R E v I E w 5 • • The crispness and control he exhibits paced and evocative, it fits beautifully Lewis Furey's behind the camera seems to disappear with the sets - the rooftops and Ron Levine & Rene DeCarufel's in the score. Perhaps one is either a sidewalks of St. Lawrence. The dancing Furey fan or not, but his stuttered, al­ of Frank Augustyn is similarly impres­ Night Magic most tango-like rhythms, and his sive - carefully controlled and under­ Bread and quiverous vocals become tiresome. stated, yet beautiful. Worse, halfway through the picture the Night Magic is an interesting and Puppet score becomes redundant, almost ag­ original film and will best be remem­ ight Magic might have been a great gravating. bered not as a curious musical but for film and musical, were it not for its As a director, Furey's performance is Mancuso's performance and Cohen'S Theatre: Nmusic. Curiously it was directed by more stimulating. The film is a fantasy lyrics. It should be seen loud. the same man who wrote the music, that flits from scene to scene, playfully A Song for Lewis Furey, and his work behind the crossing and recrossing the thread of David Sherman • camera is flawless and fascinating. But reality. Here Furey displays a keenly Nicaragua in the end, Furey's score defeats him light touch and it works surprisingly NIGHT MAGIC exec. p_ Stephen J. Roth, and an audacious attempt at a rock­ well. Michelle de Broca p_ Robert Lantos. James T. Kaufman opera fantasy filmed on 's most d. Lewis Furey sc_ Lewis Furey, music Nick Mancuso deserves kudos for his lewis Furey lyrics Leonard Cohen d.o_p_ Philippe famed strip of decadence, St_ Lawrence role as the leading, if heavily tormented, Rousselot choreographer Eddy Toussaint p _ man_ "The first thing I would tell the Amer­ Blvd., succeeds only as a showcase for light of a travelling musical that has just Daniel Louis art d_ Fran,ois Seguin f1lm ed_ Michel the film's director and his screenplay Arcand prod_ exec. Andras Hamori sd. Yvon Benoit ican people is to read about our his­ hit Montreal. His screen presence as a cost. des. Michelle Cerf 1st asst. d_ Jacques Wilbrod co-writer Leonard Cohen. As 94 min­ man tortured by desire and doubt, is tory. There is no East-West conflict. Benoit 2nd asst. d_ Monique Maranda unit man. There is a longstanding conflict be­ utes of entertainment, as a captivating impressive. In a role where words are DeniS Normandeau unit loc. man. Blair Roth asst. tween the United States and Nicaragua movie, Night Magic works not as well. few, he has pulled off a powerful and choreographer Jean·Marc Lebeau lip-sync super­ visor Zander Ary choir master Gilbert Patenaude that goes back to before Marx's Man­ A Canadian mUSical is a relatively rare emotional performance. as cast. Nadia Rona. Vera Miller, Elite Productions props ifesto" - Padre Uriel Molina commodity, but Night Magic is espe­ his angel-wife, woman of his dreams Patrice Bengle asst. props Ian Lavoie prop buyer P. Cially noteworthy for the forum it gives and mother of his child, fares less well. Karen Langshaw set dec. Dean EiJertson ward. Mar· tine Fontaine art d. Tina Boden make-up Micheline hat with a recent American court­ two of the country's most intriguing art­ She spends a lot of time skulking behind Trepanier Foisy hair Danielle Vuarin gaffer Kevin decision upholding a 1983 U.S. ists, Cohen .and Furey. And although staircases and chimneys. Her dancing is O'Connel dec. Jean·Marc H6bert. Marc Charlebois, Justice Department ruling that the Night Magic is a simple tale, Cohen's seductive but as the rivetting ingenue, a Bernard Arseneau key grip Robert Lapierre Jr. grip W Philippe Palu. Andre Ouellet 1st asst. cam. Michel National Film Board's lfYou Love This lyrics and Furey's direction serve to role she perfected in earlier films, she is Girard 2nd ass!. cam_ Michel Bernier cam. appro Planet was "foreign propaganda," make it refreshing and sufficiently com­ not quite up to scratch. Here, Laure Howard Schrier sd. asst. Esther Auger asst. ed. Alain here's this year's documentary conten­ plex. comes off immensely less memorable Belhumeur, Teresa