Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, March 5, 1968 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, March 5, 1968 A look at La Guerre Est Finie by Daniel Okrent There is something inexplicably strange about Alain Resnais' La Guerre Est Finie, playing for two more days at the Vth Forum. It seems much too long, often tedious. It features an actor whose expression changes practically not at all throughout the entire lengthof the film. It employs cinematic device almost at whim, with almost no consistency. It ends up in exactly the same place it starts out. It leaves the viewer blank at its end, not knowing how to react. Yet, "La Guerre Est Finie" is striking, stunning, nitty-gritty and to the point. It makes what New York reviewers have termed the "immediacy" of "The Graduate" seem stale and stiff. To be sure it does not address itself to a broad audience, and not everyone will feel the impact. But even those who do will not know how, why or what that impact is until after they have spent long hours mulling over its utter consequences and reality. As Resnais' camera follows Yves Montand through the end-. less charade of underground activity aimed at overthrowing the fascist regime of Spain's Gen. Franco, it pours forth lengthy foot- age of plodding plotting and monotone reaction. It makes in- evitable-yet exquisite-trips into the bedroom, it makes expected -yet gripping-trips into the futility of conscient action. It is not purely Resnais' treatment of the subject mater that makes the film. That subject is in itself of great importance. His hero is enveloped in an intrigue of faked passports, false identities, border infiltrations, political subterfuge and, through it all, com- plete hopelessness, often despair. The fact that the loyalist Mon- tand never gives up, yet never gains an inch in his futile battle, is the heart of this film; his bland resignation surfaces in the robot reactions he makes, even though his nerve cells insist that he ffght on. "La Guerre Est Finie" requires that the viewer have certain preconceptions. You have to empathetically experience Montand's own experiences, and you can only do this if his emotions have at one time or another been your own. Perhaps it is egotistical for any one viewer to say "Ah, yes, it is a hard fight that cannot be won, but I must fight it nevertheless." Still, it is impossible to deny that such a feeling is possible, and becomes more possible with each news dispatch painting gruesome scenes of southeast Asian murder or midwest American carnage. Maybe it is because identification is almost a requisite for full appreciation of this film that many reviewers praised it for the wrong reasons. Bosley Crowther could quite easily sit in his office in New York, insulated by The New York 'imes' masthead and 30 years of experience as a critic, and praise it as "a thriller." Sure, he called it one of the year's 10 best, but he and many others missed the real reasons. Then again, maybe Crowther is right and others are wrong. It is very possible when you consider that Resnais is the director who once said in the French journal "Cahiers du Cinema" that even he, the director of the widely-acclaimed "Last Year at Ma- rienbad," did not entirely understand his own film. There are a few remarkable subtleties of this film that should be pointed out. Yes, for a movie of this type, withs basically a one-theme plot, it is too long to be completely bore-free. But even this is an advantage. The grayer Montand's world becomes, the more it stretches and yawns into mind-revelation. It must by 'necessity be long; the battle itself is long, is it not? In Montand's two love scenes, first with a Marxist ingenue and laterswith his old standby, Resnais has given the viewer some remarkable delights The first is a surreal silhouetteing of reaching arms and caressing hands and sensually spreading thighs; the second is visually real, but the intrusion of a light musical air distorts what the viewer sees and what really happens. The love- making is a ballet, a pre-arranged drama performed on a premise ofpre-set action's and reactions, all sincere but all somehow wist- ful, almost resigned. There is, nevertheless, one prticuarly bad flaw in Resnais' directorial work. Montand's most noticeable emotional outburst Is precipitated by the impassioned arguing of a young French radical who would rather throw Molotov cocktails than advocate general strikes; the radical is clearly meant to be a caricature in- tended to balance and rationalize Montand's existentialism. Sad- ly, the caricature is too much of an imitation to be convincing, and the scene becomes oafish and naive. But it is only one scene. theatre 'On a Clear Day': You Could Sleep Forever] [ J I4CHIG The "DARLING" of ENDING THURSDAY "DOCTOR CHIVAGO" meets the "GEORGY GIRL" BOY in the LOVE STORY of the YEAR! By THOMAS R. COPI An Evening with John Raitt was spoiled last night by the intrusion of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. The play, with a few (a very few) bright spots and few char- acters worth mentioning, was definitely not worth the entire evening. As a matter of fact, the action was so slow and the story so boring that the bird which came swooping down from the rafters in the middle of the first act actually gave the audience a brief respite from the tedium on stage. But don't get me wrong. It wasn't really the fault of the cast, but of the play itself. The simple-minded plot features our hero, John Raitt, as Dr. Mark Bruckner, a psychiatrist with an interest in hypnosis; he dis- covers that Daisy Gamble (Lin- da Michele), one of his pa- tients, has extra-sensory per- ception and is extremely sus- ceptible to hypnosis. While regressing Daisy through hypnosis, the doctor discovers that he has pushed her all the way past her child- hood and into the 18th cen- tury, to a former life when she was Melinda Welles, a London noblewoman. While the plot gets a little more complicated, it doesn't get any better. The side-plot, ap- parently added to give some ad- ditional substance to the play, is unfortunately fatty and doesn't give the play the muscle it needs. What it does serve