Category: Directors

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Ryan Gosling does a man’s job filling some difficult shoes in Blade Runner 2049

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling (Officer K), Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Ana da Armas (Joi), Sylvia Hoeks (Luv), Robin Wright (Lt. Joshi), Mackenzie Davis (Mariette), Carla Juri (Dr Ana Stelline), Lennie James (Mr Cotton), Dave Bautista (Sapper Morton), Jared Leto (Niander Wallace), Barkhad Abdi (Doc Badger), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), Sean Young (Rachael)

SPOILERS: It’s pretty much impossible to discuss Blade Runner 2049 without revealing some of the workings of the plot. Since the film makers have gone out of the way to say “don’t reveal any of the plot” I thought it fair to say I’ll discuss some things fairly freely here. So you’ve been warned!

Making a sequel is a risky business at the best of times. Then imagine making a sequel to a film that is not just a cultural and artistic landmark film but one people genuinely love. The possibility of creating a massive disappointment? Pretty big. You need some guts to take that on – like announcing you are making Gone with the Wind: Blown Away or Casablanca: Everyone Back to Rick’s. That’s the sort of challenge for the makers of the long-awaited Blade Runner sequel. Could they make something that both complemented and expanded on the original?

The year is 2049 (of course!). K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner with the task of hunting down long-lived Nexus-8 replicants – the twist being (and its revealed in the opening minutes of the film!) that K himself is a replicant, a more obedient Nexus-9 model. After “retiring” aged replicant farmer Sapper Morton (a career best Dave Bautista), K locates the buried remains of a female replicant who died after an emergency caesarean section. Terrified that replicants may be developing the ability to reproduce, K’s superiors order him to “retire” the child and all who know of it. As K investigates, his loyalties become ever more divided – while sinister corporate genius Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) and his Nexus-9 hit-woman Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) have their own plans for the replicant child.

So the big question is, does Blade Runner 2049 succeed? The answer is a firm and reassuring yes. The big issue is, does the existence of this film affect (or even ruin) the previous film? Blade Runner 2049 not only complements the original, it builds on and expands its themes, and poses far more questions than answers. In some ways it’s even more profound and searching than the original – arguably it engages with ideas and concepts even more overtly (and richly). If your concern going into this film was it would end any discussion about whether Deckard is a replicant or not, then have no fears – the question remains as open as ever (and works either way for this story).

Even more than the original, this film tackles what it means to be human and how we define humanity by the ability to express emotions and empathy. It comes at this from a different stand-point from Blade Runner by removing any doubt about our hero’s nature. What is more, he is a replicant deliberately designed to be more obedient than earlier models. A cool, minimalist actor with a mastery of small expressions, Ryan Gosling is almost perfectly cast as the quiet K, developing deep yearnings to be more than what he is. The entire film revolves around this question of how capable K is not only of forming emotions, but of making his own choices.

The ability to live freely and choose is at the heart of the conundrums for all our characters. To what extent are they able to do this? K goes about his work of dispatching fellow replicants with a quiet reluctance, but does his duty nevertheless. But he is a character yearning to be “more” – and what, in many ways, is more human than that? The film taps into this expertly with K’s belief that maybe he himself is replicant child. The film’s mantra is about choosing what we live and what we die for and, regardless of who or what we are, being able to do this is what makes us “more”.

In a film stuffed to the gills with replicants and other artificial characters, we are constantly asked to address and question how far each of them goes towards achieving “humanity”. Just as with Blade Runner, the only two definitely human characters (Niander Wallace and Lt Joshi) are strangely distant, hard to read or even cruel authoritarian figures, making a damn bad case for real humans.

Joi (brilliantly played by Ana de Armas), K’s girlfriend, is a warm, caring, loving woman – but she’s also a hologram, designed to be the perfect companion. K and she go to great lengths to protect and care for each other over the film – and her final fate is a deeply moving moment. But Joi is a computer programme – and a late sequence in the film where K interacts sadly with a looming holographic advert of another Joi that repeats many of her phrases in a disconnected style casts a sad light on all their previous interactions. Every time Joi said anything with love or affection to K, was this just a computer reflecting back what her owner wanted to hear?

It’s not a great surprise to say K does eventually learn to make his own choices and to decide his own fate. In many ways this is a fable of growing up – K accepting his limitations while forging his own destiny – but it makes a contrast with other replicants. While the older models form their own resistance, K’s counterpart Luv (an imposing Sylvia Huks) can’t or won’t break free of following Wallace’s commands. There are more than a few hints Luv is not always happy with the duties she is asked to perform (at one point she weeps quietly as a replicant is dispatched). But at others, she’s clearly striving as much as K to be “special” – she triumphantly repeats a mantra to herself about being the best, like a daughter trying to impress her father.

These new characters offer such diverse and exciting story-telling opportunities, you almost don’t notice that Deckard doesn’t appear in the film until nearly the third act. Harrison Ford may have been slightly uncomfortable in the original – but he fully understands the more assured, confident Deckard in this film, who has made his peace with leaving the world behind. Ford gives this new Deckard an almost Han Solo-ish shoot-first swagger, but mixes it with a world-weary sadness. I’d go so far as to say he’s actually better in this film than the first one.

Which is a further testament to the strength of this film. All the themes and ideas of the original are used as bouncing-off points for further exploration. This never feels like a retread, reboot or remake – it feels like a rich and rewarding piece of intelligent sci-fi by itself. I actually feel it could be watched independently of the first film, and still have plenty to offer. It’s not interesting in tying the first film up in a bow – instead it serves as a stimulus for future discussion. You could imagine a sequel to this film sustaining enough interest for 35 years.

Technically of course the film is an absolute marvel. Roger Deakins’ photography is gorgeous, capturing every element of this dystopian nightmare world in a series of brilliant images, in turns drained, bleached and sun kissed. Every frame is artfully composed for maximum impact. The production design is similarly magnificent, Dennis Gassner’s work melding the world of the original, with its steam-punk look, with a mix of technological developments. The score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch is similarly perfect, giving the film a brooding intensity.

But most of this artistry comes back to the film-making mastery of Denis Villeneuve, a director so gifted I think he may be more interesting than Ridley Scott. His control of the pace of the film is brilliant – despite being very long, it never drags – and he shoots every scene with a careful, intellectually engaged brilliance. He is able – possibly even more than the original – to mix emotion and elliptical theorising, and to draw a raft of brilliant performances from an outstanding cast. More than anything else, he treats the audience with respect, giving them a measured and thoughtful film that trusts we have patience. Villeneuve tops Arrival here, and does so with confident aplomb.

Blade Runner 2049 is a film that demands to be seen more than once. It’s a patient and intensely thoughtful piece of science fiction, that asks profound questions about humanity and the characters in it. I don’t really feel from one viewing I’ve got a grip on it – in fact the more I think about it, the more its haunting, elegiac quality starts cramming into my head. You need to be patient and go with it – you need to be in the right mindset for this slowburn concept film. But, get in that mindset and this film is constantly rewarding. If you want to criticise something, I will acknowledge that many of the female characters are a little more clichéd (most are prostitutes or similar) – but this world where many women seem to be in subservient roles to men is in many ways an extension of the world created in the original film (and now an expression of the dystopian future).

However this is a great film. A really great piece of adult science-fiction. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest it is better than the original film.

Blade Runner (1982)

Harrison Ford hangs on for dear life in Blade Runner

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty), Sean Young (Rachael), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), M. Emmet Walsh (Harry Bryant), Daryl Hannah (Pris Stratton), William Sanderson (JF Sebastian), Brion James (Leon Kowalski), Joe Turkel (Dr Eldon Tyrell), Joanna Cassidy (Zhora Salome)

Everyone knows Blade Runner surely? And everyone has a viewpoint on its central mysteries. Why for a film largely ignored on release? Because as well as being tight and engaging, this is a rich thematic film, crammed with mystery and enigma. And there are few things more engaging than a film that succeeds in being as open to interpretation as possible.

