Vive l'Amour (1994)

Essential ViewingTaiwanFeature FilmOriginal Title: 愛情萬歲Director: Tsai Ming-liangWriters: Tsai Ming-liang, Tsai Yi-chun, Yang Pi-yingCinematographers: Liao Pen-jung, Lin Ming-kuoCast: Chen Chao-jung, Lee Kang-sheng, Yang Kuei-MeiVive 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...

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Zombie Honeymoon (2004)

RecommendedUSAFeature FilmWriter/Director: David GebroeCinematographer: Ken SengComposer: Michael TremanteCast: Tracy Coogan, Graham Sibley, Tonya Cornelisse, David M. Wallace, Neal JonesA 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...

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The Bench (2000)

Highly RecommendedDenmarkFeature FilmOriginal Title: BænkenDirector: Per FlyWriters: Per Fly, Kim LeonaCinematographer: Jørgen JohanssonComposer: Halfdan ECast: Jesper Christensen, Stine Holm Joensen, Marius Sonne Janischefska, Nicolaj Kopernikus, Jens AlbinusPer 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...

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Jaws (1975)

Cautiously RecommendedUSAFeature FilmDirector: Steven SpielbergWriters: Peter Benchley, Carl GottliebCinematographer: Bill ButlerComposer: John WilliamsCast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray HamiltonSpielberg’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...

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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

RecommendedUSAFeature FilmDirector: Jonathan DemmeWriters: Ted Tally, Thomas HarrisCinematographer: Tak FujimotoComposer: Howard ShoreCast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Ted Levine, Brooke SmithHopkins’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,...

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Scully (1975)

UKNovelAuthor: Alan BleasdaleBleasdale’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...

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Ace in the Hole (1951)

Essential ViewingUSAFeature FilmDirector: Billy WilderWriters: Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels, Billy WilderCinematographer: Charles B. Lang Jr.Composer: Hugo FriedhoferCast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Bob Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, Richard Benedict, Ray Teal, Lewis Martin, John BerkesDouglas’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...

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Muriel ou Le Temps d'un Retour (1963)

RecommendedFrance/Italy/West GermanyFeature FilmOriginal Title: Muriel ou Le temps d'un retourDirector: Alain ResnaisWriter: Jean CayrolCinematographer: Sacha ViernyComposer: Hans Werner HenzeCast: Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste ThiérréeThe 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,...

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La Guerre Est Finie (1966)

RecommendedFrance/SwedenFeature FilmOriginal Title: La guerre est finieDirector: Alain ResnaisWriter: Jorge SemprúnCinematographer: Sacha ViernyComposer: Giovanni FuscoCast: Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin, Geneviève Bujold, Jean Dasté, Dominique Rozan, Jean-François RémiAlain 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...

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About Schmidt (2002)

RecommendedUSAFeature FilmDirector: Alexander PayneWriters: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, Louis BegleyCinematographer: James GlennonComposer: Rolfe KentCast: Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot MulroneyA 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...

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Elgar (1962)

RecommendedUKShort Television DocumentarySeries Title: Monitor (1958-1965)Director: Ken RussellWriters: Ken Russell, Huw WheldonCinematographer: Kenneth HigginsNarrator: Huw WheldonCast: Peter Brett, Rowena Gregory, George McGrathThe 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.St...

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Coast to Coast (1987)

RecommendedUKTelevision FilmSeries Title: Screen Two (1985-1994)Director: Sandy JohnsonWriter: Stan HeyCinematographer: Colin MunnComposer: Alasdair MacNeillCast: Lenny Henry, John Shea, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Vaughan, George Baker, Cherie Lunghi, Paul BownTwo 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,...

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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. CRITICI...

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Edvard Munch (1974)

Essential ViewingNorway/SwedenTelevision Mini-SeriesWriter/Director/Narrator: Peter WatkinsCinematographer: Odd Geir SætherCast: Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Johan Halsborg, Ladislaw Reznicek, Alf Kare StrindbergWatkins’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...

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Searchers 2.0 (2007)

RecommendedUSAFeature FilmWriter/Director: Alex CoxCinematographer: Steven FierbergComposer: Dan WoolCast: Del Zamora, Ed Pansullo, Jaclyn Jonet, Sy Richardson, Zahn McClarnonTwo 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...

