Category: Directors

Total Recall (1990)

Arnold Schwarzenegger goes for a trip into his memories in Total Recall

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Douglas Quaid/Carl Hauser), Rachel Ticotin (Melina), Sharon Stone (Lori Quaid), Ronny Cox (Vilos Conhaagen), Michael Ironside (Richter), Mel Johnson Jnr (Benny), Marshall Bell (George/Kuato), Roy Brocksmith (Dr Edgemar), Dean Norris (Tony)

Perhaps in 2084, they will look back on Schwarzenegger’s career and wonder what on earth we were all thinking. He was the figurehead of the 1980s fashion for muscle-bound leading men, defined more by physicality than acting ability. Since then, fashions have changed: movies are led by actors who go through hours of physical training, rather than weight lifters taking acting classes. Would Schwarzenegger be a star today? Quite possibly not: compare him to his nearest modern equivalent, Dwayne Johnson. Schwarzenegger doesn’t have an ounce of Johnson’s ability, wit or even charm. Would the world of Twitter embrace an often one-note performer with a paper thin range?

Schwarzenegger got where he was because, for all his lack of acting skill, he is a very clever man: he could spot a script and worked with people who got the best out of him. He turned himself into a brand: “Arnie” the pillar of strength, the master of the one-liner. It worked for films, it worked for politics. Which is all a long intro to say: in his best work, he put himself into decent roles in films from distinctive filmmakers, like Total Recall.

Total Recall is a semi-smart sci-fi action thriller, directed by Paul Verhoeven with his usual Dutch excess: part social satire, part wallow in extreme cartoonish violence and grotesque, Flemish-painting style imagery. Douglas Quaid (Arnie) is a construction worker in 2084, who dreams of escaping his humdrum life and visiting the Mars colony. He decides to visit Recall, a memory implantation centre which promises to give him memories of visiting Mars, with a twist: he’ll visit as a secret agent. However, the implantation reveals Quaid has hidden memories – he may in fact be rogue agent on the run, Carl Hauser. Before he knows it, everyone from his own wife (Sharon Stone) to a brutal intelligence operative (Michael Ironside) is hunting him with lethal force – and Quaid must head to Mars for answers about who he is.

Verhoeven’s sci-fi work adds a level of social satire to high concept stories. In Total Recall he mixes in his critical denunciations of big business and corporate ethics (also a major theme of Robocop) with an everyday acceptance of brutal violence that is so neck-breakingly, blood-spurtingly extreme in places it could only be social satire. Total Recall mocks our own ease with violence as entertainment, by setting itself in a world where the news broadcasts government troops machine gunning protestors (while a newsreader cheerily comments on the minimum use of violence), and the representatives of the Mars Corporation have literally no compunction or hesitation in inflicting huge numbers of civilian casualties in the crossfire.

A lot of this cartoonish violence spins out of the movie’s own playing around with the nature of reality. It leaves open the question of whether Quaid is really a spy in disguise, or if the film’s events occur only in his fractured brain suffering a terminal meltdown from an upload gone wrong. At Recall Quaid is promised his new fantasy memories will be full of action, he’ll get the girl and save the world. Needless to say he achieves all these things by the film’s end. Rachel Ticotin even appears on a screen in Recall as his “fantasy” woman. Is Quaid dreaming or not? It’s a question that is of more interest to viewers I suspect than the filmmakers (other than a few cheeky bits from Verhoeven), but it does tie in neatly with the almost dreamlike hyper violence Quaid dishes out: necks snapped, bodies spurting fountains of pinky red blood, dead bodies used as shields ripped to pieces by bullets. It’s all so extreme that it deliberately feels both not quite real and a mocking commentary on the bloodless action in other sci-fi films.

Schwarzenegger fits surprisingly well into all this. On paper, he’s completely miscast as an innocent discovering a hidden past, the future Governator anchoring a film with satirist leanings. But Verhoeven gets something out of Schwarzenegger in this film that works surprisingly well. Like James Cameron recognised, Verhoeven saw Arnie had a sort of upstanding sweetness amidst all the macho posturing. Arnie is surprisingly effective as Quaid, suddenly shocked at his capabilities for violence (as well of course or physically selling the action). Verhoeven taps into Arnie’s likeability (what other action star could sell “Consider this a divorce” as a punchline as he shoots his fake wife in the head?) and runs with it throughout the film.

As such, Schwazenegger makes a decent lead. It helps that he is willing to be a figure of fun at points. He wears a wet towel round his head to block transmissions. His face contorts ludicrously as he pulls an enormous probe from out of his nose. He infiltrates Mars dressed as an old woman. Most of this material fades away in the second half of the movie when Schwarzenegger reverts to the more typical heroic action (I suspect negotiations over the script shifted the film into a halfway house between a standard action movie and Verhoeven’s more satiric bent). But it’s all still there and helps humanise Quaid, so that we are on board with the slaughter he perpetrates later. Quaid is probably one of the best roles Arnie had – and Verhoeven does very well to fit a man so serious about himself into a world of self-parody. Saying that, the role is in some ways beyond Arnie’s reach – I’m not sure he is really plugged into or understands the dark comic tone of the movie, and he doesn’t really have the wit as a performer to do much more than deliver killer lines, certainly not to contribute to the dark satire Verhoeven is putting together.

As a whole the film doesn’t always deliver. Schwarzenegger seems at sea during scenes with his feisty, independent love interest played by Rachel Ticotin (this does her no favours, as her role hardly connects). Sharon Stone similarly has little chemistry with the Austrian Oak – although at least she has the second best role in the script as a vicious woman not afraid to use sex as a tool. The actual plot fits in nicely with the possibly dreamlike nature of what we are seeing, but the villain’s aims seem rather unclear, and the film lacks a strong enough antagonist (neither Michael Ironside or Ronny Cox have quite enough to make their thin characters come to life).

This plays into the film as being semi-smart: it’s a curious mix of smart and stupid. It’s got enough brains to poke a bit of fun at corporate America, and to make moral comments on our treatment of minorities (here represented by the mutants who inhabit Mars). On the other hand, it’s a schlocky action cartoon, that revels in ultra-violence while creating a world where, in universe, it is not considered extreme enough to comment on.

Total Recall is a fun movie that allows you to read more into it than is probably really there. Verhoeven peddles themes around the nature of reality, and introduces satiric comments on corporations and violence in the media that don’t hit home so heavily that they become wearing. I also have to say I like its empathy with the vulnerable and weak – the mutant resistance on Mars is engagingly grounded and humane, particularly in contrast to the ruthless heartlessness of Mars Corp. It’s not a masterpiece, but as a smarter piece of popcorn fun it works really well.

For Schwarzenegger himself, this was his final non-Terminator hit. Terminator 2 (a year later), an undoubted work of genius, was his high watermark. Three attempts since to relaunch the Terminator franchise (all with mediocre or worse directors), demonstrate Schwarzenegger’s awareness his time was fleeting and dependent on his roles rather than his skills. Total Recall was Schwarzenegger doing something completely different, to great success – but also one of his last hits-. His run of good scripts, and pulp premises, came to an end here – but it was a good end. California awaited!

Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (2016)

Tom Hanks braces for impact as heroically normal hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Tom Hanks (Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger), Aaron Eckhart (Jeff Skiles), Laura Linney (Lorraine Sullenberger), Anna Gunn (Dr Elizabeth Davis), Autumn Reeser (Tess Soza), Ann Cusack (Donna Dent), Holt McCallany (Mike Cleary), Mike O’Malley (Charles Porter), Jamey Sheridan (Ben Edwards)

On January 15^th 2009, a miracle happened in New York. A plane struck birds, causing double engine failure. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, left with no options, decided to land the plane on the Hudson River. Amazingly, all 155 passengers and crew survived unharmed.

Eastwood’s emotional, skilfully made film brilliantly recreates this true-life event, with Hanks taking on the lead as Sully. The framing device Eastwood uses is the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the crash, here re-imagined as an almost persecution, convinced that pilot error and failure to react quickly enough were the causes.

What’s most striking for me is this film’s tribute to the professionalism and heroism of everyone involved. Just as Sully states during his hearing, this was a team effort, not the work of a lone hero. This comes across strongly here. Air hostess is a profession which, god knows, it’s easy to mock: but this film shows their unflappable bravery, calmness and leadership. Similarly, the first responders are dedicated and compassionate. I’m not ashamed to say I felt myself choke up at one point, when a first responder tell one waterlogged passenger “no one dies today”. The film ends with a tribute to New York coming together to save lives – and it’s a message ringing through the film.

Eastwood knows the drama of the film is directly linked to the crash, so weaves this event throughout the film, returning to it at least four times from different angles. He opens the film with Sully’s nightmare of what could have happened if he had flown towards an airport (the plane ploughing into New York) – a grim reminder of what could have been, which hangs over the rest of the runtime. The evacuation of the downed plane is gripping, and is filmed with a restraint that lets the events speak for themselves. The emotional force throughout these sequences is compelling.

Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as the low-key everyday hero achieving the impossible with only quiet courage and years of experience behind him. To be honest, it’s a role Hanks could probably play standing on his head, but his quiet everyman quality is essential to the film’s success. He’s well supported by Eckhart and other members of the cast.

It’s good Hanks is so assured, as he is required to anchor much of the film’s plot. The plot is where the film struggles as, to put it simply, the story away from the crash isn’t actually that dramatic or interesting. An attempt has been made to make the investigation into the crash into a sort of inquisition into Sully’s actions, but it never really rings true (it largely wasn’t) and it’s never really interesting enough, certainly not when compared to the crash itself.

In fact, it’s hard not to think that there is some sort of message being built into the film here, contrasting the low-key individual Sully with the faceless, procedural suits who can’t imagine the importance of the human element. Maybe that’s reading a bit much into it, but either way it’s average drama: there is never any doubt in the viewer’s mind that Sully will be completely exonerated. It’s an attempt to add dramatic tension to a story everyone already knows.

Furthermore, Sully is too “normal” a man to sustain a drama around his life: in another film inspired by these events, Flight, Denzel Washington played a drunken pilot who saved an aeroplane in a moment of inspired flying. The drama of that film was based on the film’s exploration of Washington’s character’s lack of responsibility vs. his act of heroism. Sully doesn’t have this, so we don’t get that sense of conflict within the character or with others. Put simply, Sully is such a regular decent, guy that, outside these unique circumstances, he is not really a dramatically interesting character – and the film can’t create a plot that brings drama out of his situation.

So Sully is a mixed bag of a film. Hanks gives his best as ever, but the film can’t really get over the fact that it’s recreating a moment in history, and fails to give that moment an effective dramatic framework. There is some good supporting work, although many of the other roles are thankless (Laura Linney’s role in particular is literally phoned in), but the film only flies when the plane doesn’t. The reconstruction of the event, and the people who were involved in it, is inspiring and stirring – but the rest of the film is little more than a humdrum courtroom drama.

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

Brian Donley on the run in Fritz Lang’s Nazi occupation thriller

Director: Fritz Lang

Cast: Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (Reinhard Heydrich), Brian Donlevy (Dr Franticek Svoboda), Walter Brennan (Professor Stephen Novotny), Anna Lee (Mascha Novotny), Gene Lockhart (Emil Czaka), Dennis O’Keefe (Jan Horak), Nana Bryant (Hellie Novotny), Margaret Wycherly (Ludmilla Novotny), Tonio Selwart (Chief of Gestapo Kurt Haas), Alexander Granach (Inspector Alois Gruber), Reinhold Schünzel (Inspector Ritter), Jonathan Hale (Dedic)

Film dramas “ripped from the headlines” have a mixed track record. Making a drama about an event that happened so recently the dust has hardly settled leaves you open to making decisions in your film that could later be exposed as mistakes. Few films in history are more headline-ripping though than Hangmen Must Die!, a film about the assassination of Heydrich, the planning of which must have started almost immediately after the news broke.

Dr Svoboda (Brian Donlevy) is on the run in Prague after shooting dead Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler’s deputy in occupied Czechoslovakia. After a chance meeting, he pleads with Mascha Novotny (Anna Lee) for shelter – but this only serves to endanger her family, particularly her father Professor Novotny (Walter Brennan), in the affair. Meanwhile the Gestapo, led by Alois Gruber (Alexander Granach) investigates and the Nazis take hundreds of Czech notables, including Novotny, into custody as hostages. The Germans promise to execute hostages until the assassin is handed over.

First things first: unlike 2016’s Anthropoid, this film is a complete work of fiction. It is first and foremost a film made by European exiles in the middle of World War II to sing the praises of those defying the march of fascism. Heydrich only appears at the start of the film, played with a sinister, mincing campness by von Twardowski (a notable German socialist exile). Despite this, the arrogance and cruelty of Heydrich is hammered home, with his lines delivered in a bullying, untranslated German. The film uses a dark humour to stress his villainy, Heydrich nonchalantly strolls down a crowded meeting room, forcing those in attendance to remain saluting, swivelling to follow Heydrich, until he finally settles and returns the salute allowing them to relax. It’s a neat little joke and perhaps one of the clear signs of the hand of co-writer Bertolt Brecht. Take a look at the sequence (and rest of the movie as well!) here:

That’s one of the film’s other claims to fame: noted director Fritz Lang worked with fellow exile Brecht to craft the script. As such, the film is a slightly unusual mix between the left-wing, idealist politics of Brecht and the film noir style of Lang. The primary aim is to serve as a propaganda tool, and the courage and bravery of the Czech people is repeatedly stressed. With a few key exceptions, the Czechs are loyal, honest and willing to make huge sacrifices. Lang films this with a stirring simplicity, low angle shots, skilful use of light, and dynamically involving crowd scenes, bringing this courage visually to life. Brechtian touches, such as a crowd of Prague locals confronting Mascha (with increasing menace) when she considers betraying the assassin to save her father’s life, are perfectly complemented by Lang’s skilful film making. The film’s final tribute to the heroes of Europe, with the people of Prague joining together to sing a hymn to the fallen hostages, surges with a left-wing Brechtian political outrage.

What’s most unusual about the film – and one of its problems – is the curious mixture of tones. Perhaps because of its film noir styles, perhaps because of the American accents of many of the Czech characters (interestingly, the exiles overwhelmingly play villainous Germans), this film becomes a sort of behind-the-lines 1930s hard boiled gangster thriller – with the difference that the cops are the baddies. The Gestapo go about their jobs like gangster gumshoes from Hollywood movies. The Czech people, for all their gumption, look and act like streetwise New Yorkers. It’s an odd tone that takes some getting used to.