In 2019 a dystopian, polluted Los Angeles is a launch pad for the wealthy to head out into the new colonies in the stars. Off-world, the unpleasant tasks are carried out by artificial humans known as replicants. Replicants are banned from returning to Earth – but a group of five led by soldier Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) have come to Earth looking to extend their pre-programmed limited lifespans (no more than five years). On Earth, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is reinstated as a Blade Runner, an agent whose job is to ‘retire’ (i.e. kill) replicants on Earth. Deckard is reluctant, having an increasing distaste for his work, but begins to hunt and eliminate the replicants.

Blade Runner may be one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its look and style influenced virtually every other dystopian future you’ve seen in any other film since. Tall, run-down buildings. Overbearing corporate advertising. Flashing neon lights. Terrible weather. Everything dark all the time. Poverty and degeneracy on every corner. You’ve seen it in every dystopian future since. Visually, the film is a landmark, a testament to Ridley Scott’s graphic artistry.

But that wouldn’t be enough for Blade Runner to last the course. When released it was perhaps too elliptical and hard to categorise – equal parts dystopian thriller, noir detective story, sci-fi morality tale, dark romance – for audiences to really understand. Certainly the studio didn’t. After disastrous test screenings, it was re-cut. So began a fable of slice and dice that made Blade Runner perhaps second only to Brazil in the annals of re-versioned films.

The release included an overtly “happy ending” (bizarre images of our heroes driving into a blissful countryside, totally at odds with the rest of the film) and a disengaged voiceover from Harrison Ford that eradicated all the film’s subtlety. This was the only version for 10 years until a “Director’s cut” was released. This removed these elements, retooled scenes and introduced the famous “unicorn dream” sequence (of which more later). Fifteen years after that, Scott finally found the time to work on a “Final cut” which presented the film as Scott had intended it – with all its mysteries and questions intact. Has there been any other film with so many different “official” versions?

Anyway, was it worth the struggle? Certainly. While you could argue it is predominantly a triumph of style, Scott laces the film with a sense of mystery and profundity that makes it a rich and rewarding viewing experience. It’s a trim detective thriller that also questions the nature of humanity. It is a perfectly formed elliptical mystery, an archetypal cult film that engrosses the viewers to such an extent that 30 years later there is still a healthy debate about what the film means.

Humanity is =the key issue. The human characters are functional, cold, distant and unengaging. The hunt for the replicants (who are basically slaves) is brutally and unremorsefully executed. The replicants have been designed to learn and grow but cruelly had their lives capped to stop them taking advantage of this. Their world is polluted, tawdry, soulless and lost.

Meanwhile, the replicants exhibit far more (whisper it) humanity than the aloof human characters, ]despite the fact we are repeatedly reminded they cannot feel empathy. Clearly this is not completely true. And, the film argues, if an artificial human can display loyalty, fear, love, anger and pain, what actually is the difference between that and a “real” person. If a replicant can only be identified after dozens of questions in a test, can they really be that different from a human being?

Questions about this coalesce around Deckard. If the film has remained such a part of cultural discussions, it’s partly because of the fun of theorising about his true nature. Is he a replicant? Scott’s insertion of Deckard’s unicorn dream (implying the origami unicorn left by Gaff at the film’s end shows Gaff knows Deckard’s dream, meaning the dream is an implant in an artificial mind) very much suggests so. There is a case to be made either way, both of which work.

Deckard’s ruthless replicant hunt is deliberately juxtaposed with their own warm feelings. Deckard grows in humanity and reluctance as the film progresses – is this him becoming more human, or is it is humanity emerging? His coldness and reserved hostility contrast with the vibrancy of Batty, Pris and the replicants. In many ways, he fits in as the quintessential human in this world – a vague discomfort with what he is doing, but no real hesitation about continuing. Thematically, it makes more sense if Deckard is human – that he represents dehumanisation (and gradually realising it) while the replicants become more human.

However, clues are sprinkled throughout that Deckard is not what he appears. His distance from other characters. The treatment he receives from his co-workers. The photographs that fill his apartment (replicants enjoy photos as it gives them a sense of a past). His bond with Rachael. His relentlessness – and the fact that he is clearly considered expendable by the police. Then there is the rich irony: the best way of hunting down replicants is to create a hunter replicant. Either way, it’s a debate and conversation that sustains the film – and allows multiple interpretations of every scene.

It’s a debate that feeds into the main theme of the film: humanity, free will and our God complex. Batty, the dying replicant searching for new life, confronts his maker – a distant, arrogant man with no interest in his creation. And kills him. But Batty feels more human than any other character. He shows more affection, frustration, anger and grief than anyone else. His last words (the famous “tears in rain” speech) had such cultural impact because it has such poetic joy and depth to it. They are lines enthused with a desire to live, a romantic vitality. It’s the most poetic moment in the film and it comes from someone who isn’t “real”. What more sign do we need that the replicants are human? If we can create poetry in a machine, does it stop being a machine?

Empathy is the quality the replicants are judged on – but as we see replicants dispatched with little sense of regret, and then witness Batty and Leon’s grief for their fallen comrades, or Pris’ ease with man-child Sebastian, the lack of empathy from humans is all the more clear. Deckard is a fascinating character as he falls between two stools – either a human who has buried empathy, or a replicant discovering empathy. Strange and disjointed as the relationship between Deckard and Rachel is (and there is an uncomfortable moment where Deckard gets too physically forceful) it fits into this – are these two artificial people discovering the ability to bond? Or is it an emotionally stunted human finding himself drawn towards someone who feels more real than the other humans?

What makes the film work is that it doesn’t hammer home, these issues. It allows us to make our own minds up. It frames the action within a noirish detective thriller, laced with mood and awesome visuals. It’s sharply and sparingly written, with real intelligence. For all its discussions about humanity, it does feel at times a cold film – but it’s so rich in suggestion and implication that it doesn’t really matter. Yes you could argue the implication and playful suggestion imply more depth than actually exists, – but the film gets away with it, because it works so well.

Rutger Hauer gives easily the finest performance as Batty (he allegedly wrote the famous speech on the day). Batty is the most vibrant and dominant force in the film, who goes on the most engaging emotional arc. For me the dark secret of the film is Harrison Ford is slightly miscast– he’s aiming for moody, Bogartish disillusionment, but he comes across more disengaged (he’s strikingly better in Blade Runner 2049). I think Ford struggled with the character – it’s a role better suited to a John Hurt or James Caan, rather than Ford’s more conventional (if world-weary) magnetism – he’s not a natural fit for a bitter cynic. Olmos, Cassidy, Walsh, Sanderson and James give strong support.

Blade Runner is a visual triumph and a rich experience. Its story is compelling, but the real richness is the thematic layers under its skin. Scott created a film open to interpretation, and that’s what really grabbed the imagination. It marries mystery with curiosity and avoids pretension, becoming intriguing and engrossing. Scott has rarely made a film with such intense ideas and poignant confusion before. You could argue the final cut leans too far one way in the central mystery, but there is more than enough eerie richness under that – helped by Vangelis’ unsettlingly grand score – to keep people viewing and talking about it for another 30 years.

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Tom Cruise doesn’t hang about in the most iconic sequence from the first Mission: Impossible

Director: Brian de Palma

Cast: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Jon Voight (Jim Phelps), Emmanuelle Béart (Claire Phelps), Henry Czerny (Eugene Kittridge), Jean Reno (Franz Kreiger), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Kristin Scott Thomas (Sarah Davies), Vanessa Redgrave (Max), Emilio Estevez (Jack Harmon), Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė (Hannah Williams)

Everyone knows how it goes right? Bum bum bum-ba-bum-bum bum-ba-bum bum… Yup it’s the Mission: Impossible theme tune. Originally a hit TV series, it’s arguably more familiar now as this Tom Cruise-starring film series, a showpiece for his reckless physicality and insane commitment to ever more elaborate stunts.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is framed as a traitor after a disastrous mission in Prague. While trying to reclaim a list of agents’ cover names, Cruise and his team are betrayed by a mole within IMF. The rest of his team, including his mentor Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), are killed though Phelps’ wife Claire (Emmanuelle Béart) survives. On the run, he has to steal the real secret list himself to help discover the identity of the traitor.

