The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 23

THE GUARDIAN Thursday July 28 1988 SCREEN GUARDIAN 23 Kinu off the Cobra Verde: a ballad of death and desire Herzog hetto the demons and Derek Malcolm reviews Eddie Murphy in Coming To America, together with the rest of the week's new releases Herbert Golder only of those extraordinary Iranian films made during the last years of the Shah but of the best Italian neo-realists. It is almost, in fact, an Iranian Shoe-shine, which draws on Naderi's own early life as an orphan who lived in the rusting hulks of wrecks on the Gulf shoreline. The boy in the film sells anything he can from empty bottles to iced water in an effort to live and get himself some education (one notes Sight And Sound at one bookstall at which he browses) and one of the supreme sequences of the film is his attempt to transport a huge block of ice from a seller to a buyer. The day is hot, and the block gets smaller and smaller. But this is not so much an ironic comedy as a very fine portrait of life on the edge of extreme poverty and of a hope that survives everything.

The boy is marvellously played by Majid Nirumand and Firuz Ma-lekzadeh's cinematography gives the film a simple eloquence that makes it rather more than just stunning to look at, which it certainly is. No one would guess that it was completed amid the oil Ores and carnage of the Iran-Iraq war, in a race against time. The Runner is a small jewel you must try to see. It is, in fact, one of the very best films in town right now. Brian Gilbert's Vice Versa (Odeon, Leicester Square, PG) has Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage as father and son who mysteriously change places in life.

The former becomes an 11- Eddie Murphy in Coming To America can kingdom as rich, despotic and hopelessly vulgar but paints the inhabitants of Queens as either criminal or helplessly hooked on the white American Dream of chasing the greenback. His fairy tale quickly becomes a kind of parody, with absurd black preachers, grasping flophouse landlords and greedy businessmen vying for a place in the limelight. Nothing is ever quite clever enough to stick firmly in the memory and, hard as Arsenio Hall, as his American true love, or James Earl Jones, as his tyrannical father, try to temper things by good acting, caricature is omnipresent. Subtlety is not Mr Murphy's strong point, but on the, whole his spiky charm saves both him and the movie. Easily the best surprise this week actually comes from ban which its director, Amir Na-deri, has now left.

The Runner (ICA Cinema) was made there in 1984 and presented at the 1986 Venice Festival on the last day, during the prize-giving ceremonies. Only a very few saw it but those who did were determined to get it screened in their own countries. I was one of them and, after a protracted series of negotiations, got it to the London Festival of that year, only to be faced with a crowd of chanting Iranians suspecting that no film made under the Ayatollah could be other than reactionary. On that score they need not have worried at all. The Runner is superbly shot, in a style that reminds one not AFRICAN prince A sits in his early i morning bath look- ing decidedly li with himself.

It is his 21st birthday. Besides, he is being gently washed by two beautiful, black handmaidens. Suddenly, a third topless siren surfaces from the water directly in front of him "The royal penis is clean, you The appendage in question belongs to Eddie Murphy and, watching Coining To America (Plaza, 15), one constantly thinks that only he could get away with it. Murphy, who apparently thought up the story himself, but had it directed by John Landis, plays the prince as if he knows what it is like having his every whim succoured and is perhaps getting just a little tired of it. The prince, heir to the throne of somewhere called Barunda, goes off to America to rectify matters and find a girl who loves him for himself.

And since he is a future king, he goes to Queens, New York. Once there, he lives in the worst slum he can find and goes to work in a diner. What ensues could roughly be termed a romantic comedy, almost entirely inhabited by black people. And the intriguing think about it is not that it is very good the quality, to say the least, is variable but that Murphy is able to draw his black characters in a way that would have got a white man skinned alive, and not just in Africa. He not only presents his, Afri desert dancer or the siren chorus) are part of this danse macabre no less than the crippled, visibly crushed, like those crabs that scuttle tight against the fortress wall, by the oppression of such an existence.

