Eden Log

2007 Director Franck Vestiel

This is Vestiel's debut film and an unusual science fiction journey. French cinema is not known for this genre and as such is a bold seminal exploration. The entire film is seen from a single perspective whereby the viewer only sees and knows what the lead character experiences.

Set in a post apocalyptic future, mankind has discovered a new energy source through a tree from which they are able to syphon energy to fuel a city. The denizens below are technicians who are promised paradise when they have completed their work and can return above. Our main character awakens in a confused mud soaked state and embarks on his journey of discovery. Along the way he is given clues as to what has gone wrong by broken machinery, lost transmissions and the revelation of more industrial mayhem. The journey isn’t without its problems.

The most testing element is the modern colour scheme the films makers chose to use in this film. Mostly grey scaled with blue and green colourisation, it is a bit too much to really see past. Even sci-fi films who use this technique give us a break in contrast and slight colour variations. The problem here is that the contrast is too contrasted, so on top of a confused plot, you also are somewhat blinded to everything to be seen. That said, it does engage and even though the ending is reminiscent to Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" it does not disappoint.  Although badly received on release I think this film will gain a cult status in time as it is pretty ground breaking in its singular approach.

Woyzeck

1979 Director Werner Herzog

This film is based on the haunting stage play by Georg Buchner. Klaus Kinski delivers a wild and stunning performance in a role only he could play.  Werner Herzog helmed this cinematization of an anti-military tale of depersonalisation run amok. Utilising the more grotesque elements of German expressionism, combined with his own sense of the outrageous, Herzog plunges us directly into the middle of his story of a soldier who is conditioned to be an unthinking machine. His one vestige of humanity is his love for the beautiful wife, but even this is corrupted.

Franz Woyzeck is a hapless, hopeless soldier, alone and powerless in society, assaulted from all sides by forces he cannot control.  Abused both physically and psychologically by commanding officers, doctors and his unfaithful wife, Woyzeck struggles to hold on to his humanity and his fragile sanity.  In the film's shattering climax, he is finally driven over the brink into madness and murder.

Filmed in the stunningly atmospheric town of Telc, in the Czech republic, its 16th century architecture makes for a visual feast of a backdrop for this rather depressing tale. Kinski's manic energy carries the film and although the ending is at odds with the rest it is still a good example of Herzog at the peak of his career.

Potiche

2010 Director François Ozon

Adapted from a stage comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, this film casts a wry eye over the outrageous sexual and political attitudes of the late 1970s and dares to ask whether anything has really changed.

Robert Pujol is the diminutive wrecking ball of right-wing fury who runs his umbrella factory with an iron fist. That is until his surly workforce downs tools and goes on strike and his enemy, pinko local mayor Maurice Babin, is brought in to broker a deal. Under pressure, Robert’s fragile ticker gives up and, as he rests up abroad, his Tinkerbell-like trophy wife Suzanne must take the reins. She injects the ailing business with her own enlightened practices, much to his chagrin.

Simultaneously mocking and revering the look and content of the archetypal ’70s sitcom, ‘Potiche’ succeeds largely due to the fact that all the performers understand the ‘wink-wink’ nature of the material. Ozon evokes the spirit of the era through kitsch, split-screen editing and by filling the soundtrack with old-school Euro chanteurs like Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday, and even tossing in a bit of Boney M.

It’s as light and soft as a pink satin pillow, and a little overstretched, but it’s also packed with bawdy zingers and pointed political barbs.

Nostalghia

1983 Director Andrei Tarkovsky

This is Tarkovsky first film made outside of the Soviet Union just before his defection to the west.

A Russian poet , accompanied by guide and translator, is traveling through Italy researching the life of an 18th century Russian composer. In a ancient spa town, he meets the lunatic Domenico, who years earlier had imprisoned his own family in a barn to save them from the evils of the world. As the guide seeks to tempt him into infidelity, he, seeing some deep truth in Domenico's act, becomes drawn to the lunatic. In a series of dreams, the poet's nostalgia for his homeland and his longing for his wife, his ambivalent feelings for his guide and her Italy, and his sense of kinship with Domenico become intertwined.

With long lingering pans and zooms, this is typical Tarkovsky cinema. His surreal landscapes are meticuously composed and executed. Many of the techniques first seen in Stalker are honed to perfection in the gentle paced exploration of one man's quest for the unobtainable. This is a highly enjoyable visual feast.

Hell

2011 Director Tim Fehlbaum

This is Tim Fehlbaum filming debut and is a  tightly crafted post-apocalyptic survival tale. The story of a quartet battling marauders while searching for water on a parched Earth of the near-future pays tribute to "Planet of the Apes," "The Hills have Eyes," and "Deliverance".

