McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971. Robert Altman)

For reasons that are too boring to disclose, I am currently studying the Western genre. Having read about the homestead, the savage, the puritan, the Stetson and Mr. Wayne for several tedious weeks, I went looking for something that would utilise and then dispose of all these generic elements. I thought this film was not only visually stunning but also extremely sad. There's no hero in this piece (and if Beatty's character is supposed to be this, then he's just a rather inept man with a gastric problem) and there's no 'civilising' woman either. Furthermore, the requisite, archetypal whore is, in fact, an astute businesswoman. I agree with Roger Ebert's summation of the central relationship as a business partnership and not a romance (hence the titular '&' and not 'and') but this doesn't prevent the film from being saturated with a longing for authentic feeling. Well before the conclusion we know that this need will never be fulfilled as Altman consistently places his characters within an unrelentingly harsh, dirty landscape . In Altman's portrait of frontier life, it's every man for himself but this has nothing to do with the strong individual of Western myth and everything to do with melancholy and loneliness played out to the sounds of Leonard Cohen.

Pretty Persuasion (Marcos Siega. 2005)

My goodness this is a silly film. It is very similar to 'Heathers' in its use of hackneyed characters and its development of themes pertaining to similarities between the cruel world of adolescence and the even crueler world of adulthood. However, instead of sticking with its initial parodic tone, the director decided to tack on an oh-so-serious coda, replete with brooding piano score, at the end which, to my mind, seriously undermined the whole tenor of the narrative up to this point. We know the central character is a shit by the end of the film (which a state of affairs not entirely of her own making...diddums) so we don't need this ludicrous moment of self-realisation. Also, I was intrigued by the introduction of a Muslim character at the beginning until I realised that she had only been inserted into the piece as a benchmark of naivety and finally, extremity....poor, very poor indeed!

Brick. (Rian Johnson. 2005)

I love Film Noir. The more confusing it is, the better. The more beautiful and heinous the female protagonist, the better. The more guns, the better. The more smoking, the better. The more dirty one liners, the better (you get the idea). So I was very excited about seeing this post-modern take on the genre. Set in an American High School with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the surprisingly resilient central hero on the trail of his sweetheart's killer, I was captivated by this from beginning to end. I had read reviews upon the film's release that expressed annoyance at the adolescents' wiser-than-thou repartee and I will admit that the film, true to its generic roots, is hard to follow. To be quite honest, I don't understand these kinds of critics. Don't they want people to make interesting films? And if they thought these loquacious teens were annoying, they obviously have never been subjected to an episode of 'Dawson's Creek'. Anyway, moving on...this isn't your typical post-modern parody because it employs the coordinates of the genre to full effect and doesn't send them up. In fact, I would argue that the whole convention of Noir suits the exploration of the teen experience perfectly: its confusions, its darkness, its melodrama and its fundamental loneliness. It was for this reason that I loved this film. p.s I also really enjoyed the hilarious scene with the Pin's mother and the apple juice (see this film and you'll know what I'm talking about).

The Devils (Ken Russell. 1971)

I am reading Aldous Huxley's book 'The Devils of Loudon', on which this film is based, at the moment so was very intrigued to see what wanton excesses Ken Russell's adaptation of the text would bring. I have equivocal feelings about Russell. I adored 'Women In Love' and I loathed 'Tommy' but it seems that he has a flair for precisely matching content and form in a way few directors can. As a result, I am not sure what I thought of this. I would like to think of it as a serious film about religious devotion and hypocrisy but the sheer flamboyance of Russell's imagery and his drooling, raving protagonists often prevent me from really feeling this. To my mind, this is a film about the power of religious iconography and the sway it can hold over those who are desperate to believe in something. Of course, it's also a film about repression and it seems pertinent in its linking of the religious experience with sex (the testimonies of many saints would confirm this). I don't want to be the sort of person that throws around words like 'tasteless' and 'dissolute' when it comes to discussing Russell as his lack of regard for such notions really seems to be half the point of his stylistic approach anyway. However, when faced with a gaggle of surprisingly good-looking, pert and eager nuns (incidentally, who were all masturbating over images of our Lord, Jesus Christ), the word 'ridiculous' came to mind.

My Life Without Me (Isabel Coixet. 2003)

This is just a beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous piece of cinema. I know nothing about the director or the short story it is based on but it had me mesmerised throughout. The premise for the story is actually a fairly hackneyed one: young mother of two discovers she has but a few months to live and decides not to tell her family. She makes the ubiquitous 'things to do before I die' list (one of which is to sleep with Mark Ruffalo - wise move!) and in a very business like fashion, goes about the business of living. Given this all too familiar storyline, one might expect the film to be maudlin or melodramatic but it's neither of these things. In fact, the main protagonist's life doesn't change that much: she still battles on with her crushingly boring night job as a caretaker at a university, she still takes her kids to school, and she still argues with her bitter mother. In fact, none of her relationships radically alter. What does change is her relationship with her environment. What I found most intriguing about the film was its blend of realism with surrealism (that is heightened realism). The film, after all, is about someone who comes to be aware of every passing moment and sensation and this state of elevated existence is exquisitely rendered through the tactile textures picked up by the camera, the use of heightened sound and the blurring of objectivity and subjectivity. We come to empathise wholly with the central character not because she is dying but because we see the world through her eyes and, as a consequence, are reminded of the little things that really matter.

'Moliere' (Laurent Tirard. 2007)

Set in the 17th Century, ‘Molière’ offers its audience all the lavishness that would be expected of a classy costume romp enacted by a stellar cast (Romain Duris is superb in the lead role). The vast majority of the film depicts events which could have been the catalyst for the eponymous hero’s salubrious career. Through use of literary quotation, visual gags, bedroom farce and sumptuous visual-style, Tirard sets out to flatter, amuse and seduce his audience and at this, in the main, he is adroit. What lets this film down, however, is the clumsy frame narrative that tends to confound rather than enlighten the audience through its skewed chronology, and the completely otiose love story which one suspects may have been tacked on as an afterthought to sadly, only maudlin effect. Like the playwright himself, Tirard is clearly at his best when he sticks to comedy.