Canterbury Tales

Tuesday 14 June — 2.15 pm

A film by Pablo Pasolini. A weaker film than The Decameron but similar in a lot of ways. Amazingly enough it won the main prize at the 1973 Berlin film festival proving that arty fart film freaks are really only porno freaks at heart. This extravagant film has nothing much going for it except some of England's best genitalia. Pasolini strolled around England looking for talent amongst the ordinary village folk. The result bricklayer and a street-fighter amongst others showed actors what acting is all about. Needless to say the acting was the best aspect of the film.

Soldier Blue:

Wednesday, 15 June, 2.15 p.m.

White liberals are guaranteed a warm righteous feeling inside as they view this sincere but somewhat basic indictment of the treatment received by the American Indians last century. The film revolves around the notorious Indian massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864. A mixture of action packed savagery in the style of the "The Wild Bunch" and moony soft-focus love scenes in the Great Hollywood Tradition.

IF.... Thursday, 16 June, 2.15 p.m.

No-one in the cinema has ever done such an effective hatchet job on the English Public School.

Director, Lindsay Anderson, exposes the brutality, the exploitation of slave labour, the tyranny of petty restriction, the sexual confusion and hypocracy, the interdependence of heirarchy and conformity, Mick (Malcolm McDowell), and his friends fight a bloody battle against the prefects and the establishment in a film designed as a call for the revolution.

Emerging from the violent contempt which Anderson has for the brutality and fake sensibility of the bourrgeoisie, come some very powerful scenes. He uses the school boy situation extremely effectively: since boy is the father of man, the adult bourgeoisie is not significantly different from the school boys. But the schoolboys have not yet learned to camouflage their true colours; they have not yet learnt all the subtleties involved in maintaining their inhuman exploitation. And it is this that Anderson exploits. By exposing the tyrannical behaviour at the Public School, he has exposed the behaviour (albeit covered in a cloak of sensibility and charm) existing In adult society.

— Rod Prosser.

6th Wellington Film Festival

1 - 14 July Paramount Theatre

Paramount Theatre

Brochures with details are available from booksellers, libraries, the theatre etc. Thirty five films this year, with works by major directors Truffaut, Visconti, Herzog, Fassbinder, Wertmuller.

There are eleven documentaries, including Marcel Ophuls' much acclaimed investigation into war crimes from Nuremberg to Vietnam, "The Memory of Justice; Herzog's" masterpiece" on the deaf and blind", Land of Silence and Darkness; a promising film on the contemporary British painter David Hockney, "A Bigger Splash"; and "Volcano," an inquiry into the life of one of the most powerful novelists of the century, Malcolm Lowry. Documentaries will very deservedly provide many of the highlights of this festival.

New Zealand is represented by Paul Maunder's award-winning Landfall, which will be the most significant film of the fortnight.

A number of excellent lesser known directors deserve special mention. Jean-Marie Straub's (Moses and Aaron) work is something of a cross between the minimalism of Warhol and the disciplined aestheticism of Dreyer. His intention has been to reduce cinema to its purest, most beautiful form: movement. Jacques Rivette (Duelle/Twhylight) is the least known and can be the most exhilarating of the New Wave. Spirited improvisation, here featuring Bulle Ogier (La Salamander, etc) and Juliet Berto (Julie in "Celine and Julie.") is the dominant trademark. Bob Rafelson Stay Hungry) is one of the surest of US directors, remembered for' 5 Easy Pieces' and The King of Marvin Gardens."

Bookings will be necessary for many of the features. Celluloid blindness is a great thing to buy with your tax refund.

- Simon Wilson