Television Reviews : ‘Channel Crossings’ Shows People’s Dreams

For the last few weeks, the international series “Channel Crossings” on KCET Channel 28 has served up powerful, intelligent and superbly well-acted dramas dealing with British subjects.

The first, “Made in Britain,” took a tough look at a sociopathic and completely unlikable young punk with a swastika carved between his eyebrows. “Acceptable Levels” was about what happens to truth when a British film crew makes a TV documentary in Belfast. “Flying Into the Wind” was about a British working-class family’s fight for the right to teach their children at home.

They were TV equivalents of Dwight Gooden fast balls--hard and hot. If they ever come around again, they’re worth watching as perfect examples of how good TV drama can get when capable actors get high-quality, naturalistic scripts that aren’t watered down by namby-pamby censorship concerns.

In tonight’s installment at 11 p.m., however, “Channel Crossings” throws a wonderful change-up. “Visos: A Field Research on 7 Dreams” is a dreamy, fluttery, 20 m.p.h., Italian knuckle-curve that is as surrealistic and timeless as the previous offering were realistic and contemporary.

Basically, what director Giovanni Columbu of Italy’s RAI Productions does in “Visos” is get local farm people from a remote part of Sardinia, Italy, to explain and then re-enact their own dreams. He films their re-enactments without making too much effort to conceal the presence of his equipment and crew.

Columbu has a keen eye for great faces and beautiful imagery, and his clever cinematography, which includes spooky close-ups, odd camera angles and contrasting lighting, creates many surprises as he playfully switches back and forth from movie making to what’s really happening.

The sweetest dream re-enactment is one in which an old woman’s long dead husband appears to her and takes her for a Superman-and-Lois Lane-like flight over their rocky farm country, which Columbu’s simple special effects ably re-create.

If all this sounds a little too, well, Italian, don’t worry. “Visos” is no Fiat; it’s got a lot of good styling but it works well most of the time. It’s always slow and usually strange and sometimes even seems to stop. It’s also warm and touching and funny at times. Just don’t look for any car crashes or sex.

There are eight more programs in the “Channel Crossings” series. Next Saturday’s offering is “Bread” from Israel. And on May 7, just in time for Mother’s Day, will be “You Are My Mother,” from West Germany.