Who would have thought over 20 years later Tom Cruise would still be heading out on Impossible Missions? The success of the franchise is rooted in this engaging spy thriller. How many times have I seen this film? Countless times. It’s inventive and playful. It’s got a decently intriguing plot that keeps you on your toes. Above all it’s fun.

At the time of its release people talked about its impenetrable plot, but it’s basically a standard “double cross” film. Someone we think is a hero is basically a wrong ‘un, so our hero has to follow every means in his power to find out who it is – including pretending to be a wrong ‘un himself. Understand that, and the plot is pretty basic. The main reason people find it confusing is the film assumes you’re smart enough to follow what’s going on, without characters sitting down and spelling everything out. Isn’t clumsy exposition the sort of thing we criticise other films for? Isn’t it nice not to have a film that just assumes you can follow the whole thing?

Anyway, the plot and characters are largely there to carry us from one spectacle to another. The film starts with a bang. Can you think of many films that kill off most of the cast (and the recognisable actors) in the opening 15 minutes? It’s such a daring opening it leaves a whiff of peril over everything else – even after we discover some people weren’t actually killed, and despite no other characters dying apart from the baddies.

Killing off the team does mean the film is a bit more “Tom Cruise with some back-up” rather than a team effort – but that doesn’t really matter does it? Wee Tom of course does all his own stunts and looks cracking. Acting wise, he’s “cruising” through his standard turn as a cocky protegee who goes through a steep learning curve. But it doesn’t really matter, because he looks great and everything he does is pretty damn cool. He even manages to mine some real emotional pain when he realise some of the people closest to him have betrayed him.

The film’s centre piece, that famous spiderlike descent from the roof to break into a sealed computer room in Langley, is probably most responsible for making this film a hit. How many times has that scene been spoofed? (So much so people no longer remember its almost completely lifted from 1960s crime caper Topkapi) It carries more impact than the big top-of-the-train scene that ends the film, because we immediately understand the difficulty of what Hunt is trying to do. How many times have we had to balance, played a game where you couldn’t step on something, had to be as quiet as possible, or keep as calm as you can? I’ve never had to balance on top of a speeding train, but I’ve had to do all that stuff. Everyone watching it can relate to the tension of doing this stuff. It’s a little masterpiece scene that also owes a fair deal to Riffi’s silent robbery scene.

The scene also shows what a triumph of style this is. De Palma directs with a breezy lightness and love for the business of spycraft (I suspect he was taking the money big time, as he injects very little of his personality into it, but it works and he has an eye for the memorable shot), Tom Cruise is pretty damn cool. The film understands the simplicity of iconic shots – Cruise jumping away from an exploding aquarium in a restaurant is a simple stunt, but it looks great. The film has a great range of small-scale spycraft as well – from Cruise cracking a bulb and sprinkling the glass outside a door as an early warning detector, to him carefully timing how long to stay on a phone call to allow a trace to go so far.

Of course, some things in the plot make very little sense. The traitor seems rather randomly motivated (he’s basically pissed off at the end of the Cold War, despite earning way more than the average joe and being married to an impossibly attractive younger wife) and his effectiveness and smartness fluctuates according to the demands of the plot (Bond villain-like, he inexplicably leaves Hunt alive at one point for no reason). The idea of a government organisation where missions can be chosen to be accepted or not is in itself rather silly. The use of the internet and e-mail in the film looks hilariously dated today (Hunt basically sends a series of random e-mails to made up addresses – Max@Job314 indeed…).

To be honest, its breakneck pace is probably why some people struggle to keep up with what’s going on, but generally I wouldn’t let it bother you. It helps as well that there is a terrific cast of interesting actors – one of the great strengths of this series has always been its unconventional casting decisions. Would anyone else have thought of Béart and Scott Thomas as secret agents? Each actor has the skill and confidence to invest often paper-thin characters with depth – Rhames plays Luther so well, he stuck around for the rest of the series, despite us learning very little about him here. Voight has a perfect world-weary fixedness as Phelps, Reno is great value as a sociopathic hired gun and Redgrave has a lot of a fun as a cut-glass arms dealer.

Mission: Impossible is, to be frank, tons of fun. It’s basically a simple film disguising itself as a complex one, but it’s rewarding enough that you enjoy working out the plot alongside Hunt. It treats the viewer with a certain rewarding confidence and it’s crammed with distinctive and iconic shots. Is it any wonder Cruise saddled up five more times (and counting) and chose to accept the mission again?

West Side Story (1961)

Dancers defy gravity and physics in the triumphant West Side Story

Director: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise

Cast: Natalie Wood (Maria Nunez), Richard Beymer (Tony Wyzek), Russ Tamblyn (Riff Lorton), Rita Moreno (Anita Palacio), George Chakiris (Bernardo Nunez), Simon Oakland (Lieutenant Schrank), Ned Glass (Doc), William Bramley (Officer Krupke)

It’s strange to think now, but when it debuted on Broadway, West Side Story failed to win the Tony for Best New Musical (it went to The Music Man). Today, Bernstein and Sondheim’s masterpiece is a touchstone of musical theatre. Part of that surely must be connected to the fact that it’s so well known as a film – and that this triumphant movie production took 10 Oscars as well as holding a place in any list of Greatest Musicals on Film.

The story is of course Romeo and Juliet crossed with intricate ballet and light opera. On the streets of New York, the Jets (working-class white boys) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican immigrants) are two rival gangs fighting a street battle to control their district (via the medium of dance). But danger is about to explode when former leader of the Jets Tony (Richard Beymer) falls in love with Maria (Natalie Wood), the sister of Sharks leader Bernardo (George Chakaris). Will it end well? Surely not with these star-crossed lovers…

You can’t really begin to talk about West Side Story without first talking about the dancing. Not since Astaire and Rogers has a movie been defined so much by its physical grace and rhythmic control of movement. It’s awe-inspiring. Honestly, show-stoppingly, jaw-droppingly impressive. As the dancers defy gravity, physics and the limitations of a normal person’s body, you can’t help but want to spring to your feet and join in (don’t – I guarantee you are not as good). It’s simply amazingly good.

The opening Prologue sets the scene perfectly. It’s not easy to make a film about tough street gangs, where every fight scene is largely expressed through dance – the Prologue, however, does this perfectly, a stylised slow build of increasing musical tempo. From the simple device of clicking fingers, we build continually into an explosion of carefully controlled group choreography, where each of the twenty-odd dancers feels like an individual.

The camera choices are sublime: some shots hover in dramatic aerial shots. Tracking shots highlight the skill of the dancers. The crew dug pits into the tarmac to bury the cameras in so that they could stare straight up at the dancers at some points – during one brilliant sequence Chakiris and the Sharks seem to loom, God-like, over the viewer while moving in perfect synchronicity. It’s beyond a tour-de-force, it’s simply unlike anything else you’ve ever seen on film. The film would’ve deserved Oscars even if it had ended after ten minutes, it’s probably one of the best openings ever.

Fortunately it doesn’t, because there is more exquisite stuff to come. Moreno and Chakiris probably won their Oscars off the back of the scintillatingly “America”, a beautiful whirlygig, part debate, part argument, high-kicking joy of twirling dresses and pirouettes. It’s possibly the most exciting number in the whole film. “Cool” is an unbelievably wild and challenging dance number in a garage, that seems to throw in half a dozen different styles – the set itself seems to be struggling to survive under the rampant pace and passion of the dancers. It’s a deliriously giddy, passionate, dirty number with the actors clearly pushed way beyond their natural ease.

Famous Broadway choreographer Jerome Robbins directed the original production, and was the logical choice for the studio to choreograph the film. Robbins insisted he would only do so if he was also allowed to direct the entire film. A deal was eventually done where Robbins would direct everything involving music and dance, and seasoned professional Robert Wise would handle the rest. Robbins carries most of the credit for why this film really is unique – everything special and different about it is connected to his mastery of choreography.

