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...But she and Godard meant their first question and the silence that follows to suggest some of the mystery of the Incarnation Not unjustly, the film was awarded a prize at the Berlin Festival by the International Catholic Cinema Office Godard also tries to express diffuse religious feeling through landscape images and "Franciscan" suggestions, he fills his shots with cats and dogs that serve no obvious function except as a weird hymn to nature The images are mostly cliches Moreover, his excessive use of nudity, the inchoate rages of Mane, and the gratuitous obscenity of the scnpt seem less Franciscan than modern-French, particularly denvative of Artaud's theatre de cruaute and the long-standing commitment of French freethinkers to epater le bourgeois At a press conference after the screening at the New York Film Festival, Godard stated that he could not understand the fuss made over the film, which he claimed was less a story than a set of "images " "Images" are innocent, he said, "something so peaceful can't do any harm " Yet later Godard told the ironic story of how Freud, after fleeing Europe before World War II, was classified in England as an' 'enemy alien '' "That is my concept of the artist," Godard said savonng the phrase,' 'an enemy alien '' I was tempted to ask him to square his notions of innocence and enmity, until I recalled the selfserving ideologies with which many modern artists protect themselves from responsibility In Hail Mary, Godard lets his ideology — especially his urge to insult, and his Pavlovian iconoclasm — interfere with his art, perhaps even with his heart SWEET DREAMS, a mediocre film, is worth seeing because of Jessica Lange She plays Patsy Chne, a famous country music singer of the late fifties and early sixties, a forerunner of the more well-known Loretta Lynn But Chne's story pales beside Lynn's in Coal Miner's Daughter (1981) — perhaps the finest Country Western film in recent years Sweet Dreams has little of Coal Miner's Daughter's cinematic poetry and evocation of antique, almost ancient, mountain culture Worse, Sweet Dreams's plot degenerates into a repetitious cycle of Chne's musical success and marital battles with her hard-drinking brute of a husband (Ed Hams), who both reveres and resents her Narratively, there is no exit from their fights except through the deus ex machina at the close of the film Nevertheless, Harris and Lange team up to make the story of their mutual desires for success (their "sweet dreams") into something interesting Lange pours herself into her role, for it, she gained twenty pounds and dares to prance around unashamed in a collection of magnificently tawdry cowboy costumes She's learned her West Virginian dialect well enough to cuss in high style She's also learned how to lip-synch so well that one can hardly tell that it's actually Patsy Chne's voice we are heanng on the movie soundtrack Though often ribald, Lange translates an innocent force into Chne, with assorted growls, yelps, and down-home hyperbole, and exudes earnest, simple, heartfelt desire She's also unafraid to take chances Her best scene involves taking off some bandages from wounds suffered in an auto crash She lets the camera devour her face, though the scars in her forehead resemble the stitches of the bnde of Frankenstein "So this is what I've got to deal with," she seethes, then resolutely leaves the hospital Eleni just misses greatness because the story of its heroine is mishandled The film is based on the book of the same title by New York Times reporter Nicholas Gage (his ongmal name is Gatzoyiannis) an account of how he, as Athens bureau chief, attempted to find out who killed his mother m the Greek Civil War The film faithfully follows the book (Gage was one of the co-producers), suspensefully alternating between his search in the mid-seventies for private justice, and a recreation of the turbulent politics of post-World War II Greece, when Communist guerrillas invaded the country's mountainous northern regions and attempted to establish a "people's democracy " Gage, then a young boy, escaped with his sisters, his mother remained to pay the price for their freedom The depiction of the older Gage uncovering the truth about socialist terror, one of Eleni's best moments, recalls last year's masterpiece, The Killing Fields Unfortunately, Eleni never quite matches its seanng quality Commonweal 648 The problem is not the acting John Malkovich (the photographer in The Killing Fields, and the blind man in Places in the Heart), as Gage, perfectly catches by understated obsession his character's admitted thirst for vengeance As his mother Eleni, Kate Nelhgan is a pillar of strength for her abused family, convincingly portraying the rage and pain of a parent who, for example, has to cripple one of her daughters to save her from serving in the militia The early parts of Eleni — splicing between