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Gunrush (2009)

Best AvoidedUKTelevision FilmDirector: Richard ClarkWriter: Richard CottanCinematographer: Balazs BolygoCast: Timothy Spall, Jacob Anderson, Aml Ameen, Frances Ashman, Adam Deacon, Deborah Findlay, Carrie Mullan, Nicholas Beveney, David Harewood, Paul KayeChannelling 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...

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Donkey Punch (2008)

Cautiously RecommendedUKFeature FilmDirector: Oliver BlackburnWriters: Oliver Blackburn, David BloomCinematographer: Nanu SegalComposer: François-Eudes ChanfraultCast: Nichola Burley, Julian Morris, Jaime Winstone, Robert Boulter, Tom Burke, Jay Taylor, Sian BreckinBlackburn’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...

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Northern Exposure: Season 6 (1994-1995)

USATelevision SeriesProducer: David ChaseCreators: Joshua Brand, John FalseyCast: Paul Provenza, Teri Polo, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips, Rob MorrowThe 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...

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Northern Exposure: Season 5 (1993-1994)

USATelevision SeriesProducer: David ChaseCast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg PhillipsThe 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...

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Northern Exposure: Season 4 (1992-1993)

USATelevision SeriesCreators: Joshua Brand, John FalseyCast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips, Anthony EdwardsAnother 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...

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Northern Exposure: Season 3 (1991-1992)

USATelevision SeriesCreators: Joshua Brand, John FalseyCast: Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, Cynthia Geary, Elaine Miles, Peg Phillips, Adam ArkinIf 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...

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Radio Parade of 1935 (1934)

RecommendedUKFeature FilmDirector: Arthur WoodsWriters: James Bunting, Jack Davies Jr., Paul PerezCinematographers: Cyril Bristow, Claude Friese-Greene, Phil GrindrodComposers: Lawrence Brewis, Bob Busby, Carl Foulke, Benjamin Frankel, Hans May, Jimmy Messini, Arthur YoungCast: Clifford Mollison, Helen Chandler, Will Hay, The Western Bros., The Three Sailors, Haver and Lee, Clapham and Dwyer, Alberta HunterThe head of the complaints department at...

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Sátántangó (1994)

Essential ViewingHungary/Germany/SwitzerlandFeature FilmDirector: Tarr BélaWriters: Krasznahorkai László, Tarr BélaCinematographer: Medvigy GáborComposer: Vig MihályCast: Vig Mihály, feLugossy László, Horváth Putyi, Albert Éva Almássy, Derzsi János, Szajki Irén, Járai Alfréd, Székely B. Miklós, Gaál Erzsébet, Bók Erika, Peter BerlingTarr’s mammoth adaptation of Krasznahorkai’s novel – a beautiful, lugubriously paced piece of Hungarian miserabilism,...

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Lila Says (2004)

Best AvoidedFrance/UKFeature FilmOriginal Title: Lila dit çaDirector: Ziad DoueiriWriters: Ziad Doueiri, Mark Lawrence, Joelle Touma, ChimoCinematographer: John DalyComposer: Nitin SawhneyCast: Mohammed Khouas, Vahina Giocante, Karim Ben Haddou, Lotfi Chakri, Hamid Dkhissi, Edmonde Franchi, Carmen LebbosVahina 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,...

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Container (2006)

Not RecommendedSwedenFeature FilmWriter/Director: Lukas MoodyssonCinematographers: Jesper Kurlandsky, Lukas Moodysson, Åsa StaffanssonComposers: Erik Holmquist, Jesper KurlandskyNarrator: Jena MaloneCast: Peter Lorentzon, Mariha ÅbergAlthough 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...

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Paris, Je T'Aime (2006)

RecommendedFrance/GermanyShort Film CompendiumOriginal Title: Paris, je t'aimeDirectors: 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 SantA collection of 18 short films, each set in a different area of Paris, on the subject of love, which, unsurprisingly...

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In Between Class (1972)

RecommendedIranShort FilmOriginal Title: زنگ تفریحDirector: Abbas KiarostamiWriter: Massoud MadaniCinematographer: Zarren Dasset RastegarCast: Seyrouss HassanpourKiarostami’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,...

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Bread and Alley (1970)

Cautiously RecommendedIranShort FilmOriginal Title: نان و کوچهWriter/Director: Abbas KiarostamiIranian 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.St...

