Vive l'Amour (1994)

Essential Viewing

Taiwan

Feature Film

Original Title: 愛情萬歲

Director: Tsai Ming-liang

Writers: Tsai Ming-liang, Tsai Yi-chun, Yang Pi-ying

Cinematographers: Liao Pen-jung, Lin Ming-kuo

Cast: Chen Chao-jung, Lee Kang-sheng, Yang Kuei-Mei

Vive l'Amour is perhaps Tsai’s bleakest film, his trademark droll humour is here, but it’s tempered by an unrelenting feeling of desperation; however, with its ending – an almost threesome, the most tender of kisses, and a melancholy walk in the park – it is also quite possibly his greatest work, almost certainly his most moving, and undoubtedly a masterpiece. Iain.Stott

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Zombie Honeymoon (2004)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: David Gebroe

Cinematographer: Ken Seng

Composer: Michael Tremante

Cast: Tracy Coogan, Graham Sibley, Tonya Cornelisse, David M. Wallace, Neal Jones

A sexy, young, unconventional, just married couple set off for the seaside in the hopes of an idyllic honeymoon; unfortunately, on their first day at the beach, a lumbering zombie climbs out of the ocean and vomits blood all over the groom, who subsequently dies and comes back to life, only he’s no longer a vegetarian, in Gebroe’s entertaining, well acted (by the two leads, at least; Coogan is particularly excellent), and surprisingly moving (no, really!) zombie romance. Iain.Stott

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The Bench (2000)

Highly Recommended

Denmark

Feature Film

Original Title: Bænken

Director: Per Fly

Writers: Per Fly, Kim Leona

Cinematographer: Jørgen Johansson

Composer: Halfdan E

Cast: Jesper Christensen, Stine Holm Joensen, Marius Sonne Janischefska, Nicolaj Kopernikus, Jens Albinus

Per Fly’s painfully authentic feeling drama of broken lives – an unrelentingly bleak portrait of an ageing, ailing alcoholic as he attempts to work his way back into the life of his estranged daughter, who has just left her abusive husband – is a work of great power, boasting some outstanding performances, most notably from Jesper Christensen in the central role, but it’s also a very depressing tale, with barely a chink of hope penetrating its cheerless surface. Iain.Stott

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Jaws (1975)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb

Cinematographer: Bill Butler

Composer: John Williams

Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

Spielberg’s ridiculously popular film – depicting a small island tourist resort’s chief of police’s attempts to battle greed, corruption, and a bloody big shark – is a thriller of mixed quality; the film’s performances are generally good, but Shaw’s mannered turn sticks out like a saw thumb compared to Scheider and Dreyfuss’s more refined, naturalistic performances, and Williams’s rather unsophisticated score can wear after a while, but the film is generally diverting, often entertaining, and by-and-large well made. Iain.Stott

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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jonathan Demme

Writers: Ted Tally, Thomas Harris

Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto

Composer: Howard Shore

Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith

Hopkins’s performance hasn’t aged well at all, particularly when measured against Levine’s subtly creepy turn, but this film – once Hannibal the Cannibal’s cheesiness is put on the backburner – is an absolutely cracking thriller, with a seldom better Foster producing a magnetic performance, and Demme wowing us with his eye-catching yet refined direction. Iain.Stott

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Scully (1975)

UK

Novel

Author: Alan Bleasdale

Bleasdale’s first novel - a first person account of the misadventures of Franny Scully, a fifteen-year-old scally from Liverpool, who spends most of his time bunking off school, graffitiing on walls, hitchhiking to Liverpool away games, dreaming of football stardom, and doing his best to avoid taking part in the school play - is a frequently laugh-out-loud funny work, which feels, with its non-judgemental tone, thoroughly and touchingly genuine and credible. Iain.Stott

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Ace in the Hole (1951)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels, Billy Wilder

Cinematographer: Charles B. Lang Jr.

