Boxoffice-July.1997

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FESTIVAL REVIEWS
to Laura ("Wyatt Earp's" Johanna Ter
Steege)—is so original and exuberant that
the whole film warrants recommendation
for its beginning alone. After Jan and Laura
consummate their unspoken courtship, they
introduce themselves, and Jan reveals, "I'm
married." What follows is the mother of all
on-again/off-again relationships, as the forbidden
lovers grapple with a passion that
neither of them understands.
Director and co-writer Heddy Honigmann
reveals a wonderful intuition for complementing
her characters' emotions with camera
motion—variously caressing, running and
staring. And it's unimaginable that
Honigmann could have picked more controlled
yet emotive leads than Van Sande and
Ter Steege. "Goodbye" would have benefited
from one less breakup and reunification, regardless
of how true-to-life this drawn-out
pattern is. It's a rare film, however, that can
reaUstically portray all-consuming passion
without descending into absurdity or going
straight over the top. Ian Hodder
(TORONTO
FILM FESTIVAL
•••1/2
FIRE
Starring Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das
and RanjitChowdhry. Directedand written
by Deepa Mehta. Produced by Bobby Bedi
and Deepa Mehta. A Zeitgeist release.
Drama. Unrated. Running time: 104 min.
Deepa Mehta rebounds from her last misfire,
the little-seen Jessica Tandy/Bridget
Fonda starrer "Camilla," with a much better
take on a friendship between two women.
Set in contemporary Bombay, "Fire" is a
probing and sensitive look at the continuing
clash between traditional and modem Indian
values, typified by the strong relationship
between Radha (Shabana Azmi), an
unhappily married older woman, and Sita
(Nandita Das), a young and vibrant addition
to the household who stirs her in ways she
has not experienced before.
Unlike Mira Nair's "Kama Sutra," "Fire"
is imbued with real passion and conviction.
Though shot in English, it never feels stilted;
Mehta' s direction and plotting are pleasingly
subtle. She even throws in some effective
comic bits featuring Ranjit Chowdhry as a
perf)etually homy boarder. The other men in
the film, such as Sita's faithless husband
Jatin (Jaaved Jaaferi), are given their due,
too. In its quiet way, "Fire' pacLs an emotional
wallop. Shlomo Schwartzberg
THE DELTA •
Starring Shane Gray and Thang Chan.
Directed and written hy Ira Sachs. Produced
by Margot Bridger. A Charlie Guidanceproduction;
no stateside distributor set. Drama.
Not yet rated. Running time: HO min.
Set in the new Soutn, this pedestrian and
amateurish drama lcx)ks at the gay life of
two individuals in the Mississippi Delta.
One, a white suburban teen (Shane Gray)
who has a girlfriend, is given to sneaking
off to pick up male hustlers. A Vietnamese
84 (K-98) KoxoKFKK
man (Thang Chan) with whom he gets involved
at the film's beginning falls in love
with him, and the two undertake an odd,
uncertain relationship that ends in tragedy.
The American South remains an underused
subject of stateside film, and its gay
aspects have remained almost completely
untouched. But "The Delta" is such a flat,
slow and uninflected movie that it undermines
any provocative observations it
would like to make. Shot in 16mm, with
nonpros as actors (writer/director Ira Sachs
met his leads in a pool hall), "The Delta"
leaves no impression at all, so its interest to
audiences, whether straight or gay, is likely
to be negligible. Shlomo Schwartzberg
DOG RUN ••1/2
Starring Brian Marc, Craig DuPlessis
and Lisa Ristorucci. Directed by D. Ze 'ev
Gilad. Written by Brian Marc andD. Ze 'ev
Gilad. Produced by Jeffrey Feldman,
Brian Marc and D. Ze 'ev Gilad. No stateside
distributor set Drama. Not yet rated.
Running time: 104 min.
Stuck working in New Orleans for a dmg
dealer, teenagers Eddie (Brian Marc) and
Miles (Craig DuPlessis) leap at the chance
when their boss orders them to transport
some heroin to Manhattan. Once there,
they're left stranded with no place to go.
"Dog Run" is an authentic-looking movie,
a warts-and-all depiction ofthe squatters, drug
addicts and homeless kids fending for themselves
on the streets of New York. But director/co-scripter
D. Ze'ev Gilad is on shakier
ground when he tries to dramatize the situation.
