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Review

Rain Man‘charms with subtlety

RAIN MAN. Directed by Barry Levinson.
With Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise. At
local theatres.

Charlie Babbitt has a problem. He’s up
to his neck in red ink because of seat-of-
the-pants dealings connected with his
Lamborgini import business. To com-
pound things, the young Eighties era
entrepreneur has flown to Cincinnati to
attend his father’s funeral, only to find out
Dad has cut him out of a $3-million inher-
itance.

But Charlie (Tom Cruise) is as resource-
ful as he is loud-mouthed, insensitive and
over-bearing. Employing a little shady
investigative technique leads him to the
trustee for the estate, a doctor at a local
clinic for the mentally disabled. A chance
piece of luck introduces him to previously
unknown older brother Raymond (Dustin
Hoffman) — an autistic savant who is the
beneficiary of their father’s estate.

An autistic savant? That’s a type of
mental handicap that in less sensitive times
earned the afflicted the handle, “‘autistic
idiot.” These are individuals who have an
extremely limited relationship with their
surroundings, but whom in some 10 per
cent of the cases have compensated for the
shortcoming with amazing skills in other
fields.

In the case of Raymond — a character
Hoffman reportedly brought to life by
studying a couple of autistic individuals
— it means the ability to do complex
mathematical problems as rapidly as a
pocket calculator, or to memorize several
hundred pages of a telephone directory.
Meanwhile, he is incapable of understand-
ing the concept of money and cannot

Films

Hoffman (I) and Cruise in Rain Man.

distinguish the value of a car from a candy
bar.

The main value of this film, which cou-
ples teen idol Cruise with veteran actor
Hoffman in a landmark performance, is
that it sensitizes us to the reality of mental
dysfunctions as much as recent dramas
and other popular artistic endeavours
have acquainted us with the realities of
physical handicaps. In Rain Man, myths
are abolished and humanism shines
throughout.

Charlie’s solution to his financial
dilemma is to virtually kidnap his brother,
take him across the country to his Los
Angeles home, and to hold him for a kind
of ransom. Failing that, Charlie is pre-
pared to fight a court battle for custody of
Raymond and control of his $3 million.

Raymond at first seems more trouble
than he’s worth. He refuses to fly back to
California because he knows the statistics

| of each air disaster on every American
airline. He later forces Charlie to take
back roads on their cross country journey
by car after witnessing the aftermath of a
gruesome highway accident. The pair
cannot travel on rainy days because of
Raymond’s anxieties, and a strict schedule
of television shows and bedtimes — ad-
herence to routine is an autistic trait —
slows things down considerably. Charlie
must humour Raymond because refusal
to heed his wishes results in screaming
tantrums of horrible proportions.

The main story is the emotional bond
that grows between the two brothers, so
different in abilities and outlook but ulti-
mately joined by blood ties, shared expe-
riences and by a curious similarity:
Charlie, driven by material impulses that
eventually alienate his lover, is a kind of
social autistic separated from human
warmth.

Director Barry Levinson gives Rain
Man the same kind of subtlety that made
his previous films Diner, Tin Men and
Good Morning Vietnam popular and
artistic successes. The changes in attitude
may take place over a brief period of time,
but they are natural in the context of the
circumstances. The traditional happy end-
ing is also eschewed for something more
realistic but still satisfying. No outright
miracles happen, but a breakthrough that
is a testimony to the power of love over
materialism does occur.

Rain Man seems to say that learning to
care can be truly a miracle when there is so
mich uncaring about. That, coupled with
Hoffman’s engrossing and endearing per-
formance, makes it a worthwhile film.

— Dan Keeton

Continued from page 1

streets before more casualties were suffered.

Remarkably, the patrol passed us by, but

we could clearly see the palpable expression
of fear on their faces, bringing to mind what
our young friend Ziad had told us three
days before: ““The Israelis are more afraid of
us with our stones than we are of them with
their weapons, beatings and prisons.” .

Still, it didn’t take much urging from our
Palestinian guides — women younger
than 20 years, all of them — to hurry us
along the way to Balata.

