Steve

Sound of Falling aka In die Sonne schauen

by
Hanna Heckt as young Alma

A remarkable “if these walls could talk” movie set in the same big farmhouse over the generations, Sound of Falling (In die Sonne schauen, in the original German), is a bold and hypnotic drama starting with the eye-catching image of a pretty young woman with one leg hobbling along on crutches. It turns out that the young woman doesn’t have a leg missing at all. She’s just tied it up, possibly in sympathy with the young man who is lying feverishly in bed in an adjoining room. He really does have a leg missing, though what Erika most notices about him when she looks in on him is the way his sweat is … Read more

Without Pity aka Senza Pietà

by
Jerry and Angela at a funfair

Matter-of-fact neorealism meets its opposite, torrid melodrama, in Senza Pietà, aka Without Pity. Remarkably, it’s a successful meeting of equals, probably thanks to director Alberto Lattuada’s decision to go at his material at breakneck pace. Whatever else you can accuse this film of, it isn’t slow or lacking in incident. It throws its two main characters together early on. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, displaced Italian Angela (Carla Del Poggio) is hitching a ride when she first bumps into Jerry Jackson (John Kitzmiller), a black US sergeant who jumps onto the goods train Angela is on and winds up taking a bullet for his efforts. Because she’s a good … Read more

Marty Supreme

by
Marty seen close up

Timothée Chalamet spent five years in training for Marty Supreme, dragging a table-tennis table from one film to the next, so he could hone his skills by banging out a few games between takes. There’s lots of spare time on film sets, especially on the sort of big productions Chalamet has got used to appearing in – Dune, Wonka, A Complete Unknown. It has paid off. Whatever else Marty Supreme is, it’s exhibition-class proof that Chalamet put in the hours and became a plausible table tennis dynamo. As for the rest of it, it’s director/co-writer Josh Safdie’s first film made without the support structure of brother Benny. The Safdies did Uncut Gems together, … Read more

Shoot to Kill

by
Marian in a car with DA Lawrence Dale

1947’s Shoot to Kill (aka Police Reporter) opens with a car crash. Two people dead. One is Lawrence Dale, the district attorney, the other a known gangster, Dixie Logan. The DA’s wife has somehow survived. But what were she and her husband doing in a car with Logan in the first place? From her hospital bed, and with a shimmer of flashback, injured Marian explains all to pushy reporter George “Mitch” Mitchell. Back, back we go, to when the DA was just an ambitious assistant district attorney, and Marian was starting out in his office. Soon, having proven herself to be more than a capable secretary, she is practically running Larry’s office. She … Read more

Hamnet

by
Agnes and William running

Jessie Buckley does the acting and Paul Mescal once again plays Paul Mescal in Hamnet, a biopic of Shakespeare tilting the spotlight towards his wife, Anne Hathaway. Agnes, in fact, pronounced the French way, or that’s the way this sweet and salty adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-seller has it. Mescal, so often in a metaphorical leather jerkin, wears a real one this time around, playing the de-mythologised Shakespeare as stressed, hungover, doubtful of his own talents, a “useless… tradeless” (says his useless father) Latin teacher who meets a weirdo, “the daughter of a forest witch”, while she is out flying her hawk one day. He falls for her instantly, and she for him … Read more

Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould

by
A troubled Gould (Colm Feore) in the studio

The title describes it exactly – Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould is 32 short films about the celebrated pianist Glenn Gould, all directed by François Girard, who squeezes his compendium into just over 90 minutes. Which is pretty good going considering he’s covering quite a lot of territory and doing it in a multiplicity of styles. The film came out in 1993, when the cult of Gould was still in full spate. It has since abated a touch, though the Canadian pianist is still the maverick genius to many – a humming cantankerous weirdo to others. Girard takes his cue from the 32 individual pieces in the Goldberg Variations, one of … Read more

Nowhere Special

by
John gives Michael a ride on his shoulders

The terminal-illness weepie needs a firm hand or it can run off all over the place. Nowhere Special is a great case in point. Writer and director Uberto Pasolini keeps a tight grip, and James Norton’s impassioned but restrained performance is a thing of wonder. It’s so good that – as happens with proper acting – barely anyone noticed him when it came to awards time. Check it out, though. This is an undeniably simple film, but like a fine meal made from a few good ingredients, it just all comes together. Norton plays John, a window cleaner with some non-specific cancer. The entirety of Nowhere Special consists of John trying to find new … Read more

Deluge

by
Peggy Shannon as Claire

For anyone convinced post-apocalyptic movies are a recent phenomenon, here’s Deluge, a remarkable film from 1933. It’s got all the stuff you might expect from a big disaster movie and some thoughtful stuff you might not. Some of it you might even recognise – the makers of The Day After Tomorrow paid direct homage to this movie when they destroyed New York with a massive tsunami. Like The Day After Tomorrow we’re dropped down right in the middle of things. The film opens with a breakneck montage. The barometer is dropping and scientists are expressing concern. Ships are being called back to port, planes and airships (gratifyingly 1930s) are being grounded. As the … Read more

Sirât

by
Esteban and Luis in the middle of a rave

If ringing the changes is the big challenge of genre cinema, Sirât pulls it off brilliantly. Occasionally the workings of writer/director Óliver Laxe’s mind are visible – how can I catch the audience off guard? Mostly they’re not. And that’s probably down to the people and the places – both unusual. It’s two genres in one, really. In one, a father and son are trying to track down a missing daughter/sister in Morocco – a road movie. In the other the father/son brush up against a contingent of old ravers, the ones who didn’t go home when the party finished, and end up hooking up with them, certain that they will lead them to the … Read more

Road House

by
Lily (Ida Lupino) seen from the back

Road House is a bad movie full of good things – yes, that is the sort of line often trotted out by the terminally indecisive or foolishly fixated when they don’t want to just come right out and condemn something. But in this case it’s true. Why it’s bad first: it’s a film suggesting it’s about one certain person when it’s about another. The several good things: the acting by Ida Lupino and Richard Widmark plus the crackling dialogue. And the cinematography is pretty tasty too. And, before going any further, there is no connection to the Patrick Swayze movie of four decades later, though both stories take place at a road house, … Read more