The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 81

'V 'lit 60 ca mil MOVIES Children focus of quiet protest in Sugar Cane 3 OMIT. By Noel Taylor Citizen staff writer T3 C3 'he children of I Sugar Cane Alley are like WM-F8 WALKMAN AMFM Stereo cassette player with counterbalance mechanism for stable tape transport and Dlayback equalizer 395 WMF-15 WALKMAN AMFM Stereo Cassette Player with metal tape capability. Dolby noise reduction counterbalance mechanism extremely compact and light MDR headphones available in three colours silverredblue OV95 Preview Sugar Cane Alley Vanier Cineplex scholarship brings (although when you contemplate the boorish-ness of the white ruling class you are left to wonder whether schooling brings real happiness). Jose is bright, a natural student, respectful of those adults who treat him decently and scornful of those who abuse him. He learns from school and absorbs more about his slave heritage from the old man Medouze who talks longingly about Africa and angrily about white plantation owners who are no longer allowed to beat them as slaves, but who exploit them all the same with a measly wage.

As a film of protest, Sugar Cane Alley works quietly, husbanding its evidence of stiff-necked whites passing on their prejudice to the next generation. Such a film from Martinique deserves to be valued for its uniqueness and. treasured for the universality of its theme. It's a family film (in French, subtitled) for its innocent pleasures, and also for those parents who might be wondering how to impress the worth of education on their offspring. CFS 3000 PORTABLE CASSETTE RECORDER detachable speakers FM stereo AM reception stereo cassette recording (AMF) Automatic Music sensor 3 band equalizer ACDC operation children everywhere, only sometimes they're moreso.

In this effortlessly enchanting film from Martinique by a woman director, Euz-han Palcy, the children live alone in their village all day while their parents break their backs in the cane fields. One day, they too, will be consigned to a lifetime of hacking and stacking the cane. There is, of course, only one escape education. Or as the schoolteacher writes on the blackboard with a meaningful glance at the eager faces before him: "Instruction is the key that opens the door to our freedom." You could say that Sugar Cane Alley is a film about freedom, and how hard as a child from the Martinique plantations in 1930, it is to attain. But blissfully, it's a story of childhood as well.

Jose, its 12-year-old hero, is a child with the face of an impish angel, capable both of unquestioning devotion to the old grandmother who slaves for the education she craves for him, and of wilful mischief. Of all the children we meet he is the one clearly destined for that freedom which o95 CFS 300 AMFM STEREO CASSETTE RECORDER 4 inch dynamic speaker one touch recording automatic music sensor I (AMS) skips forward or backwards to the next selection three digit tape I counter enables you to index your cassettes auto-shutoff 5.95 CFM 150 AMFM RADIO CASSETTE RECORDER I 4 inch speaker built-in electret condenser microphone external micro--f phone variable level recording monitor system for earphone cue and review pause function continuous tone control to tailor output sound $(o)SD'95 SONY VIDEO TAPE SPECIAL L-750 Only $12.95 ea. irljr i 0 A JL RUS HQ I CDi NT! r. i sp i. i.

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