Argentina, 1985

Strassera and Ocampo in court

In classic Hollywood triumph-over-adversity style, Argentina, 1985 deals with weighty events in a superbly accessible way as it tells the story of the lawyer who put the dictatorial Argentinian Junta on trial and saw that they got their judicial just deserts. It was a big film in Argentina, understandably, but also got nominated for an Oscar in the best international feature category – against tough competition (Eo, The Quiet Girl, Close and, most of all, All Quiet on the Western Front) – and that has to be on the strength of its writing, which is lucid and brisk, and the direction, which makes regular use of Hollywood shorthand to keep things moving. If … Read more

A Face in the Crowd

Larry on live TV

Loved by Truffaut, borrowed by Spike Lee, strangely overlooked today, A Face in the Crowd is a prescient film from 1957 that uses the word “influencer”, is worried about demagogues in public life, the corrupting effect of the media and the weird lives of celebrities. It’s directed by Elia Kazan, a man with an eye for for a political meme – he did Gentleman’s Agreement (anti-semitism) and On the Waterfront (union corruption) – and was made five years after he’d testified to the House Unamerican Activities Committee and “named names”. The febrile McCarthyite atmosphere of the times is partly what Kazan and regular writer Budd Schulberg are tilting at in the story of … Read more

Both Sides of the Blade

Jean and Sara in the sea

Revered arthouse director Claire Denis starts Both Sides of the Blade with an almost subliminal reference to Jaws. A couple wade into the sea. The soundtrack growls ominously. But only for maybe half a second. Then it pivots spectacularly into something gooey, gentle and romantic. We see the faces of the couple. It’s Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon, looking ecstatically happy. They stare fondly into each other’s eyes. They touch and caress each other. They laugh. Later, in their room, they make love. Still later, back at their apartment in Paris, their holiday over, the first thing they do is make love again. But that growl. Something is lurking. We learn what it … Read more

The Professional/Le Professionel

Jean-Paul Belmondo

If you’ve ever wondered where to start with Jean-Paul Belmondo but have no taste for the French New Wave, The Professional might be the film for you. Released in 1981, it’s a pacy, light-hearted action movie not unlike a 1970s Bond movie, though Belmondo is more Sean Connery than Roger Moore. Belmondo plays the French government hitman sent to an African republic to kill its president. En route, the political wind changes direction and Joss Beaumont (Belmondo) ends up being sold out by the very people who sent him on the job. As the film opens he is in an African court off his face on zombifying truth drugs and testifying to his … Read more

The Forgiven

The boy's father, David, host Richard and the police

Lush and lovely and slightly empty, The Forgiven is the clockwork toy that fails to march. And it all looks so promising to start with. The opening moments alone really get the hopes up – that saturated colour red of the scrolling credits seems to be offering a vast 1960s-style epic à la Lawrence of Arabia, the North African settings suggest maybe Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky and the presence of Ralph Fiennes hints at another The English Patient maybe. Fiennes and Jessica Chastain play the bickering married couple who knock down and kill a young Moroccan fossil seller one night while en route to a party out at some huge swish villa in … Read more

Les Tontons Flingueurs aka Crooks in Clover

Lino Ventura as Fernand

There’s something about 1963’s Les Tontons Flingueurs as a title that sounds wackier, funnier, just better than the usual English translation – Crooks in Clover. The film also goes by the name Monsieur Gangster but the original French literally translates as Gunslinging Uncles. Tontons Flingueurs is better because it sounds a bit ridiculous, and that’s really what’s going on in this amusing French drama from 1963, often described as a comedy but only properly funny if you speak French. Michel Audiard’s screenplays deal heavily in slang and wordplay and neither of those quite survive the translation into English. The film has a real cachet in France; elsewhere barely any. If like me you’re … Read more

Neon Bull

Iremar at the sewing machine

Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) is a bull handler who travels from one Brazilian rodeo to another. It’s a life lived on the road, with a small gang of fellow nomads. They pitch up, do their job, then move on. Like a little family they eat together, joke, squabble. They have each others’ backs. Iremar is the guy who puts chalk on the bulls’ tails, so the guys on horseback out in the arena can better grab a hold (these rodeos seem to consist of grabbing the tail and flipping the bull onto its back). By day he applies chalk, opens the gate into the arena to let the bulls run, then cleans up afterwards, … Read more

The Bullet Train

Sonny Chiba as train driver Aoki

Disaster movies summed up in one factoid: Airport (1970) to Airplane! (1980). You’re welcome. The Bullet Train comes slap dang in the middle, 1975, and though it’s often sold as being the inspiration for 1994’s Speed, which it is, it’s just as significant for being a grand summing-up of the entire disaster movie genre. Let’s deal with the Speed stuff first. A bomb has been fitted to one particular Japanese bullet train, or shinkansen (Shinkansen daibakuha is the Japanese title), on the Tokyo to Hakata route. Once the train reaches 80kph the bomb becomes armed. After that, if the speed drops below 80kph, the bomb will detonate. So far, so Sandra Bullock. But … Read more

The Banshees of Inisherin

Colm sits while Pádraic broods outside at the window

The films of Martin McDonagh are full of lonely, isolated people and The Banshees of Inisherin is no exception. Like In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri before it, this is the story of missed or missing connections. This time, though, it’s particularly bleak. Billed as a comedy, The Banshees of Inisherin isn’t full of laughs, and they tend to come early on. Things get darker as the film goes on. It reinstates the In Bruges coupling of Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, here as longtime friends who live on an island off the coast of Ireland in 1923. While the civil war has been raging away just over there … Read more

A Special Day

Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni appeared in many films together, but in 1977’s A Special Day they both play against type – she’s the dowdy housewife rather than the glamour bomb, he’s a gay man rather than the straight Italian lover, two characters thrown together after pretty much everyone else in their apartment block has rushed out into the streets hoping to catch sight of the Führer or Il Duce on the day that Hitler visited Mussolini in 1938. They may live in the same block but Antonietta and Gabriele have never met. She’s always too busy looking after her six kids and husband (John Vernon), and he’s always at work. Or always … Read more