Film

Rip It Up, Issue 84, 1 July 1984, Page 8

Film

ZELIG Director: Woody Allen In many respects, Zelig is quintessential Woody Allen a virtuoso extension of one basic joke into an elegant 79 minute comedy. Allen's hero is a human chameleon: he can transform himself into a Chinaman one minute and nestle among Hitler's brown-shirted retinue the next. It all sounds like the ultimate gesture of style but. despite the inventively surreal plot-line and a host of witty visual gags, underlying Zelig is that very serious subtext of the artist and, by implication, the Jewish community, being forced to adapt to whatever circumstances surround them.

On a technical level, Zelig is meticulously crafted, blending contemporary and historical footage with a precision that makes Steve Martin's Dead Men Don t Wear Plaid seem crude. Dick Hyman's soundtrack is similarly ingenious.

Mia Farrow, playing Zelig's sympathetic doctor, is as fetching as she ’was in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. It's taken about a year to get Zelig on New Zealand screens how long will we have to wait to see her in Allen's latest movie. Broadway Annie Rose, the prints of which have been in the hands of local distributors for three months already... SILKWOOD Director: Mike Nichols Silkwood leaves one feeling a certain lack of resolution as a result of it being stranded in a genre half way between fiction and documentary. At the end of the film, Karen Silkwood s "car accident" death is as much a mystery as it ever was and, by

remaining so. detracts from the movie's crystallisation of the antinuclear issue.

Although a more fictionalised approach would have undoubtedly have given Silkwood more punch. Nichols has wisely avoided the strained "significance" and histrionics of The China Syndrome or the simplistic message of The Day After. Silkwood has the quality of a cinematic ballad, balancing the elegiac poetry of Miroslav Ondricek's camera work and Georges Delerue's score with the wry. snappy script by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen. Against these, the horror of Silkwood' s contamination scenes have a vivid impact.

Meryl Streep's mini-skirted, gum-chewing Karen Silkwood is another bravura role, far removed from her Oscar-winning heroine in Sophie's Choice. Yet. underneath the surface bravado and brassiness. the young Oklahoma factory worker is every bit as vulnerable as Sophie the Polish emigre. Cher plays Streep's gay room-mate with immense sympathy and a nice sense of laconic understatement whilst Diana Scarwid adds a touch of rather macabre flamboyance to the proceedings with a short cameo as Cher's mortuary cosmetician girlfriend.

FANNY AND ALEXANDER Director: Ingmar Bergman Bergman has said that Fanny and Alexander will be his last film If so. at 3 hours and 20 minutes running time (the original Swedish version is 5 hours), it's a generously proportioned farewell. Elements of autobiography are very evident in this wonderful.

rambling tale of growing up among the Swedish provincial bourgeoisie in the early years of this century. The grim austerity of so many of the director's more recent films is forgotten (apart from the scenes in the palace of the sadistic bishop): all is imbued with an almost gemutlich nostalgia. We are forcibly reminded of the Bergman who created Smiles of a Summer Night and All About These Women.

Fanny and Alexander is a rich store-house of Bergmaniana, from magicians and puppet theatres to Christmas festivities and sexual escapades. To an extent, it sums up various themes that have run through three decades of his films but perhaps it also points the way to further films in the future. UNDER FIRE Director: Roger Spottiswoode The arena of Under Fire is the Nicaraguan conflict of 1979. Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy and Gene Hackman are a trio of journalists valiantly keeping the Western World informed from the battle-

front. Here is a film that conveys a powerful message without empty rhetoric and this is no mean achievement. The political stance of Under Fire is clear-cut and, only on one occasion, overstated. It has the virtues of probing beneath exterior politics into wider issues of loyalties and motives, as reflected in the complex inter-relationships between the three journalists. Under Fire is a gripping film and a moving experience, a credit to all involved. William Dart

The Auckland Film Festival runs from July 20 to August 2 Listed below are a few of the 63 films that might be of interest. With festivals more closely linked this year the programmes for other centres should be similar.

Ten Years In An Open-Necked Shirt the movie of John Cooper Clarke, the poet. Nick May's film not only follows the bolemic bard documentary style through performances, recording and interviews but also delves into fantasy with a surreal convent setting (which will make sense if you've read his autobiographical spiel by the same name as the film). Screens July 28, 2pm with Going Down.

Going Down ~. the story of four young girls in urban Sydney who have to come to terms with their lifestyles when the impending departure of one for New York shakes up their relationship. It follows them through one boozy, brawling night with a soundtrack that includes the Birthday Party and the New Christs.

Liquid Sky . one of the hits of last year's Wellington festival. A story of sex, drugs, music and alien beings in search of ecstasy on earth, all tied up with dark

humour. A film about modern America made by a group of Soviet immigrants wow. Screens July 27 and 28, 11pm. Rockers ... a mischievous comedy which sees prominent Jamaican musicians playing themselves in a Jah-style Robin Hood story. There are no pretensions towards sociological worthiness but there’s plenty of style and a superb soundtrack. Screens July 22, 2.15 pm. Android . . the celebrated Klaus Kinski stars in this offbeat outerspace Frankenstein story. He is trying to perfect a female android and gains what he needs to finish the project when a woman is among a party of three stranded on his space station. Only problem is that his android assistant, Max 404, decides he rather likes this woman the way she is screens July 22, 5.15 and 8.15 pm.

Koyaanisqatsi .a film like no other in the festival. An 87 minute “visual tone poem" that takes its theme from the title, a Hopi Indian word meaning “life out of balance.” The viewer is taken from huge, elegant desert vistas to the urban scramble of Los Angeles. The Dolby Stereo soundtrack is by Philip Glass. Screens August 2, 2.30 and 5.30 pm. The Evil Dead a gloriously disgusting zombie movie previously only available here and there on video. The splatter action picks up to a final 20 minutes that’ll have you reaching for the barf bag. Screens July 20 & 21, 11pm.

A Star Is Born . when the original version of this film, starring Judy Garland and James Mason, was made in 1954 it was well received by everyone but cinema owners, who complained that its 184 minute length made it impossible to screen more than twice a day. Warners withdrew the film, and cut 27 minutes from the master negative and all existing prints. Film historian Ronald Haver has reconstructed the movie. Dolby Stereo. Screens July 26, 1.30 pm & 7.30 pm.