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- <text id=89TT2577>
- <title>
- Oct. 02, 1989: Pigstruck
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Oct. 02, 1989 A Day In The Life Of China
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CINEMA, Page 90
- Pigstruck
- </hdr><body>
- <qt> <l>QUEEN OF HEARTS</l>
- <l>Directed by Jon Amiel</l>
- <l>Screenplay by Tony Grisoni</l>
- </qt>
- <p> Hollywood wants to paint an anecdote on a $40 million
- canvas. The Brits, in their strapped-for-quid, post-David Lean
- days, toil to see how many angels can dance on the head of a
- penny. For perhaps a tenth of Black Rain's budget, Queen of
- Hearts lays out a beguiling panorama of romance and revenge,
- coming of age and coming to terms. Oh, and the niftiest talking
- pig since Porky.
- </p>
- <p> In the cloistered Italian village of San Gimignano, bold
- Rosa (Anita Zagaria) is engaged to a town big shot but loves
- Danilo Lucca (Joseph Long). In a suicidal swoon, the lovers leap
- from the cathedral tower -- and land, in a flick of Tony
- Grisoni's supple narrative, in London's Italian quarter.
- Ten-year-old Eddie Lucca (Ian Hawkes) tells the story with a
- child's wily innocence as filtered through the memory of a
- wistful adult.
- </p>
- <p> Jon Amiel has catered this sort of phantasmagoric feast
- before; he directed Dennis Potter's magnificent TV serial The
- Singing Detective. Once or twice Amiel is hobbled by the
- conflicting demands of a sprawling vision and a thin wallet. The
- movie starts out of breath and keeps on running. But that's
- O.K.; in fact, for a couple of hours it's criminally enjoyable.
- Who would have thought that you could transport three roiling
- generations of Italians and get Moonstruck in Britain?
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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