The Milky Way

1969 Director Luis Buñuel

This is the first of what Luis Bunuel later proclaimed a trilogy about "the search for truth". The Milky Way (La Voie Lactee) daringly deconstructs contemporary and traditional views on Catholicism with ribald, rambunctious surreality.

Two vagabonds are making their way from Paris to Spain on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of Saint James are believed to be kept. While their journey begins in the 20th Century, as they travel they seemingly develop the ability to move through time and space as they pass through a variety of historical scenes taken from a broad range of theological texts and all involving heresy in one form or another. As they walk the long road to Santiago de Compostela they encounter Jesus who decides not to shave his beard to keep his mother happy; a young boy with stigmata and unusual powers; the Marquis de Sade who patiently struggles to teach atheism to a young girl he's captured; an eccentric priest who has an irreversible belief in transubstantiation until he changes his mind; two men who put their debate over Catholic dogma to the test in a duel with swords; and Satan who shows up just in time for a car wreck.

This is a diabolically entertaining look at the mysteries of fanaticism. The Milky Way remains a hotly debated work from cinema's greatest skeptic. While Luis Bunuel never made a secret of his skepticism about the existence of God, he was also raised as a strict Spanish Catholic and remained fascinated with the church's teaching throughout his life. Apparently, each of the film's historic episodes was adapted faithfully from an actual biblical text or historical account.

Good Bye, Lenin!

2002 Director Wolfgang Becker

Set in Berlin where West confronts East, this is a coming-of-age adventure that blends the fall of Communism with the salient emotions of a family's love.

In 1989, Christiane Kerner has lost her husband and is completely devoted to the Socialist East German state.  A heart attack leaves her in a coma, and when she awakens eight months later, the Berlin Wall has fallen and it's a whole new world.  Knowing that the slightest shock could prove fatal upon his mother's awakening, her son strives to keep the fall of the GDR a secret for as long as possible. Keeping their apartment firmly rooted in the past, his scheme works for a while, but it's not long before his mother is feeling better and ready to get up and around again.

This is a charming feel-good film that touches gently on the subject of hard held beliefs in the context of a changed world. Well acted by Daniel Brühl who plays the son in a constant state of near panic

Cinema Paradiso

1988 Director Giuseppe Tornatore

This is Giuseppe Tornatore's motion picture masterpiece. For those who have never seen it, this extraordinary celebration of youth, friendship and the everlasting magic of films is sure to captivate your heart and send your spirit soaring.

Based on the life and times of the director himself, Cinema Paradiso offers a nostalgic look at films and the effect they have on a young boy who grows up in and around the title village cinema. The story begins in the present as a Sicilian mother pines for her estranged son, who left many years ago and has since become a prominent film director. He finally returns to his home village to attend the funeral of the town's former film projectionist, and, in so doing, embarks upon a journey into his boyhood just after WWII when he became the man's official son. In the dark confines of the Cinema Paradiso, the boy and the other townsfolk try to escape from the grim realities of post-war Italy. The town censor is also there to insure nothing untoward appears onscreen, invariably demanding that all kissing scenes be edited out. One day the boy saves the projectionist's life during a fire, and then becomes the new projectionist himself. A few years later he falls in love with a beautiful girl who breaks his heart after he is inducted into the military. Thirty years later he has come to say goodbye to his life-long friend, who has left him a little gift in a film can.

This is film making at its very best. It is a totally absorbing watch and not a dry eye will be seen anywhere. A lovely stroll down memory lane to a calmer less rushed world where people mattered and good things happened. The DVD release incorporates an additional 51 minutes of material that was edited from the release version. It broadens the experience considerably and adds a great deal more depth to the characters.

Slow Motion

1980 Director Jean-Luc Godard

This film whose French title is "Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie)" is pessimistic but visually stunning and marks Jean-Luc Godard's return to cinema after having spent the 70s working in video. It is an examination of sexual relationships, in which three protagonists interact in different combinations.

The film presents a few days in the lives of three people: Paul, a television producer; Denise, his co-worker and ex-girlfriend; and Isabelle, a prostitute whom Paul has used. Denise wants to break up with Paul and move to the country. Isabelle wants to work for herself instead of her pimp. Paul just wants to survive. Their stories intersect when Paul brings Denise to the country cottage he is trying to rent and Isabelle comes to see it without knowing that the landlord has been her client. The film is broken into segments entitled "The Imaginary," "Commerce," "Life," and "Music." Each of the first three sections focuses on one character and the last section brings all three characters together.

This complex film is often closer to an essay than a story; it uses slow motion and experimental techniques to explore questions of love, work, and the nature of cinema. Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie) was Godard's first film with his frequent collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville, who edited and co-wrote the film.

Fata Morgana

1971 Director Werner Herzog

The film's title, Fata Morgana, refers to mirages or optical illusions brought on by heat, and is an apt title for this storyless, hallucinatory work shot in the deserts of North Africa. It is a rhythmic, musical succession of images and short scenes.

One of the images is a pianist and drummer who play tiredly, surrounded by endless tracts of desert. This is an image that has been adapted and re-used in countless music videos and is a small piece of evidence suggesting that this is a very influential film. The narration, in English, comes from a Guatemalan creation myth, and the accompanying music ranges from Couperin to Cash, with significant contributions by Leonard Cohen.