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Harvie Krumpet (2003)

Highly RecommendedAustraliaAnimated Short FilmWriter/Director/Animator: Adam ElliotNarrator: Geoffrey RushElliot’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.St...

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La Ciénaga (2001)

Highly RecommendedArgentina/France/SpainFeature FilmOriginal Title: La ciénagaWriter/Director: Lucrecia MartelCinematographer: Hugo ColaceCast: Mercedes Morán, Graciela Borges, Martín Adjemián, Leonora Balcarce, Silvia Baylé, Sofia Bertolotto, Juan Cruz Bordeu, Noelia Bravo Herrera, Maria Micol Ellero, Andrea LópezMartel’s allegorical gem of a feature debut – an unflinchingly brutal yet alluringly sensual portrait of an atrophying bourgeois family,...

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Carrie (1976)

Highly RecommendedUSAFeature FilmDirector: Brian De PalmaWriters: Lawrence D. Cohen, Brian De PalmaCinematographer: Mario TosiComposer: Pino DonaggioCast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, John TravoltaCarrie 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...

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Vendredi Soir (2002)

Essential ViewingFranceFeature FilmOriginal Title: Vendredi soirDirector: Claire DenisWriters: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Claire DenisCinematographer: Agnès GodardComposer: Dickon HinchliffeCast: Valérie Lemercier, Vincent LindonDenis’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,...

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Film Comment: The 10 Best Unreleased Films of 2000

In the Mood for Love (2000) Platform (2000) The Circle (2000) Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Eureka (2000) The Gleaners & I (2000) Faithless (2000) La Captive (2000) Devils on the Doorstep (2000) Voyages (19...

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Film Comment: The 20 Best Released Films of 2000

Beau Travail (1999) The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) A One and a Two... (2000) The House of Mirth (2000) Time Regained (1999) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Almost Famous (2000) Dancer in the Dark (2000) You Can Count on Me (2000) Wonder Boys (2000) L'Humanité (1999) Ratcatcher (1999) George Washington (2000) Gohatto (1999) Croupier (1998) Traffic ...

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The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (1965)

Highly RecommendedBelgiumFeature FilmOriginal Title: De man die zijn haar kort liet knippenDirector: André DelvauxWriters: Anna De Pagter, Johan Daisne, André DelvauxCinematographers: Ghislain Cloquet, Roland DelcourCast: Senne Rouffaer, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Hector Camerlynck, Hilde Uitterlinden, Annemarie Van Dijk, Hilda Van RooseA 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,...

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The Children Are Watching Us (1944)

RecommendedItalyFeature FilmOriginal Title: I bambini ci guardanoDirector: Vittorio De SicaWriters: Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Margherita Maglione, Cesare Giulio Viola, Cesare ZavattiniCinematographers: Giuseppe Caracciolo, Romolo GarroniComposer: Renzo RosselliniCast: Luciano De Ambrosis, Emilio Cigoli, Isa Pola, Adriano Rimoldi, Giovanna CigoliDe Sica’s atypical bourgeois melodrama – a child’s-eye view of a messy marital...

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Shoeshine (1946)

RecommendedItalyFeature FilmOriginal Title: SciusciàDirector: Vittorio De SicaWriters: Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci, C.G. Viola, Cesare ZavattiniCinematographer: Anchise BrizziComposer: Alessandro CicogniniCast: Franco Interlenghi, Rinaldo Smordoni, Annielo Mele, Bruno Ortenzi, Emilio CigoliDe 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...

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The Nutty Professor (1963)

RecommendedUSAFeature FilmDirector: Jerry LewisWriters: Jerry Lewis, Bill RichmondCinematographer: W. Wallace KelleyComposer: Walter ScharfCast: Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Howard Morris, Elvia AllmanLewis’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!?!...

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Les Diaboliques (1955)

Highly RecommendedFranceFeature FilmOriginal Title: Les diaboliquesDirector: Henri-Georges ClouzotWriters: Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme Géronimi, Frédéric Grendel, René Masson, Pierre Boileau, Thomas NarcejacCinematographer: Armand ThirardComposer: Georges Van ParysCast: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Pierre Larquey, Michel Serrault, Thérèse Dorny, Noël Roquevert, Yves-Marie MaurinThe wife and mistress...

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Faces (1968)

Essential ViewingUSAFeature FilmWriter/Director: John CassavetesCinematographer: Al RubanCast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val AveryCassavetes’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...

