"Dangerous Minds" (15s) Savoy, Virgin, UCI, Omniplex.
Blockbuster producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer are not known for their subtlety, and Dead Poetz N The Hood was probably the one line pitch for this, the latest in a long line of redemption in the classroom movies that stretches back to Blackhoard Jungle.
Like the 1955 film, Dangerous Minds arrives well flagged by a massive hit single. But, just as Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock flattered to deceive on the credits of Blackboard Jungle, so the opening sequence of Dangerous Minds, with Coolio's Gangta's Paradise playing over grainy black and white images of Californian ghetto life, makes everything that follows seem even more insipid.
The film is allegedly based on the true experiences of ex Marine turned high school teacher LouAnne Johnson, as recounted in the book My Posse Don't Do Homework. However, the schmaltzy hand of screenwriter Ronald Bass (Rain Man, Sleeping With The Enemy) hangs heavy over Dangerous Minds. Bass has the profitable knack of making commercial hits which vanish completely from the memory within a matter of days, leaving nothing behind but a slight taste of saccharine. In this case, either liberties have been taken with the story or America's much debated public school problem is nothing that can't be fixed with a little TLC and a few Bob Dylan lyrics.
Michelle Pfeiffer does her best as the rookie teacher improbably landed with the toughest class in the school but, despite her attempts to de glamorise herself, her star power overshadows everything else in the movie, adding a further layer of unreality to proceedings. Drug addiction, gang violence and racial tensions seem strangely unthreatening. John N. Smith's direction is competent and undemanding, while the touchy feely ending combines the worst elements of white liberal mawkishness and crass commercial calculation.
"The White Balloon" IFC, Dublin. Members and guests only.
The impatient, disembodied voice of the paterfamilias in Jafar Panahi's gentle debut feature neatly signifies the rigid hierarchy in this Tehran household. As the husband and father yells intermittently from the bathroom for soap, shampoo, hot water and a bath towel, he ensures that hi presence is felt, invisible yet all controlling, keeping his children and harassed wife busy with his demands.
His seven year old daughter (Aida Mohammadkhani) has other things on her mind: her heart is set on buying a goldfish, a symbol of luck for the Iranian New Year's Eve festival, and the film chronicles her frustrated attempts to purchase it, depicted through her eyes in real time, counting down to the New Year. As her money is tricked from her, recovered and then lost, she has her first solitary brush with the underworld, meeting snakecharmers, shopkeepers, a cranky tailor, a young soldier and an Afghan refugee.
With lots of close ups of the child's petulant face in which curiosity and helplessness vie, this is a rather slow moving, closely observed tale - a slight, human interest piece that attempts to compensate through charm and spontaneity for what it doesn't show us about life in Tehran. Anyone looking for the kind of insight into Islamic culture offered by the Tunisian Les Silences du Palais, seen here last year, will be disappointed.
