Anti-Soviet film gives red faces

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 17

Anti-Soviet film gives red faces

From CHRIS MOSEY in Stockholm

As movies go it is certainly no masterpiece. The story line — about three young Americans straying into the Soviet Union — is as full of holes as a Gruyere cheese, the acting is abysmal, and the direction inept What is. interesting about “Bom American” is that it makes "Rambo First Blood II” look like a Sunday school outing

and “Rocky IV” a soft overture to communism.

That, and the fact that it was made in Finland where a horrified State Censorship Board headed by one Jerker Eriksson has just granted it the . distinction Of becoming the first, locally made film to be banned for political reasons since 1931. • With- Finland’s independence guaranteed by a. policy of not ■ annoying its eastern neighbour, ♦ the Soviet - Union/ ’’Bora Ameri'can” and the resulting furore over its banning, is proving anacute embarrassment,for .President Mauno Koivisto., The film’s producer, Markus Selin, is fixing a premier in another Nordic country,’ either Sweden or Denmark, by the end of February. ..Meanwhile, he. has sold it in the United States, cashing in on the vogue for anti-Soviet movies. ' Cheekily, he- says he will invite the 'Soyiet ambassador to a press’ showing in Helsinki. “Bom. American,” which I watched at a sneak preview in . Stockholm, stars Mike Norris, Steve Durham, and; David Coburn, three .American actors hitherto Unknown and likely to stay that way. ' They are. cast as drunken . tourists who, for kicks, cross the border in the Soviet Union from northern •. Finland. Once there they wipe out a village, and vast

some superb people there trying to change things, both black and white. One of them was Biko, another was Woods, and both suffered for it. We know what happened to Biko but can you imagine what Woods felt like when his small daughter was sent a Biko T-shirt through the post that was impregnated with acid?”

He says that he doubts whether he could possibly have made the film but for the success of “Gandhi”, which even now is helping to keep Goldcrest afloat, the British film company of which he is chairman. And, yes, it does seem strange to him that suddenly, in his sixties, he is able to finance practically any film he likes.

As for “A Chorus Line”, Attenborough thinks it is the most technically proficient film he has so far made - better than "Gandhi”, because it was that much more difficult. He hopes the sleight of hand involved is imperceptible but assures you that the intricacy of the shooting was horrendous. “If it looks plain, that’s a triumph”. Nor was it easy to make it the way he wanted. Both the producers and the writer wanted to flesh in the background to the central relationship between Zack, the producer, and his exgirlfriend Cassie, with a total of 24 flashbacks. He got them down to a dozen before even accepting the assignment, but he also knew

numbers of Soviet troops before being captured and tortured by the Russians who are all uniformly thuggish and sadistic. But it is all so unbelievable it scarcely matters. When an inter/ rogator jabs a pencil into an open wound and asks “Does it hurt?" the temptation must have been to reply “Only when I laugh.”

Only Mike Norris survives. He escapes with two other prisoners,

a girl for the romantic interest and an Afro-American called “The Admiral” who is intent on exposing a fiendish world conspiracy involving the. C.I.A. and the K.G.8.. ; ' The’ remnants' of the northern flank of the Red Army are duly taken out in a blaze of pyrotechnics. and cosmetic blood. “The “Admiral” wanders .off into the, snow looking dazed', saying he has a few old scores to - settle, while Mike .and the girl crash .through the border to’ Finland ’ip a blazing truck. The film ends with the grim warning * that the K.G.B. is everywhere. ’ “Bora American” cost $4.9 1 million, making it one of the, most expensive movies made in Finland. Selin says he raised the cash in Scandinavia and America to avoid what he calls Finnish Government censorship of filmmaking. , • ■ “Most Finnish movies are funded • • with Government money,” he says. “If the Govern-. . ment doesn’t like the script, they don’t put up the cash. • It’s as simple as that” After the. Swedish preview, Selin, aged 25, modestly described himself as “one of the new wave of Finnish filmmakers.” Copyright — London Observer Service. '

he had final cut (a privilege not accorded to many these days), and aimed secretly for less. In the end, there were four. What he would like people to carry away from the film, apart from the splendour of the music, the songs and the dancing, is what “A Chorus Line” is chiefly about for him. “That these dancers are only a microcosm of the world at large, it’s not that they devote every waking hour to the thought that they might get their names up in lights, even though they are pressurised by two things .. .the short lifespan of a dancer and the American success syndrome. “Actually, they want to do what we all have a right to do, to display what they can of their talents, and to express themselves as fully as they can. That’s pretty difficult nowadays for a huge number of people who simply never get a chance at all, like black people in South Africa, for instance. “You may think I’m a moralist, but there isn’t a film I’ve made which hasn’t carried a message of some sort, or tried to say something worth saying. And I don’t see why you shouldn’t say it with a musical, as much as with a drama. I simply couldn't do a film without something that I think is valuable in it ‘A Chorus Line’ is hopefully great fun, but it’s no exception to my rule”.