Beautiful People

In contemporary London, five stories with refugees from former Yugoslavia are presented in a chaotic and mixed way, some of them with points of contact. The best and funniest story is about a drugged hooligan who travels to Rotterdam with two addicted friends to watch a soccer game between Netherlands x England. After the game, when England lost it, in the airport, he is so drugged in heroin that he sleeps inside a box of international aid to Bosnia. The box is dropped by parachute in the front of the war, and our `hero' wakes-up in the middle of a battle. He meets a young boy, who becomes blind, and helps people in an improvised hospital of the United Nations before coming back home. There is the story of a cinematographer who gets a kind of syndrome due to the horrors he witnessed in the war, specially the amputation of a leg without any resources. There is another story about a fight between a Croat and a Serbian, beginning in a bus and ending in the hospital in London. There is a story of a raped young woman who gets pregnant. Her husband wants that her English doctor makes an abortion. By the other hand, the doctor is full of personal problems with his wife. There is a romance between a refugee from former Yugoslavia and a daughter of a conservator English politician. The way the stories are presented looks like a documentary, or the news on television, and is very different. The movie does not present clichés and has lots of English black humor. I myself loved it. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Beautiful People'

To me, this is one of the greatest tragedies of 1999. A nice cast and intriguing story have the potential to elevate this to a great piece of work, yet it fails on a couple of fundamental levels. First, _Beautiful People_ is overburdened with cliches: the immigrant who wants to know "the meaning of life," the mortal enemies who have the same shoe size, etc. I found these excessive to the point that they triggered my gag reflex. Second, and more damaging to the film, it is edited extremely poorly. There are simply too many characters and storylines for this director to handle well. By the time a particular storyline comes around again, the audience has completely forgotten it. (Incidentally, this multiple character and storyline trick can be pulled off with great success- Paul Thomas Anderson did a superb job in _Magnolia_). The film does have its high points, in particular the spectacular performance by Charlotte Coleman. Not bad, but that's about all one can say.

This film highlights some of the problems faced by former Yugoslav refugees trying to start a new life in Britain. There are some light hearted moments like when a Serb and a Croat who were neighbours in their former homeland fight with each other and end up next to each other in the hospital (highlighting the basis of the Yugoslav war). Some of the more common refugee problems are also highlighted (you'd have to watch to find out). There is hardly any intensity in the movie but the story is still rather well told.

Beautiful People is an easy watch jet black comedy.Heroin addiction and extreme racism are given an improbable humorous edge in a way that you don't expect. The film has some startling switches in it. My only criticism would be that the scene explaining the psychiatrist's diagnosis of Bosnia Syndrome should have come earlier on to help explain to viewers the odd actions of the actors.

Notwithstanding that it is a great film. Bonus points if you can pick out the scenes that were shot in Liverpool instead of London and watch out for handy hints on how to peg out washing with a head full of heroin !

Cllr Tim O'Kane

I was excited to find this film on cable, since it whipped through my local art house when it was in theaters so fast I had no chance to get to see it. My excitement was justified. I was moved by the film's edge and its talent. It was truly refreshing to see the combination of hand held camera technique and world class acting, with the likes of Linda Basset, Nicholas Farrell and Charlotte Coleman. As an American, who was shielded, as most of us were, from what was really happening in Europe during the Bosnian war of the mid nineties, I felt like a child who was finally getting the real story about a family secret. The presentation of realistic characters in a vibrant and real collage of parallel and interlaced lives, brought the big issues of ethnic hatred, racism, class prejudice and sexism into painful and sometimes humorous focus. I was very happy with the film's conclusion. It brought all those big issues to the table in a brilliant metaphor for the human condition, as it really exists under all the crap. A wonderful movie.