On top of that, the film shows several hostages (including characters we get to know) shot due to the refusal to hand over the assassin. I can’t watch this without thinking about how little it gets near the true horror of Nazism. The Gestapo here are relative pussycats, compared to the brutal lengths they went to in real life: the Gestapo chief even prudishly talks about a need for evidence. Compared to the thousands of civilians killed in real life, this is nothing. The Germans even essentially “give up” in a coda and accept a defeat. This makes terrific propaganda of course, but it just ties into the sense that this film doesn’t even begin to touch the villainy of the occupation. It makes for better entertainment, but it’s strange to watch today.

Finally, the last problem with the film is the rather mixed performers. Put simply, Brian Donlevy is totally miscast as the assassin, a B-movie actor who is far too American for the part, and incapable of giving the role the depth it needs. Svobada just isn’t interesting or sympathetic. Anna Lee is similarly bland, while the less said about O’Keefe as her fiancée, the better. Not one of the American actors is completely convincing in their role, although Walter Brennan is close to an exception, effectively gentle and wise as the brave Novotny. The best performances are from the exiles, with Graucher in particular excellent as a shrewd, soulless, corrupt detective, with no guilt about the means he uses.

The film culminates in a rather hard-to-follow and far-fetched attempt by the resistance to frame a collaborator (played with weaselly self-importance by Gene Lockhart) for the crime. This plot tends to meander, but there are several very good scenes showing the Czech resistance, including a wonderful sequence in a restaurant that goes from a sit-down, to an unveiling, to a shootout. Lang skilfully builds the tension throughout, and the creeping relentlessness of hostage executions and Svoboda’s attempts to run from the Gestapo are very well done. Sequences such as Svobda ducking into a movie cinema, only to find a keen collaborator inside, sizzle with excitement.

In fact there are many excellent moments in the film. It is beautifully filmed, with a gorgeous use of expressionist shadow and camera angles to create a claustrophobic, doom laden world. Lang’s strength of plotting by-and-large works very well. Though it can’t bring across the full horror of Nazi occupation, the dread of the Gestapo is clear in the movie. “Enhanced interrogation” is underplayed, but it is sinisterly embodied in the fate that befalls an arthritic shopkeeper. We see him exhausted, but not broken, in a prison cell, forced to constantly pick up a chair under interrogation with her weakened hands. Later, a character throws himself out of a window rather than risk being interrogated to reveal information about the resistance. The hostages are brutally dispatched, with the level of panic, fear, collaboration or defiance having no impact on their fates.

It’s a fractured film, overlong but very well filmed, which creates a brilliant tribute to the strength of the Czech people. Trim 20 minutes off it and I think this could have been a great thriller. It’s a strange mix of acting styles, but the marriage of Brecht and Lang works very well (it’s a real shame Brecht never made another film) and the drama of the film carries it over the strange bumps in the road. Brecht, by the way, spent the rest of his life rubbishing Lang, as he couldn’t understand why Lang put all the plot and character into a movie Brecht saw as being purely political.

It’s in many ways a strange historical monument – perhaps its makers couldn’t imagine the depths of Nazi atrocities, perhaps Hollywood wasn’t willing to bring such horrors to the screen. It’s not perfect, but in its own way, it’s a piece of cinematic history.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper trapped in Twin Peaks nightmare halfway house between this world and the next

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer), Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Phoebe Augustine (Ronette Pulaski), David Bowie (Phillip Jeffries), Eric Da Re (Leo Johnson), Miguel Ferrer (Albert Rosenfield), Pamela Gidley (Teresa Banks), Chris Isaak (Special Agent Chester Desmond), Moira Kelly (Donna Hayward), David Lynch (Gordon Cole), Kyle MacLachlan (Special Agent Dale Cooper), James Marshall (James Hurley), Frank Silva (BOB), Kiefer Sutherland (Agent Sam Stanley), Grace Zabriskie (Sarah Palmer)

Twin Peaks was a mystifying, but very short lived, sensation. Its first series gripped America with its whodunit mystery around who killed Laura Palmer: it was an early 90s Broadchurch with added mysticism and twisted Lynchian psychosis. Just like Broadchurch, the second series stumbled from disaster to disaster as the answer to the mystery was revealed. Though this plot line was dark, disturbing and haunting, effectively contrasted with the surreal humour of the rest of the show, large chunks of the episodes were, to be honest, terrible. As Lynch’s attention turned elsewhere, the show fumbled through half a season of increasingly bizarre, pointless, laughable and plain rubbish episodes, before rallying at the end with a return to the mysterious dwelling on the nature of evil that the series is now best remembered for.

Twin Peaks is a rare anomaly – a show whose most die-hard fans would probably admit at least a quarter of the episodes were terrible. Ratings had dropped off a cliff as the series went on (sure enough it was cancelled). The cast and crew knew the show had lost something – several actors, most notably Lara Flynn Boyle (here replaced by Moira Kelly) refused to appear in the film. Even the show’s star, and Lynch surrogate, Kyle MacLachlan only agreed to return for this film for a few brief scenes (requiring an urgent re-write). However, Lynch’s interest in the concept had clearly been awakened during his writing and filming of (what would become) the final episode, surely one of the most surreal, unsettling, bizarre, intriguing and disturbing episodes of TV ever screened.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was Lynch’s final reclaiming of the series from the toilet it had dropped into. It also served partly as a “retcon” to tie the foundations of the original series plotline into the mythology the show had deepened in its final few episodes (built upon many surreal elements Lynch had introduced in the first episodes, otherwise hinted at rather than explored). As much of this mythology was unsettling, this movie very much follows that mood, losing much (if not all) of the dark, surrealistic humour that contrasted the darkness so well in the series. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a strange movie that is more like an expanded extra episode of the series, rather than a stand-alone. It makes no attempt at all to appeal to anyone who hasn’t seen every episode of the series: I’d go so far to say it’s almost completely impenetrable without having sat through all of Twin Peaks.

The film explores two plot-lines: the first an investigation by FBI Agent Chester Diamond (Chris Isaak) into the murder of Teresa Banks, a plotline referred to many times in the series. The film then flashes forward a year to cover the final few days of the original murder victim Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and her relationship with her father Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), who is possessed by a demonic presence known as BOB, driven by it to perform acts of sexual and physical violence. Laura is aware – and terrified – of the existence of BOB (a greasy haired face from a thousand nightmares) but seems unable to recognise that BOB and her father are one and the same. It’s the discovery of this in the film that will help to tip her over the edge into despair.

If the film is about anything other than expanding the mythology around BOB and the mysterious “Black Lodge” between dimensions, where evil and violence abound, it’s about the damaging impact of domestic abuse. The film intensely explores the personality damage Laura (an excellent and fully committed Sheryl Lee, leaving nothing in the locker room in a performance of fearless intensity) has suffered as a result of years of sexual abuse from her father (Ray Wise equally good as his personality veers wildly between gentle father and possessed evil rapist). Laura’s fractured psyche is the root cause, Lynch makes clear, of her sexual promiscuity, drug addiction and flashes of cruelty. She’s even aware of the damage, as seen in her desperation to protect others (especially the gentle Donna) from being sucked into the nightmare of her life.

