The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 48

48 THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, JULY 1. 1994 Loren steals the show in Wertmuller's 'Saturday' Rose Troche reels in a winner with 'Go Fish' Much of the action consists of eloquent glances. SATURDAY, SUNDAY AND MONDAY Directed by: Lina Wertmuller Written by. Raffaele La Capria, Paolo Virzi and Wertmuller, based on the play by Eduardo de Hippo Starring: Sophia Loren, Luca de FHippo, Luciano de Crescenzo, Alexsandra Mussolini At: Museum of Fine Arts, tonight at 6 and July 7 at July 10 at A July at8. Kot rated In Italian with English subtitles.

ft Km 1 ra ii i Jbvi ii Sophia Loren (center) in a scene from "Saturday, Sunday and Monday." embodiment in the flesh. Looking over the unseated bronze Mussolini, By Betsy Sherman SPFX1AL TO THE GLOBE Lina Wertmuller has never seemed to particularly care what goes on in the kitchen, but "Satur- Mnvip dav- Sunday and Monday," the first KCVI6W movie of hers to be seen in these parts in several years, is a domestic drama that revolves in many ways around food and the personal investment involved in its preparation. Sophia Loren stars as the radiant matriarch who feels unappreciated by the extended family who feast on her ragu every Sunday. But although Loren's Rosa is the center of power in the family, Wertmuller is content to leave the female side of the movie in the actress' capable hands, and goes on to explore what really has been her area of interest all along, male insecurity. This is what her splashy films of the 1970s, such as "Swept Away" and "Seven Beauties," were about.

Wertmuller takes the husband figure in Eduardo de Filippo's comedy (played here by the playwright-actor's son, Luca, with much subtlety) 'In Custody5: By Jay Carr GLOBE STAFF No good deed goes unpunished in Ismail Merchant's directing debut, "In Custody," as it expands from Movie Review rueful irony to unexpected tenderness and poignan- cy. Everything goes wrong that can go wrong for its would-be biographer of a great poet, with whom he shares a noble passion the preservation of Urdu, an endangered northern Indian language of poets. At its center is something of a magnificent ruin, a bloated old poet named Nur, played by Shashi Kapoor, who swings between weariness and ferocity. We first see him supine, groping for a word. But most of his groping is for the bottle.

Whether there still is greatness in him is a question. But he's totally convincing as a man who once was great and retains enough awareness to be aware of his decline. His domestic life is a shambles, although the film never blames this director has the right touch; the Professor suggests to a -distressed fascist official that to prevent further damage, a pivot could be inserted into the Duce frdm, ahem, underneath. The Professor proves to bean important figure in the drama, since it is his adoring attentions to Rosa that send her husband, Peppino, into a jealous fit that starts as brooding and ends with an explosion. The play's title dictates its three-act structure, with Saturday being the setup, Sunday the big showdown and Monday the reconciliation.

The period production, chiefly set in the "30s but with flashbacks -of Rosa's and Peppino's budding romance at the turn of the century, is handsome, and the performances, which include a gaggle of eccentric bit parts, are fine. But there is a labored feeling in "Saturday, Sunday-and Monday," and it lacks an extra touch of magic that could have made it a true delight. It is a pleasure to see Loren (with little makeup aiid unplucked eyebrows) in a large role; her star quality serves as a basis on which to build the strong and capable, yet ultimately vulnerable, Rosa, poet responds by ordering food arid drink from a bazaar. The recording does not go smoothly. Nothing goes smoothly, and when Deven returns home he's greeted by another metaphor a white elephant of a mansion inherited lock, stock and traditions by his department chairman being bulldozed by a Delhi developer and speculator.

In the end, the old poet seems resigned. Yet Merchant's love for 'the vanishing Urdu heritage prevails, through the faded master and his disciple, against the odds. Even through subtitles, we can appreciate that Urdu is a grandly arched language and a vehicle for heartfelt intensity, thanks to the conviction with which the great Kapoor reads he poetry. Merchant, whose name' 'we are used to seeing as the longtime producer of the films of his partner, James Ivory, fills scene after scene with teeming, telling detail, proving that the years he has spent on movie sets have not been in vain. It would be enough had he brought off the comedy of human flaws and aspirations.

But he has done more. He animates the scamperings with moral passion and the good sense to allow a handful of first-rate actors to ride their characters' flaws, snatching a surprisingly humane sort of resolution from their downward (CALL (407) 363-8000) By JayCarr GLOBESTAFF I Rose Troche's "Go Fish" is a fresh, charming directing debut that fWill be to lesbian filmmaking what Mnvio sPike Lee's "She's Gotta Have If is i6V16W to the current -I wave of black cine- sma. Keeping the promise of independent alternative cinema, "Go Fish" is captivating on several counts, not the least of which is how smartly and it avoids the predictable PC as it catches us up in the lives of five Chicago women trying to make their lives work. Of all the relationship movies this year, it's the one that rings truest as it details the coming together of two shy women, with more than a little help from their friends. Periodically, the matchmakers are seen in an overhead mandala shot, as they lie on the floor, literally and figuratively putting their heads together, a droll Greek chorus, sprawling outward like human compass points.

What's astonishing is how easy and her company make it all seem, although the shoot must have been anything but, considering that it was done on a shoestring on weekends. Yet there's a naturalness starting with Wendy McKenna's college prof deciding she's had enough of Guinevere Turner's Max hanging around the apartment, and resolves to set up what only the most unobservant can regard as a chance encounter with a timid but emotionally solid ex-student, Ely, played by V. S. Brodie. The two women start to draw together and actually exchange kiss, but then comes a long-distance phone message from a woman to whom Ely remains nominally attached.

