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The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 69

Publication:
The Observeri
Location:
London, Greater London, England
Issue Date:
Page:
69
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

9 ARTSFILM The Observer Review 16 August 1998 Curse and te Other film releases by Philip French Eve's Bayou (108 mins, U) Directed by Kasi Lemmons; starring Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield Firelight (103 mins, 15) Directed by William Nicholson; starring Sophie Marceau, Stephen Dillane Gang Related (ill mins, 15) Directed by Jim Kouf; starring James Belushi, Tupac Shakur, Dennis Quaid BTTiTiTF, HOLLIDATS autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, opens with a famously shocking declaration: Mom and Pop-were just a couple of Mds when they got married. He was 18, she was 16 and I was Writer-director Kasi Lemmons's Eve's Bayou seizes our attention admiiiistering an even greater shock in its opening lines. 'Memory is a selection of images' says the narrator, Eve Batiste, as she looks back to 1962, 'some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father I was 10 years Set in rural Louisiana at a time when blacks and whites were living segregated lives, 'Memory is a selection of images.The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old7 Eddie Izzard, one of De Wynter's henchmen, is done to death by Mrs Peel.

So, too, is the audience. tion. When at a party, Eve sees her father makinglove to aneighbour's wife, Cisely persuades her that she misunderstood an innocent-encounter. Later, Eve believes Cisely when she claims their father made sexual advances to her. If is this which makes Eve wish her- father dead, and to believe she brought his death about by consulting a voodoo specialist Eve's Bayou is impeccably acted (the expressive Smollett is wonderful as Eve) and touches truthfully on family relationships.

Firelight, the directorial debut of William Nicholson, author of Shadowlands, begins in 1839 when a Swiss governess (Sophie-Marceau), agrees to bear the child of an anonymous aristocrat (Stephen Dillane) in order to free her father from a debtors' prison; During their three days together at a Normandy hotel, the couple develop an affectionate relationship as they have sex by firelight But, nine months later, she gives up her child. Eventually, she manages to get a post as governess to the girl, now a illiterate, seven-year-old called Louise. The child's father turns out to be an honest sheep-breeding, Sussex landowner. His wife has been turned into a human vegetable after a riding accident early in their marriage, which is why he forced to father and adopt Louise. He is initially determined to be rid of the governess, but the embers of love revive, the pair are soon coupling again in the firelight's glow, and their child gradually emerges from her shell This modest movie is Jane Eyre on a shoestring, but the Brontes meet East Lynne without igniting a spark or pricking a-tear.

It's an insufferably dull affair. The handsome Dillane broods unro-mantically and Marceau is morethan a morceau morose. Watchable is the best that can be said for Gang Related. James Belushi arid the late rap artist Tupac Shakur, are bent homicide cops who sell the same bag of drugs to criminals, then murder them in circumstances that resemble underworld killings. They justify their activities by claiming to clean up the streets.

But their twelfth victim is a federal undercover agent and they must find a fall guy for the crime. The film's essential problem is that the duo are unsympathetic, uninteresting and uTjinteUigent, resulting in a rare case of an audience eager for fhemain characters to get their comeuppance. have back? Can I money my Rim of the week by Philip French ''After The Avengers, Conpery can never again claim that any script is beneath his contempt' balloon dislodging Nelson from his column, are dismal. The film's notions of social sophistication are decidedly more fifth-form than undergraduate, and style here just means Fiennes and Thurman constantly changing their clothes. In his bowler hat and'suit, Fiennes looks as uncomfortable as the president of an Orange Lodge who has accidentally walked into a Sinn Fein convention, while Uma band, rants at the world's leaders over closed-circuit television.

This could do for Scottish nationalism what Cuiloden did for Bonnie Prince Charlie and shows how little Bond has learnt from his encounters with Blofeld. After The Avengers, Connery can never- again claim that any script is beneath his contempt. None of the Sixties Bond imitations the. Matt Helms, Jason Loves, Derek Flints -ever sank to this level ol readily enter his premises and escape his clutches. None of this would matter, of course, if there was witty dialogue, or imaginatively staged action, or real style.

But the level of wit never rises above De Wynter's quip: 'John Steed what a horse's arse of a There isone mildly amusing scene in a Pythonesque' vein in which De Wynter and his fellow conspirators sit around a boardroom table disguised in coloured teddy-bear outfits. But by that time, our funny bones, have become paralysed, and, anyway, the joke is subsequently ruined when Steed says: 'The teddy bears are having a picnic; we're getting The special effects, which-include Peel and Steed in an E-type Jaguar being pursued by a swarm of giant mechanical insects and a hot-air Thurman seems always to be be looking past the camera in. imbecility, search of a reassuring smile The confused narrative from her English dialect and unexplained transitions coach. Connery suggest that a good'deal has away, clearly embarrassed been chopped from the film, by double entendres that. But.judgingfromthe90min- would have got 007's licence utes up on the screen, one handsome GP, Dr Louis Batiste (Samuel L.

