�THE GRASS ARENA

Review by Andrew Cox, Bolton, England

An excellent and moving film.

'The Grass Arena' is an excellent book and a remarkable film. Mark Rylance, of the Royal Shakespeare Company, is outstanding as John Healy.

What makes the film especially moving is that it shows true faith in the human potential. John Healy though living right to the point of utter destitution as a drunken vagrant finds salvation through chess. When he attempts to enter the elite world of chess masters his background is used against him. The pomposity of this narrow minded prejudice is well exposed in the film.

Unlike the film the book ends with John Healy trying to find solace through Buddhism and travelling to India. What is sad in both endings is that John's brutalisation, stretching from his father's boxing lessons to the alcoholism of the grass arena, make it very difficult for him to get close with women he is attracted to. A wonderful film and a great story.

� LOVE LIES BLEEDING

Plot Outline: Conn is an IRA murderer serving a life sentence in an Irish prison. He is given a 24 hour home leave during which he goes from point to point in Belfast looking to revenge his lover's murder.

Difficult but rewarding

Another dark and gritty film belmed by Michael Winterbottom, this time set in the tangle and poverty of Belfast, not where one would expect this Oxbridge director to appear.

Mark Rylance (Angels & Insects) gives a superb and challenging performance as Conn, a murderer who has served 12 years and is let out for a 24 hr pass to spend with his family. His mind says the political struggle is behind him but he is obsessed with revenge for his lover Laile. His 24 hr journey goes from Catholic to Orange territory and back and weaves through the infolded divisiveness that is the state of Northern Ireland. But politics is not the issue, nor violence; instead, nothing is simply laid out. The low key speaking voices and the twisting plot make this film difficult to follow at times but its insistence at keeping at Conn's level and avoidance of exploding the issue work to maintain a superior psychological portrait.

Another realist portrait by Winterbottom and another success.

� INSTITUTE BENJAMENTA, OR THIS DREAM PEOPLE CALL HUMAN LIFE

Institute Benjamenta is an oddity. Let me say that first, get it out of the way. Part of me hesitates from revealing here that it is one of my favourite films of all time because I know I'll make some people reading this mini-review approach it from the wrong angle. A film like this should never become required viewing. You should stumble across it at a repertory cinema somewhere or be beguiled by the video-box art showing the striking visage of Alice Krige as she paces before her blackboard, deerfoot staff in hand. You should find one evening that its the only thing that sounds interesting on TV, or peer at a still alongside a mention in your TV guide and wonder what on earth the picture is supposed to depict. Contained between main and end credits here is a world so visually ravishing and technically abstruse that you are only in the film while you are watching; the rules of the outside do not apply. You peer into the dreamy, foggy black-and-white and what you can't identify for certain your imagination fills out. These are the most special special effects because you wonder 'what' and 'why' by never 'how.' The Institute of the title is a school for servants, the lessons they are taught bizarre and repetitive to the point of making 'deja-vu' a permanent state of being. Is the repetition the point of it all or has the teacher lost the plot? If she has, how come we care? None of this is vaguely like real life. None of it, that is, bar the characters emotions. Or is the whole thing like real life, like Life with a capital 'L?' In the end does this sort of pondering make for a good movie? I won't answer that because I'm terribly biased. Remember the title and look it up sometime. It's the cinematic equivalent of a stunning old-fashioned magician's trick. A monochrome bouquet, a sad smile. There are images, scenes that may make the hairs on the back of your neck think they're a cornfield with a twister on the way. I tried to warn you as quietly as I could.