: The Birth (18. Manga £10.99) above
other animated titles. including the childish
: Maris The Wonderglrl
(PG. Manga £8.99); the
1 hidden image
' phenomenon continues
with the release of Magic Eye - The Video (Lumiere
£9.99) bringing 3-D into ‘ your home without the
glasses; and Abel Ferrara's brilliant Body Snatchers ( l8. Warner
£10.99) updates the alien invastion tale.
The List l«—l4 July I994 29