It was decidedly easier entering Balata
than leaving, for we had not been there for
an hour before all hell broke loose. Our
intended visit with.the camp leader ended
abruptly when a wave of tremendous
excitement swept through the crowd of
young children surrounding us.

All at once the kids rushed towards a
nearby wall surrounding the camp, and
began hailing stones over it, at a target we
could not see at first. Then we spotted the
object of their agitation — an IDF patrol
making its way down the mountain-side
towards the camp.

Suddenly the sound of gunfire burst

_ Out — tak, tak, tak — and we realized that

the camp was being attacked! Rather than
frightening the children, the shooting inten-
Sified their volleys of stone-throwing, more
in defiance than in any hope of reaching

‘their intended mark.

__ Aseries of explosions pierced the shout-
Ing and chaos, and we watched in disbelief

__as tear-gas canisters sailed through the air
_ and into the camp. Our disbelief rapidly
-€vaporated as the canisters, which turned

Out to be poisonous CS gas, spewed out
their contents.

Our lungs choking and our eyes and
throats burning, we retreated with the
Crowd towards the safety of refuge in

nearby homes. The hasty retreat required a
quick sprint across the main road into the
camp even as the army advanced upon it,
firing shots into the crowd.

As we withdrew, a handful of older
youths gathered at the road to delay the
advance of the army, giving everyone else,
including ourselves, time to clear the area
and disappear from sight.

From the rooftop of our sanctuary we
watched the army enter the camp, and soon
discovered the “people’s telegraph” —
rooftop communication and surveillance
through which word of the army’s move-
ment sped as quickly as any telephone.

We learned also that most of the young
men and women had gathered in the centre
of the camp for a demonstration protesting
the attack, an action that to our benefit
would draw the army’s attention and pro-
vide a cover for our escape.

Finally the “‘all’s clear” signal arrived and
we slipped into the street and down an alley
with a young guide from the camp. But it
was a premature go-ahead and a sudden
warning from hidden lookouts brought us
back. At a single whispered word from our
guide — ’Jaysh” (army) — another door
immediately unbolted and gave us shelter.

After another tense wait, we were finally
led through a catacomb of side-streets and
alleys to the edge of the camp and into a
waiting van that slipped past IDF rooftop
observation posts, and delivered us to the
car that returned us safely to the relative
calm of Jerusalem.

The IDF patrols sweeping through Nab-
lus, and the attack on Balata, incredible as
they are to our experience, are in fact
regarded by all Palestinians as an everyday
fact of life.

The events we witnessed on that day were
“damage-control” efforts in the wake of
Palestinian protests on the first anniversary

Intifada stronger in test of wills

of the intifada. Similar things could have
happened on any other day, and for any
other reason.

But it hadn’t been just any other day, and
this is the salient fact. The anniversary of the
intifada was a test of will and nerves
between the Palestinian people and the
occupation army. And it’s clear that the
intifada emerged the moral victor in this
round of a deadly struggle.

The intifada has become a state of mind
for the Palestinians, and this the army can-
not control. We were told time and again by
Palestinians, such as Suleiman, a university
student working in Jerusalem: ““We want
our independence and freedom. We don’t
want to kill or be killed, but if we have to
die, we will. We are not afraid of the Israe-
lise.

The United Leadership of the Intifada
called for demonstrations and a two-day
general strike on the anniversary of the
uprising, December 8-9. And the people
responded despite every Israeli effort to
crush them.

The Palestinians have become masters at
the tactics of the intifada. They have main-
tained ongoing strike action every day since
the uprising began. The shops close and
workers leave the job every day at noon.
The young people demonstrate every day at
10:30 in the morning.

Ismail, a 22-year-old friend from Ramal-
lah, put the Palestinian high morale in pers-
pective: “In 1967 the Israeli army defeated
all the armies of the Arab countries in six
days, occupied our land and destroyed our
morale and self-respect. In 1982 it took the
Israeli army six weeks to push the PLO
fighters out of Beirut. And in the last year
they have been unable to stop an uprising of
unarmed people.”

(This is the first of a series — to be continued
next issue.)

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Pacific Tribune, January 16, 1989 « 7