The Beekeeper

1986 Director Theo Angelopoulos

A ponderously paced but poignant story about an ageing beekeeper, who follows the pollen trail around a drearily grey Greece that is far from the picture-postcard vision usually seen on screen.

The film starts with  the marriage of a peasant girl to a military man. Spyro, the father, is at odds with his family for reasons that are never explained. With the departure of his girl, the family fragments and he leaves with his bees to a series of pollen areas in Greece. This is part of an annual migration of Beekeepers, although their numbers are dwindling. Along the way a dysfunctional girl foist herself on his good nature, which becomes increasingly tried. Eventually a bond forms that can only lead to one outcome.

This film is about the bleakness of despair in a hopeless world where all options have long since passed. Theo Angelopoulos' camera work is exemplary and his composition work would develop itself to perfection in the Trilogy series. Although transitions were at times a little jarring this shows a visionary director honing his skills. The film is slow with long static and tracking shots. It employs quite a bit of "action out of frame" to give the viewer a voyeuristic impression. One to watch when in a sombre reflective mood.

Mon Oncle

1958 Director Jacques Tati

This is Tati's second Hulot film contrasting the emerging ultra-modern wave of the late 50's with the more sedate and shambolic life he is used to.

This time, the story finds Hulot on a constant collision with the physical world. Visiting his sister and brother-in-law in their ultra-progressive household full of noisy gadgets and futuristic decor, Hulot inevitably has dust-ups with modernity, each one exceptionally funny. Taking a page from Buster Keaton’s playbook, Tati also employs his trademark techniques with sound and production design to achieve the indefinable, comic genius of his films: the rhythmic clacking of footsteps, the cartoon-panel distance of his camera frame from the heart of the action.

This is a wonderfully gentle satire on modern development that Tati was to take to a darker stage in his next film Playtime. This is marked a departure from his previous more gentle looks at rural attitudes. Tati is one of the cinema’s great treasures, and this movie is unforgettable.

Une femme est une femme

1961 Director Jean-Luc Godard

This is Jean-Luc Godard's deceptively sardonic tribute to the Hollywood musical comedy.

An exotic dancer decides that it is time for her to have a child. When her lover refuses to commit to the decision, she turns her romantic attention to his best friend. This being a Godard film, the straightforward story serves as a framework for improvisation and stylistic experimentation, allowing for odd interludes and unexpected images.

Like Alphville, this romp away from dense intellectualism that characterise the later Godard works this film fails on a number of levels. As a pure satire of the dross that was being churned out by Hollywood it is overlong; as a homage to the same machine it is banal. The musical score is jarring and the acting is hammed and stilted. It's quite painful to watch and requires real perseverance to see through to the predictably disappointing end. One to avoid unless as a cure for insomnia.

Malèna

2000 Director Giuseppe Tornatore

This beautifully shot film is about a young man's infatuation for a beautiful older woman that blooms amidst the outbreak of World War II.

Renato is a 13-year-old boy growing up in a small Sicilian community. Mussolini has risen to power and has declared war upon England and France, but Renato has other things on his mind, mostly girls. While hanging out with his friends by the seashore, Renato spies Malèna, the daughter of one of his schoolteachers, whose husband Nino is fighting with Mussolini's army. Renato is immediately obsessed with Malèna and follows her like a lost puppy, spying on her whenever circumstances permit and imagining her as his co-star in elaborate erotic fantasies inspired by his favorite movies. Renato, however, is hardly the only man in town to be struck by Malèna's charms, and her beauty leads to resentment from the women of the community. Malèna's circumstances take a turn for the worst after her husband is reported to have died in combat, and she is left to the forces of envy and gossip. The narrow minded jealousy of the town's women force her into the very circumstance that they all believe she came from. She is brutally treated and exiled. Renato has some less than encouraging news to report when Nino turns out to be alive and finds his spouse is missing.

Malèna was written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, best known for Cinema Paradiso. This film marks him as not only a very accomplished director and writer but also as an engaging and compassionate story teller. It is one of those films that once seen, is never forgotten.

Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1

2008 Director Jean-Francois Richet

The life of Jacques Mesrine comes once and for all to a full bloody circle in a climax only fitting for Public Enemy No. 1.

In the climactic second part of the Mesrine saga, Jacques Mesrine is back in France after his brazen assault on the maximum-security prison from which he daringly escaped. Once again in police custody and facing stern justice for his crimes, the "man of a thousand faces" escapes directly from the courtroom after kidnapping the judge at gunpoint. As Mesrine continues to author his own legend through the media and his own memoirs, he becomes a household name and anti-hero across all of France. As he plans his last and greatest escape, leaving France - and the iconic character he has created for himself - behind, the police begin to close in and his monumental rise begins to shadow the inevitable fall.

The split screen shots that were used to such good effect in part 1 are absent in this concluding installment although all the loose cinematographic ends are all tied up very neatly. Equally fast paced, this is very watchable. The character development is handled superbly with Mesrine acquiring a captivating charisma along with his new found fame and confidence.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

2008 Director Jean-Francois Richet

The first part of an epic two-film saga. Killer Instinct introduces us to Jacques Mesrine at the beginning of his incredible true-life career of bank heists, prison breaks and kidnappings throughout the 60's and 70's and across three continents.

