HORROR THE DARK (15) 93min 0.
The Dark has pedigree. in Canadian director John Fawcett (who was also responsible for the imaginative teen girl werewolf flick. Ginger Snaps. and more recently the Steven Spielberg- produced alien abduction TV series. Taken), and in leads Maria Bello and Sean Bean. There's pedigree. too. in this psycliolr)gical/supernatural thriller's recollection of genre classics Don 't look Now and The Wicker Man.
With its storyline about a wife (Bello) and husband (Bean) grieving for a lost child and in the process uncovering a
sinister religious cult in the rural wilds. in this case the green valleys of Wales. And The Dark also benefits from Christian Sebaldt's handsome location photography of the rugged. beautiful Welsh landscape.
It's a shame then. that The Dark doesn't fulfil the promise of its breed. Murky plotting and uneven pacing mire Fawcett's third feature in its. at times. dismal setting. As a result. the film's themes. the corruption of the twin institutions motherhood and the church. aren't engaged with in any kind of satisfying manner. Worse. The Dark is adapted from an unfortunate source. Simon Maginn's novel Sheep. Aside from not being particularly original. Maginn's tale also provokes some unintentional laughter with its devil-eyed woolly beasts. A Wales-set horror film featuring evil sheep? A joke. surely? It isn't. but The Dark will make you laugh out loud nevertheless. (Miles Fielder)
I General release from Fri 7 Apr.
DRAMA THE WHITE COUNTESS (PG) 135min COO
The long line of prestige period dramas and (largely) literary adaptations from the director-producer ~ team James lv0ry and Ismail Merchant comes to an end — the latter died during production — with this China-set wartime drama. from an original screenplay by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. who provided Merchant-IVOry with the basis for one of their finest films, The Remains of the Day. The White Countess isn't as good a film, but with its focus on a less familiar slice of 20th century history and its exotic setting. it‘s not a bad final bow for these distinguished collab0rators.
As evocative backdrops go (and
DRAMA THE THREE BURIALS OF MELGUIADES ESTRADA (15) 121 min 0...
'One owes respect to the liwng; but to the dead one owes nothing but the truth ‘
Voltaire
Welcome to border town USA, where border guards persecute traversing Mexicans while the ageing native population struggle to fill posts in their businesses and on their ailing farms. Miserable streak of weaslyness Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) has just moved to town to join the border patrol with his beautiful young wife Lou Ann (January Jones). Around the same time
local rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) finds the body of his
beloved ranch hand Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo) in a shallow grave in the desert. Estrada has been murdered and hastily buried but, having pledged to honour his young friend by returning his corpse to the Mexican village of his birth, Perkins kidnaps Mike to take him along on the journey. Tommy Lee Jones’ directorial feature debut (for cinema) pulls into town
with quite some pedigree. It’s scripted by Guillermo Arriaga (Amores
Perros, 21 Grams), shot by Chris The Killing Fields Menges and stars two of the best character actors currently working Stateside (Pepper and the magnificent Melissa Leo, who plays ageing tart with a heart Rachel). Praise
be to Pancho Villa then that this is an absolute joy.
Thematically and stylistically, Lee’s film is an open hearted love letter to Peckinpah’s unsurpassable, brilliant 1974 revenge Western Bring Me the
Head of Alfredo Garcia (3 film so cool, it even inspired Ted Kotcheff's Weekend at Bemie’s). Unlike Peckinpah, Lee demonstrates a belief in
humanity and redemption and, despite occasionally awkward shifts in tone
and pace, he proves just how much he has learned from the cinema of
nihilist mad Uncle Sam, Eastwood, Boetticher, Jodorowsky and Siegel, to
name but a few. Modern American cinema so invested with intelligent
cinematic reference, quietness and emotional impact is so rare in this day
and age that Mr Jones deserves the praise of the living and the dead.
(Paul Dale) I Selected release from Fri 37 Mar.
rooms with views. etc are abiding elements of Merchant-Ivory filmsl 19308 Shanghai on the eve of the Japanese invasion is a pleasineg dramatic and cinematic one. In that oriental Casablanca a pair of down on their luck ex-pats. Natasha Richardson's Russian aristocrat (who has recently escaped the communist revolution) and Ralph Fiennes' blind American diplomat-turned entrepreneur, meet at the Iatter's titular swinging nightclub. where an unlikely romance blossoms as histOry takes another turn for the worse.
All of which is very promising. except there's no chemistry between the film's leads. possibly because Richardson and Fiennes are at such pains to perfect their respective foreigner, fish- out-of—water characters. And that deprives an otherwise watchable film of its romantic driving force.
(Miles Fielder) I General release from Fri 37 Mar.
DOCUMENTARY
THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL
(U) 79min 0...
It's only on for a few days but if you liked March of the Pengurns or Grizzly Man. then you might enjoy this lovely
little film which has Charmed the
feathers off audiences from Sundance Village to the shores of San Francisco.
If you can find y0ur way past the appalling soundtrack and the Community TV production values.
Name John Hurt
Born 22 January 1940 Background Born in Chesterfield. Hurt trained to be a painter at Grimsby Art School. Finding out his brush strokes were best suited for home DIY. Hurt headed to the Big Smoke to study at RADA, darling. which he is now an associate of. Between going from student to master. Hurt has proved to be an actor with phenomenal range. Whatever the genre. from period dramas (A Man for All Seasons) to action/sci ti (Alien) and Westerns (Dead Man). he is usually the best shooter on show.
What’s he up to now? The question should be what isn’t he up to? He is this year's Jude Law! In the past month. we've seen him in spurs in The Proposition. as an evil dictator in V for Vendetta. and he's narrated Manderlay. To top it off. in Shooting Dogs he plays a priest working at a school in Rwanda at the outbreak of the 1994 civil war.
What he says about films on the Rwandan civil war ‘Shooting Dogs is actually a great reflection of the human condition. The TV movie Sometimes in April is a more didactic film, really. Hotel Rwanda didn't really touch on the Rwandan problem as such. or on the human problem; it was more like Schindler's List in a sense. Nothing wrong with it. but I'm not sure it's a particularly good film, but there you are. I think Michael Caton-Jones is a marvellous filmmaker and I've done three films with him: Scandal. Rob Roy and this one. and they're all good films on the level they're supposed to be. Interesting fact John Hurt is a great admirer of African culture and has built a house in Kenya. I Shooting Dogs is on selected release from Fri 31 Mar. See review, page 46.
Judy Irving's senSitive and warm- hearted portrayal of one old beatnik's relationship with a flock of red and green parrots who II‘Je on Telegraph Hill attests to William Blake's testimony that ‘When thou seest an eagle. thou seest a portion of genius' One swallow may not a summer make but a bunch of squawking conures is a whole different matter. (Paul Dale)
I GFT. Glasgow from Sat 8—Mon 70 Apr only. See feature. page 43.
30 Mar-13 Apr 2006 THE LIST 45