THE TURIN HORSE

2011; directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky; written by László Krasznahorkai and Béla Tarr; 148 mins

We’re in the badlands. The apex of arthouse. Hungarian master of misery, Béla Tarr, directing alongside regular collaborator Ágnes Hranitzky, tells a tale with no beginning or end. It’s basically just the middle. Of nowhere and nothing. It is a film by someone who is done with the world. Every prejudice you’ve got in your head about arthouse filmmaking – Eastern European, slow, nothing happening, black & white, depressing – it’s all all here and like Tarr’s previous work, it’s brilliant.

TOP HAT

1935; directed by Mark Sandrich; adapted by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor; 101 mins

Ah! That’s better. More enjoyable than Swing Time and not just because it doesn’t feature lots and lots of blackface. This movie was the most successful of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies but critically, Swing Time‘s reputation has increased over the decades. Well, for me and the other half, this movie is better because, curiously despite its lack of cheerful racism, Top Hat is more unashamedly fun. It is a Hollywood musical which is hitting all the beats that it knows it’s meant to but they all slot into place with ease and grace.

TRANCE

2013; directed by Danny Boyle; adapted by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge; 97 mins

When Trance came out, it seemed to garner mediocre reviews, which was a surprise in light of the ongoing Danny Boyle love tsunami that had started with Slumdog Millionaire and continued on through 127 Hours and that incredible Olympic opening ceremony. I love this movie! Not only that but this is my favourite of Boyle’s movies from the last decade*, alongside T2 Trainspotting. It’s just enormous fun! It’s proper, naughty, violent, sexy, twisty, turn-y entertainment for grown-ups and what’s wrong with that?

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

2007; adapted for the screen and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson; 156 mins

[300th review post! Spoilers]

My favourite film of all time! Ah, feels so good to say that. It’s a hell of a thing saying what your favourite is. It’s like actually trying to pick your Desert Island Discs. “Only eight?! Can’t I swap the Bible for another one? Come on! I’ll never read it!” Not just of all the movies I’ve seen but all the movies I actually love!

TRANSIT

2018; adapted and directed by Christian Petzold; 101 mins

Now that’s wot I call a head scratcher! Writer/director Christian Petzold seems to be enamoured with these noir-ish narratives of shifting identities and fractured relationships but here, he’s gone one step – maybe two steps – further. In noir, you’re usually trying to keep up with the small group of desperate souls and nasty bastards all vying for one selfish goal through the medium of someone who’s mostly ahead of the game. In Transit, an update of Anna Segher’s 1942 novel about Jews escaping France, you have a small group of desperate souls and nasty bastards all vying for a common goal, to get out of the country and nobody knows what the Hell is going on.

THE TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC

1962; adapted and directed by Robert Bresson; 62 mins

Robert Bresson is one of the canonical filmmakers. An artist whose work defined the word ‘arthouse’ and who actively expunged any and all emotion from his work to create almost purely intellectual essays. If the viewer is to find emotion it is through the filmmaker’s spirituality, revealed via his stripped back exposés of pain and suffering. The idea, I think, being that through a clinical screening of his protagonists’ plight, we may consider and meditate upon the nature of lives led in bondage, both mentally and physically, and from thence our emotions are engaged.

TIMBUKTU

2014; directed by Abderrahmane Sissako; written by Abderrahmane Sissako and Kessen Tall; 92 mins

This is my first, true African film I’ve seen and I wanna see more. It’s been high time for a long time that I got off my arse and saw some but with the end of the decade fast approaching, I wanted to catch up with a load of movies from 2010-2019 and this was high on the list. A surprisingly quiet film about a real hot-button topic, Timbuktu is a state of the nation address that feels epic at it’s heart but is, in it’s production, deceptively intimate.

TOUCH OF EVIL

1958; adapted and directed by Orson Welles; 95 mins

Touch of Evil has been on my “Ooh-I-really-must-get-round-to-watching-that-someday” list for about 15 years and finally someday came around and in anticipation of the new Welles movie, I got to see it. Whilst not without a large problematic element which will be discussed at length in this review, what a treat it was! A latecomer in the original film noir movement, Orson Welles’ loose adaptation of the Whit Masterson novel, Badge of Evil, is a sweaty, dangerous delight. A genuinely entertaining, politically charged film noir which was flagrantly mistreated by the studio but thankfully it’s brilliance shines through regardless!

THIS IS ENGLAND

2006; written and directed by Shane Meadows; 98 mins

One of the greatest British films of all time. Overwhelmingly lauded upon release and time has borne out that promise of greatness. This is England was the culmination of Shane Meadows‘ concerns about violence and grown-up ideas corrupting youth. Twentyfourseven had one adult inspiring kids but thwarted by the parents around him, A Room for Romeo Brass explored the dangerous yin and yang of the man-child and Dead Man’s Shoes depicted arrested development men torturing the weakest member of their group. In this film, he looks at poisonous political ideals that warp young minds and in 13 year-old Thomas Turgoose, Meadows found his greatest collaborator.

THIEF

1981; adapted and directed by Michael Mann; 118 mins

Unbelievably, it’s taken this long to get a Michael Mann movie up on the blog but what a way to start! From the beginning – well – movie beginning. He was already a small screen veteran and I understand that his TV prison movie, The Jericho Mile is a great watch but let’s jump straight to the feature films and talk about a film which is the leaping off point for so many of his concerns and themes that would coalesce later on into his greatest crime flicks such as Heat and Collateral.