Recently returned from the war in Algeria, Mesrine soon bores of the 9 to 5 life and gradually drifts into a life of crime under the tutelage of veteran gangster Guido played in a very Brondoesque style by Gerard Depardieu. He quickly discovers he has a gift for robbing banks and forms a duo with lover Jeanne Schneider to rival Bonnie and Clyde. When the couple is finally hunted down in the Arizona desert, Mesrine is sentenced to ten years in a maximum-security penitentiary. But he is about to prove that no prison is big enough to contain him as his larger-than-life story unfolds.

This is a superbly made film that makes very effective use of split screen. It has the grit and realism reminiscent of the Bourne Supremacy and keeps you at the edge of your seat throughout. Unlike other films of this genre it shows that people are very complex and that compassion and caring can co-exist quite happily with cold blooded brutality. This will undoubtedly become a cult classic like the Godfather. Vincent Cassel plays the role brilliantly.

Kitchen Stories

2003 Director Bent Hamer

This is Bent Hamer's comedy drama" Salmer Fra Kjøkkenet" and is based on the real-life social experiments conducted in Sweden during the 1950s.

In the years following WWII, a research institute sets out to modernize the home kitchen by observing a handful of rural Norwegian bachelors. In the small town of Landstad, middle-aged Isak is one such research subject who regrets ever agreeing to participate in the study. Nevertheless, he is observed by Folke and the two develop a strange friendship until the observer becomes sick. This causes a problem with Folke's boss and Isak's friend Grant.

This is a wonderful little jewel of observational comedy, big brother without the cameras. It is also a touching tale of lonely people. For those who speak Norwegian and understand Swedish there are many language gags that are not translatable and so the subtitle reader is deprived of many of the subtleties of this film. Something of a unique film.

The Girl who played with Fire

2009 Director Daniel Alfredson

This is the second installment of author Stieg Larsson's best-selling "Millennium" trilogy.

A prominent magazine publisher launches a comprehensive investigation into Swedish sex trafficking. The publisher of "Millennium" magazine, Mikael Blomkvist  has built an empire on his ability to shake up the establishment. Approached by a young journalist with evidence that high-ranking Swedish officials are involved in sex trafficking and crimes against minors, the incensed magazine publisher launches a comprehensive investigation that threatens to implicate some of the most powerful politicians in the country.

Unfortunately this sequel lacks the pace and intensity of its predecessor. The two main character stories remain separate until the very last scene, so none of the chemistry that made the first film so tight is present. The film ambles along and feels more like the hyphen between two films rather than a real second instalment. Noomi Rapace delivers a brilliant performance but Mikael Nyqvist seems to struggle with a character that has suddenly turned two dimensional. Let's hope that the concluding part picks up the pace of the first.

Passion

1982 Director Jean-Luc Godard

This film is a major part in Jean-Luc Godard's ongoing investigation of the relations between painting and cinema and uses innovative forms to explore political and economic questions.

The plot, if it can be called that, is very simplistic. A director is shooting a film whose scenes are all reproductions of paintings by Goya, Valasquez, and other European masters. Production comes to a halt when his producers refuse to increase his budget until he explains the film's story to them. Meanwhile he is ending an affair with the wife of the manager of the hotel where the film's cast and crew are staying. In a sub-plot a factory worker attempts to unionize her fellow employees.

The story of Passion is elliptical and incomplete. It is a means of presenting a collection of scenes and images on related themes. This kind of story would become the hallmark of Godard's later career. This film marks the reunion of Godard with director of photography Raoul Coutard, who shot many of Godard's films of the 1960s. The cinematography is key to understanding this difficult film in which how an image is shot is as important as what it depicts. Godard and Coutard favor shots that begin as open, disorganized framings and become painterly compositions as the people and things in them move.

The American Friend

1977 Director Win Wenders

Wim Wenders' mines Dennis Hopper's real-life experience as a painter and collector in this existential take on the American gangster film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel featuring the notoriously sociopathic Tom Ripley.

Hopper stars as the eponymous American, currently a middleman selling the work of American painter who has feigned his own death to increase the value of his paintings. While auctioning this work in Berlin, he meets art restorer, Jonathan, who he learns is suffering from an incurable blood disease. When a shady friend requires Ripley to find a "clean" non-professional to do a contract hit in order to pay off a debt, even he is reluctant. But he quickly realizes that the physically vulnerable Jonathan would be perfect for the job, and tries to get him to accept by employing various subterfuges to persuade him that his condition is even worse than it is. For his part he guarantees the restorer that his family will be financially secure for life, and a deal is struck. As usual, nothing works out quite as expected.

This is a forgotten little gem. Dennis Hopper is really at his very best here. There is a touching reference to his earlier "Easy Rider" film but his persona is as different as can be. A dark gripping tale where the unpredictable ending does not disappoint. Although filmed in the 70's this film does not have all the tacky style that hallmarks that era. Filmed largely in an area of Hamburg harbour that no longer exists it is quite a trip down memory lane. Hard to find but well worth the hunt.