FILM

Rip It Up, Issue 187, 1 February 1993, Page 26

FILM

CRUSH : . Director: Alison Maclean Alison Maclean's first full-length feature begins promisingly with two young women speeding through lush countryside. A pertinent quote from Colin McCahon's falls easily from one the character's lips, and a stylish 90 minutes seems assured.

An admittedly spectacular car-crash bring the characters to Rotorua, where Marcia Gay Harden's Lane plays a psychological cat-and-mouse game with the now paralysed Christina (Donogh Rees), a novelist (William Zappa) whom

Christina was to interview, and his teenage daughter.

The interaction between Lane and the young Angela (a touchingly waifrsh Caitlin Bossley) provides the initial thrust of the film, although it's Lane and Christina's struggle which provides the movie's climax. Zappa's novelist is presented so sketchily that Crush, understandably focuses most acutely on its women characters.Donogh Rees's Christina is a marvel of observation, down to the very last tic and grimace, with an inner strength that makes Harden's dramatic outbursts seem merely petulant (is this really the malevolent 'femme fatale' that the press release promised us?).

Maclean, with cameraman Dion Beebe, makes the most of the landscape, and there are moments — an early bathroom scene stands out — in which they achieve the visual concentration of the director's earlier Kitchen Sink. But the film has a curiously elliptical feel as if some essential piece of information about these characters has been passed over. Zappa's Colin is not a convincing enough character to act as kingpin for three strong women. At one point, during a lovemaking sequence, Lane tells Colin that she envies him his cock, because she would like to do to him what he is doing to her. It's a significant moment and hints at a side of Lane's character that might well affect her relationship with the other two women characters. I believe that a sex scene between Lane and Christina was written but never filmed — a scene that may have provided the key to the two women's bitter emnity.

Maclean has done some fine work — her 1985 Rud's Wife deserves nothing but accolades — but Crush is a disappointing venture into a larger arena. WILLIAM DART EDWARD II Director: Derek Jarman One of the most memorable clips in the 1990 television special Red Hot and Blue was that of Annie Lennox singing 'Every Time We Say Goodbye', with Lennox singing against projected home movie snippets. The director was Derek Jarman. Lennox reprises the Cole Porter song in Edward 11, strolling through a scene in which Edward and his lover Gaveston are enjoying a moment of intimacy before they are wrenched apart. Like the actors' Marks & Spencer's pajamas, and much else in the film, the song is boldly anachronistic — as was Elisabeth Welch's singing of 'Stormy Weather' which ended Jarman's The Tempest.

The English director takes Christopher Marlowe's The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England and uses it as a mirror for our own, or more precisely, England's troubled times. Jarman has commented that the play 'touches on areas that still aggravate people' and Marlowe's eloquent words (with only a few four-letter words outbursts added) create a powerful politico- sexual allegory. Only during a crossbow sequence does the dialogue between Isabella (Tilda Swinton) and Mortimer (Nigel Terry) sound arch and contrived. Steven Waddington is a noble monarch,

effortlessly releasing the poetry in Marlowe's lines and Andrew Tiernan gives Gaveston just the right punk edge, an Ortonesque Puck.

Swinton attributes her Isabella to such models as Margaret Thatcher, Ivana Trump and the Empress Wu. Stunningly coutured by Sandy Powell (the King Edward's Crown earrings are a gas), it's Swinton who provides the film's goriest moment with a savagery worthy of Coppola's latest Draculepic . . . but no more, my lips are sealed.

Scattered throughout the film are scenes from a 1990 s gay protest. Edward's stand, and eventual martyrdom, are for both his country and our contemporary gay sub-culture ... in Jarman's eyes, one suspects, the two states are inseparable. WILLIAM DART

Film Society 1993

I joined Auckland Film Society as a student back in the mid-sixties. After a few years in the Building Centre, we were relegated to the dire environs of the Sunday School Union Hall, with our eyes inevitably drawn to the inscription 'Jesus never Fails' above the stage, over the screen. It was all resolutely 16 mil, with a tacky screen, a noisy projector necessitating pauses for reel changes and let's not forget the excruciating seats.

For a fan of Eng-lish-language cinema, the diet was disappointingly 99% foreign. It was not

until well into the 70s that we saw classics like George Stevens's Swingtime, and a mini-retrospective of Robert Rossen films. Since then many of these titles are available on video, but when you've seen Rossen's Island in the Sun in its Cinemascope glory, you're more than a little unwilling to accept video format images. The facilities have certainly improved in Auckland over the years and its 1993 screenings will have the professional facilities of the Lido and the Civic Showcase. Over 58 films are on offer for a mere SBO.OO. With new releases by Alison Maclean and Derek Jarman currently showing on the circuits, the Society offers an opportunity to see both Maclean's Rud's Wife, and Jarman's 1990 The Garden, with the magnificent Tilda Swinton. And there's a sprinkling of other New Zealand features including Gaylene Preston's Married, which was premiered at last year's festival,and Barry Barclay's 1977 Autumn Fires.

In amongst the assorted classics one can sense a curatorial nous. On offer is a six-film retrospective of Chilean director Raul Ruiz, including his 1991 Treasure Island with a tempting cast list that lines Upjohn Hurt, Anna Karina and Martin Landau. A sampling of Russian films includes Lydia Bobrova's’ Hey, You Wild Goose and you'll also see four fascinating documentaries exploring exotic cultures, ranging from Ln the Land of the War Canoes, Edward S Curtis's 1914 documentation of the Kwakuiti Indians to a glimpse of Thailand in 1927 through Ernest B Schoedsack and Merian Cooper's Chang. For those with a true cineaste's stamina, relax and enjoy 15 hours of Fassbinder's television adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz. Musically, Film Soc will let you revisit the land of the Yellow Submarine, and taste a sampling of Les Blank docos, including as classic, The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins and Puanama, one of the gems of last year's festival.

The major draw for me will the chance to see a substantial retrospective of films by Englishman Mike Leigh. Leigh has made the mainstream in the last few years with High Hopes and Life is Sweet, but loyal festival-goers would have seen his first feature Bleak Moments back in the early 19705. If ever a film lived up to its title it's this one, although characteristically, Leigh does manage to cull his own brand of grim humour from his depressing tale. With the assistance of fhe British Council, the Society is showing all of Leigh's output with the exception of two lost television films. Watch out for the excruciatingly funny Abigail's Party, a cocktail encounter to remember for the rest of your life, and Meantime, a quartet of lives gasping for survival on the dole. Yet, for all the hopelessness, Leigh again manages to inject some humour, and Gary Oldman is wonderful as a sinister yet ebullient skinhead. With all this for a little over a dollar a film, your local Film Society must be the cinematic bargain of the year. I'm not sure about about other centres (although the head office at PO Box 9544 Wellington will fill you in) but Auckland kicks off at the Lido on March 1.

WILLIAM DART