People seeing Peter Bogdanovich’s version of Michael Frayn’s clockwork farce might find it hard to believe that the Broadway show, under Michael Blakemore’s direction, was twice as funny as the movie. It was. But the movie happens to be twice as funny as anything else around. Frayn’s fiendishly clever concoction is both a sendup of bedroom farce and its apotheosis. The first act shows you the rehearsal of a pathetic British farce performed by a disasterprone troupe of actors; the second gives you the backstage view of the action, which is even more convoluted than the play itself. A Rube Goldberg contraption that self-destructs with awesome comic precision, “Noises Off " unavoidably loses some of its brilliance on film: much of the fun was the suspense of seeing live actors survive the daredevil demands of the slapstick. Still, Bogdanovich’s frenetic transplant-Americanized by writer Marty Kaplan-supplies so many belly laughs it seems ill-spirited to complain. The big, hardworking cast includes Michael Caine as the show’s beleaguered director, and Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Marilu Henner, Denholm Elliott and Nicollette Sheridan as the bedraggled players. No farce lover should miss it.
Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael makes his dazzlingly inventive debut with this intricately constructed tale of an old man, Thomas (Michel Bouquet), reliving a life he feels was stolen from him. Convinced, against reason, that he was switched at birth with a rich neighbor’s child, he’s bent on last-minute revenge, and his mind wanders back to his turbulent childhood, his blighted romance with a woman who seems the reincarnation of his beloved sister and into the fantasy world of his alter ego, Toto the secret agent. Though the tale is streaked with tragedy, what comes through most strongly is the filmmaker’s exuberance in the face of life’s absurdity. This glittering mosaic is strongest in its evocation of the magical universe of childhood, weakest in its adult psychology. In toto, there may be less here than meets the eye, but what a show for the eyes it is. Van Dormael gives great surface.