to do however, is introduce the lovably hateful Warren Smith, Daisy's fiance, who was beauti- fully overplayed by John Ru- binstein. It is unfortunate that Rubinstein had such a small part as his dramatic ability far overshadowed that of any of the other characters and even made up for his painfully weak voice. The only other player who deserves dramatic notice is Miss Michele. For her ability to switch between the two roles she played, and remain com- fortable in both, she deserves plaudits. Brian Avery, who is perhaps best known for his characteri- zation of Dustin Hoffman's amorous rival in "The Grad- uate," showed that he has a magnificent voice. Again, I was disappointed by the small size of the role he was given as Me- linda's 18th century husband. I have only heard John Iaitt on records; in "Carousel," as Billy Bigelow, he was fabulous. In "The Pajama Game," as Sid Sorokin, he was fantastic. In "Clear Day" he is not nearly so good. In part, the weakness of the material may have hampered him, but he was given the three strongest songs in the show, and he was disappointing. Raitt admitted to the audience after the show that this role, for him, 30Z Wasbtenaw, I'h. 434-1782 Between Ypsuianti and Ann Arbor robert wagner raquel welen godfrey cambnoige Iest is "different." He had to walk through the whole play before given a chance to close the show musically. But he did close it well. And when he tacitly admitted the weakness of "Clear Day" by singing "Hey There" from "The Pajama Game," there were visions of a "John Raitt Sings the Hits from Broadway" fea- ture to make up for the play. But the curtain closed and the lights came up and I left with a disappointed feeling of "what might have been." JULIE CHRISTIE TERENCE STAMP PETEINCH ALAN BATES 4 FRIDAY TRUMAN CAPOTE'S "IN COLD BLOOD" CIIIA~ UIL D SIXTH ANARBO FILM FESTIVTAL WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY, MARCH 6-10 Presented in cooperation with the DRAMATIC ARTS CENTER of Ann Arbor. Over $900 in awards. Over 175 films in competition. There will be two completely different shows each night, Wednesday-Satur- day. On Sunday, there will be two showings of the prize winners. Individual tickets may be purchased before each showing; series tickets, which include 9 showings (2 each night and 1 on Sunday) may be purchased for $6 on Tuesday, from 6-7 P.M. and Wednesday, from 5-6 P.M., at the Architecture Auditorium. 7:00 & 9:05 P.M. ARCHITECTURE Call 662-887 75c AUDITORIUM }I 4 Daisy trips back to the 18th century $ 4 ENDS TONIGHT it is natural to love-y but sometimes it is unnatural. melina mercouni and harndy kruger and james mason are WEDNESDAY ONLY Special Requested Booking ONE DAY ONLY CANNES FESTIVAL WINNER VANESSA REDGRAVE in the hilarious "MORGAN" Starting Th'ursday: "CHARLIE BUBBLES" I Wed.-Sat.-Sun Shows at 1-3-5-7-9 Mon.-Tues.-Thurs.-Fri. 7 & 9 I SENATOR 0 7fry: FZ~tN AVE -McCARTHY INDETROITI FRIDAY, MARCH 22 SPONSORED BY McCARTHY FOR PRESIDENT RECEPTION-5 P.M.-COBO HALL Donation $100 per couple MOVIE REVIEW LA GUERRE EST FINIE IS AN EX- CITING MOVIE... La Guerre Est Finie is an excit- ing movie on two counts. It is the most successful film so far to tackle the chief political drama of our time: the conflict between a man's ideological commitment and the disillusion such commitment always brings. It is also the first truly well-proportioned-and there- fore the first truly satisfying- feature we have had from Di- rector Alain Resnais. In La Guerre Est Finie, story, style and symbols are much more carefully balanced, and Jorge Semprun's script is a model of intelligent character and thematic development. Resnais, faced with the chal- lenge of exploring a plot that is densely packed instead of wide-ranging, responds by dig- ging deeply and carefullyinto his material. The result is an energetic, ironic and mature examination of the sensibility of an aging revolutionary in an aging century. ieno (Yves Montand) is a "BEST FOREIGN FILM" -N.Y. Film Critics Award "ONE OF THE YEAR'S 10 BESTf!" -Crowther, N.Y. Times; Winsten, N.Y. Post; Wolf, CUE; Morgenstern, Newsweek; Sarris, Village Voice; Crist, NBC ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE I .M I SPEECH-4 P.M.-COBO HALL Donation $10 per person slips back to his base across the French border, that the po- lice are mounting a major drive against his comrades in Spain. Objective circumstances, not to mention the ache in his bones, tell him that "la guerre est finie." And about time. Revolution- ary ardor has cooled into habit, he has begun to see his cell- mates for the fantasists a quar- ter century of exile has made them and his own posture as a professional revolutionary as an absurdity. Unfortunately, withdrawal for him is not as easy as it should be. There is; to begin with, his commitment to commitment to consider. Could he live without a cause? Is he indeed evaluating the prospect of this one correctly? Isn't it possible that his desire to settle down with his beauti- ful, devoted and totally apoliti- cal mistress (Ingrid Thulin) is clouding his judgment? In this role Yves Montand gives a performance in which rage, professional equal, giving us a perfect vision of mature sen- suality. The Franco government has objected to La Guerre Est Finie for obvious reasons, but in fact it quite transcends specific po- litical realities and is a judici- ously composed metaphor that says something essential about human condition-not merely the Spanish one. It is a Man's Fate for the '60s-a muted, thoughtful, graceful film about the way time betrays all revolu- tions and about the absurd en- nobling expedients men must ftake to escape the destruction of self that is so often the by- product of that betrayal. Richard Schickel AnL/R "Are we'to police the world-to respond to every challenge with military force? Or are we prepared to take some chances on the sides of peace? I hope with your help we can turn that face to the world again." -Eugene McCarthy, Feb. 17, 1968 Welcome Senator McCarthy at Metro Airport at 4 P.M. on Friday, March 22 Free transportation leaving the Union at 3:10 P.M. * Tickets available from: Jean L. King, 662-4819, or Barbara Carr, 663-6039 I