What does not move in a trance limps, writhes, or crawls. Some terrible evil shapes all things to itself. "Go back," Cobra Verde tells a runaway slave, "or they will only make it worse for you." No one sheds his yoke. What face can one turn toward such a world? That of fierce contempt, outrage, disgust that of KinskiCobra Verde, who looks with loathing on degraded humanity, its poisonous jungle of which he, "Green is Titanic daimon. But there is dignity in this snarling defiance.

The man who despises himself, said Nietzsche, still honours the de-spiser from within. Herzog makes this point visually. Fettered and awaiting death, his blue eyes blazing with demonic hatred through a pitch-smeared face, Cobra Verde remembers another world, a distant mountainous land where snow falls like feathers, a vision shared with his "only friend," the cripple Euclides, whose deformity as well as dream he recognised for his own: "I too am a Da The last four minutes a man crippled almost beyond humanly reconizable form pursuing Cobre Verde on an empty shore, watching as he tries in vain to drag a boat toward the surf, then collapses into the waves is the film's epiphany, and possibly, along with the end of Antonioni's The Passenger, the most remarkable ending ever. But the coda, true to balladic form, is the refrain: the chorus of nubile sirens (who earlier danced before slaves in chains), confirming that those who dance (the warriors in their rigid trot; the human' signal corps; the desert seductress) move with no more' freedom than those whoimp or crawl. These sirens sing Of freedom but the dance is as bewitched as bewitching.

The lovelier the illusion of freedom the more inexorable the enslavement In vain, criticVhjive looked for a pat message, and, not finding-one, have lost their way. resorting mostly to SELLING fools' gold to the public has become the stock-in-trade of Herzog reviewers: anecdotes, cliches, high-minded indictments, nostalgia for earlier films. Critics note familiar Herzog images in Cobra Verde cripples, steaming jungle, the face of Kinski but only as a pastiche. They fail to see the taut, musical logic which combines them here. In Eliot's phrase, they have the experience but miss the meaning.

As the blind fiddler at the beginning suggests, Cobra Verde is a cinematic ballad. Hence its lyrical narrative form: its refrains, for example, the sylphs that dance and cripples that crawl around its outlawhero. This film is not about the historical experience of slavery, but is a ballad about a slave-trader in a world that knows no other trade. It begins on a desert strewn with corpses and ends with a cripple on an empty beach. Between desert and beachhead are two degenerate societies: the mad, enslaved kingdom of Dahomey and the corrupt civilisation whose greed it serves.

One can find worlds "where the dead seem more alive than the living" in other Herzog films. But for a vision of a world so unregenerately enslaved one has to go to works like Eurpides' Hecuba or Trojan Women, plays which dramatise a world bent and brutal-ised beneath the weight of anagke the yoke of "necessity" clamped around the neck of humankind. For Euripides is no god greater than and for Herzog (an enchantress dancing seductively before a ruined church), gods are remote, the force of necessity immediate, relentless. The most compelling necessities are sex and death; then-laws define us. During the filming of Fitzcarraldo, Herzog characterised the jungle as a landscape of unmitigated necessity, "an overwhelming spec- tacle of fornication and This film bares a landscape of the soul, a human jungle rank with death and desire.

Refuge from one is taken only in the other; freedom is the illusion produced by imposing them both on others. In the huddled naked flesh of the slave pit, Cobra Verde sees the face of Death: "Do you know who these women are? Our future murderers." Unmedi-ated, it is a vicious circle. The shapes of desire (like the year-old schoolboy and the latter a frenetic young executive feverishly trying to climb the corporate ladder. The film opens well, since father has divorced his wife and has little time for his son, making the sudden transformation the more piquant And Reinhold plays himself as a boy with considerable mimic skill. Pick of the week's TV films Finally, there's Out Of Order at the Metro, a boldly-made and executed piece by the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop's Dead Honest Soul Searchers.

Don't expect any swishness here, since this is a story about cops and kids in the city of Telford which states itself to be "somewhere between pastiche and Out Of Order has also been dubbed a musical for the club generation, with rap, disco and funk competing with anyone from Sinatra to The Communards on the sound-track. Its virtues lie in its energy and shrewd observation of and sympathy for its streetwise characters. Its vice is a narrative so fractured that you can scarcely follow what precisely is happening. But at least it is something almost defiantly different, and totally unselfcons-ciousatthat. conehead make-up, making his head resemble an elongated egg.

