Memento (2000): review: 9/10

 *

Memory loss affects an insurance investigator. 

He attempts to trace his actions, making use of a Polaroid camera

 Unusual film, a sot of Noir, with many provocative ideas about experience, identity and responsibility.

 It is elegantly filmed by Christopher Nolan and beautifully acted by Guy Pierce.

*

Panic (2000): review: 7.5/10

A contract killer, married with a child and middle class, who works for his father, enters therapy: the therapist challenges his passive attitude to his domineering father. In the therapist's lobby, the killer also encounters an attractive young woman, with whom he becomes entranced.

This is an effective and elegantly balanced play whose humour is based on role inversions, and is well sustained throughout by all the cast.

What Women Want: (2000): review: 8/10

An advertising executive, known for exhibiting sexist attitudes, loses his position as creative director to a woman: not long after he mysteriously gains the ability to hear the thoughts of women. He also has to deal with his 15 year old daughter.

A highly successful romantic comedy, full of amusing incidents, perfectly paced and scripted.

The Weight of Water (2000): review- 5.5/10

An island in New Hampshire: for a magazine commission, a photographer visits the site of a murder in the 1900s together with her lover, his brother and new girlfriend.

In the course of her visit, the murder case is examined using flashbacks.

The films falls on its own seriousness, becoming self-important despite the good acting. I suspect the director wished to make a serious film, but did not, in truth, really know what she wished to say. The film is completely without humour- an essential ingredient in all truly serious art, ironically enough.

Contrast with the same director's "Hurt Locker", which is defintely serious, and yet which contains flashes of dark humour. For it is in humour, far more than tragedy that artists shows their ability to relate to their audiences.

All the Pretty Horses (2000): review- 3/10

Two Texan youths ride to Mexico to seek work. On the way they are joined by a third, a fugitive.

They work on a horse ranch: one of the Texans makes the mistake of falling for the wealthy ranch-owner's daughter, played by tiresome Penelope pucker-lips Cruz.

If the film has central themes, they are "friendship" or "foreignness": however, it is too blandly directed to excite.

The Whole Nine Yards (2000): review- 6/10

In suburban Montreal, a contract killer moves in next door to a dentist who is having maritial difficulties.

Slick farce with good acting and funny scenes: the sort of film that is good to watch on long-haul flights.

Dancer in the Dark (2000): review- 4/10

Bjork plays a Czech immigrant who is going blind from a congenital disorder. She works in a factory and saves her money to pay for an operation for her son, to prevent him too from going blind. When her landlord tries to steal this money she kills him: she is subsequently found guilty of murder and hung.

The film includes various songs, written and performed by Bjork, and is essentially an anti-capital punishment film.

The film is a mish-mash, featuring shaky camera work, improvised acting, questionable singing, sketchy dancing and a strange limping pace. At times all this is touching; at others, it is just amateurish. It is also rather too long.