The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 63

Friday, March 22, 1985 E7j SB San Francisco Examiner 13 A French 'Death Wish' They talk a lot in Paris, Texas Mi '1 Silt i I 1 lllllllllllll 11111- I i Coluche, playing a vengeful loner, left, Is helped by Agnes Sorafj REVIEW highlights "Tchao Pantln." directed by Claude By Barbara Shulgasser Examiner staff critic rajN ARIS, TEXAS" is all talk )land no action. This is no small accomplish-j mcnt for writer Sam Shepard, considering the main character doesn't even speak for the first half-hour of the film. The slack script is paired with the caressing camerawork of German director Wim Wenders, who fawns over the Texas terrain the way only a European with romantic images of the American West could. The slowness of his direction has one benefit: It affords vacant screen time to focus your attention on Ry Cooder's heartbreaking slide guitar music. Unfortunately, the music doesn't help the story, in this case the tale of two brothers which is especially reminiscent of Shepard's play, "True West." Walt is a resourceful, slightly shallow, worshipper of filthy lucre and probably in most people's eyes a kind of mild success.

Shepard shows him up as a lily-livered grunt. Dean Stock-well has the miserable job of portraying him. Travis (Harry dean Stanton) represents the wacky unemployed brother, a character who, in Shepard's world, is often dypsomaniac, misanthropic and just in from the desert. He is a debunk-er whose lack of guile gets him straight to the truth in a detour around social niceties. Travis asks how old is the son he abandoned four years ago and his brother replies the boy will soon be 8.

"So he's 7," says Travis. Travis, once married to Jane (Nas-tassja Kinski), a girl half his age, breaks up his marriage and without telling Walt where he's going, disappears. So does Jane. Their 3-year-old son, Hunter, is delivered to Walt's doorstep and he and his wife Anne raise the child as their own. Suddenly, Travis is found wandering in the desert wearing an inexplicably 1940s pinstriped suit (he's only written by Bern and Alain Page, with ColucV Richard Anconina, Agnes Soral and Philipin I Leotard.

A lonely night-shift gas-station titan- a dant in Paris is befriended by a young, cheerful. drug dealer who invades the older man's solitude. When the dealer is killed, his friend takea up the task of vengeance. A French film-! with much American influence, from the "Death -j Wish" plot to the murderous drug scene, Nor, rated, but violent. Top admission: $5.

At the Mercury. 2240 Union St. and family to wander the desert marital troubles. The rest of the story involves his renewed relationship with Hunter and his decision to find Jane. This entails sneaking off with a remarkably unsentimental Hunter.

Are 7-year-old boys so hardened to the tears of their mothers? The long-awaited end is a monologue by Travis recited to the weeping Jane. It has all the life of a letter being read aloud, and is strictly amateur stuff of the sort used by writers too lazy to dramatize their events. The marriage, by the way, broke up because Travis loved Jane too much. This made him quit his job, you see, and that made him drink, and you can imagine the rest. All kinds of allegorical meaning could be read into this movie by any analyst determined and supercilious enough.

It wouldn't be worth the trouble. The film is far too full of itself as it Philippe Leotard plays a cop looking for the killers and he is on screen far too little. He always looks like he's gone without sleep and he has a lazy sexiness recalling Robert Mit-chum. His woozy slink makes him a tricky foil to Lambert Agnes Soral plays a minor part as a street tough who helps Lambert find Bensoussan's murderers. As American as all this murder and revenge seems, director Claude Berrl can't help but add a French touch.

None of the killings seems real. When the camera cuts away from most of the victims, they are still moving and blinking. Later we find out they've died, and it's a surprise. Are they dying existential deaths? The most American aspect of the film is that unlike French dramas that deal with the corruption of the soul like "La Guerre est Fini," in which Yves Montand laments his life as a useless revolutionary this focuses on the corruption caused by greed, a far more familiar theme to American film. 2 PREMIERES! SAN FRANCISCO BALLET WU tOKS WMt MKMWl SMUIN TONIGHT AT 8 PM SYMPHONY IN 1 MOVtMCNTS C.lddslt-inSlravlnsky BRAHMSHAYDN VARIATIONS SmuinBrahmi WoiM Pn-mirn' 07 HI LI PelersonRutiRles WorW Ptrmine TOTHtBIAlllS 5mulnlhc Be-alln TICKETS NOW.

CALL 762-2277 San Francisco Ballet Box Office. BASS Ticket Centers, telephone chare. mamm The Classified Marketplace Dial 777-7777 The Son of Oscar awards By Barbara Shulgasser Examiner staff critic eg TCHAO PANTTN, or "So Long Sucker," is the French "Death Wish" and its similarity to American filmmaking doesnt end with plot American influence is rampant in this film and it's sad to see. Coluche, a performer known in France for his comic stage performances, appears here in his first dramatic screen role. This was France's offering for an Oscar nomination as best foreign film, but it wasn't selected.

