The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2009 Director Niels Arden Oplev

Based on the late author Stieg Larsson's successful trilogy of books, this is a dark journey into the skeletal closet of the wealthy and powerful.

A journalist is hired to uncover the truth about the disappearance of a wealthy Swedish industry baron's niece forty years ago. He pairs up with a dysfunctional maverick computer hacker and together they embark on a disturbing journey into the darkest recesses of a family's history. The deeper they dig for the truth, however, the greater the risk of being buried alive by members of the family who will go to great lengths to keep their secrets tightly sealed.

This film grabs you by the lapels and keeps your attention riveted throughout. It is masterfully constructed and Noomi Rapace gives a captivating performance that is Oscar worthy. The film is gritty, haunting and fast paced with some violent scenes that are uncomfortably real. This is definitely not one for children to see. Although much depends on the hacker's abilities the film does not get bogged down with technology but concentrates more on the human element. There are a good many references, intentional or not, to  Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow up. This is a cracker of a start to a trilogy and I hope the sequels can keep up not only the pace but also the superb acting and excellent cinematography.

The Mirror

1974 Director Andrei Tarkovsky

As the son of a famous Russian poet, this is a stream of consciousness overlayed by his father's poetry.

This non-linear autobiographical film is Tarkovsky's most personal meditation on time, history and the Russian countryside. Through a series of episodes and images, he captures the mood and the feeling of the period just before, during and after the war. Lyrical reminiscences of his mother and of his father's poetry figure large in the film, along with extraordinary images of nature.

Combining black-and-white and color work, with some unusual documentary footage, this highly regarded movie is structured with the logic of a dream. It's a wonderful, slow amble through someones innermost fond memories.

Roma

1972 Director Federico Fellini

This is Fellini's autobiographical tribute to Rome. Narrated by Fellini himself it features a stream of consciousness made up of a mixture of real-life footage and fictional set pieces.

It flows from one episode to another, beginning with his early years in Rome in the 1930's during the time of Mussolini. At the age of 18, he moves in to a tenement building and explores the wild characters living in neighborhood. The events that follow switch between the past and contemporary times, including a story line that involves a 1970's film crew making a movie about Rome. He also incorporates segments of Roman history and problems in the government, including an improvised speech from Gore Vidal. Throughout this journey there are visits to an outdoor restaurant, a movie theater, a music hall, and a brothel. In one famously surreal segment, groups of clergymen gather together for a Catholic fashion show spectacle. After a visit to a street festival and some on-camera interviews, the film concludes with a long night sequence of a large group of motorcycles driving around some of the major landmarks of Rome.

This is a "sit back and let it roll over you" type of film. It is quite enjoyable providing you're not expecting a plot nor much cohesion between the various episodes.

Wasabi

2001 Director Gérard Krawczyk

I was a little surprised to find Jean Reno playing the lead in this slapstick rom-com that masquerades as a crime thriller.

Jean Reno plays a detective in the French police force. His methods are "hit first, then hit again then hit some more, then arrest those left standing". Quite predictably he is suspended from work and as he wonders what to do for the next 60 days, he learns that an old flame in Tokyo has died naming him as the sole beneficiary in her will. Once in Japan, he meets his daughter, who doesn't think much of him and appears to be unaware that he is her biological father. As he tries to bond with her, he examines the facts behind her mother's death and begins to suspect that it was no accident.

To be honest the best part is the Wasabi scene from which the film takes its name. It is genuinely funny if somewhat predictable. But then the whole film is predictable throughout. It's a shame because Reno is an iconic actor with some major films under his belt. Anyway the kids will like it because of the cartoonesque, over the top, harmless violence.

Delicatessen

1991 Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro

This is a unique and surreal dark comedy that has rightly received overwhelming critical acclaim.

In a post-apocalyptic society where meat is scarce, cannibalism is no longer unsavory. And when a young ex-clown takes a job in a dilapidated deli, he's completely unaware that the butcher plans to serve him to the building's bizarre tenants. But when the butcher’s nearsighted daughter falls for the clown, she'll go to absurd lengths to foil her father's plan.

This dark tale is played out in a brilliantly designed, gloriously surreal world reminiscent of the works of Terry Gilliam. Like Gilliam, Jeunet comes from an animation background, and has a fondness for extravagant visuals, absurd twists, and a sense of humor that combines sharp satire with broad slapstick and gross-out imagery. This mixture may displease the weak of stomach, but those attuned to the film's sensibility will be delighted by the obvious technical virtuosity and wicked sense of humor.

