One Life (2023)

Lots of them grew up thinking the worst thing that was ever going to happen to them was piano practice. 1987, Maidenhead, England. Retired 79-year old Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins) cleans up some of the clutter in his office, which his wife (Lena Olin) Grete asked him to do. He finds old documents in which he recorded his pre-war work for the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia and a scrapbook with photos and lists of the children they wanted to bring to safety. Winton still blames himself for not being able to save more. In 1938 just weeks after the signing of the Munich Agreement 29-year-old London stockbroker Nicholas (Johnny Flynn) encounters families in Prague who had fled the rise of the Nazis in Germany and Austria. They are living in bad conditions with little or no shelter or food and in fear of the invasion of the Nazis. Winton is introduced to Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) (BCRC). Horrified by the situation in the refugee camps, Winton decides to save Jewish children himself. Actively supported by his mother Babette (Helena Bonham Carter) herself a German-Jewish migrant who has since converted to the Church of England he overcomes bureaucratic hurdles, collects donations and looks for foster families for the children brought to England. Many of them are Jews who are at imminent risk of deportation. When the Nazis invade, Doreen and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) face unimaginable danger themselves. 1987: at lunch with his old friend Martin (Jonathan Pryce) Nicholas thinks about what he should do with all the documents. He is considering donating them to a Holocaust museum but at the same time he wants to draw some attention to the current plight of refugees, so he does not do it. I started the whole thing so I have to finish it. 1938: A race against time begins as it is unclear how long the borders will remain open before the inevitable Nazi invasion. The ninth train has yet to leave the platform when the Nazis invade Poland … You have to let go for your own sake. Based upon Winton’s life story which culminated in an absurdly moving reunion on a 1988 edition of TV’s That’s Life show hosted by Esther Rantzen (played here by Samantha Spiro), this true story from a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon & Nick Drake is a timely reminder of the ongoing plight of Jewish children in an anti-semitic world and the bravery of the pre-war humanitarians who sought to save them from certain and brutal death at the hands of the Germans. Part of the drama is the underplayed revelation that Winton himself has been assimilated in the UK, pivoting his role into one of recognition of the There but for the grace of God variety. Fifty years later Winton is still raising funds for refugees, still plagued by a sense of guilt that he could have done so much more for his own Kindertransports. I’ve learned to keep my imagination in check so I can still be of use and not go raving mad. Perhaps the feel-good factor predominates as opposed to the reality of what the children experienced but this is intended as an uplifting tale, hooking into the curated balm of a startling and beloved TV event. Based on the memoir If It’s Not Impossible …The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, written by his daughter, the late Barbara Winton, who personally requested Hopkins play her father, he offers a performance of pitch perfect emotion, decent and unfussy – a thoroughly upstanding Englishman who wanted to do the right thing and now reflects on what he perceives as his tragic failure. He said: I was only interested in getting the children to England and I didn’t mind a damn what happened to them afterwards, because the worst that would happen to them in England was better than being in the fire. Praise too for Bonham Carter who is wonderful as his super efficient no-nonsense mother Babi, rattling the doors of Whitehall. (Shall we gloss over the fact that Marthe Keller is cast as Elisabeth Maxwell?) It’s not about me. In an era of shocking narcissism this is a wonderfully sobering story of selflessness and the consequences of bearing witness when the German tanks are rolling in. Absurdly moving, in its own very quiet way. Directed by James Hawes making his feature film debut. Save one life, save the world

Dune: Part Two (2024)

