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Rip It Up, Issue 220, 1 December 1995, Page 44

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SHALLOW GRAVE Director: Danny Boyle

Anyone with experience in the flatmate lottery sweepstakes will get many a thrill and a chill out of this stylish little black com-edy-cum-wince inducing thriller. It tells of the just desserts which befall a group of yuppie flatmates when they succeed in snaring a stranger to make their number four. Given the bastardly nature of the trio, you mightn’t be surprised to hear their new flatmate doesn’t last long. However, the way in which he exits is rather spectacular — that is, carried out by his flatmates, wrapped in plastic.

They are not responsible for his death, but what they decide to do with his body (after discovering oodlees of money in his room) could get them in rather a lot of bother. They decide to bury it, after rendering it anonymous. One flatmate draws the short straw, and is thus forced to carry out the nasty business of removing the corpse’s identifying bits. This drives him rather batty. A nasty degree of paranoia and double crossing ensues between the flatmates. This is understandable, as the cops are investigating a burglary downstairs, a couple of very nasty thugs are in search of the hidden loot, and one of the flatmates, a journalist, has just been assigned the story of the very crime he is party to. Once you’ve met this terrible trio, and seen the trouble they get themselves into, it’s sure to make you feel a lot better about the flatmates you’ve got. However, it might make you think twice before calling them friends. BRONWYN TRUDGEON DAZED AND CONFUSED Director: Richard Linklater

It’s 1976 and ‘school’s out for summer’. For a bunch of American graduating seniors, this means hazing the freshmen, driving around town looking for a place to party, drinking beer, and smoking lots of pot. For the football team, this also means getting their minds around the no drink/drugs contract their coach has asked them to sign, with a view to protecting their form over summer. Everyone has signed, bar the luscious Jason London, who is torn between his loyalties to his team buddies and his lust for ‘livin’.

Linklater has set the pace on lazy and loping. The narrative is more structured and less innovative than Slacker, but only because its progression is dictated by the hours from afternoon to dawn, and the supreme wasting they bestow upon seemingly every senior (and even a few junior hazing survivors) in town. Think of an American Graffiti for the 70s, and you’ll be on the right track.

Plenty of good gags, a vintage 70s soundtrack, and a cast loaded with dreamy looking (in both senses of the words) stoners provide the padding the lack of strong storyline and theme need. While it is hard to relate to some of the American customs (the brutality and humiliation directed at the freshmen, the fascination with constantly driving in and out of drive-thrus), there are some heartening scenes which seem universal to all Western teenagers, no matter what the decade. If this film doesn’t bring back those old urges to go on a letterbox wrecking spree or the like, you probably never had them in the first place. BRONWYN TRUDGEON FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! Director: Wim Wenders

This is the sequel to the absolutely divine Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’ homage to It’s A Wonderful Life. That film acquainted us with some of the angels who listen to our thoughts and watch the strange ways in which we pass the time that makes up our lives. One of the angels, Damiel, fell in love with a woman on earth (Solveig Dommartin, who is surely as close as a human can get to being an angel), and eventually made the move, leaving his friend Cassiel behind. Far Away, So Close! tells the story of what happens to Cassiel when he finds himself following in his friend’s footsteps, but experiencing a few more teething problems along the way. In fact, Wenders loads so many problems on poor Cassiel, he really doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell (let alone an angel’s on earth). Pornography, gun running and Nazi connections, drunkenness, identification problems and arrest; unfortunately, all this makes for a rather convoluted storyline. Nevertheless, Faraway, So Close! is certainly as stylish, visually stunning, and beautifully written as its predecessor. The soundtrack is sublime, and the cast has a real dream-like quality — ranging as it does from Gorby to Lou Reid, and with the addition of Nastassja Kinski and Willem Dafoe to the original stars.

BRONWYN TRUDGEON