The ebb and flow so rare in most films, but so convincingly depicted here of the Max-Ely relationship is what finally draws us in. I Each wants a relationship, and is lattracted to the other, although it Max a while to get over the Barbie doll ideal she carries in her head. They back off to think it over and talk things out with their ifriends. Max needs to decide that she wants to take the plunge. Ely Jneeds time to shed some inhibitions formally end her withered two-city relationship.

Then Ely gets a crew cut, runs into Max at a maga- Jeffrey Lyons, SNEAK and connects him by his puppy-dog brown eyes with her characters previously played by Gianearlo Giannini. Male bravado in the era of Mussolini is quite literally skewered in an early scene where one of the coastal Italian town's fabled earthquakes causes a crack in a bronze statue of II Duce on a horse. The post-Pompeii volcanic shudders have been the subject of a rhapsody by our narrator, the Professor, who believes that they reflect the shifting moods of the Great Mother; the vol-'canologist looks upon Rosa as her Merchant the IN CUSTODY Directed by: Ismail Merchant Screenplay by: Anita Desai, Shahrukh Husain (novel Desai) Starring: Shashi Kapoor, Om Puri, ShabanaAzmi, Sushma Seth, Neena Gupta, AjaySahni, TinnuAnand Playing at: Brattk Theatre Rated: PG (sexual references) directly on the terminal state of his cultural support system. Living in a large house going to seed a handy metaphor used more than once here for India he spends most of his days killing time with a circle of free-loading hangers-on and ignores the fact that his ambitious second wife steals his poetry and passes it off as hers in public readings. Into his life comes the poetry-writing disciple named Deven, who makes a modest living as a college teacher of students uninterested in anything but looking American.

It's a disease to which Deven's colleagues also are prone. One describes his idea of success a science teacher who moved to the United States, visits Disneyland regularly and dates "white, beautiful" women. Pepsi signs are emblazoned across the restaurant Deven eats at, adding to the film's theme of cultural forfeit. Signs of Indian culture van (WHEN IN ORLANDO GO FISH Directed by: Rose Troche Screenplay by. Troche, Guinevere Turner Starring: Turner, V.S.

Brodie, T. Wendy McMillan, Migdalia Mekndez, Anastasia Sharp Playing at: Harvard Square Unrated zine rack and they pick things up again. Finally, after the big night, which happens when they meet at Max's, then decide not to go out, Ely dances a little mambo on her way home the next morning with a shy yet radiant smile on her face. It's not quite Gene Kelly dancing through puddles in "Singin' in the Rain," but it's emotionally truer and more touching because we feel that we've lived through what it took to get her there. Troche cuts brilliantly between the love story and the film's other strands, many comical, some involving frankly sexual appetites.

Not that "Go Fish" is about lesbian sex primarily, although what there is of it is healthier and more believable than any sex at the movies so far this year. The film's intimacy of scale and black-and-white photography work in its favor. Much of the action consists of eloquent glances, and the film's likability is enhanced by its depiction of Chicago as a warm caldron of working-class energies. There's no condescension; the fabric of life in the film's lesbian circle is depicted with engaging matter-of-factness. Troche's camerawork and editing are hip and perky and uncliched, and her avoidance of heavy-handed agen das misses only once in a sequence where militant lesbians come on like the Puritan elders and harass and judge a woman whose sin was sleeping with a man.

But because "Go Fish" is truthful in its depiction of lesbian working women and never makes the mistake of investing itself in sloganeering instead of involving characters, it's going to generate crossover appeal as well. It likes its. characters, and you'll like them, too. ightful! DEN RADIO PREVIEWSLYONS' DEN RADIO Paul Wunder, WBAI RADIO ishing into a sinkhole are everywhere when Deven is visited by an old school pal, a slick puhlisher named Murad, who wants Deven to write an article on Nur. Oblivious to the irony in his observation that nobody reads books, the publisher wants Deven to videotape his interview with Nur, neatly bringing front and center the very technology that is fast making Nur's and Deven's -language, culture and life obsolete.

Om Puri's strongly contoured features make Deven look fierce, too. But he's a mouse. The only one he feels confident enough to bully is his neglected wife. When he asks the college for a camcorder, he's fobbed off with a reconditioned tape recorder and told he's lucky to get that. Thus Deven heads into a ghastly comedy of misunderstandings.

On his first night at Nur's, the hero-worshiping Deven winds up wiping vomit from the drunken Nur with pages of Nur's poetry. Nur addresses Deven gruffly, partly out of shame at what he's let himself become, but the younger man's devotion touches him. The interview proceeds, but only after the old poet's jealous first wife smuggles him into the brothel next door, away from his resentful, tantrum-throwing second wife. But when Deven holds the. mike to the great man's lips, the old VISIT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA) "Wonderfully Funny!" Bi'gni'iuWiiiwjiWw'iii-nthitiiiitt' THE FUNTSTONEf' ENTERTAINMENT!" "Entertaining!" Mlchul Medwd, SNEAK PREVIEWS FAMILY LIFE THE BEST FAMILY COMEDY OP THE SUMMER!" Peter Trave "Home Run!" Peter Travers, Marilyn Beck, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES ''i' cv; VBfl -aJWs-- -Iff The Minnesota Twins Have A New Owner FAMILY COPUY PLACE AllSTON CINEMA SHOWCASE CINEMAS OtNEHAl CINEMA BRAINTREE 10 OtMMIIlO lt JT lt 848-1070 377-3140 DANVERS Tl 111 HIT 14 mini un-im ACCEPTED.

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