Drying up the Streets Flirts with the Skirts of Sensationalism, Even Lift Ing Them at Times
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FILm REYIEWf vinces and states in such a bewildering Women the director should have regard cheapened and coarsened, made into condition of ambivalence, enforcing ed as his models such European films stereotypical situations. Other chapters laws based on such arbitrary standards, as Loves of a Blonde or Closely Watch of the novel, such as one showing that a direct and honest translation of ed Trains - that is, drawing upon his Vajda's rather heartless affair with an book-in to-film was not considered prac knowledge of Hungary, and the ex impoverished mother-of-two, are left tical. The problem which Kaczender perience of dislocation in being an out altogether. The end result is a fuzzy and Gotlieb faced was one of cultural immigrant, given us a film that concen and trivial film about a man who never lag and confusion. In 1978, it is per trates on well-drawn characters, and grows up, and who is never forced to missible (even in Ontario) to write and a sense of time-and-place that one take anything seriously. publish sexually explicit material; but can almost taste and smell in its palpa With the exception of Helen Sha a photograph of the same acts runs bility. ver, normally a fine actress, but here a high risk of prosecution. What in one Kaczender's past films (Don't Let confined to an embarrassingly silly cari medium is now considered conven the Angels Fall, and V-Turn) seemed cature of a North American faculty tional, is in another (even when re emotionally flat and uninvolving - wife, most of the cast give creditable stricted to an adult audience) consi which I attributed to the slightness performances (especially Karen Black) dered outrageous. When a book be of their scenarios. This time, with a but they all deserve something better. comes famous, due in great part to its better range of material, the effect is What in Vizinczey was sensual, witty sexual candor, and fIlmmakers become roughly the same - one watches with and elegant is - via Kaczender - tempted to cash in on the success but polite, rather than rapt, attention. rendered merely smutty, cute and also feel obliged to delete the sex or And this time my conclusion is har photogenic. One may forgive In Praise reduce it to head-and-shoulder coup sher: I don't think Kaczender knows of Older Women for its sexual co lings or "artfully" choreographed scenes how to "hook" an audience. His films wardice, but there is little excuse for its in which a shadow, a bedpost or stra look good (in a tv-commercial way) mediocrity. tegically-placed vase of roses means but they are unengaging on any other John Hofsess the difference between an "R" and an level. "X," what emerges is a hypocritical The novel, slight though it is, main hodgepodge - a fIlm that talks out of tained a keen sense of irony which the both sides of its mouth - a sniggering fIlm lacks; space permits only one yes, and a cowardly no. telling example. Vizinczey depicts an The alternative to that dilemma is encounter between Vajda and a young to alter the book significantly and de actress named Mici. She leads him on, liberately in an altogether different and agrees to go back to his room, direction. When Stanley Kubrick made then has a sudden change-of-mind and Lolita he recognized two limitations begins worrying if she'll get pregnant. Robin Spry's - one in himself (he has no aptitude Of her own accord she offers to have for depicting sensuality, beyond his sex the "safe" way - orally - ("Well, highly-developed sense of visual beauty) you want me to do it or not?" she DRYING UP and the other in society (erotic inter asks; "I wouldn't dream of incon play between a 12-year-old girl and a veniencing you," Andras replies) but THE STREETS middle-aged man would not have been given Andras' attitudes to oral sex d. Robin Spry, sc. B.A. Cameron, permitted in a fIlm in 1963, or even he doesn't find deliverance. ("We made love in the French way," he ph. Ken Gregg, ed. Myrtel Virgo, in 1978 given the legal difficulties of l.p. Len Cariou, Don Francks, Kelvin Louis Malle's Pretty Baby). Normally says. "We both came but it didn't Butler, August Schellenberg, Jacques those limitations would disqualify any help me, my headache only grew Hubert, exec. p. Ralph L. Thomas, one from adapting Lolita, but Kubrick's worse . Mici was completely satisfied. p.c. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gamble was that one could produce an It was tlle culmination of her chaste (Radio-Canada) 1977, col 16mm, run "interpretation" of the book, substi dreams, I suppose: the mysterious ning time 90 minutes. tuting a new kind or pleasure - bro immaculate conception.") In the film, liantly sly satire - for the one that Gottlieb and Kaczender show Andras had made the novel notorious. Whe picking up a young cabaret singer This is not the "great" fIlm fol ther he succeeded or not is open to (who does a lusty song-and-dance rou lowers of Spry's career have been ex debate (he occasionally has expressed tine that enflames Andras's imagina pecting. the wish to try it again, for the fIlm is tion) only to have her turn out, some Nevertheless, it is well worth seeing clearly compromised by moral atti what incongruously, to be merely a for its uncompromising depiction of the tudes of the time) but it is still an op "cock-teaser." Andras goes home, with sordid subterranean world of hard tion for fIlmmakers caught in the cre out any sex, complaining bitterly about drug pushers and junkies, of anxious vice between avant-garde literature and the fickleness and lack of sophistica to-please pimps and the girls they ex rear-guard cinema. Following this me tion of young girls. Frequently through ploit: the runaways who are lead into thod of adapting In Priase of Older out the fIlm one finds the novel being drug addiction then forced to pay for Cinema Canada/69 FILm REYIEWf it by servicing the string of pasty, insa tiable customers coughed-up by most North American cities. It 's a "sewer" says an undercover man. And it's a vortex of violence to shock any one, including those who've tripped gaily over the tattered carpets of a Yonge Street massage parlor. Originally the film was conceived as a 60 minute CBC-TV special, but after thirteen days shooting a feature had been born. (The secret of such fertility should be shared, what with government cutbacks creating a pro phylactic atmosphere for future CBC film productions.) What will bring the film to the local cinema is not the occasional flash of bare flesh , but several fine performances and the many levels on which the film works. Don Francks unquestionably domi nates the film . The former CBC song and dance man, a one time drop-out himself (he once appeared in leathers on the Pierre Berton Show, figuratively spinning the shocked host's bow tie at 3,000 rpm), is most convincing as Peter Brennan, a West Coast pharnla cology professor who has become a heroin addict in that lifestyle experi . mentation endemic to Pacific shores. His wife has dese rted him, his daughter has run away. Francks, with his gaunt face, balding pate and waist length r pony-tail, is so well cast as the arche 1'1::' I ~ "''L typal 60's dope scene drop-out that Len Cariou (left), a narcotics officer tries to enlist heroine addict Peter Brennan, played by Don he visually steals almost every scene. Franks, to help break a narcotic ring In a quick cutting, opening sequence a hand held camera, shaking with TV worldly to play RCMP officer, Larry, viewing distance, now become a quick news authenticity, discovers Brennan exploits Brennan's helplessness, not cutting montage, bloody details blud O.D.'ing in the toilet of a greasy spoon. unlike the way the pimps exploit their geoning the viewer as they do Brennan. One of the cuts includes a grues'ome girls. Larry shows lurid slides of a girl No soft-sell consciousness raising is this. close-up of him salivating, a first indi forced into masochistic acts to support When a family snapshot snaps by, cation this film is not for the squeamish her habit , hinting she may be Brennan's Brennan's decision is a foregone con or those socially isolated souls who runaway daughter. clusion. think that our greatest problem is the After possibly the briefest cross It is then the bones of the plot future of the monarchy. Canada bus trip for a Canadian film - are revealed: the mounties, demon The strident music , accompaniment no shots of the Rockies or the prairies strating questionable ethics at once for Brennan's moments of isolation - Francks disembarks before Toronto's similar to Kojak but all too believable throughout the film, suddenly becomes eternally "new" city hall, takes one in light of the McDonald Commission muzak, and in the first of many changes last look at his daughter's photograph inquiry , will help Brennan find his in rhythm characteristic of the mm's and symbolically rips it up. daughter - if he helps them break a ·structure, the fast cutting is replaced Soon after his arrival but not before dope ring and identify the king-pin. by a moving camera which reveals an a greeting committee of police brutali antiseptic hospital room. There , Bren In an inspired bit of flimmaking zes then briefly jails him, Brennan is nan is cold-turkeying it, sandwiched Larry exits, leaVing the projector on slowly sucked into the sewer.