Reviews

Squint Your Eyes (Zmruz oczy), Poland, 2003, d. Andrzej Jaminowski, 87 m. When Jasiak, a retired school teacher, decides to act as custodian of a deserted farm in the Polish countryside, he finds the easy life more than he bargained for. To begin with, the farm's owners neither want nor need a custodian. Then his solitude is broken by one of his former students, a young girl who's had it with her materialistic parents. And by some con artists, some cyclists, at least one self-proclaimed poet, the girl's parents, the farm's owners, and ultimately the police. So much for lazy-ing around in the hazy countryside. You might call Squint Your Eyes a provocative, philosophical comedy.—Nick Salerno

Grand Ecole (Famous School), France, 2004, d. Robert Salis, 110 m. Grand Ecole is a stunning evocation of contemporary life among rich young people is an exclusive French school. While Paul (Gregori Baquet) is ostensibly the film's focus, the narrative is actually constructed around a group of characters all equally important and all of them beautiful. It's a sort of French version of Friends, but with fewer laughs, more talk, and much more sex. The sex is hetero-, homo-, and bi-. Paul loves Louis-Arnault and Agnes and Meclir (a younger Arab boy). Grand Ecole is complex and extremely erotic, a French take on sexual and religious politics and on class distinctions. It would probably be rated R for strong sexual situations and nudity—Nick Salerno

Tasuma (The Fire), Burkina Faso, 2003, d. Daniel Kollo Sanou, 90 m. In French and More. Tasuma is an absolute winner, an utterly charming rumination on French colonialism; and on the role of elders, women, and children in small African communities. Sogo Sanon has been trying to claim his military pension for decades; his plight reminds us the French military filled its ranks with Blacks from numerous French colonies in Africa. Finally assured that his pension will arrive "tomorrow," Sogo Sanon buys a mill to lighten the burden of the village women who must grind their grain, by hand, on a daily basis. Of course, the pension does not arrive. In what seems like a turn towards the violent, Sogo Sanon takes a hostage and forces him to write a letter to the long-dead General Charles de Gaulle. Never fear. All is resolved when the women and children mount a crusade in support of the village elder. The songs are wonderful and make a major contribution to the feel-good tone of a film you may want to see more than once.—Nick Salerno

A retired schoolteacher (Norma Aleandro) takes part-time jobs to support her depressed, unemployed husband. When she meets a young actress (Natalia Oreiro) aspiring to better roles than those in soap operas, they form an immediate bond and embark on a more benign version of "Thelma and Louise." For part of the trip they are joined by a sympathetic hunk, played with smoldering sexuality by Leonardo Sbarglia. Their adventures on the road both amuse and enlighten--them and us too. The film's open-ended final scene allows viewers to muse on the role of women, married and un-, in Hispanic America. Academy-Award nominated ("The Official Story") Aleandro is wonderfully ditsy in her role as an older, married woman exposed to the possibilities of FemLib. The musical score is an added pleasure. Incidentally, the film's title is misleading.

Wondrous Oblivion, United Kingdom-Germany, 2003, d. Paul Morrison, 106 m. "Heartwarming" is perhaps overused in describing films, but it's certainly apt in this case. In 1960's England an unathletic young boy and his family bond with a Jamaican family which has moved into the neighborhood and built a cricket court in their backyard. Many of the neighbors are horrified at this infiltration of their turf by a Black family, but young David seizes the opportunity to learn cricket skills from the skilled Dennis. As the bond between the two families grows, so do the problems. The ending may surprise you. Think of "Wondrous Oblivion" as this year's "Bend It Like Beckham." Though the film is sometimes strident in expressing its anti-racism theme, still the best word to describe it is, yep, heartwarming.—Nick Salerno.

Before I committed to buying the DVD of "On Our Merry Way," I got it from Netflix and happy I am that I did so, for it's not likely I'd ever want to watch it again. "On Our Merry Way" is an anthology film in the manner of "O. Henry's Full House," but while the latter has a no-nonsense framework with John Steinbeck introducing the episodes, "On Our Merry Way" uses the gimmick of Burgess Meredith talking directly to the camera every so often. It doesn't work; it seems more like a vanity project for Meredith and his then wife Paulette Goddard.

Nor do the stories work. They are shaggy dog stories that bore you long before they reach a conclusion. The Henry Fonda-James Stewart and Fred MacMurray-William Demarest episodes are simply not funny. "On Our Merry Way" is full of overacting (especially from Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer) and shtick (from Victor Moore and Hugh Herbert). Dorothy Lamour, on the other hand,comes off extremely well both as an addle-pated secretary and then with a song that satirizes her own career; for Lamour it's a triumph over inferior material.

John O'Hara is credited for one of the stories, O. Henry is not, even though his "The Ransom of Red Chief" serves as the basis for the MacMurray-Demarest episode; for comparison, watch the Fred Allen-Oscar Levant take on the same story in "O. Henry's Full House." It's only minimally better but it moves faster.

It's inconceivable to me that so many great directors, credited or un-, would produce such a mess.

One can't help be grateful to Kino for clearing the copyright problems which had long kept the film in limbo; after all, we do want to preserve the work of our great stars, no matter how bad. But once our curiosity is satisfied, "On Our Merry Way" becomes a shelve-it-and-forget-it film.

For a much better pairing of Meredith and Goddard, I'd recommend Jean Renoir's English-language version of "The Diary of a Chambermaid."

"Guest in the House" belongs to that period in which Hollywood discovered Freud and produced such films as "Spellbound" and "Shadow of a Doubt." But unlike those films, here the Freud is watered down to grade-school level, beginning with another unprofessional shrink who falls in love with the patient.

"Guest in the House" also belongs to the evil-woman sub-genre of Film Noir. As the titular heroine, Anne Baxter's Evelyn is cousin to Merle Oberon in "Temptation," Joan Fontaine in "Ivy," Ann Todd in "Madeleine," and Susan Peters in "The Sign of the Ram." There's one major difference: while the others gave restrained performances, Baxter wildly overacted. One hesitates to blame Baxter since she more than demonstrated her abilities in such films as "The Magnificent Ambersons," "The Razor's Edge," and "All About Eve," but here she is way over the top. The fault must lie with the director or directors who seem to have given her no help at all, but then, the film had a troubled production history, with at least three directors and as many screenwriters having a hand in it.

Also in the cast are Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Warrick, Margaret Hamilton, Percy Kilbride, and Marie "The Body" McDonald; the latter would have done better to spend her money on acting lessons rather than self-promotion Perhaps the real problem is that the film is studio or stage bound. Since "Guest in the House" is based on a play, one might expect it to have been opened out when it made the transition to film, but except for a few very brief outdoor scenes, the film is all interiors. Evelyn's comeuppance, for instance, is revealed only in a reaction shot by Aline MacMahon. Still, if you remember the film from childhood or the airing a decade or so ago on the Nostalgia Channel, you'll probably stick with it to the end despite the full-plate of ham.