As it happened, Robbins’ search for perfection was so great he ended up leaving the film running weeks behind and far over budget. After months of rehearsal, when the time came to film, Robbins would dramatically re-work the choreography to exploit locations. This was particularly expensive for the location. As take after take on expensive 65mm film mounted up, the producers eventually dismissed Robbins from the project after filming four numbers (“Prologue”, “Cool”, “America” and “I Feel Pretty”). Although the rest of the numbers used his choreography (and were directed by his assistants) they lack the inspired genius of the other four stand-out numbers. Wise, a skilled hired gun, took care of the rest of the filming.

It’s the weakness of West Side Story that very few things in the rest of the film live up to the heady, exhilarating joy of those core numbers. Both Beymer and Wood are uninspiring as the two leads. Wood is not remotely convincingly Puerto Rican, while Beymer is too clean-cut and nice-guy for a kid who was running a street gang not so long ago. The scenes focusing on these two drag– and are rather flatly shot considering the dynamism around anything involving dancing. Wood’s songs are at least memorable – largely because an uncredited Marnie Nixon supplies the singing – but Beymer’s voice replacement isn’t particularly inspiring and both “Maria” and “Tonight” get a bit lost here (he’s no Michael Ball, put it like that).

The script and storyline aren’t always the strongest. It’s a difficult to really remember any of the purely dramatic sequences. Tony and Maria’s meeting on the balcony summons up very little in the way of romantic frisson, let alone any favourable comparisons to Romeo and Juliet. (Truth be told, there is very little chemistry at all between the two performers). You get the feeling the film is reaching for a big socio-political message – hey kids, why don’t we all get along? – but never really quite gets there. It’s not quite got enough thematic weight behind it for the cultural acceptance angle it’s trying to push. But heck, Romeo and Juliet is a tough act to follow, so it’s not a surprise that the film works best as just a romance.

The big exception to the rule that the dramatic moments don’t hold a candle to the dance sequences is Anita’s assault by the Jets late on in the film – an unsettlingly visceral near gang-rape, which isn’t easy to watch, but works brilliantly. In fact any dramatic scene involving Rita Moreno stands out – she burns up the screen as the fiery Anita, a woman bubbling with passion but also with an emotional intelligence and sensitivity that nearly helps our heroes avoid disaster. Moreno’s dancing and singing are first class, but her acting throughout is similarly outstanding – any scene featuring her, your eyes are immediately drawn to her. She’s well matched as well by George Chakiris, another Oscar-winner, who’s a magnetic dancer and singer but also gives Bernardo a brilliant kindly pride laced with arrogance.

All this takes places in a regular technicolour wonderland of a setting. Daniel L. Fapp’s photography is marvellous, creating a rich palette that soaks up colour. Shots of a blood red sky at night set just the right ominous tone. He makes masterful use of colour and shade throughout. I’ve already talked about how the photography brilliantly helps build the impact of the dancers. But every scene is really carefully framed and presented, with the cages and barriers of the playground the gang fights over helping to hammer home the feeling of our heroes being trapped by fate. As you’d expect from Wise (the editor of Citizen Kane) the film is also brilliantly assembled in the editing room.

Parts of West Side Story are of course a bit dated. The dancers, for all their undeniable brilliance, are a little camp for rough and tumble street kids. The film’s costumes and settings look undeniably clean to modern eyes. The casting of Wood in particular as a Puerto Rican is odd today. It’s also probably too long a film – while the musical numbers could happily go on forever, other scenes drag a little. Most of the really strong, memorable material happens in the first half of the film. And like all brilliant works of art, it’s so distinctive it’s almost a little too ripe for parody. Some of the visual flourishes used to indicate fantasy sequences look slightly dated.

But these are niggles in a way, because even if parts of the film are a little bit below par, the overall impact of the film is quite extraordinary. There has never been – and I think never will be – a musical quite like this. I simply can’t imagine such a triumph of group choreography being made, or a film-maker spending such time and money to push the envelope of what it is possible for the human body to do in dance scenes. Despite its faults, I can’t imagine a viewer not being electrified by several sequences in this movie. And at the end of the day, what else is cinema for if not to bring our emotions and feelings to life in vibrant flashes?

Leon (1994)

Jean Reno teaches Natalie Portman the ways of death in classic romantic thriller Leon

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Jean Reno (Leon), Natalie Portman (Mathilda), Gary Oldman (Norman Stansfield), Danny Aiello (Tony), Michael Badalucco (Mathilda’s Father), Ellen Green (Mathilda’s Stepmother)

Luc Besson is an interesting film-maker, part visionary, part pulpy stylist. He has undeniable talent and visual flair, but far too often wastes this on trashy and juvenile comic book films, with a teenager’s preoccupations rather than a focus on story and character. One of the few exceptions to this is Leon, a film that marries his vibrancy with a heartfelt story.

Leon (Jean Reno) is a professional hitman working in New York, a dedicated professional with the stunted emotional maturity of a young teenager. One day the family of his next door neighbour is ruthlessly slaughtered by demented, drug-dealing cop Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman), leaving only precocious 12-year Mathilda (Natalie Portman) alive. Despite his concerns about involving himself in the world, Leon takes Mathilda in – and these two outcasts develop a deep emotional bond, part mentor-pupil, part father-daughter, part celibately romantic.

In many ways, Leon should be an uncomfortable viewing experience. It’s a film that explores the growing emotional and sexual awakening of two characters, one of whom is a 12 year old girl, the other a hitman in his 40s. In fact it’s hard to imagine it even being made today by a Hollywood studio (it was controversial enough at the time). However, it works because the characters are so skilfully established. The 12 year old is precociously mature emotionally and sexually for her age, the man is so emotionally stunted and childlike in his outlook on the world he effectively feels like a 14 year old. The sexual interest is all from the girl, and is constantly batted gently aside (with a confused lack of understanding) by an adult who doesn’t understand the adult world and its feelings. As such, the film manages to side-step the creep factor and turn itself into a sort of touching fable.

It further works because our two leads give such terrific performances. Jean Reno perfectly understands Leon’s childish appreciation of the world, his touching faith in other people (his father-figure Tony is clearly swindling him), his simple delight in things (his wide-eyed appreciation of Singin’ in the Rain is very endearing). He’s naïve and has a child’s lack of understanding of violence and its impact. He’s focused so tightly on his narrow world, he’s clearly never developed any real emotional understanding of the wider world. Reno creates a character who is a seasoned killer who feels like a under developed teenager – emotionally and sexually he’s pretty close to being a 12 year old himself. His interest in Mathilda is rooted more in an elder brother/sister relationship. You get the feeling sex has never even really entered his mental equation. It’s a masterful performance, effortlessly cool but also stirringly real, sweet, vulnerable.

Equally brilliant is Natalie Portman’s enthralling performance as Mathilda. She creates a character who is sexually daring, seemingly far more adult and savvy than Leon in many ways, but is still recognisably a vulnerable child. She’s spiky and defiant, but this hides a deep rooted sensitivity and a desperation for love and affection. Her continued expression of sexual interest in Leon is as much rooted in a desire to feel part of a genuine caring family unit as it is some desire to initiate sexual contact. Her performance is perfectly nuanced and searingly real. Portman also feels both simultaneously adult and childish, so she never feels as out of place.

The film also works because it feels like a slightly unworldly drama. The rules of this world seem slightly fairy-tale like. It happens in a dreamy New York, with shady gangster chiefs, corrupt cops and hitmen moving serenely from location to location, with seemingly no intrusion of “real” people into this equation. The world seems oddly off-kilter, a self-contained fantasy where Leon is some sort of gentle ogre and Mathilda an Alice in Wonderland. While it’s set in a real place, Besson’s film feels like a sort of violent bedtime story. It becomes harder for sex in this context to seem threatening.

