AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS Star-ring Gaspard Manessc, Raphael Fejto, Stanislas Carre de Malberg, Francme Racette and Peter Fitz Produced, written and directed by Louis Malle. An Onon Classics Release Drama, rated PC 100 min Screening date: 12/29/87. How come all these movies about sweet-faced urchins enduring the rigors of World War II are coming out all of the sudden? Some forty years after the fact, John Boorman, Louis Malle and (via Amblin Entertainment) J.G. Ballard have all decided to jump onto the film scene with highly personal tales of school uniforms and bomb shelters, we don't mind it, mind you, we just think it's terribly odd timing^ Louis Malle, director of "Atlantic City" and "My Dinner with Andre," does perhaps his best work to date with this autobiographical tale about his childhood during World War II. Malle's new film, "Au Revoir Les Enfants," is the best of the new subgenre, a film at first powerfully evocative of Boorman's "Hope and Glory" in its depiction of European schoolchildren diving under wobbly wooden desks at the blast of air sirens, but which soon convinces us that the War in France was a lot more than just the War in Great Britain with subtitles and funnier accents. Our first clue comes when nosey Nazi collaborators show up at the young hero's private Catholic boarding school; the monks start dragging all the Jewish-looking boys indoors and out of sight. This, Malle demonstrates, is occupied Europe, and it's not a fun place to be. Malle's adolescent alter-ego Julian Quentin (Gaspard Manessej happens to befriend one of these semitic-visaged "new students" (Raphael Fejto) and becomes embroiled in keeping the young Jew's true identity a secret. Theirs is a ttimultuous friendship at once strained and bonded by the tension of special shared knowledge Much of both the suspense and dramatic interest in the film revolves around this central conspiracy; Malle essentially putting the life of one boy into the hands of another The audience is left to hope against hope that Julian's moral courage will outweigh any childish compulsion to spill the beans. Moral courage is, in fact, the film's key issue. The German grunts who patrol the periphery of Julian's universe are not grotesque servants of oppression. If anything, they suggest their long-suffering American counterparts, men with unpleasant work to do in unfamiliar places. Indeed, Malle is much quicker to indict the traitorous jewhating French collaborators, evil swine too quick to betray their nation for the pettiest of compensations. In one remarkable scene, two collaborators harassing an elderly Jew are thrown out of a "No Jews" restaurant by disgusted German officers. But, despite this, Julien's life in occupied France seems so darned normal most of the time. Little Julian (who could pass effortlessly for a younger sibling of Quinn Cummings) hates homework and develops a nasty crush on the school's piano tutor, but when he gets hopelessly lost playing in the woods, he is saved by Nazi stormtroopers who artest him for being out after curfew. He still has to raise his hand to go to the bathroom, but then there's a guy dressed like Sgt. Schultz in the hall demanding to see his papers. "Enfants" is rife with such startling depictions of life during wartime. And, as if all this weren't enough to keep our attention from flagging, Malle has fueled Julien's world with numerous high-octane character turns. Stanislas Carte de Malberg is a hoot as Julian's older brother, a burgeoning delinquent who enjoys giving helpless German soldiers cheerfully inaccurate directions. He toys with the idea of joining the resistance even as his endearingly pragmatic mother (Francine Racette) insists that he at least finish school first. And Peter Fitz really does justice to the term "fascist" as the sneering, racist, ogrely Gestapo agent with the ugly knack for sniffing out assimilated Jewry. Somebody at Orion Classics is obviously doing a tremendous job of plundering French cinema for American tastes. Not content with having given us Claude Bern's superb — "Jean de Florette" cycle last year, they have now brought over perhaps Malle's best work to date. "Au Revoir Les Enfants" is rated PG for language and violence. Jim Kozak THE TELEPHONE Starring Whoopi Goldberg, Eliott Gould and John Heard Produced by Moctesuma Esparza and Robert Katz Directed by Rip Tom Written by Terry Southern and Harry Nilsson A New World Pictures release. Comedy, rated R Running time: 97 min. Screening date: 1/11/88 The film Whoopi tried to keep you from seeing. The Blm we're trying to keep you from seeing. Just about every line is dead in this hackneyed one-woman show. Whoopi Goldberg gets a lot of mileage out insisting that she never got into the business to become a Movie Star, which may explain why she seems to be deliberately sabotaging her career. Although "The Telephone" is at least a departure from the raunchy action comedies that she's been stuck in since "The Color Purple," it is the worst of the lot. Many more like this, and she'll have to start worrying about finding employment, let alone becoming a Movie Star Playing an out-of-work actress named Vashti Blue, Goldberg has the screen entirely to herself as she inhabits her character's funky apartment and proceeds to run through her repertoire of broadly-drawn personas. With only brief cameo appearances by other actors to get in her way and fueled by the apparent belief that we find Vashti Blue to be endlessly charming, Goldberg just flails about the set, dissolving in and out of various dialects and managing to be unfunny at best and incoherent at worst. Her rambling monologue is so unfocused that it's hard to believe that anyone actually scripted this, let alone Terry Southern ("Dr. Strangelove") and Harry Nilsson The film takes a slightly interesting turn at the very end. A telephone repairman (John Heard) shows up at Vashti's door to repossess her phone, and we are suddenly told that her line has been dead for months. All of the phone calls that we have seen her making (and there are lots) were the product of a sick mind. Vashti, it turns out, is nuts. This revelation is overacted something fierce, but at least we are given an explanation for Vashti's annoying behavior. The complete ineptitude of "The Telephone" is especially jarring as this is exactly the kind of multi-character show that Goldberg had been doing on stage when she was "discovered." Obviously this is what attracted her to this ultralow budget affair, and the film obviously got away from her (as noted elsewhere, she even tried to sue to prevent the release of the film). Still, it is her and only her up there on the screen, mouthing gibberish that no knowledgeable actor would accept. In the press notes for the film, Goldberg is quoted as saying that the only thing she was worrying aboiu during production was '"Is what I'm doing going to interest and please the audience?'" Several of the people at the screening we attended were apparently so interested and pleased that they had to leave in the middle of the film to tell others. The film is rated R for language. — Tom Mattlicws R-27 BOXOFFICE
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