|
THE BASKET Send This Review to a Friend
Prejudice, romance and the sort of basketball played in the early part of the century are entwined to make "The Basket" a most unusual story. The movie is a rather strange one that has an aura all its own as it delves into human relations in times of stress.
The setting is a rural area in the Pacific Northwest during World War I. Two young German refugees are given shelter from the war when they immigrate to the United States and are placed in the home of a farmer. Helmut (Robert Karl Burke) and Brigitta (Amber Willenborg) are met with prejudice. They have suffered, but the farmer has a son who has been fighting the Germans and comes home badly wounded. At school Helmut is treated nastily by the other youths.
Martin, the new schoolteacher (Peter Coyote), teaches the lads what passes for basketball at the time and Helmut becomes fixated on the game, but the boys don't want Helmut to play with them as they struggle to throw the ball into their makeshift bottomless peach basket. Helmut practices on his own. Karen Allen has a warm role as the farmer's more sympathetic wife. Brigitta and another son of the farmer fall in love, a seemingly impossible liaison in view of the farmer's hostility.
Plot complications lead to the formation of a school team to play against professionals in an early version of the sport that hardly resembles the NBA. This isn't a film about basketball, but the glimpse into those early days adds to the color of the story. The situation sometimes seems far fetched in the emotional screenplay that director Rich Cowan co-wrote with Don Caron, Frank Swoboda and Tess Swoboda. But the performances are all well-honed and the film drips with sincerity as the message of tolerance comes across wholesomely. A Privileged Communications release
|