Instead, despite the killing and slaughter, this is a sweet and even slightly sentimental love story, about two souls who have an inherent understanding of each other. It’s a deep bond that transcends their ages and social conventions. Besson really understands this, and it’s what motivates and powers the film. They switch roles between child and adult smoothly: So one moment Leon is almost fatherly, teaching the basics of sniper work to Mathilda, the next she teaches him to read. There are undertones of sexuality, but the feeling is that neither of these characters really understands the complexities and realities of sex, because one is too young and the other is too emotionally immature.

Besson’s film making around this is sublime. The film is stylish beyond belief, the camera and editing fluid and dynamic. Action scenes hum with tension and excitement. The violent confrontations (of which there are many) are brilliantly done. Besson draws extraordinary, heartfelt performances from the two leads and creates a wonderfully moving fantasy-tinged world. His invention and pulp style brings a unique feel to what is a heartfelt, rather tender story. It’s a perfect marriage of style and content, where both complement each other. The story feels heartfelt, the execution gives it a swaggering extra dimension.

The tender reality of Reno’s and Portman’s performances – and the marvellous gentleness which Besson films this with – allows other parts of the film to go fully over-the-top. This is not least the case with Gary Oldman’s ramped-up-to-eleven Stansfield, a Grade A nutter. Oldman leaves nothing in the dressing room here, completely letting rip. In a way a performance of such utterly demented excessiveness should be absurd. But with the other performances feeling so genuine, and Besson’s fairy-tale styling, means Oldman feels a perfect part of this world, the dark monstrous heart of a corrupted land. In any other context it wouldn’t work, but here it really does.

Leon is a very tender, exciting and emotionally moving film – a great example of stylish film making married to a genuinely moving storyline between two people who feel like realistic, three dimensional characters. Both the style and the heart of the story complement each other perfectly. It’s a terrific piece of film making, with three performances at the heart each on their own way a stand-out. It must surely be Luc Besson’s finest ever film – and a height he’s very rarely ever reached again.

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Edward Fox takes aim as suave assassin The Jackal

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Cast: Edward Fox (The Jackal), Michel Lonsdale (Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel), Terence Alexander (Lloyd), Michael Auclair (Colonel Rolland), Alan Badel (The Minister), Tony Britton (Inspector Thomas), Denis Carey (Casson), Cyril Cusack (Gunsmith), Maurice Denham (General Colbert), Olga Georges-Picot (Denise), Barrie Ingham (St. Clair), Derek Jacobi (Caron), Jean Martin (Wolenski), Ronald Pickup (Forger), Anton Rodgers (Bernard), Delphine Seyrig (Colette de Montpellier), Donald Sinden (Mallinson), Timothy West (Commissioner Berthier)

The definition of lazy criticism is to say a story doesn’t work because we know the outcome. If that was the case, no production of Hamlet would ever work, and no adaptation of a best-selling book would ever find favour with an audience. We’d be bored by films based on history and we’d be even more indifferent to the hundreds of films made every year that follow accepted narrative structures. What makes a film compelling is often not the destination, but the journey. How do we get there? What do we learn? How does it make us feel? All of these things are keenly observed throughout Fred Zinnemann’s masterful adaptation of The Day of the Jackal.

The year is 1962 and the French President Charles de Gaulle is blamed by many for weakening France by granting independence to Algeria. The Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) hire an English professional assassin known only as The Jackal (Edward Fox) to assassinate De Gaulle. When word of the target leaks to the panicked French Government, Commissioner Claude Lebel (Michael Lonsdale) is given an impossible task – identify a man of whom the government knows nothing and stop him from carrying out a plan only he knows the details of. Meanwhile, the Jackal relentlessly goes about his meticulous planning.

So anyone with passing familiarity with history will know that de Gaulle was not assassinated in the early 60s. Watching The Day of the Jackal, you know that the Jackal will fail. But that’s not the point of the film. Instead it’s a masterful, streamlined thriller that completely understands how much we can invest in watching someone go about a job with calm, cool professionalism. It’s the ingenuity and meticulousness that makes the film compelling, the way each angle of the Jackal’s plan is carefully considered and information slowly delivered to the audience. In some areas we are a couple of steps ahead of Lebel’s search. In others we are as far behind as he is: we may know the weapon and the Jackal’s secret identities, but we know as little about his final plan as Lebel does – it’s only when it’s revealed that all the pieces we’ve seen make perfect sense.

It’s a film that has been assembled with all the grace and skill of a master clockmaker. Zinnemann’s direction and Kenneth Ross’ taut screenplay make every second count. There isn’t a single piece of flab on the bones of this movie, every scene carries a piece of vital information that contributes to the overall picture. Zinnemann sprinkles the film with careful passing shots of calendars and clocks, making the sense of a countdown towards the Jackal’s strike hang intimidatingly over the whole film. The film is gripping, right from its opening reconstruction of the almost-successful OAS assassination attempt on De Gaulle in 1962. Everything feels perfectly interlinked and connected, each scene brilliantly builds on top of the ones before.

This is quite simply an unshakeably brilliant engine of a film, a relentless ride with tension and excitement dripping from every frame. It’s not afraid to be cruel or dangerous – and some of the victims are truly blameless – and it’s not afraid to show that violence and cruelty are weapons as much for the authorities as the Jackal (the cruellest act, after all, is committed by the French Army on poor loyal Wawlinski).

A large part of the success of the film rests on Edward Fox’s performance in the lead. Fox gives the Jackal an unshakeable, public-school, confidence, an attractive resolve that sees him meet every obstacle with a cool elán, resolutely unperplexed by anything that he encounters. Fox’s superb performance succeeds in making you engage with (and even root for) a man who is a cold-blooded professional killer, who commits murder (when provoked) without hesitation. How does this happen? Again it’s his efficiency, his expertise. The film totally understands how engrossing watching talented people go about their work can be.

The film makes the minutia of setting up an operation immensely compelling. In careful detail, we see exactly how the Jackal goes about getting a false passport from the authorities. How he scopes out a potential place to conduct the assassination. His careful preparation of disguises and fake identities. In one gloriously done scene, we see him practise using his specially constructed rifle on a melon at a huge range. Carefully he takes a series of shots at the melon, adjusting the sight each time to make the weapon as accurate as possible. The scene is a showcase for the Jackal’s meticulous professionalism (you can see why the producers were outraged when the scene was cut from a TV screening in the 1980s – it’s practically a highlight of the movie).

Similar investment, however, is made in the detailed footwork involved in tracing and detecting the Jackal by the French and English police. Michael Lonsdale is a perfect foil for Fox’s urbane cool, with his dour, grey, crumpled Label, a man selected somewhat unwillingly for a mission but who slowly reveals the cool head and nerves of steel that made him perfect for the job. The police-work used to try and close the net on the Jackal is as intricate as the hitman’s own work – careful plodding through files and methodical calculation and educated guesswork. It’s as far from the rush and tumble of Hollywood as you can imagine – but somehow, because it feels so real, every discovery against the odds by the authorities becomes hard-won and exciting. The sense of a net being skilfully built also serves to make the Jackal’s skilful evasion of each trap all the more compelling.

And the tense race against time lasts for the whole of the film. The film brilliantly keeps this cat-and-mouse game alive, with the police and the Jackal constantly leap-frogging each other to stay one step ahead. Each move and counter-move has all the intricacy of a chess game. There are enough twists and turns to keep every audience member gripped. The eventual assassination attempt itself is built up to beautifully – a wordless, tense but brilliantly assembled montage of liberation day celebrations keeps both the police and the audience on their toes as to where the Jackal will strike from. The finale of the film turns on a twist of fate that is simply a brilliant coup de theatre. There is even a droll little coda that deepens the mystery of the Jackal even further.

Zinnemann’s direction throughout is flawless – calm, measured and methodical, and never allowing flash or bombast to drown out events. It’s helped as well by the wonderful cast of actors – a real who’s-who of British and French character actor talent, with Alan Badel’s smooth Interior Minister, Eric Porter’s cool but fanatic OAS leader, Cyril Cusack’s quiet gunsmith and Derek Jacobi’s eager young detective particular standouts. I also have a lot of time for Olga Georges-Picot’s quietly moving performance of a woman pushed to extreme actions by grief.

