Reviews

A heady mix of sex, violence, murder and police brutality, this film is apparently based on a real-life Brazilian crime case. The film is technically faulty, with fuzzy focus, washed colour, poor sound, and abrupt editing, however this adds to the voyeuristic sensation the viewer feels. The two teenage lovers are vulnerably youthful, and their nude sex scenes uninhibited and at times quite startling, for example when Toninho, shortly after first meeting Sandra, quickly strips naked and proceeds to fondle and force himself upon her. The violence is no less confronting, and parallel with the story of the two ill-fated lovers is the account of a police investigation into a series of murders which Sandra's estranged father, Galvao, is conducting. I don't wish to give any more of the story away, but for those who would enjoy a vivid and authentic look at the sordid underbelly of Rio's demi-monde, it would be hard to go past this disturbing study.

Life in a mountain village is changed forever when the courier who brings the weekly movie to the local cinema, the centre of the close-knit community's social life, is killed in a road accident.

The townsfolk, cut off from the wider world by the snows of winter, are unaware of the profound changes that are occurring. Communism is coming to an end in their country, but they are are completely unaware of the upheavals beyond the mountain ranges that encompass their tiny world. The local innkeeper discovers a pile of discarded film scraps in the cellar, and enlists a local teenage boy, who loves the cinema, to assemble "films" out of the disparate pieces. Slowly this boy, Ladu, played by Matej Matejka, who at the beginning of the film seemed just another callow youth among the characters, assumes the role of the main character in the plot, with very special talents that are just starting to become realised. The films that he creates, utilising such disparate elements as "La Grande Illusion", "La Bete Humaine" and the silent classics, "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", "Die Nibelungen" and "Battleship Potemkin", cause a revolutionary reaction amongst the simple villagers that mirror in a small way the wider revolution that is going on, unbeknown to them, in the wider context. From here the plot elements become unpredictable and fascinating, as Ladu observes the unrest he has created. A fine film, well told, photographed and acted: highly recommended.

Ernst Marischka's film was one of the first Austrian features shot in colour, and assembles some of the most renowned actors of the time. Last seen in cinemas in 1957, the feature was presumed lost for almost 40 years, until a misplaced negative was discovered at the Austrian Film Archives. After electronic enhancement of the picture quality and soundtrack, television viewers were able to see Opera Ball in all it's original visual and musical splendour in 1998.

Opera Ball is a delightful throwback to the gaudy over-embellished European musicals of the era, lavishly costumed and produced, and bursting with favourite musical themes of former times. The story, concerning the supposed infidelities of three couples, is a little corny and old-hat, but the exuberance and attractiveness of the enthusiastic young cast, some funny moments from a handful of old timers, the lavish settings and lilting music, and above all the stunning Agfacolor photography (which puts most modern colour processes to shame) combine to create a most pleasant entertainment.

A film over two hours long set in a remote desert fort, with an all male cast and no action, may seem a daunting prospect, however THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS is a strikingly memorable experience. The characters are full of suppressed emotion and inner turmoil, the strange surrealistic fort a metaphor of their spiritual imprisonment, and the huge expanse of surrounding desert a tangent reminder, day by day, and year by year, of their fears and lost aspirations.

Time passes imperceptibly, and our dashing young lieutenant, played by Jacques Perrin and surrounded by a stellar male cast, ages and weakens as the desert and the constraints of life in the fort strips away his physical strength and inner resolve. He yearns to free himself of the debilitating fort's influence, but finds himself transfixed by the mystical challenges of the landscape, and the perceived danger from the unseen enemy beyond.

The dust of the desert, the artificiality of the military life within the walls of the fort, the rituals and uniforms, the unspoken fears, the friendships and animosities between brother officers, the authority that seldom explains it's decisions, the half-recalled memories of a former life, and the ever present foreboding created by the shadows of the desert, shadows that sometimes give rise to visions of a lurking threat that may, or may not, be hidden in those shadows.

Exemplary colour widescreen photography is aided immeasurably by the haunting themes written by Ennio Moricone, and at the disquieting and ominous conclusion of the film, we are indeed completely mesmerized by an impressionistic, visionary spectacle that will haunt us for a long time after the final credits roll.