Coluche plays Lambert, a cipher of a man who works the night shift at a gas station solo, drinking too much, insolently ignoring honking customers and cooking his eggs over a tiny propane flame in the shop. Coluche looks like a fellow who has escaped from somewhere and his somber performance draws you into the film, even though not much seems to be happening early on. But soon this solitary misanthropic man finds that he is touched by a creeping friendship with a petty little crook. Bensoussan, the young crook (Richard Anconina), turns out to keep some pretty scummy company. He is a drug dealer who steals motorcycles as nonchalantly as most people cross the street He starts making regular visits to the gas station and Lambert grudgingly begins to treat him like a wayward son, advising him about women and telling him to lay off drugs.

When Bensoussan reveals his occupation Lambert is blase. "You sell smack. I don't care," he says. "You'll die soon enough." But he does care. An unspoken bond develops between them and when Bensoussan needs money to pay off his unforgiving supplier, Lambert empties his cash box and hands over his paycheck, no questions, to the astonishment of Bensoussan.

When the youth is killed and dies in Lambert's arms, Lambert, formerly locked in his emotionless state, turns into a vengeance machine. Balding and overweight, Coluche lumbers through his Charles Bronson heroics with special flair. His splayed walk and unprepossessing stature hardly constitute the typical movie assassia But he relentlessly stalks Bensoussan's killer and in the process his own past is revealed. Evening of Comedy and Song with Star of Broadway, TV and film. 12nd Street Laverne ani Shirley Men Griffin Shorn 'American Gigolo 16 Cantllef Hello, Dolly Auntie Mame NOW! TWO WEEKS ONLY! MARCH 22-24 MARCH 28-31 MARCH ISOLD OUT! $12.50 Cover plus 2 drink minimum.

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Some of America's younger moviegoers have decided that "The Karate Kid" was the best movie of 1984, and Eddie Murphy and Sally Field were the best actor and actress. More than 5,000 students, ages 11 to 14, selected the winners of the Son of Oscar awards sponsored by Junior Scholastic magazine. They also lected winners in categories not hoP' red by the Academy Awards. "Ghostbusters" was picked as "most fun" movie, with "Splash" the runnerup. "Gremlins'' in which Harry Dean Stanton leaves home i REVIEW highlights "Paris, Texas," directed by Wim Wenders, written by Sam Shepard, with Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell.

A man who has vanished lor four years turns up marching through the desert near the Texas border, thirsty and mute. His brother brings him back to civilization and he tries to reconnect with his child and wile. This takes ISO minutes. All secrets are revealed in an interminable speech delivered at the end and none of the secrets is very interesting. Writer Shepard is up to his usual empty Kafka imitation.

Rated R. Top admission: $5. At the Bridge, 3010 Geary Blvd. been gone four years). Walt comes from Los Angeles to Texas to collect him.

Travis doesn't speak for their first couple of days together and when he finally does open his mouth he won't reveal the circumstances of his fuzzy animals turn nasty was the worst movie of the year, according to the survey, followed by Murphy was picked for his perfor mance in "Beverly Hills Cop, which came in second in the best picture category. Field was chosen for her performance "Place in the Heart for which she is also an Oscar coa tender. Ralph Macchio of "The Karate Kid drew the second largest number of votes for best actor, while Bill Mur ray came in third. Daryl Hannah of "Splash" placed second in the best actress category. long series of broadcasts from South Africa on ABC "Nightline." "What's unique and unprecedent ed is that these government officials, for the first time in their lives and in sight of a South African audience, are interacting with adversaries and critics," Koppel said.

Koppel said the government agreed to participate in American style TV journalism because its image around the world was taking a beating. "How much worse could it get?" he said. Sal BistKf, Amelk Snwif Ptnio: Lmry Merkie ir Mondavat8 5 'ISIightline' TV dialogue on apartheid ji'. THE VENETIAN ROOM 1 The KincstonTrio NtW API't AKINC, 1HKOUC.II MARCH SI Kenny Burrell Trjo COMINC. Al'lill 2 70 APRIL 7 11 IE DIC HKICI IT Opin (mm 7, JO m.

ShowniK.hlly JO and 11 iwepl Mondjy ihirKi' RK'fvjKns772 SlJ. the fairmont HOTEL PI ZZ7 FLAY '03 p. 'V NEW YORK (AP) Practicing late-night diplomacy halfway around the world, Ted Koppel and "Nigh-tline" got prominent officials on both sides of the apartheid issue together on the same program a TV dialogue that South African viewers had never witnessed before. In an unprecedented move, the state-run South African Broadcasting Corp. carried the policy clash between Foreign Minister R.F.

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