The Day of the Jackal is another of those near perfect movies. Everything it sets out to do it does perfectly, and it rewards constant viewing. It’s got some terrific unflashy performances and is a perfect demonstration of why professionalism and expertise can be so engrossing. It wraps this up into a deliciously tense confection, where every scene bubbles with undercurrents of drama and danger. There is not an off-beat – instead it’s a brilliant piece of pulp cinema that transcends itself into being something truly adept and dramatic. You can’t take your eyes off it for a second. I don’t hesitate for a second in saying it’s one my favourite thrillers.

Dunkirk (2017)

Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard and Fionn Whitehead are three ordinary soldiers trying to get home in Christopher Nolan’s epic Dunkirk

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Fionn Whitehead (Tommy), Tom Glynn-Carney (Peter Dawson), Jack Lowden (Collins), Harry Styles (Alex), Aneurin Barnard (Gibson), James D’Arcy (Colonel Winnant), Barry Keoghan (George Mills), Kenneth Branagh (Commander Bolton), Cillian Murphy (Shivering Soldier), Mark Rylance (Mr Dawson), Tom Hardy (Farrier)

“We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted.” – Winston Churchill

The evacuation of Dunkirk is a very British triumph. Beaten and encircled by the Germans, British forces were stranded in a small pocket around Dunkirk. The country looked certain to lose almost 400,000 men to death or imprisonment – the core of its professional army. The fact that almost 340,000 soldiers were evacuated was more than a triumph: it was almost a miracle. Christopher Nolan’s epic new film brings the triumph and adversity of this campaign to the big screen.

The action unfolds over a week around the evacuation of Dunkirk. On the beach Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) and Alex (Harry Styles) are desperate to escape the chaos on the beach, where the evacuation is being managed from the one standing pier by Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh). On the sea, Mr Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his son Tom (Peter Dawson) head to Dunkirk in their small pleasure boat to help with the evacuation, picking up a traumatised soldier on the way (Cillian Murphy). In the air, Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden) fly a one-hour mission over Dunkirk to provide air support to the stranded soldiers.

As a director, Nolan’s calling cards are playing with narrative forms and timelines, while allowing personal stories play out on extremely grand canvases. Dunkirk feels like a summation of some kind of his career: its multi-layered timelines are gracefully and intelligently threaded together, and while the canvas is enormous, the human stories don’t get lost. The human interest running through the film is particularly impressive, as there is so little dialogue. It’s pretty close to “experience cinema” – it throws the audience into an immersive explosion of events, giving as much of an impression as it’s possible to give of the claustrophobia, tension and terror of being trapped on that beach.

The film-making is impeccable in creating this overbearing feeling. Hans Zimmer’s score thunders over the film, bearing down with a constant pressure and making excellent use of metronome ticking to keep hammering home the time pressure. Nolan brilliantly inverts scale in his filming to create a sense of claustrophobia – we constantly see sweeping shots of but the scale of our surroundings only forces home the seeming impossibility of what the British are trying to do. Individual soldiers seem tiny – how can one man possibly have a chance of escaping? It’s a brilliant mixture of sound and imagery to make the large seem small, the epic seem entrapping.

What Nolan does really well in this grand scale is to create a series of “ordinary soldier” characters. Despite the fact that we learn virtually nothing about them, these characters feel human and desperate. Again, they are such small, ordinary Everyman cogs in the giant machine of the army, that they become hugely relatable. It’s a hugely neat trick by Nolan, another brilliant inversion – just as he turns epic to claustrophobic, he turns ciphers into characters.

Recognising the need for balance between the overbearing impact of the Dunkirk beach sequences, the film allows a mix of story-telling and character types in its other two plotlines. So Mark Rylance’s boat captain voices much of the film’s humanitarianism, in a sequence that plays like a chamber piece – four people discussing duty and the impact of war in a confined space. Meanwhile Tom Hardy’s Spitfire pilot carries more of the traditional “war film” man-on-a-mission dynamics, engaging in a series of dog fights in the sky. Interweaving these stories offers not only relief to the audience, but also narrative contrast.

The interwoven storylines are also brilliantly done since they all take place in very different timespans. The plot at “the Mole” takes place over a week, “the sea” in one day, and “the sky” in one hour. Each of these timelines interlocks and unfolds in the film simultaneously, and characters move at points from one timeline to another.

Okay, writing it down, it sounds impossibly confusing and difficult to follow right? Who could keep track of all that? But the film is so brilliantly assembled that it always make perfect sense. Nolan uses several key markers – a boat, the fate of certain characters – to constantly allow us to see where we are in the story’s timeline. So we understand when we have moved from one timeline to another when we see a ship still on the beach that we’ve seen sinking elsewhere. This also increases the tension – we know at points what will happen before the characters do, because we’ve already seen the after-effects. Again, put it into words it sounds wanky and difficult to follow, but it really isn’t – and the film is put together with such confidence that it never feels the need to show off its narrative gymnastics. Nolan is confident enough to be clever without drawing our attention to it – a very difficult trick to pull off.

All this forceful story telling never prevents the story from also being at many points immensely moving and stirring. The arrival of the boats at Dunkirk is a genuine “lump in the throat” moment. The simple decency of Rylance’s boat captain gives a low-key impression of a very British sort of heroism, of quietly doing one’s duty while valuing every life and wearing your own grief lightly.

The film’s more action-based sequences are equally stirring and moving, because Nolan brilliantly establishes character with only a few brief notes. It’s made clear early on that Hardy’s pilot has only a limited fuel supply: every second he stays above Dunkirk protecting the men and ships below, he reduces his chances of getting home. It’s another sort of heroic self-sacrifice, and in a film that generally doesn’t shy away from showing the deadly consequences of war, Nolan is happy to give us some more traditional, fist-pumping heroics.

Nolan gets the maximum emotion from the more dialogue-heavy parts by hiring some terrific actors: Rylance, as mentioned is superb, and Cillian Murphy is very good as a shell shocked captain. Kenneth Branagh is perfect for conveying the weight of responsibility on the shoulders of the naval commander in charge of the evacuation. And elsewhere, Whitehead, Bernard and Styles all invest their ordinary Tommies with a great deal of emotion and empathy.

Dunkirk is a marvel of cinematic technique and accomplishment, which brings enough moral and emotional force to the drama to keep you engaged in the plights of its characters. You can marvel at the film making tour-de-force of its executions, but you never feel disengaged from it. It’s a marvellous film.

Lost Highway (1997)

Bill Pullman goes out of his mind in David Lynch’s deliberately weird Lost Highway

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Bill Pullman (Fred Madison), Patricia Arquette (Renee Madison/Alice Wakefield), Balthazar Getty (Pete Dayton), Robert Loggia (Mr Eddy/Dick Laurent), Robert Blake (The Mystery Man), Gary Busey (Bill Dayton), Lucy Butler (Candace Dayton), Michael Massee (Andy), Richard Pryor (Arnie)

It wouldn’t be a David Lynch film unless the plot was impossible to explain, but here goes. Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) and his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) marriage is on the rocks. The couple start receiving packages containing camcorder videos of their home. These videos become increasingly more and more personal and intimate. The final video shows Fred murdering Renee. Imprisoned, Fred suffers from headaches and then overnight he transforms into another person, Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty). Released back into the world, Dayton encounters the glamorous Alice Wakefield (Arquette again). Then things get even weirder. Yup that’s right: weirder.

Lost Highway is probably Lynch at his most obscure and baffling. Like a lot of Lynch films, it’s a question of taste. What do you want to get out of a film? If it’s a puzzling mystery then this might be the film for you. Lost Highway is like an impossible jigsaw, or a landscape with no frame of reference: trying to judge what the overall actual picture is, is nearly impossible. Traditional film making elements, such as story and character, are subservient here.

