Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: stef@Eng.Sun.COM (Stephane Payrard) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews Subject: REVIEW: THE ICICLE THIEF Summary: r.a.m.r. #00845a Keywords: author=Payrard, translator=Brader/Payrard Message-ID: <1990Nov29.230743.28675@cbnewsj.att.com> Date: 29 Nov 90 23:07:43 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: stef@Eng.Sun.COM (Stephane Payrard), msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: Sun Microsystems -- Mountain View Lines: 83 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Moderator's note: This translation to r.a.m.r. #845 was provided by Mark Brader and approved by the author. The original can be requested by sending mail to me (ecl@mtgzy.att.com).] THE ICICLE THIEF A film review by Stephane Payrard Copyright 1990 Stephane Payrard Translated from French by Mark Brader (with help from his dictionary and the author) [Translator's note -- it's fun to do this once in a while, but perhaps someone else can do the next one?] Do go and see THE ICICLE THIEF, a film that winks at you and puts joy in your heart. The American steamroller, and the reign of technically perfect but completely impersonal films, are now happily set aside for films that speak to the heart. Here is the story. A director has made a sad film in black and white, about miserable people. It would wring tears from a stone: an unemployed man finds work as last, but is fired for petty theft, and sent to jail; his wife turns to prostitution for her living, and his children are sent to an orphanage. The film is played on TV, and the director is invited for the occasion. Horror! He is shocked by the publicity; but then, by a funny spatio-temporal phenomenon, one of the models from an ad ends up *in* the film and begins to disturb it. Imagine -- a charming, smiling, half-undressed model, plunged into the problems of a puritanical pre-war Italian family. So the director, infuriated, decides to enter the scene himself to put his film back in order! These plot threads should not make you think at all of the spatio- temporal imbroglios of BACK TO THE FUTURE. Instead of a snotty brat full of popcorn and a totally senile, cartoonish inventor, the characters of THE ICICLE THIEF are sympathetic and charming. The director paints himself as a daydreamer, ill at ease in the modern world, blinking at the TV studio, completely surpassed by the characters he engendered, of whom the hero is played by himself also. When the model passes from the artificial "real world" into the "reality" of the black and white film, he knows enough to leave the starring roles to our heroes; his discretion, like his poetry, is charming. This is not the American from the future with the right to remake the world! I don't know if this film has been shown in France, or under what title. [It turns out to be LE VOLEUR DES SAVONETTES, i.e. The Soap Thief. Both titles are wordplays on Vittorio de Sica's THE BICYCLE THIEF in their respective languages. Anyone know the title in Italian? --trans.] For the many readers in Silicon Valley: it was showing some weeks ago at a cinema in Palo Alto; maybe it's still there? I have also just seen a another masterpiece, in quite a different vein. DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID is an old [1964--trans.] film of Luis Bunuel's. The young Michel Piccoli, as a peasant, is unrecognizable; Jeanne Moreau is the Machiavellian servant. Whereas our Italian director (whose name I don't remember) loves his characters to a fault, Bunuel is glacially cold to his. The old father, a fetishist who collects shoes, and religious icons with erotic connotations, pleases himself by having the maids read to him, and stroking their legs. But these little manias are innocent indeed compared to the sordid power games of the other characters. Brr! His daughter, a frigid and possessive bourgeoise, refuses herself to her husband (Piccoli) So he skims the neighborhood, and pursues the maids. But he's bested by the servant Jeanne Moreau. In this hierarchy of domination, the underlings lamentably exploit the weaknesses of the weak, both the innocent and the child. The dialogue, by Jean-Claude Carriere and Luis Bunuel, is trenchant. For instance, the woman, talking to her husband, reminds him that his last little extravagance cost him 1500 francs. This is her delicate and humane way of speaking of an getting an abortion for one of the servants before firing her. This frigid woman confides to a priest about the state of her marital relations, and suggests that "maybe there are certain caresses..."; he responds that anything is okay "provided that you don't enjoy it", to which she says, "For sure." She makes good by becoming a sort of household tyrant. Silicon Valley readers can find this one on video (in rather poor condition) under "foreign movies" at Tower Records, San Antonio Road.