Composer: Hugo Friedhofer

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Bob Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, Richard Benedict, Ray Teal, Lewis Martin, John Berkes

Douglas’s down-on-his-luck, slumming, formerly renowned journalist stumbles upon a potential big story when a small town man becomes trapped by a cave-in, which the unscrupulous scribbler then strives to drag out for as long as possible, in Wilder’s cynical portrait of cynicism, which brilliantly presents an unrelentingly bleak account of mankind. Iain.Stott

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Muriel ou Le Temps d'un Retour (1963)

Recommended

France/Italy/West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jean Cayrol

Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny

Composer: Hans Werner Henze

Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée

The excellent Seyrig plays a widow, living with her step-son, who invites a former lover, whom she hasn’t seen for twenty-odd years, to visit her in her Boulogne home, but, unexpectedly, he also brings along his “niece” and a whole lot of memories, in Resnais’s third feature, an enigmatic, unsettling, and menacing examination of the organic nature of memory. Iain.Stott

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La Guerre Est Finie (1966)

Recommended

France/Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: La guerre est finie

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jorge Semprún

Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny

Composer: Giovanni Fusco

Cast: Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin, Geneviève Bujold, Jean Dasté, Dominique Rozan, Jean-François Rémi

Alain Resnais’s psychological portrait of an ageing revolutionary, suffering from ethical, existential, and ideological crises, depicting his return from Madrid to Paris, where he was part of the Communist underground’s continuing attempts to dislodge Fascist dictator Franco from power, is a more conventional work than his previous efforts, and as a consequence perhaps a little less dazzling, but certainly no less insightful or compelling. Iain.Stott

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About Schmidt (2002)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Alexander Payne

Writers: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, Louis Begley

Cinematographer: James Glennon

Composer: Rolfe Kent

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney

A couple of sentimental moments aside, this melancholically funny road movie – in which Nicholson’s recently retired, recently widowed former insurance executive sets off for his daughter’s wedding in Denver, taking the scenic route in his brand new Winnebago – is a bitter-sweet comedy of rare refinement and intelligence. Iain.Stott

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Elgar (1962)

Recommended

UK

Short Television Documentary

Series Title: Monitor (1958-1965)

Director: Ken Russell

Writers: Ken Russell, Huw Wheldon

Cinematographer: Kenneth Higgins

Narrator: Huw Wheldon

Cast: Peter Brett, Rowena Gregory, George McGrath

The two Kens, Russell and Higgins, provide us with some beautiful, poetically mounted images that just about make Sir Edward Elgar’s pompous, sentimental compositions palatable, in this informative, entertaining, and really rather moving portrait of the eponymous composer. Iain.Stott

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Coast to Coast (1987)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: Screen Two (1985-1994)

Director: Sandy Johnson

Writer: Stan Hey

Cinematographer: Colin Munn

Composer: Alasdair MacNeill

Cast: Lenny Henry, John Shea, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Vaughan, George Baker, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Bown

Two soul obsessed young men - one from Liverpool, the other an American - who have just started a mobile ‘60s disco, somehow manage to stumble into a dodgy deal involving counterfeit money printing plates, British Rail buffet cars, and a road trip, via the Lake District, to Parkeston, Essex, in this beautifully drawn, wonderfully soundtracked, perfectly cast, blackly comic delight. Iain.Stott

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Comedy Vs. Criticism Week

This week (24/08 - 31/08) is officially, at least according to Miriam Bale, Comedy Vs. Criticism Week. Check out contributions from Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dan Callahan, Kevin Lee, and Joon Lee, amongst others, at COMEDY V. CRITICISM.

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Edvard Munch (1974)

Essential Viewing

Norway/Sweden

Television Mini-Series

Writer/Director/Narrator: Peter Watkins

Cinematographer: Odd Geir Sæther

Cast: Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Johan Halsborg, Ladislaw Reznicek, Alf Kare Strindberg

Watkins’s Norwegian mini-series – the British auteur’s magnum opus and, quite possibly, the small (or big, for that matter) screen’s greatest biopic – provides a sensual, beautiful, and extremely moving yet thoroughly informative examination of the early life of renowned expressionist painter Edvard Munch, utilising documentary techniques to introduce all of the key figures in his development as both an artist and as a man. Iain.Stott

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Searchers 2.0 (2007)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Alex Cox

