LA Weekly from Los Angeles, California • 36

jr rr UCD G3S(LGsR9 5 HI GIFT IDEAS FROM WARNER BROWERS 6r XoiMCiaJ TTDO gjisyily 112112)11 TOiPi miffM MSHI BY TAPI ENEMIES lofty ambitions. Mazurskys film is a more modest effort to trace the legacy of the Holocaust in individual lives, and hes wise to do it through Singer, in whose stories causality is infinitely ambiguous and murky, and who could never be accused of showing too much respect for his characters. Its a pity, then, that Mazursky isnt adequate to the task. Theres a powerful idea in this tale of a Holocaust survivor apparently so deracinated and haunted by his past that hes unable to make decisions or lead a normal life. But its never clear whether its Hermans wartime trauma, or simply his character, that makes him act or fail to act as he does.

Theres a frank, if implicit, acknowledgment by Singer that any theorizing about the effects of the Holocaust is at best provisional. Mazursky doesnt dispose of the ambiguity, but he cant resist turning Singers sardonic wit into bedroom farce. Prankishness has often defined Mazurskys films, and here the logistics of juggling Hermans three marriages take over, dwarfing the tragic undertow of lives crippled perhaps by exposure to the outer limits of human cruelty. In Enemies, the Holocaust once again becomes a Thing, a horror-movie monster rather than a process woven into peoples lives. For all Mazurskys good intentions, the Holocaust, as in so many other Hollywood productions, is rendered in the past through the easy shorthand of steely-eyed, tight-lipped Nazis menacing terrorized Jews, and in the present by victims night-sweats and flashbacks.

History is absurdly telescoped, the years gliding by in summary sentences: I never knew you were alive. Our children? Dead. ightness of touch has never bee II Mazurskys strong suit, and in Enemu L-lhis heavy-handedness is exacerbated by an almost hysterical quest for perio 1 authenticity. Coney Island, circa 1949, ha the studiously arranged quality of a stage musical; I kept expecting someone to burst into song. Almost without exception, the performances are impeccable, but the actors are clearly struggling with the crushing banalities of the script.

Poor Ron Silver (who won a Tony award last year for his role in David Mamets play Speed-the-Plcno) and Anjelica Huston are forced into that irritating Hollywood habit of signifying Jewishness by copious ironic shoulder-shrugging, and substituting the letter for the lettei wherever possible in the dialogue, backed by sporadic klezmer music. (The Jews in the Catskill resort scenes are so broadly drawn they border on the offensive.) Olin is saved by her own natural accent, but she too is forced into a single mode: the damaged, neurotic beauty. Some breathy but curiously passionless sex scenes, in which Silver and Olin haul each other about like slabs of meat, distract us from the proposition that Herman Broder may be trying to reconcile the tortured strands of his past through his libido. It may be beyond the reach of filmmakers or indeed any storytellers to bring the Holocaust into meaningful focus. But Mazurskys movie doesn't work on its own terms, as an adaptation of Bashevis Singer.

For all his sincerity, Mazursky has ironed out Singers wicked delight in the ambiguities and frailties of the human psyche, and turned the story into mere burlesque. 22 ft vs xw IVH w.v. '-a PP HVi hhihmbm CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN KEY LIME PIE A He (M awe POISON IVY UTTIi DOVE HOUSE OF PAIN GPGSIAUZING IN OADG A IIACID-TO-FIND TITLE! WCDUYCD'SATAPGS ARE SHOWN ONLY WiatEAT ANYLEGITiMATI H8CI ADVERTISED IN Tt LA ARElSSBM1 (213) 829-7379 GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE OPEN EVERYDAY 10 AM-10 PM 2621 WILSHIRE BLVD. SANTA MONICA SALE ENDS WED 1227891 36 LA WEEKLY DECEMBER 22-DECEMBER 28. 1989.