But he points out the personality resemblance: "I think Michael and I are similar to John and Dan. Each had something in his personality the other wanted. John was gregarious, and Dan was shy. I think John admired Dan's ability and discipline." Although Groomes is nine years older than Chiklis, the two men have developed a strong camaraderie over the past several months. Groomes: "Our senses of humour clicked." Chiklis: "We go to dinner and terrorise waitresses." Groomes: "If we're in an elevator I'll say, think I can get you off on the murder charge but not on the "It's a good thing we get along," he adds, "because we have to portray two of the more popular entertainers of the last half of the 20th century-" CHARLES DANCE The man who would be king But the film, though scripted by Dick Clement and Ian La Fren-ais, never strays very far from orthodox Hollywood comedy, though put together with enough skill to be fairly wat-chable throughout.

A Man In Love (Chelsea and some Cannons) is by Diane Kurys who made the good Peppermint Soda and the excellent Coup de Foudre. Both were small budget efforts of some sophistication. This is a big and undoubtedly expensive commercially oriented love story, and curiously empty by comparison. Peter Coyote plays an American film star who has come to Rome to make the life story of Cesare Pavese, the Italian poet. His jealous and possessive wife is Jamie Lee Curtis and the girl he falls for on the set is Gretta Scacchi.

Even better, her mother is Claudia Cardinale. Feldman says: "Thjs will be a celebration of the gottd part of Belushi's life, with the drugs as underpinning. People wont forget the fact that he died at age 33 with a lady sticking needles in his arm. But you can't force-feed people anti-drug statements." On a Hollywood soundstage, the film-makers are recreating some characters from the popular TV show Saturday Night Live. Today's skit imagines a clandestine meeting during Watergate between President Nixon and none other than Wired author and Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward.

The setting is supposed to be a foggy, deserted pier. There's Belushi in a suit playing Woodward and Dan Aykroyd in cone-head make-up playing Nixon. "You have a traitor in your midst," Woodward tells Nixon, "the Prince of Germany." "Ah, Kissinger," Nixon ponders, then says suspiciously: "But wait, why are you telling me this?" "My book deal," Woodward answers. "You scratch my hiney, I'll scratch your hiney, Yourffiney." From a distance and even in close-up, the Belushi character, as played by Michael Chiklis, looks very like the original. Chiklis, a young New York stage actor, deliberately gained 30 pounds for the part.

His fellow actor Ray Sharkey says: "When Michael comes to work, he looks nothing like John. But when he walks out of the makeup trailer, he's got it right on the money. It's his attitude." Sharkey, who knew Belushi well, plays his guardian angel. Describing himself as "a recovering drug Sharkey says "I was born to play this part I think John sort of hand-picked me from heaven. I'm finding the whole thing very therapeutic." But a good cast does not a good Sim make, and A Man In Love gets nowhere very much rather slowly, embellished by a soapy score from George De-lerue which drives home every point in the drama until one is almost screaming for mercy.

The kernel of the film appears to be whether, if you love two people at once, you destroy everything or are simply bowing to what may be inevitable. But the triangle is never interesting enough for anyone to care. However, a good continental romance, swishly shot and played with more than a modicum of acting skill, may well suit some. What most worried me was the horrendously pretentious nature of the film within the film about Pavese. That's invariably a sign that something has gone badly wrong somewhere.

Chiklis adds: "We're not going to be heavy-handed and say, 'Don't do drugs'. We're showing young, hip people and what drugs do to them. In a lot of ways the drug scene has gotten worse in America, although I do think things have changed in Hollywood. A lot of people here were affected by Belushi's death." Alhough Chiklis, 24, never met Belushi, he says: "In a lot of ways I feel I did because I watched him every week. He was probably my favourite comedian.

His influence on me was very deep. The first time I saw him I was 11. 1 remember laughing out of control. From that point on, it was religion. My brother and I met every Saturday night in front of the television.