The unremitting bleakness of Laura’s disastrous life is intermixed with the horror of the scenes where we witness Leland’s destructive behaviour to her, while the final scene of her eventual murder is haunting in its skilful nightmare imagery and suggestive editing. Lynch’s direction remains humane and tender, and despite putting Sheryl Lee through the ringer she never feels exploited. Instead, the film has an incredible empathy for both her suffering, and the confused, damaged actions she is driven to carry out. It gives us an understanding of the damage that can be done to even the strongest seeming people by abuse.

Alongside this, Lynch unleashes the full range of dark surrealism through a series of disturbing images to build up his mystical backstory. This is a flat out horror film, with twisted images of monkeys, blood and forests guaranteed to haunt your dreams. Nearly every scene in Twin Peaks re-positions the often quirky town of many of the episodes as a nightmareish world of neon, darkened rooms and twisted sexual and physical violence. The portrayal of Laura Palmer’s fragile heart is as intensely moving as it is intensely filmed, while the views behind the red curtain into the hellish underbelly of Twin Peaks’ mystical mythology will stick with you for some time – and is sure to be central to the new third series.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was met with intense hostility when it was released: “It’s not the worst movie ever made,” the New York Times review read, “it just seems to be”. David Lynch publically stated he had clearly done when the network couldn’t do, and successfully killed Twin Peaks. Of course that wasn’t the case – with the new third series finally coming to the screen 25 years after the screening of this film. The re-evaluation of the film has only grown in the intervening period. The nightmarish content (and the final scenes of the series) – the wicked BOB, the nightmare of the Black Lodge and the Red Room, the elements of psychological horror – these are the things that Twin Peaks is remembered as being about: the rotten core of the sweet pie of the town.

Rust and Bone (2012)

Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard in an unusual romantic drama

Director: Jacques Audiad

Cast: Marion Cotillard (Stéph), Matthias Schoenaerts (Ali), Armand Verdure (Sam), Corinne Masiero (Anna), Céline Sallette (Louise), Bouli Lanners (Martial)

Audiad’s films combine cinematic artistry with profound, sometimes elliptical, character studies that provoke great work from talented actors. Rust and Bone is no exception.

It’s the plot of a melodrama, staged like social-realism. Written down it sounds like the purest Hollywood schlock: crippled killer whale trainer Stéph (Cotillard) enters into a friendship that grows deeper with would-be kickboxer Ali (Schoenarts), who has a troubled relationship with his 5-year-old son. But the realistic portrayal of the pain of losing your limbs (in a scene of raw intensity from Cotillard) and Ali’s troubled homelife, penchant for casual sex and occasional resorting to violence when frustrated, pegs the film style farcloser to a hard-edged Bicycle Thieves. The film also has a lyrical poetry about it, as their relationship gently develops from friends with benefits to genuine feeling, which stops it from feeling gritty or hard-edged.

The film’s main strength is the brilliance of its two leads. Cotillard is outstanding as a passionate free-spirit whose entire world ends overnight. Her expressive face carries a host of confused feelings which shift and reform across her like a human kaleidoscope. Stéph’s vulnerability is married with a great strength of character, but Cotillard avoids many of the clichés of movie paraplegics by making her a woman who adapts without anger to her new condition. Instead, after overcoming depression, Stéph is looking actively (and with a curiosity) for something new to fill her life with.

Cotillard is so wonderful in the role, it’s very easy to overlook Schoenaerts’ skilful underplaying and Brandoish physical mastery. Ali is, I’ve got to be honest, a hard character to like – selfish, childish, in many ways thoughtless, blunt and fixated on himself. He’s also a terrible dad. Not malicious or cruel, just easily bored and frustrated with his kid. This frustration appears with anyone who doesn’t react the way he wants – “You’re so annoying!” he whines at both Stéph and Sam. Despite this, Schoenaerts’ is the heart of the movie. The film is his story, and he makes a difficult character engaging enough to carry the audience with him.

Rust and Bone is a film constructed around brilliant scenes and striking moments. In a wonderful sequence, Stéph repeats the arm signals she used to train the whales: at first she seems sad, then a warmth of enjoyment crosses her face. It’s the prompt for her to revisit the zoo, but the visit seems bittersweet: we see hugs with her friends, but Audiad cuts out the dialogue, adding to Cotillard’s own confused feelings about her return. Later she visits the whale that crippled her. Her mood here (with the camera to her back) is hard to read – is she forgiving the whale? Is she saying goodbye to this part of her life? Moments like this work so well because of the brilliance and humanity of the performances of both leads and Audiad’s patience and control as a filmmaker.

Audiad packs this beautiful film with moments like this. I particularly liked the bookend images he uses for each act. Each sets up the act thematically, from a bloodied tooth spinning on a pavement to the cover of a transit van flapping in motion. Audiad bathes the film in a series of cool blue colours, interspersed with flashes of light at moments of suggested revelation. He also has the discipline not to belabour the points of scenes or hammer home the feelings of characters (sometimes leaving you wanting more definition for the emotions they experience).

For a film immersed (to a certain degree) in a social realist world, there are odd gaps in logic: after throwing Ali out of her home (at gun point!) over his serial disregard for Sam, his indirect responsibility for her losing her job and his stroppy temper, would Anna really happily allow Sam to visit him a few months later? The disappearance of Stéph for much of the final reel of the film also pulls the focus from the central relationship and makes the final ending both rather sudden and slightly pat, out of step with the rest of the movie.

Audiad does bring a degree of engaging ambiguity to the story. The relationship between Ali and Stéph is intriguingly hard to define. She seems drawn to him for his lack of guile and his treatment of her disability with a matter-of-factness free of pity or embarrassment (qualities that linger around many of her other interactions). However, shifts in her character over the course of the film are deliberately kept low-key and open-ended, allowing moments where she surprises herself and the audience with the strength of her feeling. Similarly, the lack of depth in Ali’s personality makes his emotional development halting and discordant – he is attracted to her physically, but which qualities in her cause those feelings to deepen? It’s not immediately clear watching it – and I suspect many viewers would have different opinions from watching this curiously inscrutable film.

It’s a thoughtful film, but somehow never quite as moving as you expect. I think a lot of your connection with it depends on how much you feel Ali deserves redemption, or if you can forgive the constant stream of selfish and thoughtless things he does. I’m not quite sure I did. Similarly Stéph remains, for all the expressive humanity Cotillard brings to her, strangely unknowable.

That’s partly the problem with the film. Despite its beauty, it’s a little too enigmatic to be completely engaging. Wonderfully shot, and strangely haunting as it is, I think this is one every viewer will have a personal reaction to. I can imagine many would be deeply moved by its blue-tinted mystery and fragile dissection of damaged souls. For me it didn’t quite have the impact I think the film needs, and I didn’t feel this love story quite coalesced into a something truly profound in itself. It’s a beautifully made and intelligent film but not one I fell in love with – though I can imagine many people have.