It's 2016, and the world is a wasteland following a massive spike in global warming. Those who survive are either resourceful or violent, and sometimes both. A motley crew come together in a sun-shielded car heading to the mountains in hopes of finding water.

Fehlbaum shot some scenes in a burned-out forest in Corsica and others in a Bavarian woodland devastated by infestation, and apart from turning the sky a blinding white, he needed very little effects to achieve the right look. Tension is always in the air and the anticipation will appeal to those primed for this sort of material. The actors give their roles the right amount of conviction. A slightly nervous camera maintains the appropriate sense of apprehension, together with rapid editing in climactic moments. Visuals are stripped of color, suitably ashen for a sun-bleached world.

La Antena

2007 Director Esteban Sapir

Dark, cartoonish and beautifully shot in black and white, Sapir's surreal homage to silent film noir is a refreshing surprise to come out of Spanish language film.

In a Fritz Lang landscape, a brutal dictator has stolen the voices of his city and forces them to eat his brand of TV food. One singer and her strangely disfigured son keep their voices - used to lovely effect in a few rare songs - but when she is kidnapped, a TV repairman heads to the city's last-known aerial to thwart the tyrant and restore the city to normal.

Assured and imaginative, Sapir has the same comic lightness of touch and imaginative brilliance as Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, with Leo Sujatovich's superb score underlining every moment perfectly. This is an enjoyably quirky, intriguingly directed sci-fi fantasy that blends comics, silent movies, Flash Gordon serials, musicals and tons of other sources to deliver both an exciting story and an important message. Unmissable.

The Dust of Time

2008 Director Theodoros Angelopoulos

This is a film which demands full viewer commitment. Spanning more than half a century and taking place across three continents, this sequel to the monumental Weeping Meadow is a larger-than-life love story, a saga of displaced people constantly on the road, always looking for a home they ultimately only find within the journey itself.

A director is struggling to complete shooting on his latest project, a sweeping historical story being shot in Berlin that tells the true story of his parent's relationship. Spyros  and Eleni  first met and fell in love shortly before World War II broke out, but the two were separated during the fighting, with Spyros making his way to America and settling in New York, while civil war forced Eleni to seek exile in Russia. Stalin established a colony for Greek expatriates in Tashkent, where Eleni joined her fellow expatriates, and when Spyros learned of her whereabouts after Stalin's passing, he left New York to be with her, entering Tashkent illegally via Germany. However, after a brief reunion which led to Eleni becoming pregnant, Spyros was found out by the authorities. After Spyros was arrested, Eleni was sent to Siberia, where she met Jacob, a German Jew. Jacob fell in love with Eleni and he stayed by her side as she wrestled with he memory of Spyros and her son, who with Jacob's help was smuggled out of Tashkent to Canada and eventually reunited with his father. It's not until years later that the director is finally reunited with his parents in Berlin as he tries to put their story on film, but what should be a happy time becomes potentially tragic as the director's daughter falls into a deep depression and threatens to take her life.

This film is very ponderous and convoluted and requires the viewer to expend a great deal of attention to avoid losing the plot. It benefits by a second viewing.

The Bothersome Man

2006 Director Jens Lien

This film is an intriguing and bone-dry Norwegian black comedy that marks the intersection between David Lynch, Samuel Beckett  and Jacques Tati.

A man steps off a bus into a strange city with no memory of how he got there. It all seems familiar: people are polite, go to work, have dinner parties, go out and have sex, but no one seems to connect or even enjoy themselves. It isn't long before the new arrival gradually begins to question his environment and plan an escape. The ubiquitous "Caretakers" of the city take note that he doesn't fit in and set out to rectify the situation.

Driven by a fantastic performance by Trond Fausa Aurvag, whose deadpan comic performance lends the surrealism some "fish out of water" slapstick. There are many shades of "The Trial" as well as "The Prisoner" here. This is about as dark and worrying as a film can get and one that will remain in the recess of your mind for a considerable length of time.

Hors la Loi

2010 Director Rachid Bouchareb

This film is the stand alone sequel to Bouchareb’s 2006 film “Days of Glory” and is the second in a loosely planned trilogy. The film starts in 1925 and ends in the early 1960’s and deals with lives of three Algerian brothers living in France during the Algerian war for independence. This war was a messy bit of business involving guerilla warfare, torture, and terrorism against civilians and the film immediately sparked controversy when it was released.

