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This bright, satiric comedy pokes wicked good fun at a 1955 homemakers contest whose winner is to be the 1950's ideal woman: "a happy, good, and beautiful homemaker." "wonderfully funny and witty...hilarious and sometimes cutting." L.A.Star-News JUNE 9-JULY 3

Mrs.California

by Doris Baizley

ACT

1988 A CONTEMPORARY THEATRE SEATTLE

ACT Box Office 285-5110 Ticketmaster 628-0888

Special added performance to benefit the N.W. AIDS FOUNDATION

June 18th

2:00pm

CAFFÉ MAURO LA MARZOCCO VIVACE

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THE SILVER SCREEN

A movie so successful that the flaws tend to irritate unjustly

Interview with Gregory Colbert

by Eric Gould

On the Brink: An AIDS Chronicle appeared at the last week of the 14th Seattle International Film Festival with box office receipts going toward Shanti and Chicken Soup Brigade. On the Brink was directed by Gregory Colbert, a 27-yearold Toronto native who is "very concerned" about the impact of AIDS. The film was produced through a government grant from France and received funding from corporate sponsors. On the Brink is Colbert's first film which focuses on a global perspective about the disease from the medical community, researchers, and the people who are affected by it. Eric Gould (EG): How did you approach making a film about AIDS?

Gregory Colbert (GC): As AIDS came along, I wanted to increase our awareness of it. I only got into film four years ago. If I didn't do something at the time,

I would have felt as if I failed. [AIDS] was closing in all around; it was closing in on me or other people, so that's what I did. And so I got the support to do it and a kitchen-sink budget, etc. I got a lot of help from other people whether it was through grants, and people in Italy, France, and the United States. That's the least I could do, and that's the most I could do.

EG: How did you approach presenting the film?

GC: It never occurred to me that I had to please everyone, or that I had to water it down. So therefore, I tried to make something that had views from all walks of life. My own views at present were to include all views that would otherwise be excluded. But I didn't include a voiceover, because I tried to sort of refrain

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by T.T. Roth

Zelly and Me

Alexandra Johnes and Isabella Rossellini.

written and directed by Tina Rathborne (at the Metro Cinemas)

Zelly and Me takes place in an affluent neighborhood in Virginia in the mid-50s. Phoebe, a recently orphaned girl (Alexandra Johnes), living in her grandmother's (Glynis Johns) home is taught love and the meaning of integrity by her nanny, Zelly (Isabella Rossellini).

Writer/director Tina Rathborne's first go at a million dollar movie is so successful that the flaws that typically oc-. cur with anyone's initiation into a new media tend to irritate unjustly.

Joan of Arc's trust in her inner voices provides the backdrop to the films emotional and spiritual message. As Zelly tells Phoebe: "No one knows what these voices were. I believe it was her soul talking to her...." Consequently, the original tale of sainthood shifts to become rather an exploration of our need to stay true to ourselves.

The film suffers occasionally from the analogy because Ms. Rathborne doesn't quite have the experience to know when an image carries the symbolism in and of itself, and when we need to be vocally informed of her intentions.

What keeps the film together is how the director makes her own lack of experience work for her, by resorting to some very enlightened decisions.

First, while the film isn't autobiographical as such, the author chooses to use people and places she is familiar with from her own childhood. Furthermore, all the actors on some May 27, 1988, Section 2

level seem to be exploring uncharted grounds. This gives the film a sense of immediacy that keeps the characters and their dilemmas very real.

Glynis Johns confessed that she was at first horrified at the idea of playing the emotionally crippled grandmother.

The director applied Ms. Johns' inner terror very skillfully to add a humane dimension to the fundamentalist ideology that confines that character so she "can't hear her voices anymore." Consequently, we identify with the old woman's fear of rejection and understand that her retreat into mental abuse must have marked her own childhood.

Ms. Rathborne had the courage to write a child-character who, despite her young age, is a formed individual. As Phoebe discovers the hard edges by which people hurt themselves and each other she also learns that compassion and insight are the only means by which we can survive the limitations placed around us.

This is a difficult notion, however, for any child actor to come to grips with, especially since this is Alexandra Johnes' first attempt at acting. There is clear evidence that Ms. Rathborne spent a lot of energy making certain that Miss Johnes clearly understood what feelings motivates Phoebe at all times. The effort resulted in an emotionally moving and detailed evocation of childhood forced into maturity before its time.

Isabella (Blue Velvet) Rossellini has been noted for her courage in other movies. She, whenever possible, goes the hard way and takes chances. In Zelly

See ZELLY on page 23.

Gregory Colbert.

from [a narrative]. There's a cacophony of information and people would not be able to synthesize a lot of that. I hope that with the film, it would encourage analysis. People don't need a God-narrator to tell us what this is, and what it all

means.

I tried as much as I could. I went to different countries around the world through Africa, Europe, and the United States. I interviewed people who were, in principle, the key players and the people who personally had AIDS in Paris, New York, London, and Uganda. And so in the end, I think people will see it from global perspective about what is happening, what had happened, and as we begin, or just learn about, the epidemic. EG: What did you find out afterwards, having made the film?

GC: There's a lot of rhetoric about AIDS. At one point, there was a scientific horse race going on between France and the United States. I'm not terribly optimistic, I'm not trying to be pessimistic;

Continued on next page.