A man, a woman and a wobbly hand-held camera

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 12

A man, a woman and a wobbly hand-held camera

A man, a woman and a child. Another man, another woman and another child. Somewhere in the Old West. Why, we’ll never know. Claud Lelouch, director of “A Man and A Woman” years ago, has made a Western. Now playing at the Avon, it is called ‘‘Another Man, Another Woman.” The similarities end there in an irritating film that should have been a lot bet-

ter. Its scattered touches of humour and humanity are swamped by too much of nothing much.

Adding to the confusion, Beethovens’ Fifth keeps coming up on the sound track. James Caan is an engaging actor, with just enough quirkiness to get him through most bad patches of a film, and Genevieve Bujold is pretty, with just enough French accent to do the same.

Beyond that, and a number of set pieces that are genuinely funny but too short, “Another Man” has little to recommend it.

! It is.not, despite the advertisements, a “big-scale, exciting adventure Western.”

It is a love story of two i people who do not meet'; until late in the story, al-f< though the viewer is reminded over a..d over — while watching the activities) of each — that such a meet-! ing is their destiny. )| She is a French imrai-) grant, a photographer’s wife,;

< and he is a cowboy veterinarian. Together, they make < a great team. ’ “I gotta have the city,” < his first wife tells him, lobbying for a shift back to 1 Philadelphia when their > child is born. “I gotta have open,” he!< says, winning the argument ■ t until three outlaws come‘l along, kill the wife and end < the argument for keeps. Caan, suspected of his wife’s murder, is left with 1 the baby boy. The film’s i best scenes are of him look- t ing after the boy over the i years. The French girl’s husband I* is also eventually killed by.lt

toughs (destiny, you see), and she is left alone with a daughter. The perfect set-up. Through the film, you have a sneaking hunch that things will end well. A Polish woman told the French girl that she would never see France again, and would have a good life. Great bidders, those Polish soothsayers. Aside from everything else, the photography leads to constant gnashing of teeth. Everything is seen through a dull, orange glow. It is like looking through frosted glass, and probably meant to be quite romantic — the past seen through * glass unclearly. Wobbling his hand-held camera everywhere, Lelouch is enough to make even an old salt queasy. Some scenes are memorable — Caan and an opponent playing snooker from the backs of horses, Caan trying to show his boy how to shoot, Caan cheating his boy at cards. There is also a good piece in a frontier room filled with bathtubs, men bathing in their long underwear and loving every minute of it. Unfortunately, such breaks from the monotony are not enough.

AT THE CINEMA Stan Darling