The three brothers couldn’t be more different. One joins the military, one turns to pimping as a way to make himself some money, and the other, after being released from jail where he was being held on ridiculous charges, immediately rises to the ranks of a major player in the Algerian revolution. Throughout it all though, even when things are at their most difficult, they stick by one another. As the brother’s lives grow and change they struggle to take care of their aging mother and to keep the lines of communication open on their strained relationships with one another. As the Algerian resistance movement intensifies each one of them must decide how great a role they will play in the movement and their decisions ultimately affect not only their own individual lives, but they way they viewed by their brothers as well.

Hors la Loi is a film that’s strong in all the right places. The acting is wonderful, the script is well written and the pacing works, the visuals are stunning, and the ending, although expected, is still somewhat of a shocker. It does run a tad on the long side however. Interesting for its historical representation of the Algerian war, but perhaps more so for its message of brotherly love, Hors la Loi is a film that’s well worth the effort to seek out.

The Edukators

2004 Director Hans Weingartner

This film is full of surprises not least the ending. It will keep you guessing as to the outcome all the way. This is one of a very few films where it is well worth waiting to the very end of the credits.

Three Berlin idealistic wannabe revolutionaries embark upon a series of burglaries where instead of theft they rearrange the victim's furniture and belongings and leave behind warnings to create unease. Things go badly awry when an owner returns unexpectedly.

Reminiscent of Goddard's La Chinoise, youthful idealism collides with the starker realities of revolution. The long conversations with their victim, when they discover that he was part of the 1960s revolutionary movement in Germany, is delightfully insightful of the change in perspective over time. I am sure this film will become a cult classic.

Point Blank

2010 Director Fred Cavayé

This is fast paced, adrenalin packed ride through the streets of Paris. It continues the Hitchcockian theme that Cavayé started in his debut film "Anything for her". Take an ordinary man place him in extraordinary circumstances and let him loose.

A male nurse unwittingly saves the life of a dangerous criminal only to find his heavily pregnant wife kidnapped to ensure the criminal's escape. A roller coaster ride of twists and turns, subterfuge and misdirection follow that will keep you riveted to the very end.

Superb acting and very intelligent directing make this a must see. Cavayé is definitely a name to watch out for. His work is simple and focused, packing a tremendous story into a only 80 minutes with such precision that you have to pay full attention, not that you'll have much chance to become distracted.

The Secret in their Eyes

2009 Director Juan José Campanella

This is a film that sets a very high bar in story telling. Mixing humour and suspense tastefully around what is ostensibly a love story wrapped around a monstrous event.

When a retired criminal prosecutor decides to try his hand at writing a novel he finds himself inextricably drawn into the harrowing events of an unsolved crime. Re-investigating the brutal rape and murder of a beautiful woman he discovers devastated lives, corrupt government officials and a lost love. But as he delves deeper he finds himself at the dark heart of society where mysteries lurk in shadows and danger waits around every corner.

Strewn with ingenious twists and turns, this stunning, edge of your seat thriller is a cinematic tour de force of nail biting suspense and white knuckle excitement that will not disappoint. All the loose ends are neatly tied up in a wonderful finale.

Trafic

1971 Director Jacques Tati

This was Jacques Tati’s last foray in to the chaotic world of his hapless alter ego Hulot and also his penultimate film.

The bumbling Monsieur Hulot, outfitted as always with tan raincoat, beaten brown hat, and umbrella, takes to Paris’ highways and byways. For this, his final outing, Hulot is employed as a car company’s head designer, and accompanies his camper, fitted out with absurd gadgetry, to a trade show in Amsterdam. Naturally, the road is paved with modern-age mishaps.

After the financial disaster of Playtime, Tati embarked on this project undeterred, returning to his finer observational filming. This late-career delight is a masterful demonstration of the comic genius’ expert timing and side splitting visual gags, and a bemused last look at technology run amok.

The Last Battle

1983 Director Luc Besson

This is Luc Bessons debut film. Set in a post apocalyptic world it charts the progress of one mans struggle to survive.

Having built a glider out of spare parts our hero sets off to find a better area to live. Here he encounters a fierce opponent, played by a very young Jean Reno. Having come off the worse for his first encounter he is taken in by a doctor. All is not what it seems as the good doctor has his own agenda.

Shot in black and white with no dialogue at all, this film is a curious cross between David Lynch's Eraserhead and Jacques Tati's Les Vacances to M. Hulot. This is a very good example of an accomplished director cutting his teeth and feeling his way. Unfortunately the low budget shows at times but if you can forgive some fairly obvious anachronisms then this is definitely worth a watch.

If you have already seen Subway then you will recognise quite a few scenes and their composition, as well as Jean Boise, who played the doctor.