Brief Encounter (1945): review: 10/10

 * 

An unhappily married woman meets an unhappily married man in a provincial English railway station. They fall in love. Paralleling this are scenes depicting the relationships of working class people in the station café where much of the action takes place.

The film contrasts, with considerable subtlety, the woman`s inner life and her relationships with her tiresome friends and blasé husband. It makes fine use of Rachmaninoff`s piano concerto and features superb camerawork.

Concise and beautiful, Brief Encounter is both time/place specific and universal. The acting is brilliant.

Raging Bull (1980): review: 10/10

 *

The story of Jake LaMotta, boxer, then nightclub owner and stand up comedian.

The film describes the Italian community in New York, its tastes and social structures. It presents the individuals and commercial systems supporting  LaMotta`s rise, as well as his jealousy, inclination to domestic violence, courage, determination and self-pity.

Startling performances wonderfully shot in black and white throughout, maintaining sympathy for the lead: somehow one cannot not dismiss LaMotta despite his huge lapses in character.

The Squid and the Whale (2005) : review: 10/10

A New York couple, both writers and fundamentally selfish, divorce: they have two boys. The film is a blow by blow account of the separation, as the younger boy stays with his mother and the elder goes with his father.  The elder carries forward the resentment and hostility of the father, whose behaviour is often childish and hostile.

The boys evolving sexual attitudes are described as they each find love objects: the attiude of the elder coloured by resentments towards his mother. The father finds a much younger girlfriend, and the mother comences an affair with the family tennis coach: ergo, further complicatons.

Excellently acted, well paced, painful and credible, with a black comic edge that keeps it entertaining.

Glen or Glenda (1953): review: 10/10

Transvestitism and pseudo-hermaphroditism as seen in two cases. Dr Alton, psychiatrist, explains, Ed Wood acts. Bela Lugosi is a sort of insane alchemist, whose role is not entirely explained.

The case of Glen/Glenna takes up the major part of the film. Unkown to his fiancee, Glen delights in wearing woman's clothing- he worries about how his fiancee will react when he tells her.

As described, both conditions seem quite normal responses to the apparant joylessness of the male condition.  It is unclear how much of the humour is intentional  (a large part of it arises from the gleeful descriptions of men in women's underclothes) but as far as the film is comical, it is not so much at the expense of individuals portrayed- as the film is never mean-spirited- as the documentary genre itself, and that mental condition know as "political correctness".

This  film is magnificent- watch it for an antidote to the great wave of worthiness and joylessness that has swept across the film world. While the directorial techniques are often naive, even amateur, this happily adds to the charm of the piece.

Me You and Everone We Know (2005): review: 10/10

A shoe-seller is separated: he has two children and they move into a suburb. The children communicate on the internet with strangers. The shoe-seller becomes the love-object of  curly headed, kind hearted, frumpy artist. The artist sends her work to a severe woman who runs a contemporary art gallery: she is most amusingly portrayed. The characters evolve and cross.

The film contains many splendidly directed vignettes, tightly observed and often hovering strangely on an edge between comedy and pathos. They effectively describe a sort of boredom,  like a sense of strained anticipation that is familiar in suburbs. The characters are viewed with both compassion and humour: they are very nearly treated sentimentally, but there is a sense in the film throughout of the potential for violence and cruelty in human relationships that lends each scene vitality.

The Young Lions (1958): review: 10/10

This is a complex film depicting the parallel careers of two pairs of soldiers. the first a German, occasionally troubled by his conscience, then another German officer who seemingly lacks an internal life at all, and who is primarily a cypher for German millitary will.

The second pair are Americans, one an entertainer, well built, though cowardly, who befriends and learns from the the second, a scrawny, nervous Jewish American conscript from New York. This second conscript is bullied by his unit, but he confrots his tormentors, going on to prove himself to be courageous, large spirited individual.

