Montreal International Film Festival
(Non-American English-Language Feature-Length Films)
Film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper
THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, directed by Stephan Elliott, Australia, 1:42:
This is a "road picture," but what a road! Through the wide open spaces of the center of Australia travels "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," an old and not very luxurious bus, along with Priscilla's passengers, three drag queens on their way to a gig in Alice Springs. They meet various people (including the obligatory meeting with native Australians), have adventures, and reveal their personalities and problems to each other along the way.
This is a movie with a lot of style--not surprising, given the occupation of the main characters. In fact, one of the film's messages seems to be that when it comes to style, drag queens have it all over the rest of us. (The scene as the bus pulls out of Sydney is hardly subtle in this regard.)
THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT has some things to say, but its value lies in the interesting characters, especially Terence Stamp as a transsexual drag queen past her prime, and the sheer pleasure of watching flamboyance on a grand scale. It may not be a great film, but it certainly is a fun one. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4).
THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF TOM THUMB, directed by Dave Borthwick, Great Britain, 1:01:
This is a very difficult film to describe. It uses an animation technique I can't recall seeing before in which the "live action" actors are filmed in stop motion as well as the clay figures. (Or maybe they film the actors in the regular way, then remove some frames and duplicate others.) In any case this is fascinating from a visual standpoint, but definitely not for children (in spite of what the title might lead you to believe). Tom lives in a very dark world, full of disturbing images, swarms of strange insects, and unspeakable scientific experiments. It seems at times more like something out of Franz Kafka than a children's fairy tale book.
This is not for everyone's taste (though it played to an almost full house here), and given its length (or lack thereof), is unlikely to play in "normal" theaters anyway. Look for this at theaters which shown experimental film, film festivals, or perhaps science fiction conventions (which seem a perfect venue for it). Rating: +2 (-4 to +4).
MESMER, directed by Roger Spottiswoode, Great Britain/Canada/Germany, 1:42:
Franz Anton Mesmer has been considered both a charlatan and a visionary. This film makes no definitive judgment, but seems to fall into the visionary camp, albeit perhaps a misguided visionary.
Played by Alan Rickman, Mesmer is a man who sees the practice of medicine in his day (the 18th Century) as barbaric, which of course it was. The cure for almost every ill was to bleed the patient. Mesmer takes a different approach. Calling on "animal magnetism," he attempts to use magnetic currents and forces to cure his patients. He achieves some notable successes, but many of the cures seem to be temporary and the patients relapse.
Unfortunately, much of Mesmer's philosophy regarding his treatments (the term "mesmerism" is never used) seems as bizarre today as it did to the established medical professionals then. It is left for the audience to see the seeds of hypnotism, the power of suggestion, holistic medicine, and the nature of psychosomatic illnesses in Mesmer's explanations of the pull of the moon and magnetic forces. Although Rickman is very good (I refuse to call his portrayal mesmerizing, though Lord knows someone will), and Amanda Ooms excellent as his patient Maria Theresa Paradies, some of the supporting characters are rather sketchily drawn. In the end it is perhaps the strangeness of Mesmer's philosophy which makes it difficult for screen-writer Dennis Potter to give us a character we can understand. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
THE ADVOCATE, directed by Leslie Megahey, Great Britain, 1:35:
The year is 1452. The place is Abbeville, France. To this small village comes Robert Courtois to serve as the advocate (the public defender). His first case is defending a man accused of killing his wife's lover. That goes pretty well. Then he defends a woman accused of witchcraft; that case does not go so well. His third case is even more peculiar by own standards, and we begin to see that what at first seemed like isolated aberrations in the law are actually part of a larger insanity. Or as the priest says, "In a world where nothing is reasonable, nothing can be said to be truly mad."
Colin Firth as the advocate in this film (which I might describe as "THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE Meets TWELVE ANGRY MEN") seems a bit out of his depth in a cast containing Nicol Williamson as the local seigneur, Ian Holm as the priest, Donald Pleasence as the local prosecutor, and Michael Gough as the magistrate. But then the character of the advocate finds himself a bit out of his depth as well.
