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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1986)
Surreal C inem a by E leanor M alin BRAZIL You could call B razil the brainstorm of Monty Python alum nus Terry Gilliam, but it’s m ore like gray matter fission becom e tech nicolor fallout Released late in the Ü.S. (because we were thought too simple to un derstand it), it is truly incomprehensible. T he story line involves a privileged • CINEMA bureaucrat a dreamer who dreams of his ideal wom an, then sees her, but she is in the p rocess of becom ing a m ore and more des perate enem y of the state. The story inter twines with the busiest sets o f details and fullest fram es imaginable. Som ething is al ways going on, even though you might not be able to figure out what it is. An underlying them e seem s to be that w e’re all in this m ess together. Another is that the individual has all sam e chance for a happy, full life as a worm facing a mad collector arm ed with formaldehyde and lots o f pins. In B razil, the state is a m indless labyrin- thian bureaucracy, where the untimely death o f a fly cau ses a glitch in the com puter which leads to a tragic (though com ic) progression of circum stances just too, too bizarre. B razil is also the song that courses through the bureaucrat's mind when he is spacing out, trying to forget the grim reality of all that he sees going on around him. It was a perfect choice. Gilliam says the idea for this assem blage cam e to him one day as he listened to B razil, and it gives just the right feeling o f abandon, surrender, carnival — to counterpoint the grey, the small, the dismal p resent I loved this movie, but am going to have to view it again, though that’s no sacrifice. business partner. His daughter grudgingly grants his son sexual favors in exchange for product (drugs), he’s selling on the side. And everywhere around Harry, people are getting cancer. O ne of the accounts his ad agency has had for years pushes a product that cau ses cancer. (Trivia buffs: watch closely the scene were the em ployee tells Harry about the cancer- causing sugar substitute. In the background yo u ’ll see Bud Clark's "expose yourself to art” poster.) Harry leaves his wife, ’’fires’’ the custom er (whose wife has cancer), and takes up with a hippy call girl, “Honey Barbara,” whose affin ity for honey must symbolize the simple, w holesom e and pure. Honey Barbara spurns Harry when he goes back to his old life, and he ends up following her out to the boondocks, pursuing her to no avail. Until she gets a meaningful love letter that takes eight years to get there. Strange movie. But fun. TROUBLE IN MIND Kris Kristofferson plays Hawk, a former c o p who just got out of jail where he was doing tim e for cold-blooded murder. Keith Carradine plays Coop, a down-and-out hippy, w hose girlfriend, Georgia, catches the eye o f the desperately needy Hawk. Little scenarios arrive and depart from the central point of W anda's greasy spoon and apartm ent building. Genevieve Bujoid plays Wanda, and does her usual fantastic job. Carradine is good, as always, as Coop, who turns into a small time hood with grandiose career plans, and Lori Singer, as the blonde, innocent Georgia, is adequately enough the fair tabula rasa. Kristofferson is relatively wooden as actors go, but that often works to his advantage, and it d o es here, as Hawk is that kind of man who has never m anaged to be close to anyone. He’s a borderline hero/loser, with potential, but flawed, doom ed even. T h e story takes place in Rain City (Seattle), and it's lots of fun to see so m any familiar places in a major movie. Hawk has fashioned a replica of the city he se e s from Wanda's window. Car scen es are interwoven from the real streets to the model, which adds a quirky dimension to the proceedings. A s m aster gangster, Hilly Blue, Divine is fine in this role. S cen es of him in his tawdry palace are filled out with the m ost preposter o u s assem blage o f partyers and trippy art works. Militia appear everywhere in this movie; seem ingly Rain City is a police state. But the soldiers don’t bother any of the characters, and everybody gets to m ove around freely. Carradine as Coop, the small-time hood who tries to get som e of the action away from Hilly Blue, rapidly transforms himself to a punk in the m ost outrageous polyester neon threads, with cellophane highlights in his funky haircut m ore earrings each time he appears, and finally, eye makeup. He seem s to care for Georgia, but only thinks of her intermittently between sessions at the beauty parlor and with hookers. IMPRESSIVE WORK — by two filmmakers w ho pulled o f great jo b s (low -budget even) — PARTING GLANCES and THE DESERT HEARTS. Watch for these! The Coffee Merchant ♦ The finest imported coffee beans, teas, chocolates, and beverage brewing accessories. THE BROADWAY COFFEE MERCHANT 1637 N E Broadway • 284-9200 ♦ THE HAWTHORNE COFFEE MERCHANT 3562 S E Hawthorne • 230-1222 Altogether, these three m ovies are busy, entertaining, off the wall. You have to pay clo se attention to a lot of details, and the overall effect is such that you will probably still be confused when it’s over. Moreover, there is so m uch humor, you might think them com edies. But, laugh though we may, the filmmakers' art reveals to us a world where things are not so different from what we have today. As a species, we are in serious trouble, and in som e ways it is very funny, since we think we should know better. In other ways, it’s horrible. IDS FINANCIAL PLANNING: BUSS Harry Joy falls to his death on his birthday, has an out-of-body experience, and re tims to life to find things so askew, he suspects he m ay have died and gone to hell. His wife is having an affair with his paunchy Experience the Extraordinary «&&v The First-Year Reward. 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