"John was like a vacuum cleaner. He sucked in life. He had energy to spare, but he also had sudden manic mood swings. Obviously he was a troubled man. Nonetheless, he was a comic genius, and we're trying to let that shine through.

The movie's not going to be all depressing." Chiklis sees similarities between himself and Belushi "We both had brothers we were close to, and we both were captains of our football team. My best friend in college was very much a Dan Aykroyd type. I had the gut raw energy, and he was a technically superb actor. He was the tall, blond, straight guy, and I was the short nut." Playing Aykroyd in Wired is a little-known actorcomic from Minneapolis named Gary Groomes. "I can understand why Dan is apprehensive about this movie," Groomes says.

"These guys were soulmates. Aykroyd told Woodward: 'I was his Groomes may or may not look like Avkrovd. It's hard to HIDDEN CITX "TREMENDOUS HOLDS ONE SPELLBOUND" Alexander Walker, The STANDARD dealing with Oedipal emotions in an operatic milieu. Jill Clay-burgh gives fine-tuned performance as American diva in Italy having to wean teenage son from drugs after husband's death. With Matthew Barry, Tomas Milian.

1979 Things to Come (Sat, BBC-1, Remarkable in its day and still impressive, Korda production had H. G. Wells adapting own novel projecting war-ravaged world 100 years on, with science seen as both deliverer and potential despot. Stylish direction by Wil liam Cameron Menzies. score by Arthur Bliss.

193S Harvey (Sat, C4, 1.00-2.55pm): James Stewart as genial drunk whose constant companion is no pink elephant but a giant white rabbit; Oscar-winning Josephine Hull the perplexed sister wanting him committed. Irresistible charmer, directed by Henry Koster. 1950 55 Days at Peking (Sat, ITV, 2.00-4.50pm): Nicholas Ray's account of Boxer rebellion and besieged embassies in 1900 China with emphasis on internalised drama (and therefore rather talky) as much as spectacle. Charlton Heston lends "epic" presence; sturdy support from David Niven, Flora Robson. 1962 Joan of Arc (Sat, BBC-2, 3.25-5.45): More Maid of Hollywood than Orleans under veteran Victor Fleming's but worth seeing for Ingrid BergJ man's bright-eyed endeavours and Jose Ferrer's Dauphin.

Otherwise spark is lacking in adaptation of Maxwell Anderson play. 1948 Cat Ballou (Sat, BBC-1, 11.45-1.20am): Amiable spoof Western, with Jane Fonda turning outlaw to avenge pa's murder. Lee Marvin took Oscar for splendid over-playing in dual role of boozy ex-gunslinger and twin badman. Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye provide bouncy ballad interludes. Eliot Silverstein directed.

1965 Invasion of the Body Snatch- If the hats fit Gary Groomes deft) as San Aykroyd and Michael Chiklis as John Belushi in a Blues Brothers skit Nancy Mills on the making of Wired, a black comedy about the death of John Belushi On a mission from Ed journalistic cliches and to feed ing the mediaisonyth of Herzog They iiohise'Herzoe but give short shrift what matters the film. Even if a lion could speak, Wittgenstein once said, we woul'd probably be unable to understand mm. "What is important," as Herzog has explained in interview after interview, "is only what you see." Take some mental Optrex to wash away the critics' red ink; give this film a "second in OUTRAGEOUSLY SEXY Luc Bollard's I airauAuftaxuttic re SERIOUSLY A masterpiece" BLITZ "Startling and sensuous" THEGUAHOIAN The Experiencer (today, Michael Koh-: ler's rarely seen poem-otffiltn. seven years in the making arfd reputedly a highly imaginative, if demanding, delight. Co-writer Brian Helweg-Larsen portrays young man on soul-searching odyssey round world.

