Damnation

1988 Director Bela Tarr

Bela Tarr began his career making social realist domestic dramas, similar to the work of John Cassavettes. The feature before Damnation, Almanac of Fall, showed Tarr moving toward a more visually stylized form of filmmaking. With Damnation, the first of his collaborations with novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Tarr adopts a formally rigorous style, featuring long takes and slow tracking shots of the bleak landscape that surrounds the characters.

Shot in black-and-white, Damnation tells the story of a depressed man in love with a married woman who sings at the local bar. She dreams of becoming famous, but she herself embodies all of his hopes and dreams. He is offered smuggling work by the bartender but eventually decides to offer the job to the singer's husband. This gets the husband out of the way for a while, but things don't go as he plans. There's a big, drunken dance, which everyone in town attends. Afterwards, one betrayal falls upon another, leaving him in despair, alienated from all of humanity.

This film laid the groundwork for Tarr's next collaboration with Krasznahorkai, Satantango, a seven-hour film which they spent years developing, and which many consider Tarr's masterpiece.

The Sacrifice

1986 Director Andrei Tarkovsky

This film, sadly, was Tarkovsky's last. He brings together all his legendary imagery skills in a tale of hope over desperation.

It begins in Bergmanesque fashion on a small, remote island, where friends and family gather for a birthday celebration. The revelry is interrupted by a radio announcement that World War III has begun, and Mankind is only hours away from utter annihilation. As the roar of the overhead missiles is heard, each of the guests reacts differently to the news. The most dramatic response is the host's, who promises God that he'll give up everything he holds dear if war is averted.

The Sacrifice is so dependent upon its visuals and overall mood that any attempt at a detailed synopsis would be woefully inadequate. The willingness of Tarkovsky's protagonist to fore go all his possessions may well have sprung from the cancer-ridden director's awareness that he, too, would soon be giving up everything to face his Maker. The irony of the film is that the house in question was burnt down as the final act of the film but because the shots did not come out right Tarkovsky, ever the perfectionist, rebuilt the entire structure against the clock to get the final shot as he intended. The "Making of" film is every bit as nail biting as the main event.

Carlos the Jackal

2009 Director Olivier Assayas

This is Assayas' biographical film of the ultra-left-wing Venezuelan terrorist, mercenary or revolutionary, depending on your point of view, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, popularly known as "Carlos the Jackal."

It is broken into 3 distinct periods covering 1974 to 1993. The first deals with his Arab connections and the build up to the OPEC event. The second deals with the OPEC event and its fall out. The third takes up the story from when he obtains Syrian protection until his abduction and arrest by the French.

At six hours long, there is enough time to give this complex subject enough depth. It encapsulates the emotion of those turbulent years very accurately. The interconnections that the Palestinian cause had were truly mind boggling. This is a rare insight into a historical era that is largely untaught in the west. Once seen it is the sort of film that you can dip in and out of forever.

Day Watch

2006 Director Timur Bekmambetov

This is Bekmambetov's second and last installment of the ill fated trilogy.

Day Watch opens in the 14th century, when a Mongol warrior, acquires the "The Chalk of Destiny," that can be used to guide the course of history. Cut to today, the Day Watch and the Night Watch are ongoing. Two Warriors of Light, Anton and Svetlana, develop feelings for one another as they patrol the Night Watch together. As the story progresses, the pair must respond to a distress call from an octogenarian victim of a vampire attack committed by Anton's 12-year-old son. Anton must suddenly wrestle with two conflicting desires; the need to protect his offspring by destroying incriminating evidence, and his own desire to remain loyal to the Night Watch.

Several interesting concepts are explored notably body swapping and that there is no such thing as complete impartiality. This is a sequel worthy of the original. I hope that the concluding installment Twilight Watch is resurrected by the same director. Like Night Watch this film merits several viewings.,

Night Watch

2004 Director Timur Bekmambetov

This is the first installment in a trilogy of two by Bekmambetov. The concluding installment, Twilight or Dusk Watch, was, unfortunately, shelved. I hope the project is taken back up before Hollywood makes a poor American imitation.

In 1342, the Warriors of Light and the Warriors of Darkness, realising that a final battle will only result in both being annihilated, declare an uneasy truce under which each side will form a law enforcement team to monitor the other side's activities. The Warriors of Light, who enforce the powers of good, patrol the Night Watch, while the Warriors of Darkness, who openly embrace evil, patrol the Day Watch. Each watch group also contains "Others," mortals with supernatural powers from both sides that include vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and the like. Prophecy suggests that one day, a Great One will surface and permanently extinguish the threat of an apocalyptic war between the two sides by upsetting the balance, lending greater power to either good or evil and thus determining the future of mankind forever.

