Milagro Has Style

Sun Herald

Saturday July 23, 1988

ROB LOWING

MILAGRO is one of the few American films which comes close to matching the look, feel and atmosphere usually associated with European fables.

It's another tour de force from director Robert Redford, a difficult project which should be unanimously applauded, both for its daring and its success.

It's also a film which may baffle many audiences. Whether or not you enjoy Milagro will depend on your own frame of mind. If you're looking for high action and hi-tech effects, steer clear.

If the idea of a modern drama coupled with ghosts, stoic peasants and characters who are neither totally good nor totally evil intrigues you, read on.

Milagro is a character piece and most of the enjoyment comes from the clever casting and memorable faces.

Apart from Walken and Braga, the majority of these actors are recognisable but not familiar. Many of the lengthier roles are filled by marvellous unknowns.

The film opens on the poverty-stricken, water-barren New Mexico village of Milagro. It's a dying town-the surrounding land is being developed for a plush, new holiday resort. However, that's no consolation to the locals. Few have been offered jobs and one by one they are being bought or forced out.

No one has hope in the future except for wise old Amarante (Riquelme), who is convinced that times will change. His opinion is publicly respected since he regularly communicates with the spirits but, privately, the locals don't place much faith in it.

LAST CROP

The Milagrians are resigned until, on a whim, struggling farmer Joe Mondragon (Vennera) decides to harvest one last crop of beans. His friends watch with interest from their porches and the local developers watch with anger from their offices. Something has to be done.

It's a simple premise beautifully expanded. Ward's script is a masterpiece in itself-not just because it avoids the easy way out but because it also finds a new way to tell its story without resorting to triteness.

Milagro is as whimsical as the ghost of an ancient villager who regularly strolls through the town. It's also just as hard to categorise. This is a film of many styles-now an underdog saga or a clean-cut Western, now an old-fashioned country folk tale or a rather fantastic ghost story.

Robbie Greenberg's gorgeous cinematography captures the people and landscape first in richly, vivid colours and then in a fading, fuzzy nostalgic glow. Dave Grusin's music veers between eerie folk music and classic Country and Western backgrounding.

Discerning viewers will find that Milagro gives them more memorable characters in one film than they may have seen in a dozen.

Milagro is Redford's second directorial outing after Ordinary People and is a richly, unexpected treat for the dedicated filmgoer.