Carol (2015)

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett in a moving dance of love and romance

Director: Todd Haynes

Cast: Cate Blanchett (Carol Aird), Rooney Mara (Therese Belivet), Sarah Paulson (Abby Gerhard), Kyle Chandler (Harge Aird), Jake Lacy (Richard Semco), John Magaro (Dannie McElroy), Cory Michael Smith (Tommy Tucker), Carrie Brownstein (Genevieve Cantrell)

It’s the way of things that gay love-stories in Hollywood are invariably relegated to a sub plot – often one that has a certain tragical element to it. This is not the case here in Todd Haynes’ superlative romance, which places a lesbian love story at its centre, sensitively building the characters and romantic journey between them.

Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) is a lost department store worker, drifting through life. One Christmas, working on the toy stall, she recommends a toy for the daughter of socialite Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett). A spark of attraction between the two is immediately apparent, and Carol invites Therese first to dinner, then to spend an evening together and finally a Christmas road trip across America, during which their attraction grows and deepens into a flourishing love.

This wonderful love story, almost a twist on Brief Encounter, is a brilliantly done, extremely engrossing and moving romantic film, a film that manages the rare feat in Hollywood movies of not making a homosexual relationship something that requires narrative punishment. Haynes’ luscious 1950s filming style, stressing the aesthetics and manners of the era, combines brilliantly with a subtly murky photography style that darkens and lightens at different points to create an immersive fairy-tale quality. It’s a perfect tapestry for a deeply caring and sensitive story, anchored by a superb script and wonderful performances.

It has now got to the point where it is axiomatic to say Cate Blanchett gives a wonderful performance – she is, after all, one of the best actresses in the world right now. She is quite simply perfectly cast as Carol, her features having the flexibility to appear both cold and distant and soft and caring, a switch she is able to make with the slightest of gestures. Her patrician manner is deconstructed brilliantly. Her character is initially established as an almost predatory figure, a determined and manipulative woman; it’s only over the course of the film that this persona is slowly taken apart, revealing waves of emotion and pain from years of denial, loneliness and a sense of being trapped. Each scene slowly prompts us to reassess and reevaluate her character, and Blanchett handles this journey with astounding skill, revealing a hinterland of pained, self-doubting isolation and desperation to experience real love behind her cool and confident exterior. It’s a performance of phenomenal skill and emotional force.

It’s matched brilliantly by Rooney Mara as the object of Carol’s affections – and it must be said at the very least a co-lead of the film. Therese is a woman sleepwalking through life when we first see her, trotting through the motions of her interactions with others – a clear void in her, waiting for something to happen to her, but clearly with no idea of what that might be. Similar to Blanchett, Mara’s gentle and sensitive exterior deepens over the course of the film as she becomes more assertive to those around her, more of a determiner of what she wants from her own life. Mara’s soulful eyes and gentle face make her a perfect audience surrogate, creating a character whose feelings, doubts, anxieties and growing confidence we become immersed in. The film is in many ways her story, and Mara’s expressive gentleness is vital to our investment in the story.

The road trip at the heart of the movie’s plot is a charming, lyrical dance between two people juggling an unspoken attraction: one of them on the edge of all times of saying it, the other drawn towards an attraction she is still trying to understand and express. Haynes perfectly captures the small playful moments of first love that pepper these scenes, the camera intimately placed to make us part of this growing partnership of equal minds and hearts. Slowly they grow physically closer – both in their ease of body language, and through their slow progress towards sharing hotel rooms and finally (in an achingly romantic scene) a bed.

It’s a film about romantic longing between two people, the instant attraction. Therese’s first glance of Carol is across a crowded room, with the camera panning past Carol in a POV shot and then returning to her, before cutting back to Therese, now seemingly alive with an attraction she doesn’t quite understand. The Brief Encounter structure of the film is established with the film opening with Carol and Therese’s (possible) last meeting in a dinner. We see their interrupted conversation leading to Carol’s departure, leaving after touching a hand on Therese’s shoulder – the camera lingering on Therese’s back and her unseen reaction (and contrasting it with a meaningless similar touch from a male friend). When this scene is replayed later, we see it more from Carol’s perspective – and her pulsating emotion and longing.

The reason these scenes work so well is that the film continually shows Carol and Therese struggling to hide their growing attraction in plain sight, to maintain the balance between expressing their feeling and keeping a plausible deniability. This feeling grows because the film has the patience to take its time with building this relationship– and because we are aware of Therese’s feelings earlier than she is.

The film’s sensitivity extends to the sympathy it feels for all its characters. As useless as many of the men in the story are, they are confused, distressed or lonely rather than malicious or cruel. Carol’s husband Harge could have been a bullying monster, but he actually comes across as a frustrated and deeply hurt man, who understands on some level his wife’s sexual preferences, but is unable to fully comprehend the implications of this. On paper it’s a thankless part, but Kyle Chandler is superb, his Mad Men features perfectly suited to the role of floundering masculine figure. Many of Therese’s would-be suitors are similarly drawn reasonably sympathetically, however laddy, over-keen or dull they may be – Haynes’ film has an understanding that they are products of their time. In a lovely scene Therese talks about homosexuality with one of her male suitors, who can barely countenance its existence, as if she was talking about the man in the moon.

Haynes’s mastery of the aesthetics of the material is present throughout. Haynes increases the feelings of being trapped or surrounded by a number of shots through windows, using mirrors, from the other side of doors – divides that stress the characters’ sense of being trapped and enclosed in their lives. He also carries across just a small teasing touch of the melodrama of 1950s films – though I would argue this is no way a melodramatic film – with a gun making a deliberately misleading appearance, and a few beats that briefly suggest the film is heading in an entirely different direction.

Carol is a wonderful, soulful and entrancing film. It’s about two people showing each other hidden depths about themselves, uncovering truths and building each other’s capacity for love and ability to admit and understand their feelings. It makes this a tender and endearing film, with two characters whose fates we become completely involved with. It also avoids passing any form of judgement over any of the characters. Filled with subtle moments, open to interpretations (even their first meeting is full of code, from the recommendation of a non-gender-conforming train set to Carol’s gloves left invitingly on the counter) that constantly ask us to review how open we feel the characters are being with themselves and others. With brilliant performances by Mara and Blanchett (backed by Chandler and a very sensitive performance from Sarah Paulson as Carol’s former lover), this wonderful film is both profoundly moving and very uplifting.

Blood Diamond (2006)

Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou excel in this self important Hollywood message film

Director: Edward Zwick

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Danny Archer), Djimon Hounsou (Solomon Vandy), Jennifer Connelly (Maddy Bowen), Arnold Vosloo (Colonel Coetzee), Michael Sheen (Rupert Simmons), David Harewood (Captain Poison), Basil Wallace (Benjamin Kapanay), Jimi Mistry (Nabil), Kagiso Kuypers (Dia Vandy)

Hollywood films set in Africa often have a difficult conundrum – they want to tell a story about that often troubled continent, but struggle to do so without feeling impossibly worthy – and often need to filter the story through the experience of white westerners in the region. Blood Diamond tries to avoid these traps very hard – but largely ends up falling into them.

In 1999, Sierra Leone is ravaged by Civil War. Fisherman Solomon Vandy’s (Djimon Hounsou) village is attacked by rebels, led by Captain Poison (David Harewood), and his son is taken as a child soldier. Captured Vandy is forced to work at the diamond mines, where he discovers a priceless “Blood Diamond”. After concealing it, Vandy is captured by government troops. Overhearing of the diamond’s existence from a confrontation between Vandy and Poison in prison, Rhodesian arms trader Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) enlists Vandy to claim the diamond – promising to help find Vandy’s lost family with the help of journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connolly).

