Boxoffice-September.1997

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.Spntpmher. 1997 fR-125i 111
FESTIVAL REVIEWS
HAPPY TOGETHER •*
Starring Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung
Chiu-Wai. Directed, written and produced
by Wong Kar-Wai. A Kino release. Romance.
Cantonese-, Mandarin- and Spanish-language;
English subtitles. Unrated.
Running time: 94 min. Won best director.
Yet another (over)extended rock video
masquerading as an Asian art film from
Hong Kong's shades-laden king of cool,
Wong Kar-Wai 's "Happy Together" is
noteworthy for not much else than the casting
of sex symbols Leslie Cheung ("Farewell
My Concubine") and Tony Leung
Chiu-Wai ("Chungking Express," "Hard-
Boiled") as its story's gay lovers.
Shock value and the Cannes fest's best
director prize aside, Wong's follow-up to the
lavishly overpraised "Chungking Express"
offers little in the way of stylistic or narrative
progress, although it should please his core
fans. As with previous efforts, Wong's "style"
here consists primarily of random experimentation
with film stocks, exposures, frame rates
and other assorted laboratory tricks. Had such
tinkering been in the service of a story! But a
near-total absence of narrative very quickly
makes even the most minute excesses m style
almost unbearably tedious. As music and imagery
splash, audiences are treated to nothing
more exciting than boy meets boy, boy loses
boy, boy gets boy back, boy loses boy, boy
gets boy back, boy loses boy, und so weiter.
The affair isn't as tedious as it might have
been, thanks primarily to a beguiling Argentinean
setting, nicely photographed by
Christopher Doyle whenever Wong's meddling
is kept to a minimum. But such interludes
are outnumbered by an endless parade
of closeups revealing the lead actors m various
states of angst and contemplation. By
the time the credits roll to a blithe cover of
the '60s rock ditty "Happy Together," audiences
might not be so appreciative of the
titular irony.
Wade Major
JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING
OF THE WORLD ^^1/2
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jean
Yves Gautier and Leonor Silveira. Directed
and written by Manoel de Oliveira.
Produced by Paulo Branca. No stateside
distributor set. Drama. French- and Portuguese-language;
English subtitles. Not
yet rated. Running time: 93 min.
"Journey to the Beginning of the World"
("Viagem Ao Principio Do Mundo") contains
the 1 7 1 St film appearance by Marcello
Mastroianni, notable because it's the last of
his many memorable performances before
his death in December of last year.
Mastroianni's character here is very similar
to Manoel de Oliveira, the film's 88-yearold
writer/director. Both have the same profession,
the same first name and wear a
similar floppy-brimmed hat.
Alfonso (Jean Yves Gautier) is a French
actor with a role in a Franco-Portuguese
co-production. His dead father was from
Portugal. He decides to visit his dad's home
village and to meet a surviving aunt. Because
Alfonso does not speak Portuguese,
the film's director, Manoel (Mastroianni),
and two other actors accompany him to
translate. As their car drives through the
rural roads, the sights trigger the director's
reminiscences of his early life. At journey's
end, the travelers find a village full of harsh
conditions and unhappy memories.
Providing a depth the rest of the film
lacks, Mastroianni's performance shows
his remarkable range. He's full of charm
while bantering with a young actress
(Leonor Silveira); closeups show Mastroianni's
face full of emotion and warmth as
the director recalls events from his past. He
even makes a face full of childish delight at
a stuffed cat. But the main storyline, of the
actor investigating his Portuguese roots, is
too slight to maintain much interest when
Mastroianni is not onscreen. Part of the
reason is that the script doesn't develop the
other characters on the journey, and much
of de Oliveira' s directorial style consists of
a repetitious combination of conversations
in the car and shots of the road as if viewed
from the back window. Ed Scheid
LA FEMME DEFENDUE irir
Starring Isabelle Carre and Philippe
HareL Directed by Philippe Harel. Written
by Eric Assous. Produced by Les Productions
Lazennec. No stateside distributor set.
Drama. French-language; English subtitles.
Not yet rated. Running time: 102 min.