Cinematographer: Steven Fierberg

Composer: Dan Wool

Cast: Del Zamora, Ed Pansullo, Jaclyn Jonet, Sy Richardson, Zahn McClarnon

Two ageing actors (Cox regulars Zamora and Pansullo) plus the daughter of one of them (the delightful Jonet) pile into an SUV and head for Monument Valley in order to gain vengeance upon a tyrannical screenwriter (Richardson), who beat them when they were child actors on a film that he was involved with, all the while, discussing films, politics, cinema, movies, and more films, in Cox’s inventively and entertainingly rough-and-ready road movie-cum-faux western. Iain.Stott

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Gunrush (2009)

Best Avoided

UK

Television Film

Director: Richard Clark

Writer: Richard Cottan

Cinematographer: Balazs Bolygo

Cast: Timothy Spall, Jacob Anderson, Aml Ameen, Frances Ashman, Adam Deacon, Deborah Findlay, Carrie Mullan, Nicholas Beveney, David Harewood, Paul Kaye

Channelling the same sort of conservative, middle-class paranoia that made Reefer Madness (1936) and 8mm (1999) such laughably terrible films, this ITV drama - starring Timothy Spall as the father of a teenage girl senselessly gunned down in a small supermarket, who becomes determined to track down the gun responsible - is a work completely lacking in credibility, deficient in logic, and seemingly ignorant of human nature (and the less said about Paul Kaye’s turn the better.) Iain.Stott

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Donkey Punch (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: Oliver Blackburn

Writers: Oliver Blackburn, David Bloom

Cinematographer: Nanu Segal

Composer: François-Eudes Chanfrault

Cast: Nichola Burley, Julian Morris, Jaime Winstone, Robert Boulter, Tom Burke, Jay Taylor, Sian Breckin

Blackburn’s debut feature - a morality tale railing against the dangers of casual sex and drug use, in which bravado, machismo, and the aforementioned sex and drugs lead to an escalating nightmare of violence aboard a luxury yacht, off the coast of Ibiza, when a group of holidaying Leeds lasses meet a bunch of middle-class southern lads - proves to be a fairly credible, sun-drenched horror film. Iain.Stott

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Northern Exposure: Season 6 (1994-1995)

USA

Television Series

Producer: David Chase

Creators: Joshua Brand, John Falsey

Cast: Paul Provenza, Teri Polo, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips, Rob Morrow

The final season of Northern Exposure is an understandably mixed affair, with Rob Morrow’s Dr. Joel Fleischman finally leaving Alaska, and a new doctor and his wife arriving to take his place, but the season can still boast two outstanding episodes: Shofar, So Good and Zarya, and the new episodes featuring the new cast members are of a sufficiently high quality to suggest that if the series had continued for another season or two that it may well have again reached the heights of its former glories. Iain.Stott

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Northern Exposure: Season 5 (1993-1994)

USA

Television Series

Producer: David Chase

Cast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips

The first season after creators Brand and Falsey’s departure, with future Sopranos head honcho David Chase taking control, is the highpoint of the series and one of the very finest pieces of American television of the 1990s, bringing us (amongst others) such great (a word, here, not used lightly) episodes as Mite Makes Right (with an outstanding guest appearance from the incomparable Simon Templeman) and Fish Story (featuring future Sopranos alumnus Jerry Adler.) Iain.Stott

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Northern Exposure: Season 4 (1992-1993)

USA

Television Series

Creators: Joshua Brand, John Falsey

Cast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips, Anthony Edwards

Another wonderful season of gentle human comedy, searching, philosophical contemplation, inventive, fantastical dream and fantasy sequences, and perhaps just a pinch (okay, maybe more than a pinch) of whimsy, in which Joel and Maggie’s love-hate relationship becomes ever more complicated, and Anthony Edwards joins the cast as a man suffering from extreme allergies. Iain.Stott

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Northern Exposure: Season 3 (1991-1992)

USA

Television Series

Creators: Joshua Brand, John Falsey

Cast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips, Adam Arkin

If Annie Hall-era Woody Allen had made a television series it would have looked something like this third season of Northern Exposure, which by this stage had matured into something like its best, providing us with such funny, thought provoking, and moving episodes as: Things Become Extinct, Burning Down the House, and Cicely. Iain.Stott

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Radio Parade of 1935 (1934)

Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: Arthur Woods

Writers: James Bunting, Jack Davies Jr., Paul Perez

Cinematographers: Cyril Bristow, Claude Friese-Greene, Phil Grindrod

Composers: Lawrence Brewis, Bob Busby, Carl Foulke, Benjamin Frankel, Hans May, Jimmy Messini, Arthur Young

Cast: Clifford Mollison, Helen Chandler, Will Hay, The Western Bros., The Three Sailors, Haver and Lee, Clapham and Dwyer, Alberta Hunter

The head of the complaints department at the National Broadcasting Group manages to blag his way into the post of director of programming, hoping to modernise the acts on show and branch out into colour television, in this patchy though nevertheless thoroughly entertaining musical comedy variety show, showcasing various music hall acts – highlights include the wonderfully silly Clapham and Dwyer, and the Marxesque Three Sailors. Iain.Stott

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Sátántangó (1994)

Essential Viewing

Hungary/Germany/Switzerland

Feature Film

Director: Tarr Béla

Writers: Krasznahorkai László, Tarr Béla

Cinematographer: Medvigy Gábor

Composer: Vig Mihály

Cast: Vig Mihály, feLugossy László, Horváth Putyi, Albert Éva Almássy, Derzsi János, Szajki Irén, Járai Alfréd, Székely B. Miklós, Gaál Erzsébet, Bók Erika, Peter Berling

Tarr’s mammoth adaptation of Krasznahorkai’s novel – a beautiful, lugubriously paced piece of Hungarian miserabilism, told in 12 interweaving, overlapping parts, using a tango like structure, centring on a failing, decaying collective farm – is a film of incredible formal elegance, historical, allegorical weight, and, above all else, a film reeking of humanity in all its lowest, most egregious forms. Iain.Stott

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Lila Says (2004)

Best Avoided

France/UK

Feature Film

Original Title: Lila dit ça

Director: Ziad Doueiri

Writers: Ziad Doueiri, Mark Lawrence, Joelle Touma, Chimo

Cinematographer: John Daly

Composer: Nitin Sawhney

Cast: Mohammed Khouas, Vahina Giocante, Karim Ben Haddou, Lotfi Chakri, Hamid Dkhissi, Edmonde Franchi, Carmen Lebbos

Vahina Giocante’s sexy, credible performance is the only thing of any real value in Doueiri’s adaptation of Chimo’s “autobiographical” novel - a tale of a cross-cultural romance between a provocative blonde and a shy Muslim - that never really convinces, and, with its constant promise of sex, which only leads to rape, it also leaves its viewers with something of an unpleasant aftertaste. Iain.Stott

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Container (2006)

Not Recommended

Sweden

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Lukas Moodysson

Cinematographers: Jesper Kurlandsky, Lukas Moodysson, Åsa Staffansson

Composers: Erik Holmquist, Jesper Kurlandsky

Narrator: Jena Malone

Cast: Peter Lorentzon, Mariha Åberg

Although something of an improvement on the embarrassing A Hole in My Heart (2004), Moodysson’s difficult, experimental film - comprising of sounds and images that have no direct links to each other, which attempt to take us into the mind of a troubled, sexually confused young man/woman - is still a long way short of his wonderful, early films, but, never the less, it just about manages to hold the attention. Iain.Stott

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Paris, Je T'Aime (2006)

Recommended

France/Germany

Short Film Compendium

Original Title: Paris, je t'aime

Directors: Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, The Coen Brothers, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Suwa Nobuhiro, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant

A collection of 18 short films, each set in a different area of Paris, on the subject of love, which, unsurprisingly are a mixed bunch, with most being merely diverting and often instantly forgettable, but a few shine above the rest: Van Sant’s understated tale of amour peut être, Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’s poignant look at maternal love, Suwa Nobuhiro's fantastical look at grief, Olivier Assayas’s wry tale about a drug dealer and an actress, Tom Tykwer’s plot-packed cross-cultural romance, and Alexander Payne’s bitter-sweet look at middle-aged loneliness all manage to stick in the memory. Iain.Stott

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In Between Class (1972)

