Another Time, Another Place (1983)

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Writer/director Michael Radford captures the cold and misery of World War II Scotland perfectly in this pretty but dense romance.

Phyllis Logan is Janie, a typical sexually frustrated housewife working on her farm and looking to get out of her dead-end station in life. A trio of Italian prisoners of war are trucked into the tiny town to help out the local farmers. There is the bespectacled Umberto (Gianluca Favilla), the smoldering Paolo (Claudio Rosini), and the despondent Luigi (Giovanni Mauriello). As the trio have settled next door, Janie visits and tries to be polite, until Luigi makes a pass at her. She refuses, but the grunt farm work translates into grunt sex work with her ham-fisted husband Dougal (Paul Young), so eventually she relents. I was taken aback at the affair, since I assumed that hunky Paolo would win out over mousy Luigi. Eventually, Luigi gets bored and starts flirting with Else (Carol Ann Crawford). In a "it only happens in the movies" conincidences, Luigi and Janie meet in the woods for one last roll in the ravioli at the exact same moment Else is being assaulted by an unidentifiable Italian prisoner of war. Janie must decide to come forward as Luigi's alibi or stay quiet, since the war is almost over anyway and she will never see her lover again in either case.

The film, despite some absolutely breathtaking scenery and cinematography, is also deathly dull. Janie and the prisoners do act naturally around each other, tentatively becoming friends. The entire sexual assault subplot can be seen coming a mile away, and the movie's ending leaves more than a little to be desired. Phyllis Logan is excellent as Janie. She resembles Emma Thompson, and her haggard appearance does not seem to be an act since the farm work dramatized here looks awful. The rest of the cast is alright, although some of the Scottish accents take a while to comprehend. The Italians' conversations are not subtitled in the VHS copy I reviewed, letting the viewer try to figure out what is being said just as Janie must.

"Another Time, Another Place" is a beautiful film to look at. Once the plot tries to move, the whole thing dies, and by the end it resembles a badly written pulp romance novel. The scenery and Logan almost negate this, but only almost.

Stats:
(1983) 118 min. (* *) out of five stars
-Directed by Michael Radford
-Written by Michael Radford, Script Assistance by John Francis Lane, Based on the novel by Jessie Kesson
-Cast: Phyllis Logan, Giovanni Mauriello, Gianluca Favilla, Claudio Rosini, Paul Young, Gregor Fisher, Tom Watson, Jennifer Piercey, Denise Coffey, Yvonne Gilan, Carol Ann Crawford, Ray Jeffries, Scott Johnston
Rated (R)