Unless you understand Russian reasonably well you will have to pay a great deal of attention to the tone while reading the subtitles or you will miss much of the underlying irony and pathos in the film. Darkly shot with great action sequences and some very inventive special effects this is a very enjoyable film. More is gained by repeat viewings.

Even Dwarfs Started Small

1970 Director Werner Herzog

To call this film the German version of Tod Browning's Freaks without the romantic element, would be to do it an injustice. This is without doubt Herzog's most bizarre film and makes for uncomfortable viewing.

I have heard it said that the film is set in a dismal mental institution, wherein dwell several midgets, dwarfs and other "oddities", but since there is a complete absence of any traditionally shaped humans including the Head of the asylum and a passing motorist, I am inclined to think that this is set in a world of misfits. The inmates stage a coup, taking over the asylum and utterly reversing the status quo. Their newly found freedom rapidly spirals into cruel anarchy.

There are several scenes of taboo content that one almost never sees and won't forget once seen. This is a very brave voyage for Herzog considering the substantial ban that Freaks had to endure.

Angel-A

2005 Director Luc Besson

This is a dark comedy from Besson and not just because it's been shot in black and white.

Jamel Debbouze (the shy grocer from Amelie) plays a bungling scam artist with a little too much good in his heart for his own good. As his debts mount and his gangland enemies close in he decides to jump into the Seine only to find a long legged blond girl about to do the same. They team up in a voyage of self discovery with surprising results.

Paris is always a good background to a film and the moody location shots work particularly well. Unfortunately, once you have discovered who Angela-A is the film loses its inertia and becomes increasingly predictable culminating in a disappointing end. If as much depth had been given to the supporting characters the whole thing would have been more believable.

It's worth seeing once and is not representative of Besson's other work.

Amélie

2001 Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay, this magical comedy was met with overwhelming acclaim. 

A painfully shy waitress working at a Paris café makes a surprising discovery and sees her life drastically changed for the better.  From then on, she dedicates herself to helping others find happiness in the most delightfully unexpected ways!  But will she have the courage to do for herself what she has done for others?

Jeunet's cinematography sets new standards in this film, which is captivating from the title to the credit sequence. His narrative style is reminiscent of Godard's Bande a part but it is his vivid colouring techniques that make this film so memorable. Audrey Tautou plays the lead superbly and went on to carve a very impressive acting career. The film is full to the brim with interesting characters, many of which are regulars to Jeunet films.

A genuinely funny and moving french film. I find it hard to believe anyone has not yet seen this gem. If that's you then you know what you should be doing tonight.

Old Boy

2004 Director Park Chan-wook

South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook directed this violent and offbeat story of punishment and vengeance.

A husband and father, for reasons he doesn't understand, finds himself locked up in an appartment, with no idea why or whom his jailers may be. With a small television as his only link to the outside world and a daily ration of fried dumplings as his only sustenance, he struggles to keep his mind and body intact, but when he learns through a news report that his wife has been killed, he begins a long and difficult project of digging an escape tunnel with a pair of chopsticks. Before he can finish he is released, with as little explanation as when he was locked up. He's soon given a wad of money and a mobile phone by a man on the street. He is left to struggle to unravel the secret of who his captor was, what happened to his wife and daughter, and how to best get revenge.

Intriguing and captivating, this is a very watchable film. There are a couple of scenes that are not for the squeamish and it's 18 certificate is well earned. The plot plays out at just the right tempo and the end revelation is completely unexpected.

Japón

2002 Director Carlos Reygadas

This is Carlos Reygadas' brave debut film about a man on the brink of suicide regaining the will to live under decidedly unusual circumstances.

A quietly despondent man leaves behind the city for a journey into a quiet village in the valley, telling anyone who cares to know that once he's settled in, he intends to kill himself. The man takes a room with Ascen, an elderly woman who lost her husband some years ago. Keeping to himself, he paints, thinks, and prepares himself for death, while Ascen slowly becomes aware of the depth of his depression. As Ascen's nephew attempts to rob her of her share of the family estate, the man feels a desire to live waking inside him again, as well as the desire for a woman. Improbably, the man turns to Ascen for physical affection, and sensing his need for comfort, she complies, though the seduction lacks a great deal in the way of romance.

The cinematography is excellent and befitting of the stunning location. The characterisation has had a great deal of attention paid. Although Ascen was a local woman of no acting background, her performance is worthy of praise. One to see, but because of the explicit content, it's probably better if the children are elsewhere.