Recommended

Iran

Short Film

Original Title: زنگ تفریح

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Writer: Massoud Madani

Cinematographer: Zarren Dasset Rastegar

Cast: Seyrouss Hassanpour

Kiarostami’s second film – an enigmatic tale about a young boy and his ball, and the trouble that they get into together – is a curious effort, and one that is often hard to decipher the overall point of, but it’s also a very human one, made with great (almost flashy!) skill, and is strangely, sensually moving. Iain.Stott

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Bread and Alley (1970)

Cautiously Recommended

Iran

Short Film

Original Title: نان و کوچه

Writer/Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Iranian master Kiarostami’s first short film is a simple tale of a young boy taking home some freshly purchased bread to his family, who must attempt to navigate an alley that houses a rather unfriendly stray dog, which proves to be an amusing if slight piece, which lacks the moral and allegorical depth of his best work. Iain.Stott

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Harvie Krumpet (2003)

Highly Recommended

Australia

Animated Short Film

Writer/Director/Animator: Adam Elliot

Narrator: Geoffrey Rush

Elliot’s Academy Award winning short film – a claymation cradle-to-the-nursing-home portrait of Harvie Krumpet, a Polish born, Tourettes suffering, militant vegetarian nudist – proves to be a blackly comic, gently satiric, and melancholy gem, which manages, in just 23 minutes, to credibly capture a man’s entire life on film. Iain.Stott

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La Ciénaga (2001)

Highly Recommended

Argentina/France/Spain

Feature Film

Original Title: La ciénaga

Writer/Director: Lucrecia Martel

Cinematographer: Hugo Colace

Cast: Mercedes Morán, Graciela Borges, Martín Adjemián, Leonora Balcarce, Silvia Baylé, Sofia Bertolotto, Juan Cruz Bordeu, Noelia Bravo Herrera, Maria Micol Ellero, Andrea López

Martel’s allegorical gem of a feature debut – an unflinchingly brutal yet alluringly sensual portrait of an atrophying bourgeois family, descending into alcoholism, racism, incest, apathy, and arrogance – proves itself to be a work of considerable intelligence, skill, and integrity, and one that marks the birth of a substantial talent. Iain.Stott

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Carrie (1976)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Brian De Palma

Writers: Lawrence D. Cohen, Brian De Palma

Cinematographer: Mario Tosi

Composer: Pino Donaggio

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, John Travolta

Carrie White (an outstanding Spacek), the product of a repressed upbringing at the hands of her deranged, fanatical Christian mother, a late bloomer, gets invited to the senior prom by the handsome, charismatic athlete Tommy Ross, but not all of her classmates wish her the dream night that she deserves, in De Palma’s viscerally entertaining horror film, which comes across like a remake of Psycho (1960) and American Graffiti (1973) directed by David Hamilton. Iain.Stott

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Vendredi Soir (2002)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Vendredi soir

Director: Claire Denis

Writers: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Claire Denis

Cinematographer: Agnès Godard

Composer: Dickon Hinchliffe

Cast: Valérie Lemercier, Vincent Lindon

Denis’s gorgeously sensual adaptation of Bernheim’s novel – depicting a brief encounter between an imaginative, sensitive woman, in the process of moving out of her flat and in with her boyfriend, and a handsome enigmatic stranger, whom she meets when a public transport strike brings Paris to a standstill – is a beautiful, sexy, and evocative work, which combines delightfully intimate photography with a sublimely compiled soundtrack to produce a truly erotic film. Iain.Stott

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Film Comment: The 10 Best Unreleased Films of 2000

1. In the Mood for Love (2000)
2. Platform (2000)
3. The Circle (2000)
4. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
5. Eureka (2000)
6. The Gleaners & I (2000)
7. Faithless (2000)
8. La Captive (2000)
9. Devils on the Doorstep (2000)
10. Voyages (1999)

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Film Comment: The 20 Best Released Films of 2000

1. Beau Travail (1999)
2. The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
3. A One and a Two... (2000)
4. The House of Mirth (2000)
5. Time Regained (1999)
6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
7. Almost Famous (2000)
8. Dancer in the Dark (2000)
9. You Can Count on Me (2000)
10. Wonder Boys (2000)
11. L'Humanité (1999)
12. Ratcatcher (1999)
13. George Washington (2000)
14. Gohatto (1999)
15. Croupier (1998)
16. Traffic (2000)
17. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
18. Erin Brockovich (2000)
19. Human Resources (1999)
20. The Colour of Paradise (1999)