The only thing that elevates this rather shallow film is the excellence of its two lead performers. Both DiCaprio and Hounsou give committed, energised and emotional performances way beyond the clichés and mundane predictability of the rest of the film. DiCaprio has a fairly standard redemption cycle, but invests Archer with an inner pain, a supressed sense of honour and a bitter anger at the world that acts as a shield against opening himself up to affection and friendship. Hounsou takes on the difficult task of effectively representing Africa, but makes Solomon a living, breathing man, a loving father but also a rash man, defensive but burning with emotions.

It’s a shame the rest of the actors aren’t given the time to build these sort of real human portraits out of this stodgy script. Jennifer Connolly in particular is cursed with a lousy part – every third line is either a plot device or a method of communicating facts and figures from the writer’s research. The film is bookended by tedious “G8” meeting scenes where (mostly white) politicians effectively sanctimoniously read the contents of Wikipedia’s Sierra Leone pages at each other.

The film manages to tick most of the expected boxes of African-set Hollywood films, with poverty, violence, blood diamonds, war lords and child soldiers all mixed in. It’s very clear all involved were of the opinion they were making an “important” film. It’s this “on the nose” seriousness that prevents the film from being a really effective piece of message-film making, not helped by Zwick’s careful but uninspired direction. It’s not a bad film by any stretch, but it is only a competently well-made, average one.

Throughout, messages are heavily delivered and metaphors hammered home (a metaphor about the blood in the soil is whacked over our head at a crucial dénouement). The film overeggs the pudding for its emotional moments – the final scene certainly goes too far. Many of these problems come back to the script, which is so wedded to its research and earnestness, that it keeps getting in the way of the moments when the film tries to come to life. We never really feel we are actually sharing the experience of those most affected by events (even Vandy is really a supporting actor in his what should be his own movie, his experience filtered through the impact it has on Archer).

So this is a flawed film, but it still sort of works – and most of that praise needs to go to the leads, who deserved a far better film. It’s predictable and sanctimonious, keen to be a landmark piece of cinema, but really it’s just another Hollywood “message” piece. DiCaprio and Hounsou sell the hell out of the predictable story and stodgy script, and make it one that keeps your interest throughout, even if it never really hits you with the impact it desired.

Kagemusha (1980)

Identity, honour and duty all combine in Kurosawa’s samurai epic

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai (Takeda Shingen/The Kagemusha), Tsutomu Yamazaki (Takeda Nobukado), Kenichi Hagiwara (Takeda Katsuyori), Jinpachi Nezu (Tsuchiya Sohachiro), Hideji Ōtaki (Yamagata Masakage), Daisuke Ryu (Oda Nobunaga), Masayuki Yui (Tokugawa Ieyasu)

In his late career, Kurosawa made two epic “samurai” films, both sweeping broad canvas stories, crammed with epic visuals and tackling big themes. Kagemusha was the first of these – and Kurosawa himself claimed that the film was a dry run for his real aim: to make an epic Japan-set version of King Lear, which would become Ran. How does it hold up as film in itself?

Kagemusha means Shadow Warrior, and the film follows the life of a convicted criminal (Nakada) saved from crucifixion because of his uncanny resemblance to warlord Shingen (also Nadada). When Shingen is mortally wounded on campaign, the Kagemusha is recruited to pretend to be the warlord, to guarantee the peace and security of the Takeda tribe – whose enemies are kept in check by their fear of Shingen’s reputation. The Kagemusha struggles at first to fill the role, but gradually becomes more and more consumed by the identity of the warlord.

Kagemusha is a beautiful film to look at. It’s totally visually stunning. Kurosawa had spent years planning the film, struggling to raise the cash, he had even attempted suicide when it looked like he would never make another film again. Kurosawa had painted many of the scenes in advance, and his film captures this effect brilliantly in a swirling, breathtaking display of colour and imagery.

Battle scenes take place against blood red or pitch black skies. Armies march in silhouette past a burning sun. The colours of the sects of the Takeda army contrast and dance together. Foliage and bodies intermingle on deserted battlefields, with the camera taking in the destruction of battles with a cool, imposing stillness. A marvellous tracking shot early in the film follows a soldier running through a sleeping army in a castle, each group of soldiers waking and rising behind him as he proceed. Even the still (one shot held for seven minutes) opening shot is brilliantly framed and strangely compelling.

The final battle sequences have a strange, dream-like quality. Kurosawa films charging horses and men, gunshots, but no coming together of these things – we see waves of men going forward, see the guns firing, cut to the shocked reactions of the Takeda generals – we never see men mown down. The imagination alone presents what the generals are seeing – and makes us share their helpless horror. The final image of a body floating past Shingen’s personal banner, abandoned in a blood-stained lake, as the camera pans up and away is brilliant – hammering home the tragic loss of lives for the hubris and pride of a clan leader.

Of course, the most extraordinary use of colour is the Kagemusha’s dream, where he sees himself chased by the embalmed corpse of Shingen. The dream takes place in an explosion of painterly colours, a huge backdrop completely unrelated to anything real. This really ties into your unworldly memory of dreams – while Shingen’s relentless movement forward and his meaningless, unclear emotions (is he angry? Is he looking to take possession of the Kagemusha?) have the terror of a nightmare. The scene ends with the Kagemusha trapped in a pool of water, the motions of the waves breaking his reflection, a neat commentary on his own lack of identity. You’ve not really seen anything like it before.

The Kagemusha’s dream – the colours are beyond striking

In terms of storytelling, Kurosawa also uses some interesting techniques. I was surprised how many key events happen off-screen. Along with the two major battles (the one described above and the one fought under the Kagemusha’s “leadership”, which occurs mostly at night in confusion a distance away) we never see the Kagemusha’s training, Shingen being wounded (instead we see a sniper tell his master how he did it), never see the Kagemusha’s ill-fated attempt to ride a horse. Time seems to slide unclearly throughout the film – years seem to go by in minutes. The whole structure of the film flows in slight fits and starts – it feels rather like (guess what!) a dream, where the logic of events and time never quite holds together. Perhaps fitting in with Kurosawa’s love of visual language, it’s like looking at a series of canvasses by a master-painter – a series of snapshots or moments, or comments on moments, with the viewer left to fill in the gaps.

The film’s visuals are its real strength, but it touches on questions of identity and of leadership. As the Kagemusha, Nakada’s acting style has much of the expressionistic wildness of many of Kurosawa’s leading men, but married with a subtler quietness, making the Kagemusha a lost, gentler soul struggling to define himself within the role of Shingen. Nakada’s Kagemusha is a conflicted contrast to the ramrod certainty of his Shingen – a humanist, who grows to love his position – who perhaps even grows to believe he is Shingen – but has an ease with Shingen’s grandson the warlord never had (“He’s not so scary now!” the boy exclaims – and he is the only character who suspects a change). Is he a better man than the warlord but a worse leader? When unmasked, does he haunt the court because he has grown to care or because he can’t let go of the illusion of being Shingen?

