The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 37

MOVIE REVIEWS 'Stripper' doesn't hide pain "I LOVE THIS MOVIE! If people don't go see this movie, they're going to miss a great Roger fbert, AT THE MOVIES AND ENLIGHTENING. -James Verniere, BOSTON HERALD They're headed for a place where deals are made. And legends are born. 1 t3 ''k STRIPPER Directed by Jerome Gary. At the Harvard Square.

Rated (nudity). By Jay Carr Globe Staff "Stripper," a sort of documentary, plays like a mild little spinoff from "Pumping Iron II." The difference is that the strippers here mostly seem to be pumping air as they reflect, sometimes touching-ly, on their job of unzipping to canned music before the sexually retrograde. As in the earlier film about female bodybuilders, we follow the intersecting paths of half a dozen women who work hard at what they do. They come from Vancouver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and points north to compete for a $25,000 Golden G-String Award in the Congo Room of the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. More than one speaks of her art, and all sound defensive.

Gio, as Lisa Suarez has nicknamed herself, speaks of having danced for 10 years and enjoying a feeling of controlling her audience of noisy men, then blandly adds, "Someday I'll be able to tell my parents about it." On the other hand, Sara Costa, a dancer from Los Angeles, has the full support of her mother. The matronly Mrs. Costa helps sew her daughter's costume and is right there at the end, consoling Sara when she loses out in the finals. Danyel, who favors black studded leather and red body paint that creates the impression of self-inflicted whip cuts, says, "Pain can be pleasurable, and it's nice to give it and it's nice to receive it." But in the next breath Danyel mentions a dark, hurtful childhood. Drugs, broken homes and foster homes figure in the recollections of the others, to the point where you begin to resent the film, which finally seems to be exploiting a certain degree of confusion on the part of the strippers.

No matter how blithely they proclaim their art, none seems to abound in self-esteem. Sometimes the pain they expose makes you squirm, as when Janette Boyd, who knocks herself out exercising to get in shape for the competition, cries during the interview, breaking down under the pressure of feeling age gaining on her and wondering if she can make years of professional savvy take the place of vanished youth. In short, "Stripper" is anything but a celebration of untram-meled hedonism. If anything, it demonstrates that stripping is to sex what Styrofoam is to food. The film does have glints of unexpected beauty a row of variously col-, ored grain elevators standing sur-realistically across the street from a saloon where Lisa Suarez and Loree Menton grind away during Calgary cowboys' lunch hours, a succession of twilight skies upstaging Las Vegas neon but they are incidental to the strippers' lives.

It's heartening to see members of a stripper's union meet in Vancouver and discuss ways to prevent rape. That's the sort of activity that might lessen the considerable hurt these women have borne. Loud rock, sequins and this ultimately sad film never quite camouflage their pain. Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elisabeth Trissenaar in "Angry Harvest." 'Harvest' makes point without preaching Where second best never gets a second chance. I I.

I I 1 SOUNDTRACK ALBUM AVAILABLE ON WAKNLR BROS RECOUPS AND TAPrjT) ready confusing relationship. Leon justifies his salacious behavior by persuading himself that he and Rosa can live happily ever after when the war is over if she would convert to Catholicism. It never occurs to him that, despite her vulnerability, Rosa would hold true to her religious beliefs. Unlike many films set in Nazi Germany, "Angry Harvest" doesn't ever allow polemics to overcome art. The performances are superb and, unlike many other current movies, it's worth seeing more than once.

USA Cinemas CHARLES CM ST. NIM GOV'T CTI 227-1330 USA Cinemas NATICK III 1 On SHOCKS WOIID 653-5005237-5840 USA Cinemas S0MERVILLE Ot ASSEMBLY SO '( 9 628-7000 SHOWCASE CINEMAS DEDHAM KTI. I A 128 EXIT 60 326-4955 General Cinema PEAB0DY H0MHSH0M MOWING CENTER 599-1310 SHOWCASE CINEMAS W0BURN ITE. 178 EXIT 39 DIE. 38 933-5330 General Cinema CHESTNUT HILl HIE 9 Oi HAMMOND ST.

277-2500 SHOWCASE CINEMAS REVERE RTE. CI A SOUIDE BO 286-1660 Late Show Tonight at Natick, Somerville, Dedham, Woburn Revere Watch the Academy Awards March 24 rxn nn ill FUM. Lfll Ron Howard one of the best directors of comedy working today in film." JULIE SALAMON THE WALL STREET JOURNAL frQ iprir jaa ttM 1. I) "I haven't been this gung-ho for a movie this MIKE CLARKUSA TODAY nn 7Q in I "This is an assembly line of laughs. A very funny movie.