scenes depicting Malkovich's lust to kill and Nelhgan's earnest struggle to survive — promise a middle and end of cathartic intensity But Eleni only half-delivers Malkovich's part of the story has two advantages understatement and suspense Little is said about what he intends to do when he finds his prey, but a frequently seen hand-gun raises some obvious possibilities On the other hand, we know from the beginning that Eleni is dead, a fact which it would have been better for director Peter Yates somehow to disguise Moreover, Yates makes Nelhgan into a spokeswoman against totalitarian abuse of the family — a worthy cause, but a cinematic albatross A heavy musical score and too many shots of Eleni wistfully saying goodbye to her children or walking among pnsoners overstates obvious emotions and iniquities Nelhgan is a great actress, but the defects in Eleni prevent her from shining fully These weaknesses become evident halfway through the film, a point at which Malkovich is seen with decreasing frequency Nevertheless, he returns in the climax, having finally located the revolutionary judge who tortured Eleni and ordered her executed The confrontation — in a modern, comfortably middle-class Athenian household complete with kind women, grandchildren, and gracious hospitality — is well worth the wait Director Yates restores subtlety with a touch of genius the moment when the one-time killer unknowingly offers his would-be killer some fine Greek bread — "like you can't get in America," he says with an old man's pnde The scene recalls how, as a young man, he taunted Eleni and her children, including Nicholas, with the sight of giant loaves of bread, promising it if they would only agree to migrate to Czechoslovakia Malkovich's face quietly registers the irony Then he does his mother justice This climax provides the best single scene in a movie this year TOM O'BRIEN 15 November 1985 649...

...Screen FOUR DIMENSIONS MORE IMAGES OF WOMEN FALL MOVIES continue to feature strong roles for women The least successful is Jagged Edge, despite the fact that it features a woman m a traditional, powerful, male role the criminal lawyer Glenn Close (the earth mother figure in The Big Chill, the prairie sweetheart in The Natural) here tries to expand her repertoire of "nice" roles with some Perry Mason-type toughness, in the film's courtroom sequences, she displays a cool interrogatory style, calmly cutting through false testimony and conveying aplomb despite startling setbacks She handles the defense in a gnsly murder case as the hardy professional she's supposed to be The only false notes are her lawyerly dresses, several sizes too small, such is feminism Hollywood-style Unfortunately, Close's performance is undone by an implausible plot She's defending a San Francisco editor (Jeff Bndges) accused of brutally murdering his wife The editor claims he's the scapegoat of a conviction-hungry prosecutor (Peter Coyote), whom he has criticized in his columns Close is suspicious of both men, having worked for Coyote on a case in which she knows evidence was doctored, she also declares 15 November 1985 647 that she intends to drop Bndges if she discovers he's guilty With such complications — and ethical rigor — what Jagged Edge didn't need was the predictable romance that, alas, destroys the credibility of Close's character One final note the initial murder is particularly shocking Director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) is adept at thrillers, and has the nght artistic instinct to place the killing first in the film But its gruesomeness deserves condemnation, if not censorship In its treatment of women, Jagged Edge is meanly deceitful, superficially upscale It's enough to make you want to sign a petition to limit or outlaw distribution of films depicting sexual violence HAIL MARY (Je Vous Salue Marie) — Jean-Luc Godard's version of the life of Christ's mother — has raised different issues of censorship, particularly in the Catholic community Pope John Paul II asked that it be withdrawn from a festival in Rome, several American distributors reneged on commitments to place the film because of protests by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights In truth, however, the film's bark is worse than its bite Indeed, there is actually some genuine religious feeling in the movie — albeit ruined by Godard's knee-jerk desire to shock Godard's first decision — to modernize the story — is questionable in itself, Pasohni made The Gospel According to Saint Matthew without resorting to the kind of gas station setting (with Joseph as a taxi driver) that Godard employs Nevertheless, his Mane (Mynam Roussel), the daughter of the gas station owner, has a tenderness and passion about her that sometimes suggest real spiritual feeling Stunned by her inexplicable pregnancy, she asks her doctor, "Does the soul have a body''" earning the retort, "You mean, does the body have a soul1...