"House of Angels"
                             A film review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                         WMNF-FM (88.5), Tampa, FL
                             February 26, 1994

   "House of Angels" is a new Swedish film that is among the contenders for
best foreign language film in this year's Academy Awards. It is opening at the
Tampa Theater Sunday night. As I say, this is a Swedish film (with subtitles),
but it was written and directed by British filmmaker Colin Nutley who noworks
lives and works in Sweden.

  If you're like me, you haven't seen too many Swedish comedies. This one is a
devastating send up of the hypocrisy and mean spiritedness of small town
provincial life--yet with the underlying belief that even the most hateful and
perverse can come to open their hearts at least a little, though it may take
considerable uproar to bring them to that point.

   The story takes place in a tiny little village in Sweden where an old man
who lives alone in an 18th C. farmhouse on a large tract of woodland is making
his will, picking out his burial plot and -- wouldn't you know -- within
minutes he's dead. His death is kind of an accident, but brought about
indirectly by one of the local residents who has been plotting to buy the old
man's land at auction when we dies without an heir. What no one in town knows
knows except the old man and his lawyer is that he is not without an
heir. He has a granddaughter, the illegitimate child of his daughter who left
the village in 1963 when she found out she was pregnant. The granddaughter,
Fanny (played by Helena Bergstrom), who is a very glamorous nightclub singer
and performance artist, appears for the funeral with her longtime friend and
companion, Zac (Rikard Wolfe), a tall, black leather biker type whose stock in
trade is female impersonation and bisexuality.  They set the town on its ear.

    Before they arrive, we've been introduced to the foibles of the local
townspeople--the various sexual couplings and infidelities, the porn addicts,
the greed and venality, jealousy and self righteousness. Once there are new
folks in town--especially ones who look and act "different" and who thwart
the plans of the most powerful man in town just by existing, things really get
going. Every male in town is gaga over Fanny; every woman livid about her
presence. Every friendly overture she makes, every effort to fix up her house
and settle in becomes the source of gossip and innuendo. Finally, in
frustration, she and Zac decide to give the town something to gossip about and
invite a bunch of their performance artist friends to join them. And at that
point the Culture Wars really begin in earnest.

    With the help of the local minister and a few of the locals who are open
minded enough to interact with Fanny and Zac, and a few who are willing to
share their memories of Fanny's mother with her, it finally gets resolved in
the end, and Fanny finds out who her father was before she and Zac leave to
resume their careers and life back in Berlin.

   Nothing surprising the plot. The humor is not subtle, but it's social
satire more than roll-in-the-aisles, laugh-out-loud-humor. I was quite put off
by the very first shot which was a textbook case of fetishizing the female
body--so much so that it seemed like (and perhaps was meant to be) an homage
to Josef von Sternberg's fetishization of Marlene Dietrich in the series of
films they made together. Nutley continues to take every opportunity to show
Fanny donning stockings with garter belts throughout the film. On the other
hand, when he's not busy copping a look at her thighs and buttocks (and you
along with him), his portrayal of Fanny is that of an interesting,
intelligent, strong and active woman who is enormously likable and positive.
So at least there's more to Fanny in Nutley's world than her alluring body.
That made up, to some extent, for the early sequences in which he is doing
something not so far removed from what he, implicitly, is condemning in the
brief shots of porn movies one of worst of the locals devours in the back
room of the grocery store. On the whole, I found "House of Angels" a pleasant
and amusing enough film that is on the side of the angels--non-conformists and
those who are tolerant enough to see them as people deserving of respect. But
I doubt that it has a chance for an Oscar up against the likes of "Farewell,
My Concubine."

   For the WMNF Women's Show this has been Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and
Film.

   Copyright 1994 by Linda Lopez McAlister. All rights reserved. Please do not
reprint this review without the permission of the author.