As Eddie and Miles become involved
with two women, drug addict Tara (Lisa
Ristorucci) and college student Rachel (EUzabeth
Horsburgh), the film becomes less realistic
and more contrived. The relationship
between Miles and Rachel is especially unbelievable,
a fake "West Side Story" for the '90s.
A first-time helmer. Gilad demonstrates a
talent for atmosphere, but he'll need a better
screenplay next time around if he expects his
film to score. Shlomo Schwartzberg
FLOATING LIFE •••
Starring Annette Shun Wah, Annie Yip
and Anthony Wong. Directed by Clara
Law. Written by Eddie L.C. Fon^ and
Clara Law. Produced by Bridget Ikin. No
stateside distributor set. Drama. Chineselanguage;
English subtitles. Not yet rated.
Running time: 95 min.
An aptly titled, uneven yet emotionally
affecting work that deals with areas of the
immigrant experience seldom explored in
contemporary films, "Floating Life" was
shot mostly in Australia (where director
Clara Law and her husband/co-writer,
Eddie Fong, now reside). The film chronicles
a Chinese family from Hong Kong that
has scattered to the winds on the eve of
reunification with mainland China.
Eldest daughter Yen settles in Germany
with her husband and daughter; youngest
sibling Bing obtains a huge house Down
Under with her husband, and there the rest
of the family—including a crop of teenagers—turns
up (however uncomfortably) to
live; oldest son Gar Ming stays in Hong
Kong at the old family home awaiting his
own immigration papers. Law shifts her
story from house to house to explore the
dislocations, tensions and longing for a
sense of home. Placed in a suburb that's
stuck in endless space with all that harsh
light, the levels of that displacement are
obvious, and it's both funny and sad, especially
when contrasted with Gar Ming's
loneliness in Hong Kong's teeming crowds
and Yen in Germany's darker shadows.
What most makes "Floating Life" refreshing
is the way it tackles the subject of
emigration. Rather than making the family into
victims of racist rejection at die hands of the
Aussies, the fihn—as did Paul Mazursky's
"Moscow on the Hudson"—looks deeper into
a more complex type of homesickness
brought on by leaving one's cultural roots
behind. Law's work occasionally lapses into
melodrama (as in Bing's battles with her family),
but it reaches incongruently comic
heights also (as when Pa confronts a kangaroo
on his street). Kevin Courrier
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY
INTO NIGHT •••
Starring William Hutt, Martha Henry,
Peter Donaldson and Tom McCamus. Directed
by David Wellington. Written by Eugene
O'Neill Produced by Daniel Iron and
Niv Fichman. No stateside distributor set
Drama. Notyet rated Running time: 173 min.
Probably the greatest of all American
plays, Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical
Irish-American saga "Long Day's Journey
Into Night" has been made into a handsome
and faitnilil work by Canadian helmer David
Wellington ("A Man in Uniform"). Based
on the 1994 Stratford Theatre Festival production,
Wellington has shot this "Long
Day's Joumey" in autumnal colors and in
Panavision; meanwhile, a lonely, spacious
family home itself becomes a character.
William Hutt, as miserly patriarch James
Tyrone, gives a sturdy and powerful performance
as a man who cloaks his despair in a
haze of alcohol and blarney. As Mary, the
morphine addict who opens the spiritual
wounds that lay the family bare, Martha
Henry is better here than she was in the
stage version (though she still exhibits the
kind of technical brilliance that reminds
audiences they're watching a f)erformance).
Tom McCamus, as younger brother Edmund,
a struggling writer who is ill with
consumption, conveys his brooding and
melancholic humor with true lyricism. But
Peter Donaldson (as older brother Jamie, a
man who has failed to live up to his
father's—and his own—expectations) in
the final act, when he confronts Edmund
with his darkest secret, plays so inebriated
that it slurs the potency of O'NeiU's prose.
This take might not have the sweeping
power of the onUf other theatrical film version,
the great 1962 interpretation directed
by Sidney Lumet and starring the amazing
ensemble of Katharine Hepburn, Ralph
Richardson, Jason Robaras and Dean
Stockwell. But it still stands on its own as a
fine adaptation. Kevin Courrier