Breathless

1960 Director Jean-Luc Godard

This is Jean-Luc Godard debut feature film and one that would grab cinema by the scruff of the neck.

One of the seminal films of the French New Wave, this is a story of the love between a small-time hood wanted for killing a policeman, and an American girl who sells the Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. Their relationship develops as he hides out from a dragnet.

Godard developed his now famous techniques: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. In addition he uses his characteristic jump cuts, deliberate "mismatches" between shots, and references to the history of cinema, art, and music. Much of the film's vigor comes from collisions between popular and high culture: Godard shows us pinups and portraits of women by Picasso and Renoir, and the soundtrack includes both Mozart's clarinet concerto and snippets of French pop radio.

When Breathless was first released, audiences and critics responded to the burst of energy it gave the French cinema; it won numerous international awards and became an unexpected box-office sensation. It is as fresh today as it was then and a joy to watch.

Werckmeister Harmonies

2000 Director Bela Tarr

This is Bela Tarr's follow up to his seven-hour epic Satantango. This elegant, haunting work is about the cycles of violence that have dogged Eastern European history.This story takes place in a small town on the Hungarian Plain, which is surrounded by nothing but frost.

Jancos is a wide-eyed innocent who works as an occasional postal worker and as a caretaker. He marvels at the miracles of creation, from the planets rotating in the heavens to the animals on earth. One fatal day, a circus featuring jars full of medical anomalies and a massive dead whale entombed in a corrugated metal trailer visits this depressed town. Another more sinister attraction is a shadowy figure dubbed "The Prince," whose nihilist rants incite the town's disaffected to riot. Tension in the town builds until, after one of The Prince's hate-filled speeches, throngs of angry men with blunt instruments ransack and brutalize a men's hospital ward. When the dust clears, lives are irrevocably changed.

Bela Tarr employs all of his groundbreaking techniques that made Satantango so unique. Long tracking shots, long holds on scene after the action has ceased. The only criticism I have is that the violence in the hospital scene is not convincing without the commensurate sound that would have been there in real life. A mob of enraged men is loud and vocal. I admit that the silent angry march was eerie and menacing but silent violence isn't. It's just odd. The way the tables are turned on poor Jancos is unexpected but it's a beautifully cynical twist to the end of a captivating film.

Bande à part

1964 Director Jean-Luc Godard

Based on Dolores Hitchens' novel Fool's Gold this is one of Jean-Luc Godard's most pioneering films. Many of the techniques perfected here went on to become the defacto way of doing things. This is a set piece in any serious cinema student's curriculum.

It tells the tale of three disaffected youths who plan a burglary with deadly results. The alienated young trio is marvelous, particularly Anna Karina, and the early scenes of their clearly overdeveloped fantasy lives are splendidly handled. Of note are the race through Le Louvres and the now famous Cafe dance routine.

Something of a companion piece to Godard's classic À Bout de Souffle, its young characters have the same odd mixture of fatalism and starry-eyed naivety that is, by turns, appealing and tragic. Trivia buffs should note that the film gave its name to Quentin Tarantino's production company (A Band Apart), and several of its scenes are echoed in his Pulp Fiction.

L'Homme du Train

2002 Director Patrice Leconte

Leconte gets the very best from Hallyday in this unusual tale of friendship, respect and alternative circumstances.

A bank robber and a retired literature teacher are thrown together by circumstances. As they start to listen to each other, both yearn for the life of the other in preference to their own. Each is driven forward by their own relentless circumstances unable to escape the fate that awaits them.

It is a touching study in the art of introspection, which is notoriously hard to do well on screen. Leconte succeeds superbly. This underrated film yields Hallyday's best performance. The film is darkly humorous and beautifully shot.

The Banishment

2007 Director Andrei Zvyagintsev

This is Zvyagintsev's follow up to The Return. It is the tale of two brothers struggling to keep their lives together in the face of certain disaster.

Alex and his family move from the city to his father's old house in the countryside. As the family settles into their rustic existence, Alex's wife reveals that she is pregnant by another man. Enraged by his wife's announcement, Alex consults with his brother and demands that she terminates the pregnancy. When the forced abortion goes horribly awry and Alex's brother suffers a severe heart attack, a confrontation with the man Alex believes to have seduced his wife send events quickly spiraling out of control.

A tale of high morals and pride set against stunning scenery, all beautifully filmed. The transition from idyll to nightmare is so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. It is a harrowing story that highlights the critical points in one's life where devastation can so easily follow ill informed decisions. Well worth seeing.