1977 Marlowe (tomorrow, 11.35-1.10am): Chandler's pri-. vate eye dusted down a brashed up for the Sixties; Smartish version of The Little Sister, with James Garner an engaging hero and Bruce Lee lending a kung-fu foot. 1969 The Lords of Flatbush (tomor row, BBC-2, 11.55-1.20am): Low- Lee Marvin stars in Cat Ballou(BBC-l, Sat) budget exercise in Fifties street-gang nostalgia has fair degree of talent and wit behind its rough edges. Eye-catching work by tyro stars Sylvester Stallone, Perry King and Henry (Fonz) Winkler. Directed by Stephen F.

Verona and Martin Davidson. 1974 -La Luna (tomorrow, C4, 12.15-2.55am): Melodrama on a grand scale from Bernardo Bertolucci taw 4 MittfSU II 2 Si it ty Jean wm now showing everYinan cinema wms 3.00 (not Sun) S.J9 l-ZD Nir QMrtf ihorU (flat lun 101. IB rtiiniiii WHEN producer Ed Feldman read Wired four years ago, he thought Bob Woodward's account of "the short life and fast times of John Belushi" would make a provocative feature film. So he enquired about the rights. Surprisingly, they were available.

It turned out that nobody else in Hollywood was eager to get involved with the story of one of America's most popular comics and how he died from an overdose of cocaine and heroin. Feldman, who produced such films as Witness and The Other Side OfMidniRht. boueht Wood ward's book and invested more than $1 million to develop the project. After one false start two years ago, Wired is finally before the cameras. But even now, many in Hollywood consider the project a pariah.

Because no studio would put up a penny of the $13.5 million budget, Feldman had to go to New Zealand to get backing from Lion Breweries. RecoKnisine that audiences would not watch a documentary-style treatment of Belu- shi's death, Feldman chose a "fantasy-comedy-drama" ap proach like Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, the 1979 musical about show business and death. In Wired, Belushi's gruesome, drug-induced death coexists with some of his funniest routines, including six Blues Brothers numbers. This black comedy opens with Belushi's guardian angel, a Puerto Rican cab driver, nick ing him up at the morgue and taking him on a tour of his life. "You're going to be able to laugh at things that would seem impossible to laugh at," director Larry Peerce promises.

"Imagine Beluahi sitting up in the morgue with a tag on his toe, jumping up and running out dressed in a sheet" 4 cvciU0uviim.Kinvripwvi A new comedy by John WatBiS y( TheVteal But Their HarVyas Perfect! "EASILVTHE FUNNIEST FILM OF THE ers (Sun, BBC-2, 10.55-12.20am): Director Don Siegel at his economical best in sci-fi classic which retains power to chill. Resonant of McCarthy-paranoia age, though hardly limited to that, with pod-borne aliens taking over Californian town. Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynterstar. 1956 National Lampoon's Animal House (Sun, C4, 12.15-2.1Sam): Rowdy campus comedy has much to answer for in flood of increasingly dire imitations. But this vulgar romp at least had colourful fraternity, including John Belushi and guest Donald Sutherland, and sure, lampooning direction from John Landis.

1978 Private Benjamin (Mon, ITV, 9.00 News 11.35pm): Star Goldie Hawn also earned her stripes as producer in square-peg romantic-comedy of young widow seeking solace and new direction by joining army. Indulgent direction by Howard Zieff, with sentiment something of an obstacle course. 1980 Mike Sumner JOHN WATERS IS A GEN lUSH" 'J "I LAUGHED SO HARD I WENTT0 THE MUlMttMCCIIIIClKtilM, "A MINEOFtO'i MUSICAL OEMS, IN RICKI LAKE JOHN WATERS HAS FOUND A NEW ME6A STAR" 'TOTALLY OVER THE TOP AM? T0TAIW THE COSTUMES, SOUNDTRACK AND DANCIHfli uviiumm i mniin KHnmuuniursuiiSi IllHWir mmuHMl WM NTMMm MIM HWSHIUV MM I.UE iuJOH XIIUlU iwn mums WOT iUffiUWI F.MIVMU.iuMUUXminMtimTlUU ARE WONDERFUL" 5. NICHtMFflfHSTlM(M MOW SHOWING I STARTS TOMORROW I tell because he is wearing hia.