ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512190027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: it came from the video store
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
In its own unfocused way, the home-video business mimics the concerns of the big screen. If horror films do well in theaters, horror films will show up in video stores. These days, stories concerned with families are the hot ticket. Here are four new releases on tape.
Certainly the most ambitious of the current crop is "My Family," a multigenerational tale of the Sanchez family. It begins with Jose's (Eduardo Lopez Rojas) journey from rural Mexico to Los Angeles in 1926 "when the border was a line in the dirt." He meets and marries Maria (Jenny Gago), and the rest of the film concerns their children Paco (Edward James Olmos, who also narrates), Chucha (Esai Morales), Toni (Constance Marie), Jimmy (Jimmy Smits) and Memo (Enrique Castillo).
Their episodic conflicts are realistic, based in differences of age and culture. The script, co-written by director Gregory Nava and producer Anna Thomas, is a little heavy-handed at times, but it always seems emotionally honest, neither apologizing for the characters nor condemning them. The best moments are a curbside mambo lesson, an exciting knife fight and a nicely handled romance between Smits and Elpidia Carrillo, as a Salvadoran immigrant in immediate need of a husband.
Because the film covers so much ground in time and number of characters, it's uneven. But it's also an engaging story that has the appeal of a good soap opera. You come to care about these people, and you want to know what they're going to do. Recommended.
Some viewers are going to love ``Suture"; others will be thoroughly frustrated by it. The reason's simple. It's a piece of popular entertainment told with the techniques of experimental film. And at the center, where most movies provide an answer or resolution, filmmakers Scott McGehee and David Siegel leave an enigmatic question mark.
Clay Arlington (Dennis Haysbert) arrives in Phoenix, Ariz., on a bus. Vincent Towers (Michael Harris) meets him. Clay's a construction worker - dusty jeans and work boots. Vincent drives a Bentley. They're brothers who met only recently at their father's funeral, and both comment on their strong resemblance. The thing is ... Clay's black; Vincent's white.
The police suspect that Vincent may have had something to do with their wealthy father's death, and that's the beginning of a carefully paced Hitchcockian suspense tale. The other important characters are Dr. Renee Descartes (Mel Harris), a plastic surgeon, and Max Shinoda (Sab Shimono), a psychiatrist.
To reveal almost anything else would spoil the film.
McGehee and Siegel - who co-wrote, -produced and -directed - give the story a dreamlike fluidity. Greg Gardiner's richly textured black-and-white photography adds immensely to that suspended reality. Dennis Haysbert (the voodoo slugger from ``Major League") handles a difficult role with some of the most restrained and subtle work you'll see. Even though the film had only a limited theatrical release, his is the kind of performance that can turn a character actor into a star.
As for the story and the racial issues - that's where the questions come in.
For my money, "Suture" is challenging, inventive and different in the finest sense of the term - one of the year's best. Having said that, I know that other videophiles will disagree, but no one will be neutral about "Suture."
"Once Were Warriors" is very strong stuff - too strong for some. It's a New Zealand film about domestic violence within a Maori family. The Maori are an indigenous Polynesian people. As the film puts it, some remain on a protected reservation; others, like the Heke family, have moved to the city. The opening scenes underscore the prison-like conditions of life there.
Beth (Rena Owens) tries to take care of the kids despite the drunken rages of her bullying husband Jake (Temuera Morrison). Director Lee Tamahori makes those scenes so harrowing that they're hard to watch. All of the violence in "Pulp Fiction," for example, doesn't come close to one scene in the Hekes' kitchen, not to mention its aftermath.
Perhaps it's inevitable that the rest of the film can't measure up to those moments. The key subplot involving Beth's daughter Grace (subtly and effectively played by Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell) is somehow out of step - though it certainly doesn't pull any punches either - and in the end, the resolution seems too simple for the problems the film addresses.
Those flaws notwithstanding, "Once Were Warriors" is still worth watching for anyone looking for grit, substance and seriousness.
The same might be said of "Rain Without Thunder," but it's such unapologetic propaganda that it's for only the most committed partisans in the abortion debate.
The setting is the near future, 2042, when the Supreme Court has so thoroughly chipped away at Roe v. Wade that abortion is essentially illegal. Poor women (i.e. black women) are routinely arrested for "fetal murder" while the more affluent fly to Sweden for a "p-term." Then Congress passes the "Unborn Child Kidnapping Act," making it illegal for a pregnant woman to leave the country for that purpose.
It's a complicated premise, and writer-director Gary Bennett lets an ensemble cast build on it through a series of mock-documentary interviews. Nothing really happens in the film. Instead, these people sit around and talk about other things that have already happened, or they make pompous speeches. Despite the subject matter, the action is flat and static, both emotionally and visually.
To Bennett's credit, he does raise legitimate questions, and given his film's curious structure, it probably plays better on home video than it would in any other medium. Still, even those who agree with the film's strong pro-choice stance will find it more irritating than persuasive.
Next week: Kid's stuff and Christmas stuff!
The Essentials:
My Family *** 1/2 New Line Home Video. 121 min. Rated R for language, violence, sexual content, brief nudity.
Suture *** 1/2 Evergreen. 96 min. Unrated, contains some strong language, violence, sexual material.
Once Were Warriors *** New Line Home Video. 102 min. Rated R for subject matter, violence, strong language, sexual content.
Rain Without Thunder * Orion Home Video. 86 min. Rated PG-13 for subject matter, strong language.
LENGTH: Long : 115 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ``Once Were Warriors'' stars Temuera Morrison and Renaby CNBOwen.