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etoire of tried and

he Graduate, directed: by Mike
fichols with Dustin Hoffman,
Bancroft, Katharine Ross.
tllywood is on the verge of
tically better movies. New
ifectors like Arthur Penn (Bon-
fe and Clyde) and Mike Nichols
fte Graduate) are interested in
in technique, sound, lighting,
Ming skills, and all round so-
Mhisticated directing. Their
Nemes, as yet, are limited, and
Sin the case of The Graduate
lbvnright banal. .
The Graduate is deliriously
Mpular, with no little help from
big league promotion and
lpermarket - sweep academy
Wards. But whatever reserva-
Ons this reviewer might have
"lt, the rest of the audience
Remed to enjoy thoroughly Dus-
#0 Hoffman’s rather charming
Wscomfort’ and confusion as
injamin, the newly graduated

THE GRADUATE

| Fantasy but pleasant

‘ clasm. Re

is alienated, the obvious and
strained effects dictate to us:
viewing his parents’ friends
through blurry goggles, silence,
dull sounds, thinking in front of
the fish tank with its dull whir-
ring, floating in the repressive
sunshine and blaring aqua back-
ard pool on an inflatable air
mattress which to him might be
Mrs. Robinson's meaningless

ntually Benjamin  estab-
lishes a rapport with Elaine, the
protected daughter, and we are
presented with a fantasy ro-
mance of very limited icono-
fusing to relive the
vacuous existence of their par-
ents, and despite a temporary
conflict and separation due to
Elaine’s learning of the noto-
rious affair, the two decide to
reject (?) the carpeted aliena-
tion of their past. This movie is

ody.
Eve

Ae

“

THE
\\. GRADUATE

ae A-\ YEAR'S 10 BEST!”

“ONE OF THE

a

a of two absurd Los Angeles
‘Uburbanites, Ann Bancroft as
is, Robinson, his seductress
ind alcoholic wife of his father’s
‘Ptner and Katherin -Ross as
aine, Mrs. Robinson’s Berkely
Ughter, who shares Benja-
hin's brand of alienation and
Saves” him.
lm afraid the graduate }S,
however, just another expensive
Somewhat well-made American
‘Omedy, interesting pecause it
pts what has come to be
Nearded during the recent 20
Years wasteland of Hollywood
m making, as “European artis-
ile cinema.” Compared to the
Mventional Doris Day-Roch
dson abominations, The Gra-

late is a welcome change, but

t is disappointing against even
rt f such as Berg-

Me minor films ©
/%an, Antonini, and Godard.

| Benjamin, unimpressed by the
( World of his parents, and at a
Hoss to what action to take, sub-
Nits to a mechanical hotel affair
With an older woman. Benjamin

~

| Picture the monotonous sec-
vtlon of a hockey arena —
Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens
tn this big city. Into this vast-
(ness steered the zesty sailors
°f the Soviet Navy -Ensemble,
hoisted up the mast and secure”
'Y and steadily sailed through
‘heir program of songs, dance
{nd instrumental playing which
| fared them a clear salute of ap-
, Proval and happiness from their
/ Pening night audience. :
The Navy Ensemble is making
pits first tour of this continent
/ 8nd will be heard by Canadians
iin 14 cities. The grouP. hails
: from the North Sea Region of
‘the u.s.s.R. and was formed in
the 1940’s during the difficult
» War years, It has grown in
_ Stature and steadily renewed its
1 Personnel. Its artistic director,
tis Pobedimsky, conducts

bone: in their reper
lm most ably true sailor

yond the

Songs within and be

SINGING

about what the rich would-be
hippie thinks is busting the
scene, which includes envelop-
ing oneself jn Simon and Gar-
funkel songs, turned very loud,
and taking wings in a $2,500
sports car. of course these feel-
ings are very Often the begin-
ning of real change, And the
best scenes in the movie invoke
feelings of 2 promise of a new
life. Surely the funniest scene
is Benjamin’s mad race to break
up Elaine's hypocritical “Santa
Barbara marriage, carrying her
off from her newly-wed frater-
nity-boy husband, and locking
the congregation in the church
by jamming the outer door
handles with 4 crucifix. :
Essentially the technical at-
tempts are Way ahead of the
theme. Perhaps that is why they
occasionally Jar. There are long
-moments when we have too
much time to think about what
the director 15 trying to do. As
a result the point of the movie