It's said that only the very best actors can compete with children and animals, and to this should be listed bright-eyed, cute-as-a-button young newcomers like Adrian Lester, who steals every scene he's in as an idealistic young aide until a larger-than-life Kathy Bates steamrolls her way onto the crowded scene. This film, based on Clinton's 1990 campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is a fictionalized, not factual, view of the man and his character and ideals, and quite simply one of the best films ever made about the confusing maze that is American politics.

Just as the American media, spurred on by the Republican witch-hunters, rubbed our noses in the dirt surrounding Clinton's indiscretions, the movie doesn't spare Jack Stanton for his moral weaknesses and poor personal judgements, but makes the point that the dirt grubbing and trivializing media are equally immoral in seeking to denigrate a man's political ideals because of his sexual peccadillos. The media is one Enemy of Truth, but the real Enemy of the People, lurking, malevolent and unseen, in the murky shadows at the edges of this film, is the Republican Party, and it's interesting that it takes a British director to take such a decisive stand, as Hollywood has always been reticent to take sides in the Democrat/Republican debate. The point made here, from the testimony of the battle-scarred "true Believers", from the idealistic young party aides, from the would-be President's wife (an uncanny portrayal of Hillary by a dynamic Emma Thompson) and Stanton himself (although physically unlike Bill Clinton, John Travolta gives a very believable performance), is that the President needs to be a man of the people, to be able to understand the people, and to be able to communicate with the people, despite the lies of his opponents and the mud slinging of the media. If America doesn't always get the President it deserves, it's because these very qualities are often blocked by his political enemies and a sensation-seeking media, particularly the television networks. An uninformed Democracy is no Democracy at all, and it's a mark of the inherent strength of the American people and their political system that it has withstood these obstacles, despite the many mediocre Presidencies we have seen in our times.

TIME OUT's Readers Top One Hundred place The Third Man 15th, and the filmmakers' Centenary poll only 49th, but for my money this must rank among the handful of truly great, perfect films of all time.

A memorable script by Graham Greene, director Carol Reed at his best, inspired noir photography from Robert Krasker, and that famously irresistible zither music from Anton Karas added to what must be Orson Welles' most haunting role. Although he doesn't appear in person until fairly late in the film, his character, Harry Lime, pervades practically every scene. Joseph Cotten may appear an unusual choice to play the American Innocent Abroad, but he is ideal as the man from the New World who is completely out of place in the Old. And Alida Valli is also perfectly cast as the world weary refugee, stateless, obsessed and vulnerable. The film grips from the start, but builds up to an exciting and frenetic climax with the justly famous chase through Vienna's sewers. And that ending... Apparently Graham Green had proposed a happier ending, however the famous final long shot, with Cotton waiting at the side of the road, and Anna walking towards him down the cemetery road through its litter of fallen leaves... is an image that has kept with me ever since I first saw this, perhaps most favoured of favourite, film. A footnote: if you enjoyed this film, try to catch the film Reed made immediately prior to it, "The Fallen Idol".

Screwball romantic comedies? Seen today, forgotten tomorrow... but not this one. Ewan McGregor is wonderful, and endearingly different, as the bumbling kidnapper, and nicely paired with Cameron Diaz. Just to add a touch of the nasties, the two demented angels give the whole thing a kick along whenever it starts to look a little too familiar. This movie is a lot of fun and, believe me, not just another screwball romantic comedy!!

This quirky story of a simple soul from an Alaskan mining town adrift in Chicago starts in a charming humorous way as Rocco finds himself cut off from his travelling companions and undertaking a series of increasingly bizarre and complex events which threaten and finally destroy his childlike friendliness and eternal optimism. He meets a variety of strange people, some sympathetic but mostly unfriendly, and the City itself, depicted as grinding down the lives of its inhabitants, is characterized by the harsh attitude of the policeman who patrols the rundown area that Rocco finds himself in. Marcello Mastroianni, always a reliable performer, interprets one of his best roles as Rocco, and there is a fascinating array of mainly unknowns depicting the varied group of defeated citydwellers he has of necessity thrown his lot in with. The ending is bleak and uncompromising. The transformation of Rocco Papalao is complete.