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The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (1965)

Highly Recommended

Belgium

Feature Film

Original Title: De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen

Director: André Delvaux

Writers: Anna De Pagter, Johan Daisne, André Delvaux

Cinematographers: Ghislain Cloquet, Roland Delcour

Cast: Senne Rouffaer, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Hector Camerlynck, Hilde Uitterlinden, Annemarie Van Dijk, Hilda Van Roose

A timid school teacher harbours unrequited feelings for a beautiful and talented pupil of his, whom, when she graduates, disappears from his life seemingly forever; but some time later, after years of hollow and empty drifting, she, now a successful singer, wanders back into his life, in Delvaux’s subtle, unsettling, and disquieting examination of obsession, compulsion, and madness. Iain.Stott

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The Children Are Watching Us (1944)

Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: I bambini ci guardano

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Writers: Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Margherita Maglione, Cesare Giulio Viola, Cesare Zavattini

Cinematographers: Giuseppe Caracciolo, Romolo Garroni

Composer: Renzo Rossellini

Cast: Luciano De Ambrosis, Emilio Cigoli, Isa Pola, Adriano Rimoldi, Giovanna Cigoli

De Sica’s atypical bourgeois melodrama – a child’s-eye view of a messy marital break-up, highlighting the devastating effects that the selfish behaviour of adults can have upon their offspring – is an uneven film that is sometimes as obvious as its rather unimaginative title, but De Ambrosis’s outstanding juvenile performance and some nice visual flourishes from De Sica ensure that this wartime production is never anything less than entertaining and often quite moving. Iain.Stott

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Shoeshine (1946)

Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Sciuscià

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Writers: Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci, C.G. Viola, Cesare Zavattini

Cinematographer: Anchise Brizzi

Composer: Alessandro Cicognini

Cast: Franco Interlenghi, Rinaldo Smordoni, Annielo Mele, Bruno Ortenzi, Emilio Cigoli

De Sica’s moving examination of the effects of post-war privation on the children of Rome – focussing on two young friends that work as shoeshine boys, who are tricked into becoming accessories to burglary, and end up in a juvenile prison – is a passionate and heartfelt if perhaps occasionally slightly manipulative work, which tugs gently at the heartstrings. Iain.Stott

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The Nutty Professor (1963)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jerry Lewis

Writers: Jerry Lewis, Bill Richmond

Cinematographer: W. Wallace Kelley

Composer: Walter Scharf

Cast: Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Howard Morris, Elvia Allman

Lewis’s comic take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll & Hyde - in which Lewis’s timid, geeky science lecturer invents a potion that changes him into a brash, obnoxious, testosterone-dripping buffoon… whom everyone loves!?! – proves to be a gaudy, manic, delightfully satirical, and often quite hilarious look at contemporary social values. Iain.Stott

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Les Diaboliques (1955)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Les diaboliques

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writers: Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme Géronimi, Frédéric Grendel, René Masson, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac

Cinematographer: Armand Thirard

Composer: Georges Van Parys

Cast: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Pierre Larquey, Michel Serrault, Thérèse Dorny, Noël Roquevert, Yves-Marie Maurin

The wife and mistress of an abusive boarding school headmaster conspire to murder him, making it look like an accidental drowning, but when the body disappears its whereabouts causes tensions to rise, in Clouzot’s outstanding suspense thriller; a Hitchcockian gem, filled with thrills, shocks, laughter, and a great deal of humanity (in all its various forms). Iain.Stott

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Faces (1968)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: John Cassavetes

Cinematographer: Al Ruban

Cast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery

Cassavetes’s return to independent film-making after a mildly successful if rather unhappy flirtation with Hollywood – an intense, vital, and thoroughly authentic feeling portrait of unhappy, dysfunctional, alcohol-soaked lives – is, with its outstanding performances and improvisatory aesthetic, a powerful, painful, and quite brilliant masterpiece. Iain.Stott

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Ballad of a Soldier (1959)

