leeper@mtgzy.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) (11/15/90)
AVALON
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A loving portrait of a Jewish family in
post-World-War-II Baltimore makes AVALON one of Barry
Levinson's best films to date. Levinson has a real talent
for dialogue and for creating memorable characters. This is
a film to be enjoyed more than once. Rating: +3.
Barry Levinson has made such diverse films as THE NATURAL; GOOD
MORNING, VIETNAM; and RAIN MAN. But he chronically returns to his native
Baltimore to tell the stories of the people he knew when he was growing up.
His first film was the excellent DINER. TIN MEN was set in part in the same
Baltimore diner, though the story was a cut below his first film. AVALON is
a very different Baltimore story and rivals THE NATURAL as Levinson's best
work. AVALON follows the fortunes of an immigrant Jewish family in the
years following World War II. Central to the story is a grandfather-
grandson relationship, very probably based on Levinson's relationship with
his own grandfather. The portrait of the family is at once realistic and
endearing. This is not so much a story with a single conflict that is
resolved in the end, but more a chronicle told in episodes.
As the film opens, we are in the mind and memory of Sam Krichinsky as
he is remembering and relating to his grandchildren how he came to the
United States in 1914 and settled in the beautiful city of Baltimore. He
arrived on July 4th and he is telling the story before dinner on
Thanksgiving. As the family history progresses, it returns again and again
to what the family was doing on those two holidays. The story is seen very
much through the eyes of young Michael Kaye, Sam's grandson. Levinson's
Baltimore films all have excellent dialogue which is at the same time
believable and surprisingly entertaining. Just simple family chit-chat in
Levinson's hands becomes both revealing and endearing. Michael's father
Jules is a salesman who is mugged in front of Michael. To keep Jules
entertained as he is recovering his cousin buys the family's first
television set. This leads to a whole new career of selling first
televisions, then appliances at discount. The success brings tragedy--at
least as far as Michael is concerned: the family moves to the suburbs. Soon
conflicts arise that seem serious to the family, but which clearly seem
petty and minor to the viewer.
Armin Mueller-Stahl (who played a suspected Nazi in THE MUSIC BOX)
plays the patriarchal Sam Krichinsky. His son Jules is played by Aidan
Quinn. And Jules's son Michael is played by Elijah Wood. Elizabeth Perkins
and Joan Plowright help to round out the cast in this loving scrapbook of
the life of a family. This is certainly one of the most moving and best
films this year. I give it a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.comfrankm@microsoft.UUCP (Frank Maloney) (11/15/90)
AVALON
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1990 Frank Maloney
AVALON is the third in Barry Levinson's Baltimore trilogy, which
began with DINER and continued with TIN MEN. What links the three
movies is setting (Baltimore), time (late 40's to early 60's), and
feeling (love, compassion, sadness, nostalgia, &c).
They are very personal films and in some ways AVALON is the most
personal of them all. The title is the name of a street in the
row-house neighborhoods of working-class Baltimore. And a ball room.
(And maybe all that Arthurian stuff lurking in the background. Now I
once lived on Santa Catalina Island and Avalon brings up memories of a
slightly different for me, but that's my movie, ain't it?)
AVALON is one those multigenerational movies that jumps a lot of
decades, jumbles up a lot of characters, and is often a disorganized
mess. Fortunately, in this case, Levinson uses several devices to hold
the movie together, even though it is still too long and unfocused. One
device is the narrative focus, which is primarily the character of Sam
Kripinsky, who "came to America in 1914." It was the most beautiful
place" he had ever seen (to quote Sam's oft-repeated story. Sam goes
from a young man in the prime of his youth all the way through a
semi-senile oldster waiting to die. Sam is played by Armin
Stahl-Mueller and brilliantly; his wife is wonderful and hilarious Joan
Plowright, who was the major delight in another movie this year as the
mother-in-law of the philanderer whom everyone is out to kill (can't
dredge it up, sorry!).
Another device for unity is the return through the decades to those
most American of holidays, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. The
changing face of America is clearest is the changing faces of these
holidays. And it's pretty sad, I must say.
The third device is TV. Once the first TV set is turned on, there
is a set in every room, it seems, these play out their lives in.
This is a sweet, powerful movie about who we Americans are and how
we got this fucked up.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney