Friday, 5/2/97 SCREENSCENE "Children of the Revolution" and
"Nothing Personal"
"Children of the Revolution" Written and Directed by Peter
Duncan Starring Judy Davis, Geoffrey Rush When film scholars of the
future write their bloated tomes about The Cinema of the ’90s,
there will undoubtedly be a special chapter reserved for that early
’90s phenomenon that came from Down Under. For a while there, the
one-time penal colony was producing the most interesting movies
around. And though they came from a battery of diverse filmmakers,
the Aussie films all had an uncanny knack for balancing the funny
and goofy with the dark and perverse: a balancing act that almost
every American film flubs horribly, if they even bother to try. But
the Down Under New Wave has more or less played itself out, and
proof of that comes from freshman writer-director Peter Duncan’s
new film "Children of the Revolution," a would-be Aussie-style dark
comedy that botches that aforementioned balance between comedy and
tragedy that usually comes easy for films from the island
continent. It certainly seemed promising. Duncan had a top-notch
cast featuring every screen star the country has to offer except
Toni Collette, and among his cast, in the lead role, there’s Judy
Davis, arguably the best movie actress planet Earth can muster. Nor
is the subject matter uninteresting: Davis plays Joan Fraser, a
hard-core Marxist who spouts off about dialectical materialism the
way other people talk about their favorite football team. Joan’s
ardor for the premier worker’s state motivates her to write mash
notes to the premier himself, Uncle Joe Stalin (played here by F.
Murray Abraham). But she writes the leader much to the chagrin of
her hapless would-be suitor and comrade-in-arms Welch (shining
Oscar man Geoffrey Rush). The buffoonish, clowning Abraham is
forced to perform your first, pardon the pun, red flag. When
Stalin, smitten with love as Joan sings "I Get A Kick Outta You"
the movie proceeds down a ill-navigated course it never recovers
from. Joan returns to her audience with the premier as the Soviet
Union mourns the loss of Comrade No. 1 (he died from too much
merriment with Joan), and Joan finds herself pregnant with either
the child of Stalin or Nine, a suave spy (played by Sam Neill). As
the child grows up going to jail with Mom time and again for civil
disobedience, he first alarms Joan by falling for a sexy,
leather-clad copper (played by Rachel Griffiths). By the time he
matures to full adulthood, Joan’s son Joe (Richard Roxburgh)
continues to exasperate his radical mother through a series of
developments too intricate and tiring to recount until Papa Joe’s
genes start kicking in in a way that threatens all of Australia.
Shot as a mockumentary, "Children of the Revolution" tries to have
it both ways and fails. It goes far too broad and then expects us
to take it seriously in Act 3. Davis remains a joy to watch as the
zealous Communist who slowly watches all her beliefs betray her,
and the rest of the cast acquits themselves as well. Whether fault
lies more with the script or with the inexperienced hand of the
director is hard to tell, but what is clear is that "Children of
the Revolution" wears out its welcome long before it’s ready to
leave; like "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome," it proves conclusively
that no matter how good the track record, Australians can make
mistakes too. Brandon Wilson Grade:D+ (the + is for the cast)
"Nothing Personal" Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan Starring John
Lynch and James Frain An untidy little irony pops up in Alan
Pakula’s "The Devil’s Own" when Brad Pitt tells Harrison Ford that
Americans don’t really understand Northern Ireland’s woes. Oh, but
apparently Pakula does – that’s why he’s managed to take
generations of vexedly convoluted conflict and broil it down to the
kind of moral mechanics that come with a user’s guide and a fix-it
wrench. Thankfully, Thaddeus O’Sullivan is smarter than all that.
What’s more, he’s Irish and so is his new film. "Nothing Personal"
is a sophisticated, at times utterly riveting, drama about the
clandestine workings of Belfast’s rival guerrilla militias, the IRA
and the Ulters Volunteers in the turbulent ’70s. It dispenses with
the obligatory accouterments of Irish films (no Sinead O’Connor or
Cranberries songs to be found) and focuses on refreshingly
unheroic, average people during the troubles of the ’70s. It’s a
world of closed-door politics, betrayal, mistrust, adolescent urges
and the quotidian hardships of a society whose turmoil has grown
larger than the sum of its parts. O’Sullivan unveils a conflict in
which innocence and guilt, violence and ideology, dwell in
ambiguous regions. But, unlike most films of its kind, "Nothing
Personal" observes common people who have a dimension other than
their political or religious affiliations. They’re not heroes or
emblems, they’re multidimensional creatures. They drink beer, go to
night clubs, ogle women, feel regret and even lay claim to
certifiable emotions. In short, they have not been distilled to the
morally asinine cardboard cut-outs that seem to be requisite for
mainstream audiences. This is a complicated film which has to be
carefully followed in order to absorb its subtle observations. That
O’Sullivan assembled a small band of tremendous actors makes the
film all the more wrenching. James Frain ("Shadowlands") plays the
Protestant paramilitarist Kenny, who’s being pressured to rein in
his all-too-zealous sidekick Ian Hart ("Land and Freedom," "Michael
Collins," "Backbeat"). The two stumble upon John Lynch ("In the
Name of the Father," "Moll Flanders"), a Catholic who’s found
himself on the wrong side of the barricade after a night of
fighting. Michael Gambon also stars as a field general of the
Loyalist men, dealing with both internal pressures and his rival
IRA liaison in one of the political substrains that makes this film
fascinating. "Nothing Personal" is not without its flaws. At times
it propels itself with all the clunky misfooting of a television
movie, and the very last scene seems rather overly-contrived for a
film that didn’t really need to resort to pseudo-Shakespearean
tragedy. But, during its stronger moments of real insight and
gripping tension, "Nothing Personal" is one of the most convincing
portraits of the foot soldiers and bystanders in a war that defies
reason and certainly generalization. John Nein Grade: A- BUT SOFT!
"The Quiet Room," a Rolf de Heer film, will be released and
featured in selected theaters today.