Jackson) occupies a fine country house on a plot of land that has belonged to his family for more than a century. Back in the days of slavery, an ancestor of his, an African-born witch called Eve, was given her freedom for saving the life of her master, Mr Batiste. The woman's magical powers have, been handed down from generation to generation, and although Louis is a rationalist, his sister, Mozelle (Debbi Morgan), is a 'psychic counsellor', and the 10-year-old Eve (Jurnee Smollett) appears io have inherited the gift But with the power of insight goes a curse that has led Mozelle to lose three husbands. This southern Gothic tale is plausibly interwoven with a psychological story of family romance. Louis is a wom-aniser and his daughters, Eve, and the flirtatious, 14-year-old Cisely (Meagen Good), compete for his atten worth the price of a 9 ticket and a journey to the Warner Village in Leicester The short answer is 'no'.

I found The Avengers on television rather tiresomely self-regarding and, indeed, disliked most aspects of trie Svringing London phenomenon of which it was a part. But in its defence, it had a light touch, a certain charm and Macnee based his Steed on one of my favourite movie characters, the eccentric MI5 agent played by Ralph Richardson in the prewar thriller, Planes. The film is about as inviting as a cement souffle. From its agitated opening titles to the final credits (over which Grace Jones bawls a song as if she is mimicking Shirley Bassey's 'Goldfinger'), it is as enjoyable as being trapped in the corner of a pub by a rambling drunk trying to tell you a shaggy dog story. The incoherent tale, devised by screenwriter Don Macpherson, pits Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) against a megalomaniac meteorologist, Sir.

August De Wynter (Sean Connery), who plans to hold the world to ransom by controlling the weather. De Wynter lives in Blenheim Palace and has gigantic subterranean headquarters, but only employs half-a-dozen henchmen (one of whom, played by Eddie Izzard. is dispatched to a watery grave by Mrs Peel). This may well explain why he has to answer his own door and why his foes so hates to think what the stuff on the cutting-room floor is like. The Avengers: The Director's Cut is not one of the major attractions the has in store.

endorsed (eg 'In India, you can have a good 10 inches overnight'). In the film's most embarrassing scene, a kilted Connery, accompanied by a pipe The Avengers (90 mins, 12) Directedby Jeremiah Chechia-starring Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Conner KARL MARX observed that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Far-seeing as he was, Marx failed to predict that it would repeat itself as a musical and then as a big screen spin-off. Thus, in the wake of major movies inspired by Star Trek, The Brady Bunch, Mission: Impossible, The Saint and Lost In Space, the whirligig of time brings in The Avengers. Over the past week, there have been numerous articles about a fondly remembered show that clocked up 161 episodes in the Sixties and made household names of Patrick Macnee as John Steed, the suave, bowler-hatted secret serviceman, and Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg as his assistants.

Catherine Gale and Emma Peel. Most of the articles have been concerned with the clothes and the decor and how these have been recreated for the cinema. Publicity has also been generated by Warner Brothers deciding to open the movie without benefit of a press show, so I am in the position of being able to give an answer to the question is it maM are parodies of American B-feature conventions. In the first an unemployed miner gets cheated, jailed and driven into a life of crime in Helsinki. In the second Hamlet is transposed to a factory manufacturing rubber ducks in present-day Finland.

PHILIP FRENCH Video releases The Sweet Hereafter (1997, 15,. Alliance, Rental) Atom Egoyan. gives a heartfelt account of a small British Columbian community's response to the death of most of its children in a schoolbus disaster. Beautifully photographed and edited, and Ian Holm is outstanding. In and Out (1997, 12, Paramount, Rental) Amusing comedy about the consequences for a small-town English teacher (Kevin Kline) who is accidentally outed by a former pupil (Matt Dillon).

The trouble is that Kline and his longtime fiancee (Joan Cusack) don't know he's gay. Ariel Hamlet Liikemaailmassa (19881987, 15, Polygram, Rental Retail) Both these films by Finnish director AM Kauris- What's on, where it's on, when it's on. for answers to all your film queries call free on: SCOOT 0800 192192 Phoenix OXFORD Cornerhduse MANCHESTER Film Theatre GLASGOW RICHMOND FILMHOUSE 0181-332 0030 From Friday CURZON MAY FAIR 3B CURZON STREET 0171 369 1720 The Observer Interactive.

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Years Available:
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