THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 28, 1995 TAG: 9508260060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
ENGLISH DIRECTOR John Boorman has a gift for sweeping visual vistas, especially crowd scenes.
``Beyond Rangoon,'' his latest film, uses this talent to such good effect that we are prone to overlook some of the implausibilities in the personal drama that accompanies his political statement.
There was a time when we regularly were treated to movie dramas about faraway places enmeshed in dark, political conspiracies, films such as ``The Year of Living Dangerously,'' ``Z'' and ``The Comedians.''
``Beyond Rangoon,'' set amid the military takeover of Burma in 1988, serves as a suitable substitute. It is an old-fashioned adventure on a grand, if a bit questionable, scale.
But is greatly flawed by its central performance and by unfortunately far-fetched melodrama.
Patricia Arquette is given the difficult role of an American doctor who is visiting Burma during the turmoil and has to trek across jungle, and worse, to reach the freedom of the Thai border.
Screenwriters Alex Lasker and Bill Rubenstein don't do her any favors by trying, foolishly, to parallel her personal tragedies to the political troubles. It seems that both her husband and her child were murdered back in America and now she, as she puts it, has ``turned to stone'' like the statues she sees in Burma. When her passport is stolen, she must remain in Burma as her sister (Oscar nominee Frances McDormand from ``Mississippi Burning'') travels on.
Arquette got the role only after it had been developed for Meg Ryan and turned down by Michelle Pfeiffer. It is doubtful that either of them could have done much better with it but Arquette sleepwalks, barefoot, through the entire film. She seems in awe of everything that happens around her - and a great deal happens.
Since she is meant to be our heroine, and our eyes for all that happens, it is off-putting that she is so inert, wandering about as if she were Alice in Wonderland.
Spalding Gray, the monologist who has appeared on stage locally, has a small part as a sweating tour guide. He is not given enough screen time to make any impression.
The film is more interesting when it deals with things political. The story of Burma has enough drama on its own without trying to relate it to an American tragedy. The real life Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is pictured as a charismatic force for democracy as she stands up against soldiers. (She was later given a majority of votes but not allowed to take power. Instead, she was put in prison. She has publicly credited Boorman's film as having a part in her recent release.)
Boorman gambles everything on actress Arquette who, unfortunately, comes across as rather lifeless. Hans Zimmer's musical score is a help. So is the gorgeous photography, filmed in Malaysia.
If you're tired of films set on city streets, this one will, at the least, provide you with a change of scenery. The crowd scenes, and all the visual aspects, are well-handled. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic MOVIE REVIEW
``Beyond Rangoon''
Cast: Patricia Arquette, U Aung Ku, Frances McDormand, Spalding
Gray
Director: John Boorman
Screenplay: Alex Lasker and Bill Rubenstein
Music: Hans Zimmer
MPAA rating: R (political violence)
Mal's rating: 2 stars 1/2
Locations: Regal Greenbrier in Chesapeake; Main Gate in Norfolk;
Kemps River, Lynnhaven Mall and Regal Pembroke in Virginia Beach.
by CNB