It may seem odd to say that a mystery set in a period of superstition, prejudice, and the Inquisition in France has some very funny moments, but Megahey's script takes advantage of the weirdness going on all around, and the actors carry the humor off quite well. The supporting cast looks authentic to the era (perhaps more so than most of the principals), although not quite to the level of the casting in THE NAME OF THE ROSE. If THE ADVOCATE occasionally has the look of a made-for-television film, that may be in part due to the fact that the BBC was one of its financiers, and also to the fact that Megahey's background is in television and this is his first feature film.
This is a very entertaining film that is (so far as I can tell) historically accurate to its time period. (For example, all the court cases are based on actual court cases of the time.) I recommend it highly. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4).
CYBERTEENS IN LOVE, directed by Brett Dowler, Canada, 1:33:
Shot on video, this definitely has the look of a student film, though technically the filmmakers were not students, but were working under the auspices of British Columbia Film and the National Film Board of Canada (Pacific Center). The acting of some of the supporting cast is mediocre to bad (although Carole Henshall is perfect as Kid Cutter). The computer animation is fairly basic for today. The staging of some of the action sequences is pretty lame. Even the basic plot is unimaginative: girl escapes from state-run orphanage, finds love with street-smart computer wiz, and gets involved in adventures and danger in cyberspace. But the script by John Dowler shows great imagination and creativity in its use of "futurespeak." For example, a rhetorical question becomes an "answer-free question" and Su doesn't try to find her family, she tries to "family-find."
The film does have a lot of rough edges, but the dialogue helps you past a lot of that, with its poetry and flow. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
TOTAL BALALAIKA SHOW, directed by Aki Kaurismaki, Finland, 0:56:
One newspaper complained about the choice of this as one of the free outdoor shows of the festival because they felt it was nothing but an extended music video, and not even Canadian. Of course, the same could be said of WOODSTOCK, but wasn't--at least not by that writer. In any case, we actually paid to be this indoors because 1) the free showing was opposite THE ADVOCATE, and 2) rain was predicted for the day of the free showing. While the theater wasn't full, it still had quite a respectable crowd for something that had just been shown for free.
On June 12, 1993, the largest stage ever erected in Finland was set up in Senate Square (hey, we were just there!) for a joint concert of the Leningrad Cowboys and the Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble. THE TOTAL BALALAIKA SHOW is the concert film made there by noted Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki (who first introduced the Leningrad Cowboys to the world in LENINGRAD COWOYS GO AMERICA).
Songs included "Finlandia," "Together We Stand," "Volga Boatmen," "Happy Together," an absolutely wonderful rendition of "Delilah," "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," "Oh, Field," "Kalinka," "Gimme All Your Lovin'" (with strains of the "Internationale" and the "Hallelujah Chorus" added as background), "Sweet Home Alabama," "Dark Eyes," and "Those Were the Days."
I have to say that during "Happy Together" I found myself comparing and contrasting this concert with "The Three Tenors." It was an even stronger feeling when the Russian soloist held the note in "Kalinka" for what seemed like at least a minute. I also got a real feeling for the fact that the Cold War is over if the Red Army Chorus is singing Western rock music, especially when they sang the lines from Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door": "Put my guns in the cold black ground; I can't shoot them any more."
One can only hope.
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4).
DADDY, COME TO THE FAIR, directed by Nitza Gonen, Israel, 1:16:
One of the problems of reviewing a film about the Shoah (Holocaust) is that the subject gives the film some element of "untouchability"--it is very difficult to say anything negative about it unless it is almost intentionally offensive. But there are some many mis-steps and misjudgments in the making of this made-for- television documentary that I simply cannot recommend it.
From the very beginning, or even before it in some sense, I think there were problems. This is a documentary of a man returning to Poland, where his parents were murdered in the Holocaust. With him travel his son and his daughter, and the film (it's actually videotape, but "film" has become generic) concentrates more on the son than on the father. It is true that during the trip, the relationship between the son and the father undergoes a transformation, but how could they know this would happen at the beginning of the shooting? At time the camera angles and other effects seem too studied, more suitable for a narrative film than a documentary. One almost gets the impression that the entire project was the idea of the son, who just happens to be in show business, and is more designed to promote his career than to focus on his father. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).
(See general article for comments on KABLOONAK.)
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