LOCAL COLOR is one of those films that move sensitive audience members despite its flaws. The story by George Gallo (also responsible for the script) is based on a true event - the coming together of a young student artist with a crusty alcoholic master painter and how one summer of cohabitation in the beauty of Pennsylvania's countryside sets the stage for the transformation of each. The idea is excellent and the story does indeed provide information about the importance of representational art in a world preferring the jolt of 'progressive art' for both the novice art appreciator and art students - among other values - but the dialogue at times is so repetitive and predictable that the mood frequently changes inappropriately.

Armin Mueller-Stahl lends his usual credibility to the tortured soul of Nicoli Seroff, a Russian landscape artist of advanced years who came to America after the Stalin purges murdered his family and his wife Anya and who now paints very little because of his disillusionment with the contemporary art scene and the tenor of the times. Down the street (the film begins in Port Chester, New York - the year is 1974) lives a lad named John Talia, Jr (Trevor Morgan) who is at odds with his inner need to create art and the world of 'normal boys' as viewed by his father (Ray Liotta). Through a series of instances John discovers Nicoli and after frustrated attempts to study art with the master, Nicoli begrudgingly invites John to his summer studio in the wilds of Pennsylvania. There the two grow into each other's worlds, in part due to the external influences of art critic Curtis Sunday (Ron Perlman) and the lonely Carla (Samantha Mathis) - a young girl whose only child is now dead and who lives for the closeness of caring for Nicoli. How the boy and the master mend fences and learn form each other is the story of a summer of enlightenment.

The acting is very fine, the photography matches the mood of the landscapes each of the two characters approach, and the story line is touching. Gallo somehow finds it necessary to pepper his dialogue with two expletives that grow boring and seem like laziness on the part of the script writing. But once over this bothersome hurdle the result of this film is a touching tribute to the concept of inspiration and the camaraderie of master and pupil. Especially fine for art students who are faced with the dilemma of representational versus non-representational expression in art.

Grady Harp