Kurosawa also explores the Kagemusha’s success as Shingen – expressly linked to his ability to voice key slogans with commitment (“The mountain does not move!”) and sit calmly during battle. Kurosawa seems to be criticising implicitly the deference inherent in much of Japan’s past. These soldiers are devoted to the Kagemusha, but he says and does nothing. When revealed, they reject the same man totally and instead follow with the same dedication the orders of Shingen’s inadequate son (many even while believing it will doom them). Identity is a theme we cling to in the West, but I think for Kurosawa it’s the blankness of our leaders that interests him – the idea that we follow people because of what they represent, rather than what they necessarily are. It’s an idea that feels subservient to the mood of the film, but it’s there.

Kagemusha is a film of wonderful visual style and accomplished cinematic grace. However, the main blockage to calling it a masterpiece (as opposed to just a very, very good movie) is the slight sense of intellectual emptiness at its core. Despite touching some of the monumental themes I’ve mentioned, I’m not sure the film really has that much to say about any of them in. Questions of personal identity and the function of leaders in our society are skirted around but never truly tackled. Considering the epic runtime of the film, its story and ideas are surprisingly simple and transparent, its focus split between those and the inspired visuals. To be fair, Kurosawa never lectures us, which is a comforting change from many mundane filmmakers, but he also doesn’t strike me as having much original to say on his themes – or that he aspires to do so.

That’s always the clash of priorities with Kurosawa: he is at heart a painter and a visualist rather than an analyst, a director telling large stories in broad, beautiful brushstrokes. The Kagemusha always remains a cipher: of course this is part of the point, but the character’s internal struggle and clash still seem rather glossed over, as if mentioning them was the same as actually exploring them. Some of this is intentional, and I suppose could say the film is inviting us to reach our own conclusions without prompting, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that this is a film that hangs out with ideas rather than really getting to grips with them.

Kagemusha, like Rashomon, is a film I’ve have been hard on – and Kurosawa is a director I expect so much from, because he is so overwhelmingly talented. Visually he is up there with Lean, but I feel Lean gets a better balance of depth and images. Kurosawa’s visual language is sublime, but this film is also strangely empty in places, a mighty epic and beautiful piece of cinema that saysthings but isn’t really about things. I don’t feel it truly explores its points, or gives us anything to really think about after.

Saying that, this is a vital and impressive piece of cinema and one of the most beautiful films you are going to see. Kurosawa is not the most profound film maker, but he is more than thoughtful enough compared to most and while he doesn’t claim the potential of some of his ideas, what he offers us is a true artist’s vision, a graceful mastery of the camera and enough feeling to immerse you in the story. He also – and I feel sorry for not dwelling on this earlier – brings out some wonderful performances from his actors: Nakada is superb and there is wonderful work from Yamazaki, Hagiwara, and in particular Ōtaki who is marvellously genial but imposing as Shingen’s closest general. Kagemusha isn’t his masterpiece, but for the vast majority of film-makers it would be.

Quo Vadis (1951)

Peter Ustinov revels in the Status Quo (Vadis) of Imperial Rome

Director: Mervyn LeRoy

Cast: Robert Taylor (Marcus Vinicius), Deborah Kerr (Lygia), Leo Genn (Petronius), Peter Ustinov (Nero), Patricia Laffan (Poppaea), Finlay Currie (St. Peter), Abraham Sofaer (St. Paul), Marina Berti (Eunice), Buddy Baer (Ursus), Felix Aylmer (Plautius), Ralph Truman (Tigellinus), Rosalie Crutchley (Acte), Nicholas Hannen (Seneca)

In the 1950s, epic films were the way for the movie studios to defeat the onslaught of television. What better way to best the creeping presence of the small screen in every home than offering more action, sets, crowds and colour than could ever be squeezed into that small box in the corner of the room? Quo Vadis was the first film that started a wave.

Returning to Rome after years on campaign, Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor) falls in love with a Christian hostage, Lygia (Deborah Kerr). Gifted Lygia as a reward by the decadent Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov), Marcus slowly becomes fascinated by her religion – and more aware of the insanity of Nero. Petronius (Leo Genn), Marcus’ uncle and Nero’s cynical retainer who hides his barbs under double-edged flattery, unwittingly plants in the Emperor’s mind the plan for a Great Fire in Rome. After the mob reacts with fury, Nero kicks off a persecution of Christians that will end in slaughter in the arena…

There is a charming stiffness to some of this film which actually makes it rather endearing. Like many films that followed it, this balances a po-faced reverence for Christian history with a lascivious delight in sex, destruction and violence. This means the audience can be thrilled by Rome burning, entertained by Nero’s decadence, watch Christians mauled by Lions and burned alive – while also being comforted by the triumph of good-old fashioned Christian values and persuaded the film has some sort of higher purpose because it ties everything up with a nice faith-shaped bow.

Of course this all looks rather dated today, but back in 1951 this was the studio’s most successful film since Gone with the Wind and the biggest hit of the year: it started a nearly 15-year cycle of similarly themed religious epics. The money has clearly been chucked at the screen – the sets are huge, the casts sweeping, the staging of the Roman fires and Christian sacrifices very ambitiously put together. Perhaps the only surprise is that the lush, attractive cinematography isn’t in wide-screen – this was the last film of this kind to not be filmed in the widest lens available.

Despite its nearly three-hour run time, this is quite an entertaining story, laced with enough real history to make it all convincing (even if it telescopes the last few years of Nero’s reign into what seems like a week or so). Despite this, the storytelling does feel dated at times as we get bogged down in back and forth about Christianity (told with an intense seriousness by the actors, mixed with long-distance-stares type performances), and the homespun simplicity of its message lacks the shades of grey we’d expect today (as well as being a little dull) but it just about holds together.

The main problem is the lead performers. Robert Taylor is an actor almost totally forgotten today – and it’s not difficult to see why here. Not only does he speak with the flattened mid-Atlantic vowels recognisible from American leads in historical films from this era (the jarring mixture of accents in the film is odd to hear) but he is an uncharismatic, wooden performer sorely lacking the power a Charlton Heston would have brought to this. Marry that up with his character being a dull chauvinist and you’ve got a bad lead to root for. The relationship between him and Deborah Kerr’s (equally dull) Christian hostage is based on a terminally dated, borderline abusive, set-up: he kidnaps her from her home and wants her to change her faith, she won’t but never mind she loves him anyway without condition and surely her love will make him a good man, right!

Despite the efforts of the leads and some decent supporting actors (Finlay Currie in particular makes a very worthy Peter) the Christian story never really picks up. There are some nice visual flourishes – the recreation of some Renaissance paintings is well-done, and the stark image of Peter crucified is striking – but the Christian story isn’t what anyone will remember from this film. It’s all about the corrupt Romans.

Not only do they have the best lines and all the best scenes, but in Leo Genn and Peter Ustinov they also have the only actors who perhaps seem to realise they are not in a work of art, but a campy popcorn epic. Both actors give wonderfully complementary performances. Genn’s dry wit as the cynical Petronius (whose every line has a cutting double meaning) underpins his wry social commentator to fantastic effect, delivering many of the films laugh-out loud moments. He elevates many of the best lines in a dry but educated script.

Genn’s low-key performance also brilliantly contrasts with Ustinov’s extravagance as Nero, making the emperor a sort-of sadistic Frankie Howerd. Ustinov has enormous fun in the role, cheerfully going up and over the top with Nero’s man-child depravity, bordering on vulnerability and a needy desire to be liked and respected by the people and his underlings. Depictions of his singing are hilarious, his petulant sulking extremely funny. Yes, it’s an absurd performance – more a comic sketch almost – but it somehow works because (a) everything else in the film is so serious and (b) Genn’s world-weary cynicism anchors the character for the first two-thirds of the film, giving Ustinov much freer reign to go over the top.