This film is a cinematic exercise on adultery
in which the camera literally becomes
the eyes of the man: Only his field of vision
is seen on the screen. Francois (director
Philippe Harel) is 39 and married. He has
met the unmarried Muriel (Isabelle Carre),
age 22, at a party. He persuades her to meet
him at a bar. Later, they begin an affair.
Because "La Femme Defendue" is told
from the man's point of view, Harel is only
briefly seen reflected in a mirror. Most of
the screen time focuses on Carre as her
character speaks with her lover. She has a
captivating presence, but not enough to sustain
this film, which seems too drawn out at
feature length. The dialogue is routine and
without any insight, and the screenplay has
too many repetitious scenes in which
Francois persuades Muriel to continue the
affair when she wants to end it. Ed Scheid
POST COiTUM:
ANIMAL TRISTE
^^^1/2
Starring Brigitte Rouan, Patrick
Chesnais, Boris Terral and Nils Tavernier.
Directed by Brigitte Rouan. Written
by Brigitte Rouan, Santiago Amigorena,
Jean-Louis Richard, Guy Zilberstein and
Philippe Le Guay. Produced by Humbert
Balsan. No stateside distributor set.
Drama. French-language; English subtitles.
Not yet rated. Running time: 99 min.
This film's title is a quotation from the
Roman poet Ovid about unhappiness following
lovemaking; it's an apt expression
of the movie's theme of a love affair's painful
effects. Diane (director/co-writer Brigitte
Rouan) is 40ish and comfortable in her
relationships with her lawyer husband (Patrick
Chesnais) and two teenage sons. She is
a successful editor in a publishing house.
Yet Diane begins an affair with Emilio
(Boris Terral), a hydraulic engineer 20
years younger, and her overwhelming passion
for Emilio starts to dominate her life
to the point she risks losing both her family
and her career. She misses important meetings
after she secretly brings Emilio along
on a crucial business trip. Ironically, as her
husband finds out about the affair, he is
her
defending an old woman who killed
unfaithful husband with a dinner fork.
As in "Overseas," Rouan' s previous acting/directing/co-writing
effort, "Post
Coitum: Animal Triste" develops a diverse
group of characters. The script examines
the effects Diane's affair has on people in
her life, making the film more intriguing
than are conventional films about romantic
triangles that focus only on the lovers.
Rouan' s direction seamlessly combines a
variety of moods that correspond to Diane's
volatile emotional state, skillfuUy including
an imaginative fantasy of the euphoric Diane
as she begins her involvement with Emilio.
The film is dominated by the raw intensity
of Rouan' s performance. Rouan' s unflinching
camera reveals both Diane's
intimate feelings as well as the hysteria that
eventually develops as the affair ends.
Rouan 's efforts are also supported by a flne
cast: Chesnais makes the husband a sympathetic
figure who hopes his wife will return
to the stability of her family, and Nils
Tavemier is particularly good as a novelist
who gets over his writer' s block by fictionalizing
Diane's story. Ed Scheid
WESTERN •••1/2
Starring Sergi Lopez, Sacha Bourdo and
Elisabeth VitaU. Directed by Manuel Poirier.
Written by Manuel Poirier and Jean-
Francois Goyet. Producedby Maurice Bernart.
No stateside distributor set. Comedy.
French-language; English subtitles. Running
time: 136 min. Won a specialjury prize.
Not a western, "Western" is a road movie
set in western France. Owing to its clever
script and slighdy bittersweet tone, "Western"
earned a special jury prize at Cannes. A story
of two impossibly opposite men bonding, of
love lost and friendship found, it takes a number
of elements of American road movies and
gives them a decidedly French twist.
A handsome, confident Spaniard named
Paco (Sergi Lopez), and a shy, diminutive
Russian, Nino (Sacha Bourdo), are each
traveling through Brittany in search of love.
With nothing in common, a chance encounter
brings them together: Nino steals Paco's
car. Looking for the unlikely thief, Paco
finds love instead, in the fonn of Marinette
(Elisabeth Vitali), a lovely antiques dealer.
When she insists they take time apart to
discover if their love is solid, a dejected
Paco heads for the road again, again by
chance encountering Nino—and his car.
Despite their differences, they join forces
and eventually become close, sharing bizarre
meetings with, among others, an
angry farmer, a pair of sexually liberated
models, and a lusty single mother of eight.