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Ballad of a Soldier (1959)

RecommendedSoviet UnionFeature FilmOriginal Title: Баллада о солдатеDirector: Grigori ChukhraiWriters: Grigori Chukhrai, Valentin EzhovCinematographers: Vladimir Nikolayev, Era SavelyevaComposer: Mikhail ZivCast: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina MaksimovaChukhrai’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...

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Love (1971)

Highly RecommendedHungaryFeature FilmOriginal Title: SzerelemDirector: Makk KárolyWriters: Bacsó Péter, Déry TiborCinematographer: Tóth JánosComposer: Mihály AndrásCast: Töröcsik Mari, Darvas Lili, Darvas Iván, Orsolya ErzsiBased 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...

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Le Boucher (1970)

Highly RecommendedFrance/ItalyFeature FilmOriginal Title: Le boucherWriter/Director: Claude ChabrolCinematographer: Jean RabierComposer: Pierre JansenCast: Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Pascal Ferone, Mario Beccara, William Guérault, Roger RudelProlific 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...

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29 Palms (2002)

Cautiously RecommendedUSADTV FilmDirector: Leonardo RicagniWriter: Tino LucenteCinematographer: Horacio MairaComposer: Mario GrigorovCast: Jeremy Davies, Rachael Leigh Cook, Michael Rapaport, Chris O'Donnell, Jon Polito, G. Paul Davis a.k.a Litefoot, Russell Means, Keith David, Bill PullmanUruguayan 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...

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Twentynine Palms (2003)

Highly RecommendedFrance/USA/GermanyFeature FilmWriter/Director: Bruno DumontCinematographer: Georges LechaptoisCast: Katia Golubeva, David WissakDumont’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...

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Thames Film (1986)

RecommendedUKFeature DocumentaryDirector/Cinematographer: William RabanNarrator: John HurtArtist 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.St...

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Le Jour se Lève (1939)

Essential ViewingFranceFeature FilmOriginal Title: Le jour se lèveDirector: Marcel CarnéWriters: Jacques Viot, Jacques PrévertCinematographers: Philippe Agostini, André Bac, Albert ViguierComposer: Maurice JaubertCast: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules BerryA 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...

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The Devil, Probably (1977)

Highly RecommendedFranceFeature FilmOriginal Title: Le diable probablementWriter/Director: Robert BressonCinematographer: Pasqualino De SantisComposer: Philippe SardeCast: Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc, Laetitia Carcano, Nicolas DeguyBresson’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...

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The Thin Red Line (1998)

Highly RecommendedUSAFeature FilmDirector: Terrence MalickWriters: Terrence Malick, James JonesCinematographer: John TollComposer: Hans ZimmerCast: Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, John Cusack, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte, Miranda Otto, Nick StahlA 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...

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The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

Highly RecommendedFrance/ItalyFeature FilmOriginal Title: Le journal d'une femme de chambreDirector: Luis BuñuelWriters: Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière, Octave MirbeauCinematographer: Roger FellousCast: Jeanne Moreau, Georges Géret, Daniel Ivernel, Françoise Lugagne, Muni, Jean Ozenne, Michel PiccoliThe first film of Buñuel’s French period, and his first collaboration with Carrière – a masterful adaptation of Mirbeau’s 1900 novel, updating it...

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L'Appartement (1996)

Highly RecommendedFrance/Italy/SpainFeature FilmOriginal Title: L'appartementWriter/Director: Gilles MimouniCinematographer: Thierry ArbogastComposer: Peter ChaseCast: Vincent Cassel, Romane Bohringer, Jean-Philippe Écoffey, Monica BellucciMimouni’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...

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Alice (1988)

Highly RecommendedCzechoslovakia/Switzerland/UK/West GermanyAnimated Feature FilmOriginal Title: Neco z AlenkyDirector: Jan ŠvankmajerWriters: Jan Švankmajer, Lewis CarrollCienamtographer: Svatopluk MalýCast: 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...

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The Tenant (1976)

Highly RecommendedFranceFeature FilmOriginal Title: Le locataireDirector: Roman PolanskiWriters: Gérard Brach, Roman Polanski, Roland ToporCinematographer: Sven NykvistComposer: Philippe SardeCast: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, Romain Bouteille, Shelley WintersA timid Polish immigrant (a wonderful Polanski) delightedly moves into a vacant Paris apartment when its previous tenant commits suicide, but before long he...

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