Film: Improprieties.

The subject of the fine new American film The Contender is not just politics but also dirty politics, assuming that those are separate categories. It concerns the decision of a president to fill a sudden vice-presidential vacancy not with a seemingly ideal southern candidate, Gov. Jack Hathaway, but with a woman, Sen. Laine Hanson of Ohio. Hathaway seems to have risked considerable danger trying (unsuccessfully) to save a woman from drowning, and has become a national hero, yet President Jackson Evans politely passes him over in favor of Mrs. Hanson. This gets up the dander of Evans's old political rival, Rep. Sheldon "Shelly" Runyon. Though he has nothing against Hanson-except perhaps male chauvinism-Runyon determines to humiliate the outgoing Evans, whose swan song, as he says, this appointment would be.

So Runyon, heading the congressional committee that must approve of Hanson, encourages the committee to trip her up. He digs up some photographs ostensibly showing Hanson, as a college freshman, participating in a frat-house orgy with two men, and also rounds up some eyewitnesses to authenticate those pictures, and more. What follows is a kind of witch hunt we have seen in politics, wherein the media gleefully participate, but which Evans and his team-some with conviction, some without-endeavor to foil.

What makes it easier for Runyon and harder for Evans is that Hanson, a dignified wife and mother, refuses to discuss the matter before the committee; she considers the charges irrelevant and, whether true or untrue, of only private concern. Even when Runyon keeps scratching up more and more disgusting-and often preposterous-charges against Hanson, she not only refuses to defend herself, she also puts on the table all her political positions, some of them bound to make her unpopular with anyone right of center. She comports herself with exemplary dignity and composure in the face of powerful mudslinging, and when handed effective but private ammunition against Runyon, will not stoop to his level by using it.

This is a spellbinding movie whether you are into politics or not, and whether you agree with all of the things it stands for or not. Although Rod Lurie's script and direction espouse some liberal values, the film is not about liberals versus conservatives, Democrats versus Republicans, good guys versus bad guys. Still less is it, as some will undoubtedly suggest, some sort of apology for Bill Clinton-quite the contrary. Rather, the film sees gray areas in good people and humanity in not-so-good ones, but believes in the ultimate decency of humankind.

Lurie, who is among other things a former film critic, writes savvily and pungently, and directs with a thrilling sense of rhythm, contrasting moods, and economy. He writes short, snappy scenes that make their point but do not condescend or overexplain. Even his minor characters are well thought out, unschematic, and unpredictable. They have their little quirks, such as the president's trying to come up with requests that will stump his kitchen staff (even the most complicated ones don't; only Munster cheese finally does). The dialogue is always clever, often witty, but not at the expense of an underlying seriousness. It is a fully grown-up film, a rarity in today's (or indeed any day's) Hollywood. Perhaps it also helps that it was shot entirely in Virginia.

There is splendid acting from everyone. Probably the most impressive performance-partly because it allows for the greatest range-comes from Gary Oldman as Runyon. No one would think the English actor not a native of Illinois; or this balding, scraggly-haired, thickly bespectacled person a former leading man. His basically unlikable character is played with charismatic passion, imposing even in misguidedness and gross misbehavior.

That formidable actress Joan Allen, in turn, achieves something very difficult. Even though her role, at times, comes perilously close to saintliness, she always infuses Hanson with flesh-and-blood sturdiness that has no truck with plaster sainthood. There is refinement and incisiveness in everything she does or utters, and you root for her deservedly and wholeheartedly. Jeff Bridges, an invariably solid actor, gives one of his most engagingly manifold performances as Evans: a cannily smooth politician, yet also an idiosyncratic creature exuding the earthy smell of humanity.

The supporting roles lag not a whit behind: Christian Slater, as a naive young congressman who grows up; Sam Elliott, as the president's cynical chief of staff who mellows; Mariel Hemingway, as a former friend uneasily testifying against Hanson; Kathryn Morris, as a pawky FBI agent; and a number of others.

The ending strikes me as a bit too upbeat. I doubt whether good in Washington triumphs so unequivocally, and whether the somewhat rah-rah rosiness isn't too deep a bow to the box office. But after so much good stuff, it can be forgiven, especially when presented with such skill and taste.

--In Denmark, the aristocratic prefix (de in French, von in German) does not exist. The bungling uxoricide Claus Bulow illicitly turned himself into von Bulow; the phony filmmaker Lars Trier elevated himself into von Trier. Anecdotes about his weirdness abound; weirder still is his major reputation, based on a series of pretentious, preposterous, downright demented movies and his espousal of the ludicrous Dogma 95, a "vow of chastity" whereby some Danish filmmakers forswore all allegedly artificial practices (no stage lighting, for example, and no musical soundtrack). Trier's current film, Dancer in the Dark, features galumphing musical numbers filmed on 100 strategically stationed digital video cameras, a sterling display of chastity.

The movie-for which Trier was writer, director, and cameraman-was filmed in Sweden but takes place in rural America, where he has never been because of his fear of flying. But the topographical and related inauthenticities are the least of his problems. There is inane pretentiousness from the very beginning, when the screen wallows in cavorting abstractions while the soundtrack offers a lengthy and grandiose "Overture" by Bjork, the Icelandic pop singer, who, besides starring, composed all the monotonously dreary music, lugubriously orchestrated and seemingly emerging from a deep (though not deep enough) cave.

The story is a blatant, tearjerking melodrama that would have made D. W. Griffith blush. Selma (Bjork), a hard-working Czech immigrant to Washington State, is going blind of some unnamed illness (beware of movies with unnamed illnesses), which also threatens her young son. Though she can no longer properly see the dangerous machinery at which she toils by day, she signs up for the night shift as well to scrounge together the money for a costly eye operation for her boy. A troubled cop steals the money, which Selma keeps in a shoebox (no banks in America?), and as she struggles to wrest it back from him, he is killed with his own gun. Despite some good friends' efforts to hire a decent defense lawyer for her, Selma refuses to spend the operation money on a lawyer, and prefers-with all kinds of vile people ganging up on her-to hang instead.

As if that weren't enough, the locals are putting on an amateur production of The Sound of Music, in which Selma's near-blindness forces her to relinquish the role of Maria. But never mind: She has numerous fantasies, right up to the gallows, to beautify her life. They consist of would-be infectious Busby Berkeleyish musical numbers, even more ineptly staged than the rest of the film. Catherine Deneuve is absurdly cast as a drab factory worker, and the lyrics to Bjork's songs, co-written by Trier, are inept. My favorite one accompanies Selma on the 107 steps from the death-row cell to the gallows. The lyrics are the numbers 1 to 107.