There are subplots involving women: while the callous German has a cold-hearted blonde wife, the Americans have supportive partners. The partner of the Jewish is of a old protestant family, and initially the father of the family is dubious about his daughter's consort, even though he is a loyal and loving companion. By contrast, the relationship of the entertainer is initially marked by  the entertainer's selfishness, self-pity and short-sightedness. These qualities which are overcome by the supportive criticisms of his partner.

The film ends, very effectively, with the liberation of a concentration camp.

The film succeeds in avoiding too an overt message- though one could argue that it makes clear  statements about unselfishness, pride and the need for courage and patriotism to be allied to conscience- but is exciting and psychologically involving. The acting is universally superb.

Don't Look Now (1973): review: 10/10

Following the death of a child, a couple go to Venice, where they encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom has mystical powers.

The film is an exploration of grief, love, and  the need to believe, or the possibility of believing in the supernatiural.

So well filmed and acted is the piece that we viewers become partners in this exploration. This identification is largely thanks to Julie Christie's excellence, which succeeds in eliciting compassion.

Night of the Hunter (1955): review: 10/10

A man steals some money and, before he is given the death penalty, tells his young son to keep it hidden and its location secret.

A dishonest preacher, having shared a cell with the thief, knows about the money, but not where it is hidden. On leaving jail the preacher inveigles his way into the thief's widow's life, marrying her, with a view to locating the money.

The film is imaginatively shot and not humourless despite its dark themes. The acting, even of the children, is excellent.

A considerable amount of time is given to the role of women in small town society, and their relations with alternatively charismatic or subservient men. The film also dwells largely on the uses of scripture and of religious values.

The Third Man (1949): review: 10/10

Just after the war an Amercan  writer of Westerns goes to occupied Vienna to take from emploment from his old friend Harry Lime, a racketeer.

The themes of friendship, evil, love, and loss are pursued though Graham Greene's witty script- the film wears its messages lightly, it's seriousness countered by playful aesthetic effects of lighting, music and an almost insoucient acting style.

Elmer Gantry (1960): review- 10/10

A salesman of domestic appliances, down on his luck, is enchanted by a female evangelist: he uses his sales skills to join her religious movement, to promote the Gospel and to get closer to her.

An extraordinary film: it is impossible not to delight in theatrical trickster Gantry, who is played with great suppleness by Burt Lancaster. And each scene is shot through with an ambiguity, wit and irony that allows the film to breathe.

Mary Poppins (1964): review- 10/10

Edwardian London: a nanny is hired to look after the two children of a pompous banker and his sufragette wife.

Astonishing and delightful, with scenes that read like acid trips: there are supurb performances throughout.

Taxi Driver (1976): review- 10/10

An insomniac Vietnam vet turned taxi driver takes objection to the moral condition of his New York and, wearing a new "Mohican" hairstyle, shoots several people.

Hauntingly filmed with mesmeric performances.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975): review- 10/10

Dreamlike film about the unknown forces of nature.

It is centred round the experiences of a group of school girls and their teachers in relation to a picnic in the Australian countryside.

It touches elegently on themes relating to the breakdown of social order, adolescent sexuality, repression and mystery and features beautiful cinematography and music.

If....(1964): review- 10/10

Tightly filmed satire on English Public Schools, whose wonderful acting and witty script saves it from pompousity.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968): review- 10/10

The film shows the lives a run of people in a southern town in the late sixties. It gives particular attention to a deaf mute and the daughter of his landlady who wishes to become a musician.

Excellently acted and beautifully filmed, the film touches on a number of themes- anger, forgiveness, racism, love, poverty and despair.

Gummo (1997): review- 10/10

Entrancing film portraying mainly adolescent inhabitants of Xenia, Ohio, a town that had some few years before been hit by a tornado.

The film catalogues the curious degenerate tendencies of these characters- this alone would make the film fascinating.

However, in addition, the film is styled with great flair, even beauty, so that however grim the behaviour on display, the film almost serves as a celebration of the town.

There Will be Blood (2007): review- 10/10

Serious, long and vivid: an oilman is consumed by hatred and anger, and conflicts with a strong willed pastor.

The film is exquisitely paced and features beautiful photography and evocative music. The acting is utterly convincing.