European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 16, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Lena Olin rises above her sinking movies by Lawrence Ghriston los Angeles times Cna Olin must have already got wind of the sour word of Mouth Drifting ahead of or. Jones when she slipped behind a Cor finer table of Hollywood s four seasons hotel restaurant for lunch. The Stockholm Sweden based actress has occasionally been critical of Hollywood and the Gaudy ostentation in which most of its More successful practitioners live but this time she was in junket Mode which Means one is impeccably polite impeccably Well groomed and obeys the Western dictum where never is heard a discouraging word except to say i Don t do this circus when i m not working. I turn away from it All. I go to Sweden or i look to myself. I have a completely different life that suits  she could not have known for sure that in a few Days or. Jones would keel Over on launch. But she did know that it had been difficult to make. After All the tristan pictures film s original release Date had been in april and director Mike Figgis was said to have been uninvited to the Post production process. Speaking As executive co producer Richard Gere who stars says that Figgis had to Honor another film commitment and As co Star she was there. With or. Jones we had to go Back and do re shoots. We really worked Olin said looking Down at the Tablecloth pensively. This film has been going on for a Long time. The problem in the script was that it was so hard to find a Way to Deal with their relationship. She s a doctor. We did t want to make him out to be a Lunatic. But at the end he is a Luna tic a sick Man. There were a lot of different end  she looked up wit a Brief imploring glance in which in a nanosecond you saw an actor s helplessness. Olin has t been seen in a movie since her 1990 role As a female revolutionary in Sydney Pollack s critically blistered $40 million Havana. In or. Jones she plays a recently divorced Hospital psychiatrist lonely and aging and attracted in spite of herself to a contrasting life Force represented by Gere who uses the device of manic depression to indulge an actor s Blowout run of behavioural eccentricities. It in t until late in the movie when her skin takes on Luster and she seems charged by a More Youthful urgency that you realize How much the earlier look the dead hair the panic at the edges of her eyes the wan Aura of self neglect is a setup for what s to follow. In a quiet and skillful Way Olin has taken her limited character As far As it can go. In february Shell be out in a new Peter Medak film called Romeo is bleeding in which she plays a free Lance russian racketeer named Mona Demar co who is murderously scheming to get out of new York before the feds and local police catch up with her and latches onto a crooked cop played by Gary Oldman. With her dark eyes charged with Early storm warnings and Broad slavic cheekbones Olin s Mona is a plausible arrival from a portentous subcontinent of vast extremes. She s a Beautiful nietzschean predator flush with the confident Power of sexual ruthlessness beyond morality and conscience what the French would Call a Beautiful  Mona even slices off her own Arm to elude capture. Word from Advance screenings both Here and in Europe is that Romeo is bleeding is problematic but Olin is magnificent. What does she think of her two most recent films in tandem i Haven t seen either one she replied. I always sort of create practical problems so that i Don t have to see a film i be just done. I m too vulnerable too fragile. People see your work and there s nothing i l � los Angeles times Lena Olin fresh off or. Jones i. Create practical problems so that i Don t have to see a film five just  you can do. You re completely  indeed she is. Which leads to the question after the critical and commercial failures of Havana and or. Jones Well leave Romeo aside until it gets a fair viewing in february is Olin s american film Ca reer in danger of being prematurely eclipsed or to put it another Way what s implicit in variety critic Todd Mccarthy s lament in his or. Jones re vie when he recalls Olin s country woman Ingrid Bergman who by comparison prompts one to imag Ine what a great Star Olin might have been and what roles she might have played had she been around in the 1930s and 1940s"? might have been at 36, Olin has made Only four films released so far in the United states and As far As critical Success is concerned she s a creditable two for four. She was so impressive in the unbearable lightness of being that director Philip Kaufman reportedly Felt possessive about her and Only reluctantly passed in formation about her to director Paul Mazursky who was casting enemies a love Story. As Masha in enemies she earned an Oscar nomination and a new York film critics award for Best supporting actress. There Are at least a dozen top flight Hollywood actresses who have survived mediocre movies in Ca Reers longer than Olin s like Susan Sarandon Anje Lica Huston and Jessica Lang but the misuse of their Powers though unfortunate has t created the same sense of misgiving. What is it about this Case that strikes an Odd note part of it has to do with Olin herself. She com Bines the visceral Power of Anna Magnani with the Wisdom of the flesh embodied by Continental actresses like Jeanne Moreau and Simone Signoret. And she has had the Benefit of a lengthy acting Edu cation first in drama school and then with swe Den s Royal dramatic theater that most Ameri cans preoccupied with method emotional states Don t get that is a Strong emphasis on the minutiae of physical expression. In school what was important was not the emotional or the psychological she told premiere mag Azine in 1991. It was not How you Felt inside it was How you showed your feelings with your body and the sound of your voice. It was All very  she has mentioned a number of other times How Boring and tedious that work often was but it has Given her an unusually Broad and precise physical vocabulary and the capacity indispensable in first rate acting for displaying several contradictory feel Ings at once. Olin has also had the rare Good Fortune of enter ing the inner Circle of one of the 20th Century s great artists Ingmar Bergman. In bearing a similar relationship to Bergman that Yvonne Bryce land bears to Athol Fugard or Billie Whitelaw to Samuel Beckett she has joined a select International group. But where a movie Star is obliged to transcend a role or even an entire vehicle an actor like Olin is obliged to work within the limits of its credibility. Which is another Way of saying that one s Choice of script is crucial never More so than in Hollywood. Choosing a role is very difficult she says. There s no Way to have a strategy. Every time i get a script it s a matter of trying to know what i could do with it. I see colors imagery. It has to have a smell. It s like falling in love. You can t give a reason Why. The few times i Haven t gone with my instinct is when the work has t been Good. " or. Jones is playing on the cafes circuit. Pages sunday january 16. 1994