# Carla's Song (1996)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    CARLA'S SONG

     Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
     Shadow Distribution/Parallax
     Director: Ken Loach
     Writer: Ken Loach
     Cast:Robert Carlyle, Oyanka Cabezas, Scott Glenn, Salvador
    Espinosa, Louise Goodall, Richard Loza, Gary Lewis, Pamela
    Turner

Ken Loach, whose "Carla's Song" pretty much fits in with his traditional themes and styles, has its heart in the right place--depending on your where you stand politically. It's the sort of film that would be hated by Oliver North, whose infamous scheme funneled money to Nicaragua's Contras during the 1980s civil war in that little country. It will be appreciated, though, by those who believe that the United States should not support right-wing governments in the Third World. Aside from its politics, though, it has the feel of a docudrama with improvised dialogue. This is not the sort of design that would win it a wide audience, but then at least Loach is staying true to his pattern--the portrayal of poor and working-class people who are failures in life and do self- defeating things that drive them to madness. If the unpredictable actions of the hero of "Carla's Song"--a bus driver in Scotland's commercial city of Glasgow--seem unbelievable, you've got to realize that they are the gestures of a man driven to good-hearted foolishness by his love of an unlikely woman.

Loach first treats us to a picture of a man with a most ordinary profession, bus-driver George (Robert Carlyle). He is suspended for a week after fighting with a Javert-like ticket- taker on his vehicle who threatens to arrest a passenger for not paying her fare. Though George has an affectionate, down-to-earth girl friend, he falls instantly in love with the passenger, Carla (Oyanka Cabezas), whom he pursues relentlessly despite her aloofness and unwillingness to share information about herself. He learns, however, that she is in Scotland as a refugee from her country's civil war. Alone and adrift, she has twice attempted suicide, is saved by George who encounters her in a pool of bathtub blood, and incredibly enough agrees to travel with her to Nicaragua to locate her missing lover Antonio.

Loach's Glasgow is more realistic than Alan Jay Lerner's depiction of the Scottish people in "Brigadoon" and his Nicaragua is far removed from Central American tourist posters such Costa Rica's (which claim that the country is so romantic that even the oceans get together). The Glasgow workers are all hostile: the cab driver whom George's bus barely touches is enraged; the ticket-taker treats a freebie passenger as though she were an axe murderer; George's boss threatens to fire him for inconsequential reasons; the passengers on the bus whine at every bump; Carla's landlady loudly threatens to throw her out. But some Nicaraguans are worse. Loach's Sandinistas are an earthy, friendly, song- loving group who teach literacy to the peasants. But the CIA- backed Contras are brutal, blowing up suspected Sandinista houses and in one case deliberately and methodically paralyzing a man, pouring acid on his face and releasing him to his misery. Loach also introduces a CIA operative (Scott Glenn) who allegedly sees the horror of his mission and goes over to the other side. We get the impression that the Sandanistas would not think of stooping to the ruthlessness of their foes--that they are as innocent as America's Black Panthers who wanted only "to introduce breakfast programs in ghetto schools and teach righteous behavior to its targeted beneficiaries."

Loach's politics are one-sided. He has the right to herald his views however much they may dismay and disillusion those who have considered Sandinista leaders little more than dictators bent on subverting all of Latin America into Soviet client states. His film, however, is marred by a largely unintelligible Scottish dialect--it would be well served by subtitles, as the English language spoken by the Nicaraguan as a second language is more understandable than that of the Scots. More damaging is the uneasy mix of romance and politics, making "Carla's Song" neither here nor there. The dialogue comes across as largely improvised making the film too loose, even incoherent, but here Loach is nothing if not consistent in his disregard for the traditional narrative. Robert Carlyle is effective, as he was in his previous films such as "The Fully Monty" and Oyanka Cabezas's performance is affecting though she does not have the sort of beauty that would attract most men to her as obsessively she affects George.

With such works as "Lady, Ladybird," Loach's film about a single mother of four with a history of abuse from males, and "Family Life" which treats a 19-year-old woman driven mad by societal pressures, Ken Loach is easier to respect than to like. "Carla's Song" keeps him firmly implanted in that ghetto. Not Rated. Running time: 127 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998

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