de Luca, Catherine Martin exec. The story is told in song, with only than her leading man. prod. asst. Kris Michaels asst. d. Marge Bruineman der, produced with the NFB's assist­ stills Ronald S. Diamond asst. prod. LUCie Bouliane, ance, for the Foreign Propaganda award. slight narration and dialogue. Cohen's Mancuso's Michael is on the prowl Guy Normandeau, Alain Bougie asst. admin. Jean Pel­ lyrics make up the bulk of the script. A for fulfillment, happiness, peace of letier J.p. Nick Mancuso, Carole Laure, Stephane Au­ A charmingly simple documentary of the old school (handheld camera, mine of wit, irreverence, candour, mind. Neither the show nor its unex­ dran, Jean Carmet, Frank Augustyn. Louis Robitaille. , Jean·Marc Lebeau, Jean'Hughes grainy footage), Bread and Puppet. Cohen's words long to be savoured. But pected success is enough to dampen Rochette, Lyne Tremblay, DanieLJe Godin. Barbara theatre: A song for Nicaragua is a they come at the speed of a bass drum the turmoil. Visited by three angels and Harris, Catherine Greenway, Michelle Stennett. Sophie metaphorical acount of a Vermont­ and with all the elements of the film granted anything he wants simply for Bissonnette. Jean-Marie Benoit, Carlyle Miller. Don Alias, Margarita Stocker, Micheline Giard. Yolande based radical theatre troupe's tour of that deserve attention - dance, sets, the asking, he succeeds only in bringing Husaruk, Joan Henney. Nathalie Buisson, Brigitte Val­ Nicaragua in January 1985. performance - a fundamental part of on greater destruction. If there's an an­ ette. France Deslauriers p_r. David Novek Associates Night Magic's magic is lost. Cohen is swer to the question does the show­ unit pub. Martine Provost, Kevin Tierney. David Since the 1960s, Bread and Puppet Novek Associates p.c. RSL Entertainment Corp. Night best digested at one's own speed. Or man's life provide too little or does the Theatre, then based in New York City, Magic in a Canada-France coproduction. produced has been at the forefront of alternative with the option of laying the needle showman demand too much, Night with the participation of TeJefilm Canada, TFI. the down for another listen. Magic points toward the latter. Canada-France fund for the promotion of coproduc· culture. Inspired by the rise of libera­ tions, the Societe generale du cinema, Radio-Canada Furey's music, on the other hand, Eddie Toussaint's choreography is tion theology throughout Latin America and the Skyld Group. rust. (US & Can.) Spectrafilm, in the '60s and '70s, Bread and Puppet, tends to obscure rather than enhance. well-matched to the film. Stark, well- (Que.) Vivafilm. colour 35mm running time: 94 mins. now based in Glover, Vt., evolved a • Night Magic: Nick Mancuso is simply outstanding, while Carole Laure plays the angel-wife mystico-political update of the medieval miracle play through an ex­ traordinary use of tree-sized puppets. The troupe's tour of a modern mir· acle play about the nativity, crucifIXion and resurrection of assassinated Sal­ vadorean archbishop Oscar Romero in­ forms the bulk of Montreal photo· graphers Ron Levine and Rene De­ Carufel's hour-long documentary. "Puppetry," explains Bread and Pup­ pet founder Peter Schumann, 52, "is a simplification device." So, one might add, is cinema. And so too is revolution. A Song for Nicaragua thus becomes an ingenious meditation upon the triple system of simplification of the politicS of revolutionary culture. Nicaragua, whatever its particular reo ality (and an interview within the mm with Padre Uriel Molina, one of many Catholic priests who have rallied to the revolutionary regime, is inSightful as to that reality), Nicaragua has become a leading current site for the deployment of symbolic power, and so the power of symbols. And this whether one views Nicaragua as a revolutionary David against the Goliath of U_S. imperialism, as an underdeveloped and im' poverished nation struggling out from under continued subjection by a milit­ ant consumer empire, or as a social lab- o oratory for new popular cultural mod­ '5.. els of expression. Nicaragua today poses