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new
year releases by Lynda Del Sasso
MULHOLLAND
DRIVE
USA 2001, CERT. 15
Director: DAVID LYNCH
Star Rating * * * *
 In
Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, a woman (Laura Elena Harring)
escapes from two men in a limousine. She takes refuge
in the apartment of a stranger, whom she sees leaving
on holiday. The tenant's niece, Betty (Naomi Watts) arrives
to stay and assumes that the woman, who has lost her memory
but calls herself Rita, is a friend of her aunt's. Betty,
an aspiring actress, is thrilled to be in LA, and throws
herself into attending auditions. Meanwhile, hip young
film director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) is being threatened
and told that he must cast a certain young actress as
the lead in his current project, or his career will be
destroyed. There's also mysterious blue key, a shadowy
figure called The Cowboy, and a dream world (or is it
reality?) where characters have different identities in
alternative versions of their lives.
Well,
this is David Lynch. Anyone expecting Blue Velvet/Twin
Peaks style intrigue, dream sequences, mood swings, heavy
curtains, sumptuous camera work and a Badalamenti soundtrack
won't be disappointed. If this mesmerising production
has a flaw, it lies in its similarity to Twin Peaks -
indeed the bulk of Mulholland Drive was originally conceived
and shot as a pilot for a television series (inexplicably
rejected by the ABC network), but it works well on the
large screen. As usual, Lynch delves below the surface
and questions the nature of reality, while at the same
time enthralling his audience with offbeat, quirky and
sometimes terrifying characters.
Duke
of York's from January 4
A
MA SOEUR!
FRANCE 2001, CERT. 18
Director: CATHERINE BREILLAT
Star Rating * * * 1/2
Two
French sisters, Elena (Roxane Mesquida) 15 years old,
and Anais (Anaïs Reboux) 12, are on holiday in Italy
with their parents. The girls share a bedroom and the
younger, plump sister secretly watches with a mixture
of fascination and disgust as her older sister experiments
with sex after meeting a local Italian boy. The boy, Fernando
(Libero de Rienzo), persuades Elena to have fumbling intercourse
with him, while Anais, naïve and childlike, struggles
to deal with her sister's awakening sexuality and the
shifting patterns of their relationship. When their mother
discovers what's been happening, she sets out on a long
road trip back to France.
Catherine
Breillat directs this compelling study of awkward sexuality
with such sensitivity that it's impossible not to be drawn
into the confusing adolescent world of the two girls.
While the older sister is flattered by the boy's attentions
and is keen to please him, the younger sister continues
to dream of romance. Contrasting the girls' bodies - one
slender and conventionally attractive, the other more
rounded and babyish, highlights the sisters' increasing
differences and encourages a feminist reading of sisterhood
disrupted by men.
Alas,
just as the girls are rescued by their mother (who has
up until this point lavished her attention on the father)
the females' lives are once again disrupted and overturned
by the male of the species in an unexpected and shocking
ending.
Duke
of York's from January 25
copyright New Insight 2001
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