It's difficult to add anything to the excellent lead review by Michael Coy. Some people liked this movie, however it's sad to see Hollywood employ it's resources on such a spurious project. One film critic (Penelope Gilliat) wrote, "A film best handled from a distance and with a pair of tongs", about a film which attempted to explain and support a misconceived American invasion of Vietnam. It turned out to be a tragedy for the American people, and an even greater tragedy for the Vietnamese. I urge viewers to look at this country through the eyes of its talented young film-makers, such as Son Xuan Nguyen's "Fairytale for Seventeen-year-olds" or Dang Nhat Minh's "Nostalgia for Countryland" and "The Return". When John Wayne leads the little Vietnamese orphan off into the sunset saying, "You're what this is all about", he never said a truer word, although perhaps not in the way he intended.

This modernized version remains surprisingly faithful to the basic storyline of Dickens' classic novel, but that's where the comparison ends. See David Lean's superb 1946 version if you want to see the best screen adaptation of any Dickens work, and see this movie for what it is, a beautifully realized and visually arresting film. The secret to approaching this version is contained right at the beginning of the film, where the older Finn, as narrator, informs us that the story is not to be told as it actually happened, but as it's remembered. Hence the unreal, surreal quality of the scenes in the crumbling mansion inhabited by Nora Dinsmoor and her niece Estella. Fortunately, the elaborate set designs of these earlier scenes are carried through to the later New York scenes, where a modern city is made to look a little artificial and unreal, exactly perhaps as a young artist would see it. Don't criticize Ethan Hawke for the somewhat passive performance he gives, as his character is essentially a spectator for most of the narrative, carried along by events largely out of his control. It's at the end of the film that you will notice his emerging confidence and action. The little girl who plays the young Estella makes a strong impression, and this is carried over into Gwyneth Paltrow's interpretation as the older, mysterious and changeable young woman. The only major criticism I would make of the film is the unnecessary and unconvincing "happy" ending that just doesn't ring true, and was mentally rejected by this viewer and probably most others.

...however I am not one of them. Caro Diario at least was watchable for two thirds of the time, but the boring and self-centred third section of that movie gave us a taste of what was to come in this extraordinarily self-indulgent mess. Moretti says he feels a need to make this movie, but doesn't want to, whereas the viewer feels that he should stick with it, but really doesn't want to either. A film about Italian politics and elections could be fascinating, but this is not that film. At one point, Moretti and his friends are standing outside the Communist Party headquarters, discussing the interviews they are preparing to conduct with Party leaders inside, but it's characteristic of this film that we never get to see anything of them. Interposed with Moretti's political ravings are the events leading up to the birth of his son, and subsequent home movie shots of him with the baby and later the infant Pietro (the film drags us through several years and more than one election period). We keep expecting to see some definitive sequence or cogent argument, but they never come. I for one doubt that I could have the patience to ever sit through a Nanni Moretti movie again. He succeeds in making an hour and twenty minutes seem like an eternity.

When this movie starts, you may feel that you are being given pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles to put into place, as a complex and intriguing story is interwoven from fragments of a man's life, constantly flashing back, first to his childhood, and then to his adolescence, and finally revealing a portrait of a man deeply affected by the events of the past. Gradually a revenge motif seeps through the deeply affecting and visually arresting scenario. The film and it's characters are mesmerizingly vivid, so much so that you'll want to see it more than once. Perhaps, at the end, you may feel let down by the denouement, which is not as dramatic as we have anticipated, but then, this is the point of the film: that the man's perceptions of the occurrences and people close to him at earlier stages of his life, which have so poisoned his memory and personality, are revealed to have been falsely interpreted, and the rush of realization that he experiences enables him to break the shackles of the past. It's a memorable film, affecting and rather unique in it's style and resolution.

Reading Maltin's summary may steer you away from a film which, after an unpromising beginning, develops into a gripping drama, aided no end by superb acting from the nine very individual players in this film: Charlie Sheen, as the white prisoner incarcerated with five black soldiers in a military stockade, the two very different white guards, and Martin Sheen as the bullying and racist Sergeant who causes the tension to mount as his personal problems drive him to take out his frustrations on his charges. Martin Sheen perhaps gives the weakest, because least believable, characterization. It is Charlie Sheen as the initially wary room mate and the five finely etched black prisoners, all very good in their roles, who forge a memorable dramatic scenario out of their situation. Martin Sheen's sole directorial effort makes the most of the increasingly tense story-line. See it, it's good!