So whether you like Lost Highway will probably come down to how much you are willing to accept everything you see is constantly being dismantled and repositioned by the film. It strikes a less successful balance between this “Lynchian” material and more traditional storytelling than Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive (both, I would argue, superior films). However, for those willing to run with a mystery, Lost Highway is a baffling but intriguing watch – unsettling, unnerving, but fascinating.

So what is it about? Now I confess I needed to read up a little bit, but the best way to understand the film is as some sort of elliptical, dreamlike fantasy created by its lead character. It seems pretty clear that the majority of the film is, at best, subjective recollection or out-and-out fantasy. A little too much attention is paid in the film to a line from Fred Madison that he dislikes video cameras as he prefers to “remember things my own way rather than how they happened”. A fairly on-the-nose statement, but a clear mission statement for a film if I ever I saw one.

In fact, Fred Madison is so keen to remember the world only as he sees it that, he literally becomes someone else to build some sort of internal fantasy world where he can win the girl. But Fred/Pete is such a screwed up, confused person he can’t even get his own fantasy world right –impressions from the real world keep draining in. At least, that’s a fair interpretation. The film of course deliberately keeps things open: is this some fantasy Fred has while trapped in his cell? Or is there some sort of metaphysical transformation that fades into the real world? Is there an element of this story being circular and self-perpetuating? Is there any reality to it at all? How much you engage with these questions is a pretty good indication of what you’ll make of this film.

Whatever your response to it, as a piece of film-making it’s a very impressive piece of work. All the usual Lynchian touches are here: the strident and discordant lighting at key moments, the intelligent and daring use of music, the intermingling of design from the modern world and Americana of the 1950s, not to mention the moments of extreme violence and graphic sex. Lynch uses unsettling camera angles and sudden tilts of angle and sound to constantly keep the audience on their toes and questioning what they are seeing. Disturbing and haunting imagery, a testament to Lynch’s painter’s eye, is perfectly judged. Confusing as this film is, it offers a parade of intriguing images.

It’s an important landmark in Lynch’s filmography: a flowering of ideas he had been dabbling with since Twin Peaks, of mysticism, perversion and human darkness, and a jumping off point for haunting, almost illogical films to come like Mulholland Drive. The Mystery Man (unsettlingly played by Robert Blake – not least as this is the last film Blake made before his conviction for murdering his own wife) is a haunting, perfect Lynchian character – unsettling in appearance and confusing in intention. Is he a real person, or a mystical force? Is he some sort of external expression of evil driving Fred on, or is he part of Fred’s fractured mind?

Patricia Arquette plays two very different femme fatales, but to what extent are they reimaginings or reversionings of each other? It’s a very good performance from Arquette, playing someone who is not quite a real person, nor quite a fantasy, who feels like a character from a film moving into a real world, which itself is probably a fantasy. Just writing this sentence shows what a crazy film this is.

For the rest of the performances, there is a good mix of the genuine and the artificial. Bill Pullman, at his most understated, is perfect to ground the film, while Balthazar Getty gives a fine, detailed performance as a character who is similar and slightly different to Fred. Robert Loggia mixes ferocity and a bizarre tenderness as a character who may or not be a foul-mouthed gangster. These performances add a level of heart to the film, allowing a bit for freedom for the strangeness.

Lynch’s Lost Highway isn’t a masterpiece – it’s perhaps too self-consciously oddball and unusual, too reliant on mood and atmosphere to make up for its lack of story and characterisation. It is however intriguing, a brilliant puzzle, even though it doesn’t really allow you to invest emotionally in it at all. You can admire it as a mystery, but you can never really open your heart to it. It’s a film that is daring and dangerous, but it’s also one that, for all its erotic sex and tortured psyches, never really feels like it’s about real people with real feelings. It’s a mixture that, as I’ve said, works better in Mulholland Drive. But this is a very good staging post to that film.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Kenneth Branagh struggles to bring Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to life

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Robert De Niro (The Creature), Kenneth Branagh (Victor Frankenstein), Tom Hulce (Henry Clerval), Helena Bonham Carter (Elizabeth), Ian Holm (Baron Frankenstein), John Cleese (Professor Waldman), Aidan Quinn (Captain Robert Walton), Richard Briers (Grandfather), Robert Hardy (Professor Krempe), Trevyn McDowell (Justine Moritz), Celia Imrie (Mrs Mortiz), Cherie Lunghi (Caroline Frankenstein)

In 1994 Kenneth Branagh was the heir of Laurence Olivier: a man who could act, direct and produce, who never had a false step, whose every film was a success. In other words he was ripe for a kicking, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was the stick used to beat him. It was practically the founding text of “Branagh-bashing”, for a time one of the favourite sports of the British press.

Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) grows up obsessed with defeating death, traumatised by the death of his mother. Training as a doctor in Vienna, after the murder of his mentor Professor Waldmann (an effectively serious John Cleese), he uses the body of the murderer to create the Creature (Robert De Niro) – but, horrified by what he has created, he flees home to Geneva. While the Creature comes to terms with being an outcast, Victor marries his sweetheart Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) – only for her to become a target when the Creature vows revenge.

Okay the good stuff about this film: the production design is terrific, the Frankenstein house in particular a marvellous set. It’s also a very faithful adaptation, pretty much following the book (apart from a late, horribly melodramatic “Bride of Frankenstein” sequence). Branagh gets some affecting moments out of the film, particularly in the calmer moments – De Niro gives an interesting performance and the retention of the Walton framing device in the Arctic is well done. There is a good film in here. But it’s buried completely under the overblown shouting, swooping cameras and booming music that covers the rest of the film.

Contrary to his reputation as a purveyor of intricate Shakespeare adaptations, Branagh has always been a lover of big movies, who brings an operatic intensity to cinema. The problem is he goes too far here. This is at times so ridiculously overblown and frenetic in its tempo, you start to think Branagh is trying too hard, desperate to make a big budget smash. Wanting to make a big, gory, gothic horror film, he dials everything up to eleven, and the sturm und drang eventually becomes a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Interestingly, this intensity is particularly overbearing in the Frankenstein scenes, rather than those focusing on the Creature. Several scenes are filmed with the camera swooping round in circles over long intense takes, while the score thunders away. This principally happens in scenes of high emotion – the deaths of Frankenstein’s mother and his mentor Waldmann are both operatically overblown (in the latter Branagh literally cranes up and screams “No!”). Eventually it all becomes too much. You are crying out for everyone to take a breath and just deliver a line calmly.

Now I can see what Branagh is doing here. He’s looking to emulate the high-Gothic semi-camp of 1930s horror films. That’s the charitable explanation for why he spends the entire Creature-birthing scene running round topless (he must have spent ages on that chest), with Patrick Doyle’s score booming away, while the camera swoops and sweeps around him. Branagh is partly channelling Colin Clive’s mad scientist from James Whale (he even bellows “Live!” in pure Clive style twice in the film), but by going for overwhelming bombast in his performance, he misses out on making the character relatable. Now Victor is a selfish asshole of course, but we should at least relate to him a little bit: I’m not sure many people can in this film.

It’s a real shame because there is in fact, under the frantic editing and dizzying camerawork, a quieter, more intelligent film trying to get out. Branagh’s Frankenstein is a man deep in trauma about death, unable to cope with losing people, whose fear becomes a dangerous obsession. The romance between Victor and Helena Bonham Carter’s sweetly innocent Elizabeth has a lot of warmth (the chemistry is also excellent: no surprise to hear that the actors started a long term relationship on the set of this film). There are moments here meditating on life and death, but they constantly get lost in the next ridiculous bloody action scene, or explosion of overblown acting.

Similarly, De Niro mines a lot of confused sympathy from the Creature – probably because he seems the quieter and more “normal” person, for all his scars and acts of murder. The sequence with the Creature looking after the family of a blind man (a decent Richard Briers) sees De Niro mine a great deal of vulnerability and innocence from his situation. The contained camera work and restrained acting make these the finest scenes in the film, more memorable than any of the blood and guts that fill the final half hour.

