Edition: U.S. / Global


Published: July 24, 1988

Dark Eyes Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Silvana Mangano, Marthe Keller, Elena Sofonova, Pina Cei. Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. 1987. CBS/Fox Video. 116 minutes. $89.98. In Italian, with English subtitles. Not rated.

On board a Mediterranean steamer sailing from Greece to Italy, an Italian named Romano (Marcello Mastroianni) reminisces about the great love of his life - Anna (Elena Sofonova), a Russian woman he met years ago at a spa, had a casual affair with and has been obsessed by ever since.

Told largely in a long flashback, ''Dark Eyes'' is actually a pastiche, borrowing freely from four stories of Chekhov. ''But it has the manner of something freshly conceived,'' said The Times's reviewer, Vincent Canby. ''It's a wise, ruefully funny, Chekhovian comedy, though Chekhov did not write it. It takes one into a turn-of-the-century world that's as casually prescient as those of 'The Three Sisters' and 'Uncle Vanya,' without for a minute seeming to be.''

The movie is as much about the lost marriage of Romano and his wife, Elisa (Silvana Mangano), as it is about his pursuit of Anna, Mr. Canby said. Mr. Mastroianni gives a ''remarkable performance, both heartbreaking and farcical.'' The other actors, he said, are ''almost in his league.'' In the role of Elisa, Miss Mangano is ''as complex as Mr. Mastroianni's Romano.'' Marthe Keller, as Romano's ''bird-brained'' mistress, Tina, ''is revealed to be a comic actress of sweet, rare humor.'' Housekeeping Starring Christine Lahti, Sara Walker, Andrea Burchill, Anne Pitoniak, Barbara Reese, Margot Pinvidic. Directed by Bill Forsyth. 1987. RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video. 116 minutes. $79.95. Rated PG. Contains scenes of emotional complexity that could frighten very small children.

Set in the West in the 1950's, ''Housekeeping,'' adapted from Marilynne Robinson's novel, is about two motherless teen-age sisters who are cared for by a succession of relatives until their unpredictable and eccentric Aunt Sylvie comes into their lives. And while the film has moments of ''real sadness,'' it is also ''startlingly funny,'' said The Times's Vincent Canby.

''About halfway through 'Housekeeping,' one may have the awful fear that the movie is going to turn into one of those sentimental comedies - so popular with the squarest Broadway audiences - about the lovability of essentially harmless, noisily self-proclaimed eccentrics,'' Mr. Canby said. ''There's no need to worry. 'Housekeeping' is far too rigorously observed to slip into such nonsense.''

He summed it up as ''a clear-eyed, brow- furrowed, haunting comedy about impossible attachments and doomed affection in a world divided between two kinds of people'' - those always living in transit or floating by, and those survivors of the flood who hang on, trying to ''impose reason and order on random existence.''

And the Scottish director Bill Forsyth (''Local Hero,'' ''Gregory's Girl'') manages to ''make us care equally for the sister who chooses to disappear in a passing rowboat, and the one who clings to the rooftop, hoping the flood waters will recede.''

As Sylvie, Christine Lahti is ''spellbinding,'' Mr. Canby said. ''Sylvie is a beauty even when she looks a mess. She enters the movie quietly, as if by a side entrance, so it takes some time to feel the strength of her presence, which, once established, dominates the film.'' All the rest of the cast members are good, he said, particularly Sara Walker and Andrea Burchill as the sisters. Moving Starring Richard Pryor, Beverly Todd, Randy Quaid, Dana Carvey, Rodney Dangerfield, Stacey Dash, Raphael Harris, Ishmael Harris. Directed by Alan Metter. 1988. Warner Home Video. 88 minutes. $89.95. Rated R. Contains one or two R-caliber words.

The horror plaguing Arlo Pear has become almost routine in American life: moving. Arlo (Richard Pryor), a mass-transit engineer living in New Jersey, finds his life turned upside down when a job change forces him to move to Boise, Idaho.

''Nominally a comedy, this is in fact a horror story chronicling the hellish things that befall the Pear family's possessions en route, and documenting the general trauma of being uprooted,'' Janet Maslin wrote in The Times.

''Sounding quiet, looking extremely thin and sporting a beard that changes shape from scene to scene, Mr. Pryor appears to be working at something less than full throttle, but every now and then some welcome hint of fury shows through,'' Ms. Maslin said. ''And by the end of the story he is ready to strike back at all the obnoxious, furniture-breaking movers and noisy neighbors who have tormented him.''

In supporting roles are Randy Quaid as a deranged neighbor; Dana Carvey as the man who offers to drive the family's Saab to Idaho; Rodney Dangerfield as a bank officer, and Raphael and Ishmael Harris as the Pears' twin sons, who like to pretend to be one person so they can share the responsibility of going to school. Repentance Starring Avtandil Makharadze, Zeinab Botsvadze, Edisher Giorgobiani, Katevan Abuladze, Iya Ninidze, Merab Ninidze. Directed by Tengiz Abuladze. 1987. Media Home Entertainment. 151 minutes. $79.95. In Russian, with English subtitles. Not rated.

''Repentance,'' a Soviet import by the director Tengiz Abuladze, is remarkable for the skill with which it is made, but perhaps even more so for the very fact that it was made at all, said The Times's Janet Maslin. At the film's center is the mayor of a small Georgian village who has died and is being buried as the film opens. But someone it seems, does not want him to rest in peace - a woman whose parents the mayor has persecuted, as he has persecuted the entire village.

The roles of the mayor and his son are played by Avtandil Makharadze. ''Mr. Makharadze would resemble Stalin even without the costumes and haircut he has been given here,'' said Ms. Maslin, ''and the addition of a small, vertical, Hitlerian black mustache only makes the effect that much more chilling.''

The level of political self-criticism here is high, Ms. Maslin said. And the film ''also warrants attention for the flamboyant directorial style of Tengiz Abuladze, a man who favors surreal touches, unexpected leaps through time, and the blackest humor. 'Repentance' would seem mordantly funny if its wit, like that of its central character, weren't also so cruel.''

The film's lessons, she said, ''come through powerfully, but didacticism is not this film's foremost aim. It's a fine and accomplished work, as artful as it is sobering.'' SHORT TAKES My Little Girl Prism Entertainment. 118 minutes. $79.95. Rated R.

Mary Stuart Masterson stars as a rich teen-ager who does volunteer work with poor youngsters, and eventually breaks down the walls of hostility. With James Earl Jones, Geraldine Page. And I Alone Survived Prism Entertainment. 100 minutes. $79.95. Not rated.

The sole survivor of a plane crash in the Sierra Nevada mountains leaves the wreckage and fights her way back to civilization. With Blair Brown, David Ackroyd, Vera Miles, G. D. Spradlin. Empire State Vidmark Entertainment. 104 minutes. $79.95. Rated R.

The focus of this British thriller is a lucrative nightspot in London's East End called the Empire State, whose clientele is none too select. With Ray MacAnally, Cathryn Harrison, Emily Bolton, Martin Landau.