So it’s all about the baddies – as was often the way with films of this era. You’ll remember the scenes of Nero holding court, and the archly written dialogue between Petronius and Nero. Ustinov and Genn are, in very different ways, terrifically entertaining (both received Oscar nominations). The Christian message of the film is on-the-nose (to say the least), and the lead actors are more like kindling for the Great Fire than actual characters. It’s a strange film, at times a bloated far-too-serious religious epic, at others a campy tragi-comedy with a dry wit. Yes it’s dated and far from perfect, but it’s also strangely entertaining and even a little compelling.

Annie Hall (1977)

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen on the quest for love and romance. How much of this is autobiographical eh?

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen (Alvy Singer), Diane Keaton (Annie Hall), Tony Roberts (Rob), Carol Kane (Allison Portchnik), Paul Simon (Tony Lacey), Janet Margolin (Robin), Shelley Duvall (Pam), Christopher Walken (Duane Hall), Colleen Dewhurst (Mrs. Hall), Donald Symington (Mr. Hall)

Why is love so damned difficult? And, as it is, why do we keep setting ourselves up for a fall with it? Why are we all such relationship addicts? These are questions that Woody Allen tackles in Annie Hall, the film that elevated him from comedian to Oscar-winning cinematic super scribe (he won three Oscars for the film – Picture, Director and Writer). Does it deserve its reputation? You betcha.

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is a neurotic New York comedian (is it any wonder he was seen as synonymous with Allen himself?), twice divorced and incapable of maintaining a relationship. He meets Annie Hall (Diane Keaton, Allen’s ex-girlfriend playing Allen’s character’s eventual ex-girlfriend, using Keaton’s real name as a character name – confused?) over a game of mixed doubles tennis, and their immediate chemistry and shared sense of humour leads to a romantic relationship. Their only problem? Their innate neurotic self-analysis that stands forever in the way of maintaining a relationship.

Annie Hall is a deliriously funny film – I actually think it might be one of the funniest I have ever seen – with an astounding gag-per-minute hit rate. Allen uses multiple techniques to deliver gags: commentary, voiceover, celebrity cameos, an animated interlude, “what they are really saying” subtitles, flashback, direct to camera address – and the blistering parade of delivery styles never seems jarring, but ties together perfectly. Large chunks of the film are inspired high-wire dances where a punch-line is a few beats away, and the film never settles into a style or becomes predictable. So many of the jokes have become so familiar due to their excellence that it’s almost a shock to see them minted freshly here – and the fact they all land so effectively is a tribute to the performers.

In many ways, Annie Hall is a series of sketches loosely tied together with an overarching plot line. In fact Alvy’s constant commentary on events (a brilliant playing with conventional cinematic storytelling form), add to the feeling this is in some ways an illustrated stand-up routine by a gifted self-deprecating comedian. The material seems so synonymous with Allen’s personae (and the characters of Alvy and Annie so close to what we know about the actors who play them) it’s very easy to see the whole film as auto-biographical. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – particularly as the hit rate of the gags here is so phenomenally high.

But what makes this film such a classic is that it is more than a collection of excellent jokes. Allen is also telling a story about romance – or rather or need for romantic connection, and how easily we can sabotage or undermine this through our own mistakes, errors and (above all) neuroses. Alvy Singer is almost chronically incapable of embracing happiness and contentment, with every good thing merely an interlude between crises. Annie is the most promising opportunity he has had for long-term contentment – and still his neurotic self analysis gets in the way. As such the film is about the quest for love – and the title Annie Hall(not the character) is a metaphor for this – to Alvy Annie Hall represents the perfect relationship, something he (and indeed she as well) will never accomplish.

The film perfectly captures the dance of first meeting – the shy, stumbling early conversations of people who are attracted to each other but are both trying too hard (the subtitles here are a brilliantly funny choice – we’ve all thought to ourselves “what am I saying?” in that situation!). There is a wonderfully playful scene where Alvy panics over the cooking of lobsters – clearly playing up for Annie’s delighted engagement in it, as she photographs his distress. These photos appear in the background, framed on their wall, as their relationship breaks up relatively amicably later. At another point, Alvy attempts to recreate the same moment (same location, lobsters again) with a new girlfriend – only to be met with unamused, annoyed confusion. It’s a perfect little vignette that captures the magic of chemistry – and the difficulty of finding it or holding onto it.

Because what is striking is that Allen allows the relationship to break apart surprisingly early. Roger Ebert has written about Annie almost “creeping into” the film – and this is true. She is only briefly seen in the first 25 minutes (the first third of the film almost!) as the focus is on Alvy’s discussion of his background and childhood, and his past romantic failings and sense of disconnection from people. Then very swiftly after its establishment, the relationship is past its prime, with both parties finding it hard to keep the interest going. The second half of the film follows them amicably drifting apart – meaning this is probably the most romantic film about a long break-up ever made.

The film has a beautiful little wistful coda of Alvy and Annie meeting outside a cinema, each with new partners. In long shot we see them engage in an animated and engaged conversation while their new partners look on, nervously smiling. The magic link between them hasn’t faded away, and their importance to each other, and natural chemistry, hasn’t changed – but, the film seems to be saying, their natures work against them. It’s one of several touching moments in the film that demonstrate the heart that underpins the jokes. After their first break up, Annie calls Alvy round to get rid of a spider in the bath. He does so with comic incompetence, then in a still medium shot he comes to Annie in the corner of the frame sitting on the bed. They reconcile and then embrace tenderly – it’s a beautiful, moving, gag-free moment, all the more effective as its reality is contrasted with the humour throughout the rest of the film.

The film is a full of tender and real moments like these in between the jokes: it’s a nearly perfect balance between them. The parts are perfectly written for the actors: Allen is so brilliantly good here as Alvy that the character has essentially become the public persona of Allen (and allegedly his desire to never make a sequel was linked to his unease with the association between Alvy and himself). Diane Keaton (her real surname being Hall and her nickname Annie) also had this part perceived as a loose self portrait (her past relationship with Allen not helping). Truth told, it’s a very simple part and Keaton actually has to do very little in the picture beyond react (the focus is so strongly on Alvy) and deliver the role with charm – but she captures the sense of an era shift, a woman stuck between transitioning from the hedonistic 60s to the ambitious 80s, an ambitious free-spirit. The Oscar for the role was generous, but not undeserved.

For all the film’s emotional understanding and complexity, it’s the jokes though that you will remember, and they are glorious: Alvy’s schoolfriends telling us what they are doing now as adults; Alvy’s description of masturbation; the accident at the cocaine party; Christopher Walken’s monologue on driving; the puncturing of the pretention of a loud-mouth know-it-all in a cinema queue – it’s a blistering array of comic genius and it will have you coming back for more and more. It’s Allen’s most garlanded movie and it’s certainly the best balance he ever made between “the early funny ones” and his “later serious ones”. It’s simply shot, but told with heart, feeling and emotional intelligence and with dynamic, comic wit – it’s one of Allen’s greatest movies.