Fata Morgana is one of Herzog's early features. His crew encountered many problems during the filming, most notably being imprisoned because cameraman Schmidt-Reitwein's name was similar to the name of a German mercenary who was hiding from the authorities and had recently been sentenced to death in absentia.

The Motorcycle Diaries

2004 Director Walter Salles

Based on the journals of the same name this is Walter  Salles' dramatization of a motorcycle road trip that the young Ernesto 'Che' Guevara went on in his youth that would show him his life's calling.

The Motorcycle Diaries stars Gael García Bernal as a young, pre-revolution Guevara. As a 23-year-old medical student in 1952 traveling across South America on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado, played by  Rodrigo de la Serna, who co-wrote the source material. As they embark on their journey, both young men come of age and find their individual world views broadened farther than they ever expected. It is during this journey and his stay as a helper at a leper colony that Guevara realises that the South Americans are all one people controlled by dividing states. This was to be the turning point in this revolutionaries life.

Well directed and steadily paced this is quite a remarkable film. Some directorial licence has been made with regard to historical accuracy but it does not detract in the least. A very well made film.

Pan's Labyrinth

2006 Director Guillermo del Toro

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro returns to fantasy cinema that defined such early works as Cronos with this haunting drama set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

It concerns the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the mythical princess of an underground kingdom. Her mother recently married a sadistic army captain and is soon to bear the cruel military man's child. The young girl is forced to entertain herself as her recently-formed family settles into their new home nestled deep in the Spanish countryside. As her bed-ridden mother lies immobilized in anticipation of her forthcoming child and her high-ranking stepfather remains determined to fulfill the orders of General  Franco to crush a nearby guerrilla uprising, the young girl soon ventures into an elaborate stone labyrinth presided over by the mythical faun Pan. Convinced by Pan that she is the lost princess of legend and that in order to return to her underground home she must complete a trio of life-threatening tasks, she sets out to reclaim her kingdom.

Beautifully shot and acted this film is a huge improvement on del Torro's earlier works. Although the plot is classical the delivery is done with impressive imagination and flair. Well worth watching although some of the scenes are definitely not for the young, notably the scene where the Captain beats a soldier to death with a bottle and the whole sequence with the eyeless monster.

Che: Part Two

2008 Director Steven Soderbergh

This is part two of Soderbergh's Che Guevara Saga. Part one ended with the taking of Havana. This film deals with the fated Bolivian Campaign.

In 1967 Guevara resurfaces in Bolivia to organize a modest group of Cuban comrades and Bolivian recruits in preparation for the Latin American Revolution. But while the Bolivian campaign would ultimately fail, the tenacity, sacrifice, and idealism displayed by Guevara during this period would make him a symbol of heroism to followers around the world.

Benicio Del Toro keeps up the mesmerising performance that he started in part one. It is a pity that Guevara's African campaigns go unmentioned as much of what happened in the intervening years had bearing on the outcome of this campaign. Partly because one knows how this will end and partly due to the non-changing surroundings, this film lacks the pace and energy of its predecessor. However, as a concluding glimpse at this iconic figure it is well worth the watch. Though Parts 1 and 2 were screened together at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, they were set to be released separately.

Play Time

1967 Director Jacques Tati

Tati directed this film nearly a decade after Mon Oncle. Playtime continues the adventures of M. Hulot in a starker and more indifferent social setting.

The colourful Paris of Mon Oncle, last seen being slowly chipped away by progress, has now vanished almost entirely. Playtime takes as its setting an ultra-modern Paris where familiar landmarks appear only as fleeting reflections in the new buildings of glass and steel. Alternating between Hulot and a group of American tourists, Tati exploits the chaos just below the overly ordered surface of this brave new world. Again moving from one nearly wordless episode to another, Tati sends his alter ego off to make an appointment in a whirring, featureless office complex. He subsequently moves on to an exhibition of new inventions, meets an old friend at an aquarium-like apartment, and wreaks havoc in a snooty new restaurant.

Although ambitious and technically complex this is not the most polished of the Hulot films. It proved unpopular and unprofitable and helped usher in the financial difficulties that would plague Tati late in life before finally getting the recognition it enjoys today. Tati was generally dissatisfied with this film as can be seen in the small extras where he casts the script into the collapsing rubble of the set as it is demolished.

Herz aus Glas

1976 Director Werner Herzog

This is Herzog's treatise on the power and importance of art.

It is the story of an 18th-century Bavarian glassblower who by virtue of his delicate work casts a spell over his neighbours. He is the principle employer in the town and his wares are the stuff of legend. So when he dies without revealing the secret to the famous "Ruby Glass", the townsfolk will do literally anything to find the answer.

Herzog was known to put his actors through the wringer to get the results he wanted. In this film he decided that the best way to get his people to dance to the crack of his whip was to actually put them under hypnosis. The dazed, zombie-like performances certainly fit the subject matter.  The word usually used to describe Heart of Glass is "haunting". Some viewers have gone beyond haunted and into "possessed." Watch carefully and spot director Herzog in a bit as a glass carrier.