Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995 TAG: 9504110019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This week, we've got three new releases of varying quality, all distinctly outside the Hollywood mainstream, and each with something to offer certain audiences. Probably the best, and certainly the most serious of the trio, is "The Conviction."
It's an Italian meditation on sexual harassment. The story begins on a deliberately uncertain note and maintains a tone of ambiguity throughout. Sandra (Claire Nebout, who looks a lot like Sandra Bernhard) and Lorenzo (Vittorio Mezzogorno) find themselves locked inside a public art museum for the night. Are they there on purpose? Did he follow her? Is she trying to seduce him? It's hard to say.
In any case, they talk. Waxing philosophical as people in high-minded Italian movies are wont to do, he seduces her with art criticism. (The sexual scenes are as posed and unrealistic as dance, presented in long, static shots.) Later, he tells her that he has the keys to the building. She then charges him with rape.
His trial takes up the last hour of the film, and it's not a typical courtroom confrontation. Instead, the prosecutor (Andrzej Seweryn) launches into a long discussion of the nature of sex. When he goes home at night, his wife (Grasyna Szapolowska) tells him that he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's wrong to be so sympathetic to Sandra's case, and she's leaving him. After that, things get seriously strange.
Writer/director Marco Bellocchio (``Devil in the Flesh") doesn't differentiate between "reality" and dreams. For the purposes of his story, they're the same, and he doesn't care to resolve the problems he raises, either. Bellocchio is much more interested in careful shadings of difference than the simple black-and-white issues.
If there is a conclusion, it's that men and women are different. Men are far too logical to understand what women want and expect of us. We just don't get it - never have and never will, so why bother? But, we men can't allow ourselves to give in to the animal side of our nature, even though that's what women really want us to do when they say they don't, and if we pretend to understand, we'll only get in more trouble. Got that?
Anyone looking for titillation or physical action of any sort will be disappointed. Those with a taste for a more stylized approach - a little like Antonioni in places - should give "The Conviction" a try.
"Night Train to Venice" is a lot livelier, though it seldom makes a lick of sense. The drawing card here is star Hugh Grant, from "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and every magazine cover in the western hemisphere.
He plays Martin Gemel, a writer who seems to be researching neo-Nazis. At least a bunch of skinheads follows him onto the Orient Express, and they appear to want a computer disk and his manuscript. While they're all rushing for the train, we're also seeing flashbacks and flashforwards involving a little girl in danger of falling from a high railing, her actress mother (Tahnee Welch), a malevolent guy (Malcolm McDowell) who controls the skinheads, and an angry woman and girl in white who are probably ghosts. And just in case anyone is getting bored with all this, sometimes the skinheads turn into dobermans. Go figure.
Director Carlo Quinterio places strong, unsettling images ahead of a coherent plot. His best moments bring to mind the hypnotic, hallucinatory mood of "Zentropa," though he doesn't sustain that.
The flaws are easy to spot. The acting varies between naturalistic and wooden. The score sounds like it was lifted from a cheap '50s science-fiction flick. At times, the references to Nazi violence are horrifying; in other scenes they're laughable, particularly at the end. The final result for "Night Train to Venice" is more interesting than good, but it's never boring.
The newest version of "Jekyll and Hyde" appears to have been made for British television. Writer/director David Wickes is an experienced hand at this sort of thing, with adaptations of "Frankenstein" and "Jack the Ripper" to his credit. But this is a fairly tepid telling of the story, and never gets to the heart of it.
The setting is London, 1884. Michael Caine plays the good doctor and his brutal alter-ego. The first part of the film follows the familiar plot. It twists when he falls in love with his sister-in-law Sara (Cheryl Ladd). Then for a time, the film focuses on Victorian values and mores, complete with florid overacting from all concerned.
When it returns to Mr. Hyde, the film becomes a standard mid-budget monster flick with a surprise ending that's no surprise. The transformation effects are nothing special, given the level of special effects possible now, and the Hyde makeup is about the same. He looks like a lumpy onion with a bad attitude. In her own way, Cheryl Ladd doesn't fare much better. She has to wear a bustle that is truly remarkable. Hit the pause button when that astonishing appendage appears.
Robert Louis Stevenson's story is so solidly based on universal psychological truths that it's almost impossible to ruin completely, and Wickes doesn't. But "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" has been filmed much more effectively in the past, and an ambitious new version is overdue.
Next week: "Hard Boiled" on laser, defending the pig and more!
New release this week:
The Shawshank Redemption ***
Starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman. Written and directed by Frank Darabont. Columbia TriStar. 142 min. Rated R for violence, language, brief nudity.
Though this fine film got "Gumped" at the boxoffice (and at the Oscars), it's a terrific prison drama of the old school. Some of director Darabont's big directorial gestures, notably the introduction of the prison itself, will lose effectiveness on the small screen, but the well-drawn characters and strong performances will survive intact. Strongly recommended to everyone who missed it the first and second times around.
The essentials
The Conviction ** 1/2
Orion. 92 min. Unrated, contains mature subject matter, brief nudity, some strong language (subtitled).
Night Train to Venice **1/2
LIVE. 98 min. Rated R for violence, sexual content, nudity, strong language.
Jekyll and Hyde **
Vidmark. 95 min. Rated R for subject matter, violence, sexual content.
by CNB