Michael Keaton is absolutely delightful and winning he is wonderful. I couldn't be more enthusiastic." KAITY KELLYIM4SC-7V nJ In "Michael Keaton, a whirlwind of a comic actor plays with boisterous energy and glib charm." ANGRY HARVEST A Jilm directed by Agnleszka Holland. Written by Holland and Paul Hengge. Based on the novel by Herrmann Field. Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl and Elisabeth Trissenaar.

In German with English subtitles. At Copley Place. No rating (sexual situations and brief nudity). By Michael Blowen Globe Staff The train to the concentration camp chugs relentlessly through the German forest. Frightened voices inside the dark, suffocating box car describe plans to risk death by leaping from the train rather than survive a few more days while awaiting the poison gas of death camps.

This is the opening sequence in "Angry Harvest" a harrowing drama that makes its political, historical and religious points without ever resorting to preaching or polemics. The plot is simple. Leon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a modest Polish farmer, discovers Rosa (Elisabeth Trissenaar), the woman who leaped from the train, in the woods. He hides her from the Germans in his basement while nursing her back to health with soups and medicines. Initially, it seems that filmmaker Agnieszka Holland is retelling a story many of us have seen many times before.

But "Angry Harvest" is much more complicated than the clear-cut morality of so much filmmaking about the Holocaust. To her credit, Holland never relies on the concrete torture of Nazi persecution, but on the atmosphere of living in daily fear. Holland, unlike other directors who believe that simply showing Nazis and Jews solves their dramatic problems, transforms the good-evil dichotomy into a story of moral complexity. Holland is not only curious about the political realities of persecution; she's also fascinated by the personal, sexual and religious implications of the relationship between Leon and Rosa. Leon, a sexually repressed Roman Catholic, becomes aroused by Rosa.

The lonely farmer begins taking sexual advantage of his patient, thus complicating their al- China plans first festival of Shakespeare Associated Press PEKING The China Coal Mine Drama Troupe and the People Liberation Army will perform next month in China's first Shakespeare festival. prama companies from around the' country will gather in Peking and Shanghai for performances and lectures devoted to the 17th-century scribe the Chinese call "Shashibiya." ''Many experts are preparing for this festival, and the level of performances and discussions will be on a par with other countries," said Liu Hesheng, deputy director of the Central Academy of Drama, at a recent news conference. "We will! be drawing on the talents of Pek'lng, Shanghai and the far reaches of the country." Eighteen Shakespearean plays will be performed. The works of William Shakespeare gained popularity in China in the 1930s. Several translations and anthologies were published after the People's Republic of China yas established in 1949.

However, all dramatic productions were banned during the Cultural Revolution, the 1966-76 decade of social upheaval, except for eight officially sanctioned revolutionary plays. Shakespeare productions were revivedin 1978. KATHLEEN CARROLL NEW YORK DAILY NEWS A RON HOWARD FILM STARRING MICHAEL KEATON ffD nr Ua LnJ 5 A RON HOWARD FILM MICHAEL KEATON PARAMOUNT PICTURES SCREENPLAY BY LOWELL GANZ BABALOO EXECUTIVE BLUM AND LOWELL GANZ BABALOD MANDEL STORY DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD FILMED PRODUCED BY TONY GANZ AND ITI1 OOIBY STEREO A INSfLECTED THEATRES (1 PG -13 PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED tow. ltrll It lnwrnWlll tor CMKrtw Uf 13 COP BIGHT i9MBvfAAMtjN1 SCCPOflTK. All BiGMlSflFStRWtD Kintek Stereo Kintek Stereo General Cinema FRAMINGHAM RTE.

9 ot SHOPPERS WORLD 235-8020872-4400 General Cinema CHESTNUT HILL RTE. 9 at HAMMOND ST. 277-2500 SHOWCASE CINEMAS WOBURN RTE. 128 EXIT 39 A RTE. 38 933-5330 USA Cinemas SOMERVILLE at ASSEMBLY SO.

RTE 93 628-7000 USA CINEMAS LIBERTY TREE MALL DANVERS 777-1818 599-3122 SHOWCASE CINEMAS REVERE RTE. CI SQUIRE RD. 286-1660 USA Cinemas CINEMA 57 STUART ST. NEAR PARK SO. 482-1222 SHOWCASE CINEMAS DEDHAM RTE.

1 A 128 EXIT 60 326-4955 Late Show Tonight at Somerviil9, Dedham, Woburn Revere WMch the Academy Awards March 24.