De Niro and Briers: Your only chance to see Travis Bickle and Tom Good share a scene

And those blood and guts are a problem, because this is not a scary film. Not even one little bit. Instead it’s either ridiculous or juvenile – in a sequence where a character literally has their heart ripped out by the Creature, Branagh can’t resist not only having the Creature holding it up to the camera, but for the camera to jump to a close up of the heart literally beating in its hand. Not scary, not gross, just stupid and childish. At any points of tension we get the pounding music and running around and shouting like a Gothic Doctor Who. If only Branagh had taken a breath and treated the material more calmly and sensibly we could have ended up with something creepy and spooky, rather than garish.

It’s a real, real shame because honestly there are some good things in this movie. I’ve mentioned De Niro, but Tom Hulce is also terrific as Clerval and Bonham Carter very good as Elizabeth. There are moments of real class in the design and production – I’ve lambasted Patrick Doyle’s score a bit, but there are some very good tracks in here. The problem, much as it massively pains me to say it because I love him, is Branagh. His performance and direction is just too much: too giddy, too overblown, too frantic, too overwhelming. The film comes across less as a tribute to old style melodramatic horror movies, more a very intelligent gifted man talking down at fans of the genre, giving them what it appears the genre is about on the surface, rather than the depths that actually appeal to people. Despite its merits, the film is not alive, but dead inside.

Ronin (1998)

Robert De Niro takes aim in super cool car-chase classic Ronin

Director: John Frankenheimer

Cast: Robert De Niro (Sam), Jean Reno (Vincent), Natascha McElhone (Dierdre), Stellan Skarsgård (Gregor), Sean Bean (Spence), Skipp Sudduth (Larry), Michael Lonsdale (Jean-Pierre), Jonathan Pryce (Seamus O’Rourke), Jan Triska (Dapper Gent), Féodor Atkine (Mikhi)

Sam (Robert De Niro), Vincent (Jean Reno), Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård), Spence (Sean Bean) and Larry (Skipp Sudduth) are ex-intelligence operatives from the Cold War (or “the late unpleasantness”). Now working as mercenaries, they are hired by IRA operative Dierdre (Natascha McElhone) to steal a mysterious case. The operation becomes increasingly complex as trust is betrayed, new competitors emerge, and a stream of gun battles and car chases soon bursts out.

I don’t think there are enough words to say how much I love this film. I have seen it I honestly don’t know how many times. Some films just connect with you, or something about them so completely works for you that you can’t help but enjoy them. Ronin is quite simply one of my favourite ever films – others may poke at it, but to me I think this is a perfectly structured piece of film-making, a 1970s-style thriller produced in the 1990s, the last flourish of old-school, Cold War spy film-making. In fact, I genuinely think the further we move away from the bombastic 90s, the richer this film looks. It’s becoming less and less of a guilty pleasure and more and more of a pleasure.

First and foremost you have to talk about what Ronin is most famous for: its jaw dropping car chases. What’s particularly exciting about these is that everything you are seeing was done for real. There is barely a spot of trickery in this – they simply hired the best stunt men in the world, got hold of some cool looking cars, and let them go to town all over France.

Of course, watching cars going round and round in itself isn’t massively interesting: what makes it compelling in Ronin is the skilled story-telling. Not only do we always know what’s going on, but the characters are kept in the forefront (most of the actors’ terrified faces were real, as they tore round the streets of Paris for real at 90+ miles an hour). In addition to that, the editing and shooting of these scenes is simply superb. The film gets a perfect balance of sound effects and musical cues: the soundtrack of the final car chase is split 50/50 between revving engines and music. A combination of low angles (putting us practically on the front of the car) and medium and long shots keep the visuals of each chase fresh. You’d actually have to be without a pulse to not be gripped by these sequences. These are without a doubt the best car chases ever committed to screen.

But it’s not just about car chases. This is a brilliant mood piece, filmed in a drained out colour palate that makes the whole thing feel like the characters have been transplanted intact from the 1970s. Frankenheimer’s direction is crisp and cool, and he has an eye for an excellent shot. He also allows plenty of subtle character and mood building to counterpoint the action, as in the excellent, almost wordless, opening sequence following De Niro’s arrival at a café. Carefully he cases the joint while the others arrive, putting in place a possible escape route (we later discover) before heading in. Later, the film builds a moment of exquisite tension and excitement about a drawing on a board and the colour of a boat house. We even get a scene where De Niro guides some of the characters through performing surgery on him to remove a rogue bullet.

The whole film is packed full of excellent vignettes like this: I love the moment when De Niro pretends to have lost his nerve and carelessly knocks a coffee cup off a table to see how Skarsgard’s slightly sinister Gregor may respond (he catches it before it hits the ground and then immediately looks sheepish as if he has given something away). The film also sprinkles dark hints throughout of a wider world (“Where do I know you from?” “Vienna” “Of course…” an example of exposition-free dialogue that establishes a back story), while the characters’ backgrounds and their recruitment by “the man in the wheelchair” remain deliberately obscure.

It’s also one of the best Macguffin films you are going to see ever. What’s in the case? Who knows? Who cares? The film’s structure totally understands that it doesn’t matter to us what’s in the thing at all. It’s only important in that it matters to the characters: and that most of them are willing to go to any lengths to secure it (preferably for free).

The other major strength of the film is its cracking dialogue, the work of an uncredited David Mamet (allegedly pissed off that the Writer’s Guild of America declared he had to share billing). The dialogue is endlessly quotable, and deftly sketches out character: for instance, we understand immediately De Niro’s cool confidence and Bean’s blustering faux machismo from exchanges like this:

Spence: You worried about saving your own skin?
Sam: Yeah I am. It covers my body.

That only scratches the surface of the film’s dialogue, which crackles – this exchange between Vincent and Sam sums up its wit, and lived-in quality:

In fact the film is full of cool lines like this that seem to carry a flavour of working in intelligence, and stick in the imagination (“The map is not the territory” or “Either you’re part of the problem or you’re part of the solution or you’re just part of the landscape”). The best moments sizzle with an effortless cool, with dialogue that you find yourself (or I do anyway) regularly dropping into everyday conversation. It also helps to slowly build relationships within the film, with Sam and Vincent’s dialogue quickly finding itself in sync, a clever little indicator of their building friendship.

The relationship between Sam and Vincent is in many ways the heart of the film – while other characters fall by the wayside, events ruthlessly exposing their weaknesses, it’s these two who form a close bond. Vincent may believe “Everyone’s your brother until the rent comes” but their friendship develops a real warmth and trust – they are the real romantic link in the film (despite a flirtation with Natasha McElhone’s steely IRA gun runner Dierdre).

All this content comes together brilliantly into a tightly contained and carefully paced thriller. It’s also strikingly well-acted in a tight, stripped down manner. This is probably the last engaged, “serious” role De Niro did before his career drifted into decades of self-parody. He gives Sam a brilliant lived-in quality, with a wry sense of humour. Jean Reno is equally well cast as the laconically cool Vincent, while Natasha McElhone is engaging and intriguing as Dierdre. Stellan Skarsgård is a stand-out as the ice-cool Gregor. Of the no-less than three Bond-baddy actors, Michael Lonsdale probably has the best part as a model-building fixer, though Sean Bean does decent work as twitchy poseur. Jonathan Pryce is, I have to say, not completely convincing as an IRA heavy, but does a decent job.

Okay I’ll concede the final reveal and resolution of the film’s plot is not the best moment (a particularly heavy-handed, plumbily voiced BBC radio voiceover explains much of the ending), but that’s a bump in the road of gripping, smart and old-school thriller. It’s accomplished in its filming, and its mood sizzles from the screen. The car chases are edge-of-your-seat gripping, and there is barely a false beat in acting or dialogue. The direction is full of character and has a brilliant eye for little details. Above all else, I really love this film – probably more than is healthy – and I have seen it a crazy number of times. I can’t imagine not enjoying watching it – and I don’t think I ever haven’t, even though I must know it frame-by-frame. Brilliant stuff!