Recommended

Soviet Union

Feature Film

Original Title: Баллада о солдате

Director: Grigori Chukhrai

Writers: Grigori Chukhrai, Valentin Ezhov

Cinematographers: Vladimir Nikolayev, Era Savelyeva

Composer: Mikhail Ziv

Cast: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova

Chukhrai’s episodic, Second World War film - depicting the bitter-sweet encounters of a 19-year-old war hero, using his well-earned leave to travel home to see his mother - is a desperately uneven affair; at times, with its engaging mix of ethereally beautiful photography, charmingly naturalistic performances, and very human plotting, it is quite wonderful, but the less said about the horrible and horribly sentimental score and the wince-inducing cheesiness of the final ten minutes, the better. Iain.Stott

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Love (1971)

Highly Recommended

Hungary

Feature Film

Original Title: Szerelem

Director: Makk Károly

Writers: Bacsó Péter, Déry Tibor

Cinematographer: Tóth János

Composer: Mihály András

Cast: Töröcsik Mari, Darvas Lili, Darvas Iván, Orsolya Erzsi

Based on the experiences of author Déry’s time as a political prisoner at the hands of Hungary’s repressive ‘50s regime, Makk’s stunning film - depicting the attempts of a wife to appease the feelings of her elderly, ailing mother-in-law by hiding the fact of her son's incarceration by perpetuating a white lie about his actual whereabouts - is a film of great intensity and invention, filled with affecting performances and jolting imagery, which will likely haunt its viewers' memories for years to come. Iain.Stott

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Le Boucher (1970)

Highly Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Le boucher

Writer/Director: Claude Chabrol

Cinematographer: Jean Rabier

Composer: Pierre Jansen

Cast: Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Pascal Ferone, Mario Beccara, William Guérault, Roger Rudel

Prolific Chabrol’s hard to categorise film – depicting a bizarrely romantic and tender (almost) romance between a gruff, mildly insecure butcher and a prim-and-proper yet assertive primary school headmistress, set against the backdrop of a small town suffering at the knifepoint of a serial killer – is a quite unique work, boasting two excellent performances, inventively effective mise en scène, and a cracking, portentous score. Iain.Stott

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29 Palms (2002)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

DTV Film

Director: Leonardo Ricagni

Writer: Tino Lucente

Cinematographer: Horacio Maira

Composer: Mario Grigorov

Cast: Jeremy Davies, Rachael Leigh Cook, Michael Rapaport, Chris O'Donnell, Jon Polito, G. Paul Davis a.k.a Litefoot, Russell Means, Keith David, Bill Pullman

Uruguayan Ricagni’s picaresque American debut - a convoluted yet amusing tale of greed, chance, and coincidence, set in the titular small town, revolving around a much sought after bag of money, depicting the misadventures of a group of rogues, misfits, and chancers - proves to be a shamefully entertaining, easily forgettable piece of nonsense. Iain.Stott

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Twentynine Palms (2003)

Highly Recommended

France/USA/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Bruno Dumont

Cinematographer: Georges Lechaptois

Cast: Katia Golubeva, David Wissak

Dumont’s polarising, deliberately paced provocation - a sensual, intriguing, and almost incident free journey through the Mojave desert, mixing scenes of (very noisy) sex, misfiring communication, and plenty of (rather gorgeous) sand-gazing - is a work that most people will hate, and even those that admire it will find it hard to like, but I doubt that anybody who manages to make it all the way through to the end will ever be able to forget it (though they may wish to.) Iain.Stott

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Thames Film (1986)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: William Raban

Narrator: John Hurt

Artist Raban, as he takes us on a journey down the eponymous river, juxtaposes images of decrepit, decaying docklands with archive film footage and readings from T.S. Eliot & Thomas Pennant, to paint a portrait of a nation in terminal, self-actualised decline. Iain.Stott

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Le Jour se Lève (1939)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Le jour se lève

Director: Marcel Carné

Writers: Jacques Viot, Jacques Prévert

Cinematographers: Philippe Agostini, André Bac, Albert Viguier

Composer: Maurice Jaubert

Cast: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules Berry

A never better Gabin plays a charming factory worker, who, the object of an armed siege, sits, chain-smoking away, remembering the lies and loves that led to him murdering a dog-training love rival, in Carné’s fatalistic magnum opus, a convincingly acted, poetically composed, and quite brilliant masterwork. Iain.Stott

