Classics, Cannes prize-winners on festival bill

Press, 28 July 1989, Page 25

Classics, Cannes prize-winners on festival bill

By

HANS PETROVIC

(Cl Ex ' lies and vldeo- - which won Steven kJ Soderbergh the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, heads an imposing list of films for the thirteenth Christchurch International Film Festival, which will start at the Regent today. A total of 35 films from 18 countries will be screened during the fortnight, promising a highquality feast that may well prove to be of the excellent standard attained last year. Although this year’s Cannes best film will be screened, most of the others have taken a little longer to get to New Zealand, as indicated by the fact that five were shown at the 1988 Cannes festival: "Pelle the Conqueror," “A World Apart,” “Distant Voices, Still Lives” (all prizewinners), "Sur” and “Hanussen.” The inclusion of Laurence Olivier’s 1944 adaptation of “Henry V” should prove of interest, although it was decided to include the film before his recent death. Also among the classics is the two-part version of Charles Dickens’ “Little Dorrit.” Both sections, “Nobody’s Fault” and “Little Dorrit’s Story,” are about three hours long and will be screened at different sessions. Glasnost is alive and well in “Little Vera” which is noted for its unprecedentedly frank handling of sex in a Russian film. The documentaries include a 267-minute version of “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie,” and “Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead,” about the dehumanising effects of prisons. All screenings are open to the public for $B. The special concession price of $6.50 applies to Canterbury Film Society members, all tertiary students, and benefit holders, including the registered unemployed. Admission for children and senior, citizens is $4. Advance bookings for all but the 11 a.m. weekday sessions will be available from the Regent booking office between noon and 8.30 p.m. daily, except Sundays. The programme for the first week is: “A World Apart” (Great Britain, 1987), today, 11 a.m. and 8.15 p.m. Based on a writer’s experiences as the daughter of a South African journalist and activist, the film’s view of the political situation is filtered through the resentments of a shy and awkward 13-year-old girl. Barbara Hershey won the 1988 Cannes best-actress award in the leading role. “Plaff!” (Cuba, 1988), today, 5.30 p.m.: This exuberant social comedy from Cuba might well be retitled “Woman On The Verge of a Heart Attack." Somebody keeps throwing eggs at Concha (Daisy Grandos) and whenever she thinks she has buttonholed the assailant, another egg hits the wall. “Monkey Shines” (United States, 1988), today and tomorrow, 5.30 p.m.: Best known for his zombie classics, “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead.” George Romero now serves up a monster movie with an effective twist, about a razorwielding capuchin monkey. “Hanussen” (Hungary-West Germany, 1988), tomorrow, 2 p.m.: The third collaboration of Szabo and the Austrian actor, Klaus Maria Brandauer (“Mephisto,” “Colonel Redl”), returns to the theatre and the shadowy area where psychic powers and politics meet. “Alice” (Switzerlald, 1988), tomorrow, 5.30 p.m.: This extraordinary first feature by the Czech animator, Jan Svankmajer, gives us the absurdity of Carroll’s

On film

original “Alice,” transforming common objects into ornate,« Gothic players in a detailed version of a little girl’s bad dream. “Bagdad Cafe” (West Germany, 1987), tomorrow, 8.15 p.m., and Monday, 11 a.m.: Starring Marianne ("Sugarbaby”) Sagebrecht in a hilarious account of the friendship that develops between two women of jarringly different cultures. “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie” (United States, 1987), Sunday, 1 p.m.: An engrossing account of the career of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief whose postwar activities implicate, amongst others, the governments of the United States, France, Bolivia, Peru and the Vatican. “Let’s Get Lost,” Bruce Weber (United States, 1988), Sunday, 7.30 p.m.: One of the great surprises of the movie year is the troubling romantic spell cast by this film about a jazz trumpeter and singer. “Celia,” (Australia, 1988), Monday, 5.30 p.m.: The story of a nine-year-old girl coming to terms with the constrictions and contradications of the adult world. The ’sos outer-suburban setting — the weatherboard houses, sun porches, cotton-print frocks and white shirts — should locate “Celia” in the memories of audiences on this side of the water too. “Little Vera” (U.S.S.R., 1988), Monday, 8.15 p.m.: This film has caused a sensation in the Soviet Union with its promiscuous (and graphic) sex, foul language, casual acceptance of hooliganism, drugs and A.1.D.5., and above all, its recognition of a total breakdown of communication between the generations. “Pelle the Conqueror” (Denmark, 1987), Tuesday, 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.: Max von Sydow stars in this rural epic about life on a turn-of-the-century” Danish farm. Winner of the 1988 Cannes Palme d’Or for best film and this year’s Academy Award for best foreign film. “Crazy Love” (Belgium, 1987), Tuesday, 5.30 p.m.: A boy’s passage from bright-eyed, romantic idealism, through acne-thwarted adolescence to booze-halluci-nated depravity is eloquently enacted in this risky, surprisingly involving film. “Red Sorghum” (China, 1987), Wednesday, 11 a.m. and 8.15 p.m.: The first of a new wave to enjoy huge popular success In China, it details the stormy course of a rural marriage that begins with a semi-forcible seduction and ends in the carnage of the Japanese invasion of the 19305. / “Life Is a Long, Quiet River” (France, 1988), Wednesday, 5.30 p.m.: The joke is that life is never long or quiet in the most successful French film of last year. A highly implausible babyswap sets the scene for a satirical farce involving extreme social differences. “Henry V” (Britain, 1944), Thursday, 11 a.m. and 5.30 p.mu It is a long time since it has been possible to see this classic Laurence Olivier film in New Zealand and even longer since it has been seen in a print as glorious as this meticulous Technicolour restoration from the National Film Archive of Great Britain. These archival screenings cannot be repeated. “Matewan” (United States, 1987), Thursday, 8.15 p.m.: John Sayle’s fifth feature is based on an actual shoot-out that took place in a small West Virginian coal town in 1920. Newly unionised coal miners stood their ground against the hired detectives who enforced the company’s law.