MOVIE REVIEW : German ‘Dandy’ Celebrates Grandeur of Physical World

Elegantly refurbished and under new management, the Vagabond, the venerable mid-city Wilshire art theater, boldly departs from the 3-D festivals and Betty Grable musicals that have filled its screen in recent waning years with the booking of German filmmaker Peter Sempel’s surreal “Dandy.” A vibrant collage of sound and image, this is the kind of experimental feature that usually gets a one-night booking at Filmforum.

It offers a free flow of beautiful footage shot in such diverse locales as Berlin, Hamburg, London, New York, Marrakech, Cairo, Toyko, along the Ganges and in the Himalayas. Against these dramatic backdrops, Sempel fills the foreground with a conglomeration of mimes, musicians, performance artists, a beautiful dancer, an equally beautiful young cellist and just plain folks going about their everyday lives.

Helpfully, we are told that “Dandy” is “loosely based”--make that very, very loosely--upon Voltaire’s “Candide.” From time to time Sempel cuts to a close-up of the sad, wistful face of a young man whose high-cheeked features recall those of Rudolf Nureyev and Keith Carradine; presumably, this young man is the film’s Candide--or Dandy--and we’re seeing the film’s vast panorama through his eyes, as a kind of contemporary odyssey.

A number of the film’s personae reappear with a fair degree of frequency, sometimes in locales vastly distant from one another. (Thin, black leather-clad gloom rock idol Nick Cave and guitarist Blixa Bargeld are heard on the soundtrack and turn up in New York and in a kinky tableau alongside the Sphinx and the Pyramids.) One of the most haunting presences is 84-year-old mime/female impersonator Kazuo Ono, whose every pained gesture seems a protest against age.

What gives this continually dynamic film its tension--and saves it from pretentiousness and boredom--is that while most of its people tend to look inward, Sempel is ever looking outward, celebrating the grandeur of the physical world he transforms into a kind of global village. Counterpointing the imagery (Times-rated Mature for complex style, some nudity) is the film’s glorious soundtrack, which intermingles Mozart, Beethoven and Verdi with blues and punk rock--and even Jessye Norman singing a traditional spiritual.