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The Devil, Probably (1977)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Le diable probablement

Writer/Director: Robert Bresson

Cinematographer: Pasqualino De Santis

Composer: Philippe Sarde

Cast: Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc, Laetitia Carcano, Nicolas Deguy

Bresson’s bleak and pessimistic yet powerful, masterful, and vital penultimate film depicts the final days of a doleful young drop-out, who drifts from political meetings to religious gatherings to empty sexual encounters, as he rejects a world that seems hell-bent on self-destruction. Iain.Stott

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The Thin Red Line (1998)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Terrence Malick

Writers: Terrence Malick, James Jones

Cinematographer: John Toll

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Cast: Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, John Cusack, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte, Miranda Otto, Nick Stahl

A few minor quibbles aside – Zimmer’s score is, perhaps, a little too on the nose, and the starry cast can, on occasion, prove a little distracting – Malick’s dreamy, sensual adaptation of Jones’s Second World War novel, in which a platoon of American soldiers land at Guadalcanal and attempt to take a Japanese hill, is, never the less, a muscularly powerful yet meditative work, which shows acts of neither courage nor cowardice (staples of Hollywood war films), instead merely depicting human behaviour in all its fascinating anthropological detail. Iain.Stott

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The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

Highly Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Le journal d'une femme de chambre

Director: Luis Buñuel

Writers: Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière, Octave Mirbeau

Cinematographer: Roger Fellous

Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Georges Géret, Daniel Ivernel, Françoise Lugagne, Muni, Jean Ozenne, Michel Piccoli

The first film of Buñuel’s French period, and his first collaboration with Carrière – a masterful adaptation of Mirbeau’s 1900 novel, updating it to the 1930s, setting it against a backdrop of the rise of fascism, following a Parisian woman’s rise from chambermaid to mistress in an idyllic country town – proves to be one of the Spanish master’s more subtle films, filled with sardonic wit and composed performances, but it’s also one of his bleakest works, taking, as it does, such an all encompassing swipe at just about every level of society. Iain.Stott

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L'Appartement (1996)

Highly Recommended

France/Italy/Spain

Feature Film

Original Title: L'appartement

Writer/Director: Gilles Mimouni

Cinematographer: Thierry Arbogast

Composer: Peter Chase

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Romane Bohringer, Jean-Philippe Écoffey, Monica Bellucci

Mimouni’s very flashy but thoroughly entertaining feature debut - an intricately plotted romantic thriller, mixing great chunks of Hitchcock, a dollop of Shakespeare, and a dash of Kieslowski - is a consummately constructed film, boasting excellent performances, sumptuous photography and production design, and an ending to provoke, baffle, enrage, or inspire just about everyone. Iain.Stott

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Alice (1988)

Highly Recommended

Czechoslovakia/Switzerland/UK/West Germany

Animated Feature Film

Original Title: Neco z Alenky

Director: Jan Švankmajer

Writers: Jan Švankmajer, Lewis Carroll

Cienamtographer: Svatopluk Malý

Cast: Kristýna Kohoutová, Camilla Power (voice - English dub)

Demented Czech Genius Švankmajer’s disturbing (and definitive?) adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s much-adapted Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) - a dreamy tale of a young girl who follows a rabbit down a hole into a magical other world, or in this case, follows a rabbit, stuffed with sawdust, through a magic desk drawer into a world populated by delightfully inventive stop-motion wonders - is a film that will delight, revile, titillate, and scare silly people of all ages. Iain.Stott

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The Tenant (1976)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Le locataire

Director: Roman Polanski

Writers: Gérard Brach, Roman Polanski, Roland Topor

Cinematographer: Sven Nykvist

Composer: Philippe Sarde

Cast: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, Romain Bouteille, Shelley Winters

A timid Polish immigrant (a wonderful Polanski) delightedly moves into a vacant Paris apartment when its previous tenant commits suicide, but before long he becomes convinced that his neighbours are conspiring against him, in Polanski’s most purely enjoyable film – a creepy, hilarious, unsettling, and perfectly crafted paranoid nightmare. Iain.Stott

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