MOVIE REVIEWS : UCLA Vision ’89 Showcases Promising Film Makers

A year-end outpouring of student films is always a grab bag, but some elements are constant: idealism and raw energy, awkwardness and sincerity, overreachingly lofty ideas and good simple ones. To judge by the works prescreened for the weeklong UCLA Vision ‘89, opening tonight, some lovely talent is coming to fruition.

Tonight, which opens with a tribute to director and teacher Dorothy Arzner, contains two personal favorites. “Sand Dance” is an animation done literally with sand, although heaven alone knows how, since Richard Quade’s little, longing jazz dancer seems even more evocative than a drawn character. “Sand Dance” is so deft, so technically challenging and so charming, it’s not surprising that its four fascinating minutes have already won this year’s student film award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the animation division. Do not miss this.

Then there is “Caruthers,” a character study of an engaging, rather marginal singer working a desolate job somewhere in a Death Valley roadhouse, and the sultry, enigmatic young woman who crosses his path. This is all atmosphere, longing, delicate innuendo, with a pair of full-blown performances, by Tom McCray and Audrey Wells, that are absolute knockouts. Writer-director Bruce Muller is masterly in his handling of actors, at mood and telling detail; a little less brilliant at hard-core storytelling. But as this bittersweet evocation catches you, it may make you, too, forgiving of its rather wispy plot.

Also tonight is “Arena,” Niel Mueller’s ambitious, fragmented story about a frenetic stand-up comedian (Joe Marinelli) who turns everything into fodder for his routines. It’s given him control on stage and chaos when he’s off. Although Marinelli is lively, the outstanding moments belong to Talia Balsam as the put-upon love of his life, and at almost 40 minutes the film begins to spin its wheels even more emptily than its hero does.

Sunday’s documentary evening begins with “China Diary,” an already interesting film that has had the white heat of topicality thrust upon it. Film maker Jinhua Yang, raised in China during the cultural revolution, went back to Beijing and Shanghai in late 1986 after five years of study in the United States and found things so radically changed that her astonishment echoes throughout her film. Yang reels from an individually owned beauty parlor to a radiator factory and a rural hotel now owned by “the peasants.” She encounters the richest peasant entrepreneur of a small town living in a house with catalogue-ordered Louis XIV furniture and toy dogs for his children, all with their heavy plastic slipcovers intact. “I don’t know what to make of this economic success,” Yang broods.

Even more suspect is a swimsuit-judged beauty contest for the government airlines, who press film maker Yang into jury duty as a visiting celebrity. The once-unthinkable unveiling of all this flesh leaves her shaken and sad: “Is this real beauty?” she worries. No, but it’s real capitalism. If you want to meet some of the people and understand some of the ferment behind the tragedy we’ve all been watching on television, try “China Diary.” It’s riveting.

On Tuesday night, Two films, Molly A. Strange’s “Dream of the Unbroken,” and Edgar Michael Bravo’s “Mi Casa,” seem wrenched out of personal feeling. In the first, the subject is incest and sexual molestation, as an 11-year-old daughter deals with her torrential feelings. Abandonment is also the concern of the brief second film as an 8-year-old Mexican boy in Los Angeles watches his family disintegrate. Bravo inclines toward the stagy, but his ending is desolate and real and so is the actor playing the father.

You may feel you’ve gone through the Angst of one of the Wednesday-night entries, Javier Gomez-Serrano’s “An Unhappy Ending,” more than once before in student films, but the power of this aphoristic love/death story comes from the director’s splendid eye, from the beautiful black-and-white photography and from the exceptionally haunting and inventive musical score.

Melodrama seems to have afflicted the two prescreened Thursday-night films like flu germs. Angela Barton’s earnest, self-righteous “Taking the Rap for Eve” plays like outtakes from a ‘60s consciousness-raising session, but it’s a lot less fun. “Il Finale” by Russell Martin, about two Cuban emigres trying to rebuild their lives in Los Angeles, begins very interestingly but, as one man finds a job and his lover holds out for a more worthy one, the story turns into purest soap opera.

The program ends Saturday with a show of strength, after a tribute to UCLA alumnus Colin Higgins. Donald Bull’s “The Last Five Hours,” a contemporary criss-crossed romance, is genuinely comic and genially cool; its three principal actors--Kenny Ransom, Laura Hinto and Kevin Han Yee--are splendid, with Ransom’s beleaguered boyfriend particularly memorable. In “Twilight” Scott Alberts animates a walk through the woods at that magic time with a pair of friendly children and turns it into an affectionate, Dr. Seuss-like event. Donald Matos’ “The Other Side” about three Latino street kids and a white horse is marked by extraordinary black-and-white photography by David Swett and real affinity for the subject. Then there’s director Steve Anderson’s “Hearts of Stone,” which imagines Los Angeles gang warfare settled by combat between a “warrior” from each faction and a game of Russian roulette. Anderson, too, is stronger than his dialogue (skip this if realistically raw language offends you) but powerful at evoking mood and tension.

Each night’s starting time is different, so be advised to check: (213) 825-8710 or 206-5331.