is overstated, and the story re-

US.S.R. and the works of clas-
sical composets as well: 3
Canadians taking in various
artistic grouPs from the U.S.S.R.
are fast gaining a new apprecia-
tion for choral art. Soloist after
soloist stepped forward to exe-
cute some truly beautiful rendi-
tions Wi choral accompani-
ment including an outstanding
arrangement of Alouette. There
rtunately too little as-
m the style of pre-
to help identify the
: e songs. I had to get
subject eae the next day, that
e selections were in-
t the sea and the life
f a Sailor.

numbers on the

deed abou
and loves 0
The dance

w
BaP ite as accomplished as
game danciae:..208n by other
visiting companies. Here the
handicap of the language barrier
could have peen overcome, and

I was disappointed that the

ere effective, perhaps. -

mains narrow and the actors
One-sided. Now in a straight
comedy this wouldn’t matter.
One would not demand com-
plexity of Peter Sellers, Carl
Reiner, Alistair Sims, or even the
early comic routines of Mike
Nichols and Elaine May. But the

nearly-effective suggestions or

tragedy in the Graduate, tend to
raise the expectations of the

viewer, and although they do’

not succeed in qualifying the
movie as a durable cinema con-
tribution (if it had not been
honored in the marketplace with
the coveted Oscars we might
have seen it on the late show
next year), they disrupt the
rhythm of a straight comedy. It
is interesting to note that when
Nichols had a top-rate piece of
dramatic material to work with,
as in the case of his version of
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,
he was able to transform it into
a successful movie. The Gra-
duate is not a very powerful
drama in itself and only inge-
nious direction could have raised
it from the bedroom farce cate-
gory. A cliched plot is not al-
ways a drawback, however, as
long as you can get your audi-
ence inside or outside it in
some expansive way, either emo-
tionally or intellectually, or both.
For example, what about the
social relations of Benjamin and
Elaine? Surely after four years
of college and all that sensitivity
they would be something more
than their parents’ children.
What might become of them,
given their emotional capabili-
ties and social alternatives? One
can contrast Mike Nichols’ Ben-
jamin with Don Owens’ Ernie
in the Canadian film, The Ernie
Game. Whatever negative fea-
tures this movie suffered from,
incomplete characterization was
not one of them. Ernie was the
fully evolved hippie bound for
death when bereft of his many
mothers, and the mother-girls
were serious characters caught
in serious contradictions, ena-
mored with the comic fantasy

hippie while craving responsible
men. The Graduate is all fan-
tasy, and taken that way makes
for a pleasant evening. Don’t
look for more or you might lose

that.
Pamela Maher

SOVIET SAILORS

choreographer’s ideas failed to
throw any salt spray in my
direction, nor did any wafts of
Ozone reach me. I recalled the
Navy Number done by the Moi-
seyey Dancers which partrayed

© sailors’ life aboard ship,
with a clever adaptation of the
Sailors’ Hornpipe and deck du-
ties, etc. It made you yearn for
&@ turn around the deck at the
very least, if not for the in-
Stant fullfilment of the dream
for a ship’s voyage around the
world.

Execution of the Horsemen’s
Dance was the most stirring,
While the soars, leaps and high
Spirit was present throughout.

he vocal choreographic compo-
Sition was an exciting climax to

€ program and was brought to
the Gnale with a heartfelt and
resOuding Auld Lang Syne with
the entire cast and many mem-

bers of the audience participat-. ~
ing. @. S.)

Now on display in Moscow is "APN °67", an
exhibition of the best 300 photos out of a total of
more than 50,000 taken by Soviet news agency
Novosti in 1967.

The photos reflect both the vast panorama of
Soviet life and events in other countries.

“as, or |

—

Remember this for ever! Photo by Y. Tikhonov, 1968

as

.

elie eee

From the series ‘Twosome at loggerheads’. Photo by V. Khristula, 1968

Fisherman. Photo by G. Shcherbakov
MAY 10, 1968—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9

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