Cuteness that's hard to take
My review was written in February 1992 after watching the film at a Manhattan screening room.
"The Lunatic" is an annoyingly cute fable that seems to have popped from a time capsule dating back to the aggressively life-affirming era of "King of Hearts" and "Harold and Maude". Jamaican-lensed feature's chances to win similar cult audiences are poor.
Novelist-scripter Anthony C. Winkler turns a colorful phrase but billboards all his themes unsubtly in this tale of an innocent black lad Aloysius (Paul Campbell in a winning interpretation) who talks to flora and fauna.
Everyone brands him al lunatic, but visiting German photographer Inga (British thesp Julie T. Wallace) makes him her love slave. Soon a menage a trois is set up when she takes a fancy to a butcher (Carl Bradshaw).
As one of many recent films with an interracial plot, pic defuses this controversial sexual theme by casting the gargantuan actress Wallace. Best known in the title role of Philip Saville's 1986 TV miniseries "Life and Loves of a She-Devil", grotesqueness and character's need to dominate men shifts the focus from titillation to satire.
Winkler pokes fun at race relations, reincarnation and respect for the Queen (a rude argument over whether the British monarch relieves herself like normal folk should rule out any royal performance for the pic).
Final reels turn unconvincingly melodramatic when Inga gets her two black friends to help rob the local bigshot landowner (Reggie Carter), ending in violence and an idiotic trial.
Debuting director Lol Creme, who has made many music videos with Kevin Godley, fails to keep a lid on the pic's cuteness. Best effects here are by Campbell as the naive hero and Carter as the oddly sympathetic major domo. Surprise is that the booming voice of Campbell's best friend, a tree, is provided by Carter as well.
Unlike similarly proportioned German thesp Mairanne Sagebrecht of Percy Adlon films (perhaps the only other well-known actress who could personify Inga), Wallace brings zero warmth to her role and quickly becomes a mere caricature.
Tech credits seem on the cheap side while a catchy reggae music score is de rigueur for Islands product.
"The Lunatic" is an annoyingly cute fable that seems to have popped from a time capsule dating back to the aggressively life-affirming era of "King of Hearts" and "Harold and Maude". Jamaican-lensed feature's chances to win similar cult audiences are poor.
Novelist-scripter Anthony C. Winkler turns a colorful phrase but billboards all his themes unsubtly in this tale of an innocent black lad Aloysius (Paul Campbell in a winning interpretation) who talks to flora and fauna.
Everyone brands him al lunatic, but visiting German photographer Inga (British thesp Julie T. Wallace) makes him her love slave. Soon a menage a trois is set up when she takes a fancy to a butcher (Carl Bradshaw).
As one of many recent films with an interracial plot, pic defuses this controversial sexual theme by casting the gargantuan actress Wallace. Best known in the title role of Philip Saville's 1986 TV miniseries "Life and Loves of a She-Devil", grotesqueness and character's need to dominate men shifts the focus from titillation to satire.
Winkler pokes fun at race relations, reincarnation and respect for the Queen (a rude argument over whether the British monarch relieves herself like normal folk should rule out any royal performance for the pic).
Final reels turn unconvincingly melodramatic when Inga gets her two black friends to help rob the local bigshot landowner (Reggie Carter), ending in violence and an idiotic trial.
Debuting director Lol Creme, who has made many music videos with Kevin Godley, fails to keep a lid on the pic's cuteness. Best effects here are by Campbell as the naive hero and Carter as the oddly sympathetic major domo. Surprise is that the booming voice of Campbell's best friend, a tree, is provided by Carter as well.
Unlike similarly proportioned German thesp Mairanne Sagebrecht of Percy Adlon films (perhaps the only other well-known actress who could personify Inga), Wallace brings zero warmth to her role and quickly becomes a mere caricature.
Tech credits seem on the cheap side while a catchy reggae music score is de rigueur for Islands product.
- lor_
- Jul 2, 2023