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Review

Greetings on May Day
in solidarity with the

working people of B.C.

FRONTLINES
ART GROUP

May Day |
Greetings

to all the readers
and supporters of ©
the Pacific Tribune
from

CO-OP
RADIO
102.7 FM

337 Carrall St.
Vancouver, B.C.
Ph. 684-8494

(Call us for a free program guide)

New Titles
on Meech Lake
ansersieeiatascamar ema

THE MEECH LAKE
ACCORD: What will it
mean to you and to
Canada?

By Marjorie Bowker

$3.95
(paperback)

MEECH LAKE
RECONSIDERED.
With complete text of
the Meech Lake
Accord.

Edited by Lorne Ingle,
OG:

$5.95
(paperback)

1391 COMMERCIAL DRIVE
VANCOUVER, B.C. V5L_3X5
TELEPHONE 253-6442

The Cook’ roasts Thatcherism

THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND
HER LOVER. Directed by Peter Greena-
way. Starring Michael Gambon, Helen
Mirren, Alan Howard and Richard Boh-
ring. At local theatres.

This is not a film for the timid. While it
may have a title that defies memory (try
saying it three times correctly without read-
ing it), it is a film you cannot forget or
ignore.

British filmmaker Peter Greenaway is
not, to put it mildly, a mainstream or com-
mercial filmmaker. His films challenge
viewers with concepts that are at once both
alluring and repulsive. His films are visually
exciting; bold colours and obviously fake
scenery combine to give a theatrical atmos-
phere. :

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her
Lover is Greenaway’s angry response to the
social attitudes fostered under Thatcherism.
It is about greed, misogyny, consumption
and class. It is also a jarring shot aimed at
the nouveau riche — their inflated self-
importance, and their lack of compassion
for those not so gifted or well-dressed.

The Thief is the embodiment of greed. He
blusters through this movie as a man with-
out redemption. A cross between a rabid
Henry VIII and a peeved Attila the Hun he
elicits not an ounce of sympathy. His every
utterance is foul and loud, his “friends” are
all paid cronies, his wife serves as either
mechanical sex doll or compliant punching
bag.

The Cook is the creator. Running the
kitchen he serves up concoctions that are
wasted on the ignorant palates of the Thief
and his company who have the money (i.e.
the power) — but not the brains to appre-

ciate culture. But the Cook is also com-
pliant, forced to watch his helpers and his
restaurant abused by the Thief’s constant
tantrums. “f
The Lover is the intellectual. Sitting alone
at the restaurant with his novels he is, a first,
able to ignore the Thief’s obtrusive shenani-
gans. He is the Thief’s antithesis — quiet
and reserved — so quiet he doesn’t utter a
word during the first hour of the film. He is
neither violent nor territorial.
_ And there is the Wife. She is really the
centre of the film and the catalyst that prop-
els the story to its violent but justified finale.

- At first she elicits nothing but pity. She is

bullied by her husband, the Thief. She sits
meekly at his side as he yells at her, lectures
her, insults her and slaps her.

The violence does not seem gratuitous: it
seems real. We feel each slap, we cower at
each blustering shout, we see every purple
bruise on the Wife’s face, barely disguised
by make-up.

The setting of the film itself is a visual -

feast. The dining room is awash in deep red,
like a turn-of-the-century brothel; the kit-
chen is grey and smoky as workers toil in a
scene reminiscent of a Dickens novel; the
bathrooms are a blinding white with both
cubicles for women along the walls and
urinals for the men in the centre. Outside of
the restaurant the world is blue and dark,
with streets like back alleys, garbage blow-
ing in the wind, and packs of wild dogs.

It is a horrific world that makes the opu-
lence and garishness of the dining room
seem even more obscene. —

The Wife and the Lover begin a clandes-
tine affair in the restaurant — meeting for
passionate lovemaking in the cubicles of the
bathroom or in the storage room among

Association of United Ukrainian Canadians
805 East Pender Street, Vancouver, B.C.

MAY DAY GREETINGS

For world disarmament, planetary
survival and full employment on
this May Day, international
holiday of working people.

=

May Day

eens ea

frome Vancouver
Folk Music Festival

See you at the 13th Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival

_. .A Festival featuring music that makes a difference,
from Italy to El Salvador to Edmonton.

July 13, 14,15 + Jericho Beach Park

Tickets on sale now!
Early Bird Weekend tickets available until June 16

For complete line-up and ticket information:

write, call, or visit the Vancouver Folk Music
Festival, 3271 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C.,
V5V 3M6 ® (604) 879-2931.

32 Pacific Tribune, April 30, 1990

hanging slabs of meat.
The tension builds as we anticipate the
inevitable horror when the Thief finds out

about the affair. Being an incredibly stupid

and self-centred man, it takes the Thief a
while but when he finally does catch on his
response is all too predictable and violent.

For, from the Thief’s perspective, the
Loyer has committed the ultimate sin —
taking away the one piece of property that

the Thief can’t totally own — his Wife's —

heart.
— Paul Ogresko

Woman cop,
male solutions

BLUE STEEL. Directed by Kathryn Bige-
low. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron
Silver. At local theatres.

Blue Steel is another cop thriller filled
with the mandatory blood, gore and un-
necessary violence. But as a rookie cop,
Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) delivers a
difference which makes this film worth con-
sidering. With or without her gun belt, this
woman exudes feministo.

A working-class background and a vio-
lent home leads Megan to believe there’s a
role for her in cleaning up Manhattan as
part of the police force. On the job less than
24 hours she gets her chance, offing a
supermarket thief.

This earns her a suspension since the
thief’s gun cannot ‘be found. It’s been
grabbed from the scene by the villain, a
commodities trader.

The weapon stirs his growing psychosis

and Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver) embarks on -

a random killing spree.

- The pleasure Hunt gets from murder is )

an extension of the “killings” he makes _

daily at the stock exchange.

He describes: this as a “misanthropi
enterprise where people buy gold and hope
everything else in the world goes to hell’ . ..”
The “people” are like “little specks who
don’t matter much.”

Silver’s character also develops an obses-
sion for Megan. Witnessing her in the
supermarket, he mistakenly sees a kindred
spirit who likes to kill as much as he does.
He imagines them as “two halves of one
person.”

The symbolism is intentional. In life the
elite relies on the police to maintain theif
power and vice versa.

Megan is still fresh enough to be moti
vated by ethics. But as a worker and a
woman her credibility is no match for
Hunt’s privilege and power. His psychosis
spirals unchecked. She is forced to battle the
constraints on her in order to confront t
killer.

Blue Steel will add Curtis’s Megan to the
rostrum of feminist heroines. She’s toug!
yet human. Police work scares het:
although she undoubtedly sees more actiol
in her first week’s work than a real cof
would experience in her entire career. Wher
she suits up to track down Hunt you heal
the sound track to The Good, the Bad ant
the Ugly even though it isn’t playing.

Megan stands up for herself in a condes
cending male world. Her best friends aft
women. She’s sexually liberated, althoug
her taste in men runs foul. (This is boring
Hollywood seems unable to find a
redeemable men to match the admirabk
women it’s developed.)

Megan would be entirely captivating
she wasn’t so entrapped by the rules sh
bought into by joining the police force. B
the end, “justified” or not, the only soll
tions she can find are male. |

Against a world where women cops af
now among those named for attacks 0
visible minority and working-class suspect!
Blue Steel becomes disturbing for mot
than its well-developed suspense.

— Kerry M