Reviews

Movies

Little Nikita

Directed by Richard Benjamin, starring Rivere Phoenix, Sidney Poitier

By this point in his career, River Phoenix had established himself as a teen heartthrob who was no stranger to dramatic roles. He'd done great work in Stand By Me and starred alongside Harrison Ford in Peter Weir's Mosquito Coast. So it may have seemed logical to stack him against another older Hollywood heavyweight, like Sidney Poitier, as any film they appeared in together would have cross-generational appeal.

Unfortunately, Little Nikita's script is woeful, revealing a dud plot that's tantamount to John Le Carre for bed-wetters. When we meet Jeff (Phoenix) we can see that he is an All-American kid that loves his country with the same vigor that he loves girls. Things then get complicated after an FBI agent (Poitier), hunting a murderous ex-KGB spook, tells Jeff that his parents are Russian "sleepers" - spies who have settled in the US awaiting orders from Moscow.

Boasting a bevy of characters with accents that scream: "hey look at me everyone, I'm a spy", Little Nikita does not require its audience to use their imaginations. But it does require a huge suspension of disbelief, particularly in the improbable climax, which conveniently sees all the central players hop on the same tram approaching the Mexican border. Poor old Poitier is made to deliver lines like "he killed my partner", while in several scenes Phoenix tries a James Dean routine with unintentionally humorous results. Ben Davey

Zelig

Directed by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow

Here's a Woody Allen film that stands out from the rest of his work, because of it's form (fictional documentary) and the comedian's unusual restraint. Unlike Annie Hall or even Manhattan, Allen plays a character far less motor-mouthed than his previous screen personas. This is one of several reasons why this most endearing comedy should appeal not only to fans but also to those who tire of Allen's habitual paranoid banter.

A compilation of old newsreel material blended with new black and white footage, and including contemporary interviews, this is the story of Leonard Zelig - a man who out of a need to be accepted begins to undertake the physical and psychological characteristics of whoever he is around. After being discovered, Zelig first becomes a sideshow attraction, then a scientific marvel and the toast of New York before he falls from grace and flees for Nazi Germany. All the while he develops a relationship with pioneering psychologist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher (Mia Farrow).

Technically, Zelig is seamlessly put together as we see the "chameleon man" addressing huge crowds and even standing side by side with Hitler. So convincing is the overlapping of the old and current stock that if Zelig wasn't funny you may take it to be true (well, everything except for the man changing physical form part). As for the script, it's trademark Allen: part philosophy, part drama with every scenario leading to a punchline. BD

The River

Directed by Tsai Ming-liang, starring Lee Kang-sheng, Miao Tien

Xiao Kang and his parents share an apartment in Taipei. The three seldom talk with each other. His mother has an affair with a man making pirate pornography discs. The father seeks sex in gay sauna houses. Kang himself develops a strange neck pain after he plays a corpse in the polluted river as a temporary actor.

Water as an important metaphor appears everywhere in the film. The stinky polluted river water, the dripping roof and the water flowing on the floor make the characters' lives like floating corpses. Things floating on water cannot control their directions; nor can they make the water clearer.

The film seems to tell us life is full of odd people, loneliness and alienation. You may not agree, but he expresses himself impressively and touchingly. Liu Wei

(China Daily 08/07/2007 page20)