I’m here to learn your ways. Following the destruction of the House of Atreides by the House of Harkonnen, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) daughter of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) the head of House Corrino secretly journals that Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) may be alive. On Arrakis, Stilgar’s Fremen troops including Paul and his pregnant mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) overcome a Harkonnen patrol. When they arrive at Sietch Tabr some Fremen suspect they are spies, while Stilgar and others see signs of the prophecy that a mother and son from the so-called ‘Outer World will bring prosperity to Arrakis. Stilgar tells Jessica that Sietch Tabr’s Reverend Mother Ramallo (Giusi Merli) is dying and that she must replace her by drinking the Water of Life, a fatal poison for males and the untrained. Jessica’s body transmutes the poison, surviving and inheriting the memories of every female ancestor in her lineage. The liquid also accelerates the cognitive development of her unborn daughter Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy) allowing Jessica to communicate with her telepathically. Jessica and Alia agree to focus on convincing the skeptical northern Fremen of the prophecy. Jessica urges Paul also to drink the Water of Life and become the Kwisatz Haderach [‘the shortening of the way’ in the Kabbalah]. The young and rebellious Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) and her friend Shishakli (Souhelia Yacoub) believe that the prophecy was fabricated to manipulate and subjugate the Fremen but she begins to respect Paul after he declares that he only intends to fight alongside the Fremen not to rule them. Paul and Chani fall in love as Paul embraces the Fremen ways: learning their language, participating in rites such as riding a sandworm, becoming a Fedaykin fighter and helping raid Harkonnen spice operations. Paul adopts the Fremen names Usul and Muad’Dib as he his likened to a kangaroo mouse. Due to the devastating spice raids, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Starsgard) head of House of Harkonnen and former stewart of Arrakis and enemy to the House of Atreides replaces his nephew Glossu Rabban Harkonnen aka Rabban (Dave Bautista) as Arrakis’s ruler with his psychotic younger nephew and heir apparent Rabban’s younger brother Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler). Lady Margot Fenring (Lea Seydoux), a Bene Gesserit is sent to evaluate Feyd-Rautha as a prospective Kwisatz Haderach and to seduce him to secure his genetic lineage: she is duly impregnated. Jessica travels south to unite with Fremen fundamentalists who believe in the prophecy of the Mahdi. Paul stays north, fearful that his visions of a holy war will come to pass if he travels south as a messiah. He reunites with Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) the former military leader of House Atreides and Paul’s mentor who leads him to the hidden atomic stockpile of House Atreides. Paul was not able to foresee Feyd-Rautha’s attack on the northern Fremen, including Sietch Tabr, forcing Paul and the survivors to head south. Shishakli remains behind and is killed by Feyd-Rautha. Arriving south, Paul drinks the Water of Life and falls into a coma. Chani is angered by this but is forced by Jessica to revive him by mixing her tears with the liquid. Paul attains a clearer vision of the past, present, and future, seeing an adult Alia on a water-filled Arrakis and that Jessica is the Baron’s daughter, making Paul both an Atreides and a Harkonnen. Chani attempts to warn the southern Fremen that the prophecy will be used to enslave them, but Gurney quiets her down. Paul galvanizes the fundamentalists by showing that he can read their innermost thoughts. He declares himself the Lisan al Gaib and sends a challenge to Emperor Shaddam. Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and the Emperor’s Truthsayer Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) tells Irulan that she advised the Emperor to annihilate House Atreides because they had grown too defiant. Shaddam arrives on Arrakis with Irulan, Mohiam, and his Sarduakar troops. As he meets the Harkonnens, the Fremen launch a massive military strike using atomics and sandworms … He’s a sociopath, highly intelligent, in love with pain but sexually vulnerable. And so the behemoth that is the second half of director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci fi Dune carves its path into global consciousness with a positively Shakespearean scenario unfolding. Viewed through the prism of one of Herbert’s great influences, Lawrence of Arabia, the fey, androgynous and rather reluctant protagonist who rallies the rebels against the powerful desert overlords makes more sense of Chalamet’s casting, a callow youth not quite ready for his hero’s journey who says to Zendaya’s Chani, I want to be your equal. In the 1960s the interest in ecology and the world’s resources together with a question about the future of Islam can clearly be mapped onto today’s geopolitical catastrophes with Paul’s Messianic position as Mahdi key to the resumption of the Fremen fundamentalism and the miracles of Christianity given a wholesale workout. Essentially the Abrahamic religions intersect in battle and beliefs, the role of the desert prophet a common trope. The visual debt to Lawrence is clear in certain visual quotes but it’s mitigated by the murky palette of greige created by cinematographer Greig Fraser and the tendency to blur Chalamet’s slight figure against the rippling sands: not a visual choice Lean would ever have made when clarity and precision were key to the earlier film’s expressive beauty. Sometimes this looks like it’s shot through Paul’s dusty goggles and his lusciously long lashes. The extraordinary Colosseum/Nazi-styled gladiatorial fight in an infrared rendition of Harkonnen is a glorious and daring exception, a clear statement about a world drained of colour. And, not to put too fine a point on the general tendency of the film, when we step away from the major world building sequences, there are too many close ups – a problem afflicting many films at the present time. This can’t be a budgetary choice so must be an aesthetic one. The storytelling in the streamlined screenplay by Villeneuve & Jon Spaihts (with early work by Eric Roth) is much more efficient here than in the first part: that film’s setting up of the spice-mining story and the different planets’ ecological concerns permits a slicker narrative to unfold here, the 2 hour 46 minutes running time notwithstanding with a religious and familial fight resulting in war. Every beat is hit at the right time. Happily there are a couple of clunky moments which might make you giggle at presumably unintentional reminders of Life of Brian (sometimes this prophet doth protesteth too much) while the ladies say twice (repetition being a screenwriting trick) that the religious prophecy is designed to distract, a common Marxian precept (something about the spice of the people, natch). The major jaw-dropping story twist at 120 minutes is of the Star Wars variety and very pleasurable it is too, turning the last 45 minutes into an astonishing conflict of character, wits and strength. Every hero requires a vicious enemy and Butler makes for a mesmerisingly sadistic villain. Caveats aside, this is mostly masterful filmmaking with engaging characters, terrific timing and excellent structure, which creates a narrative matrix of totally absorbing events and developments with an open-ended conclusion in which we can see Paul evolving into an anti-hero while the women take charge. This psychedelic sci fi encompassing faith, friendship, fascism, imperialism, breeding programmes and destiny, is hitting theatres when the concerns of the recent past are replaying out in real time. Part three (Dune Messiah, which is set 12 years following the aftermath of the war) is in the works but according to Villeneuve, he is not rushing it. More’s the pity! I am not the messiah

Soft & Quiet (2022)

We’re all brainwashed. All of us. Kindergarten teacher Emily (Stefanie Estes) organises the first-time meeting of the Daughters for Aryan Unity,’ an organisation of white supremacist Caucasian women, which includes  ex-con Leslie (Olivia Luccardi), grocery store owner Kim (Dana Millican) and disgruntled single girl retail worker Marjorie (Eleanore Pienta). The members present have various grievances against immigrants, Jews, feminists, diversity quotas, and organisations like Black Lives Matter. The meeting, held in a church building, is cut short when the church pastor (Josh Peters, the film’s producer) uncomfortable with the topic of the group insists Emily leave. To save face, Emily decides to invite the others to her home; Leslie, Kim, and Marjorie accept. The four travel to Kim’s store for food and drink. While Emily is selecting wine, Asian-American sisters Anne (Melissa Paulo) and Lily (Cissy Ly) arrive. Unaware that the shop was closed, they try to purchase wine but are refused service by Kim. Lily confronts Kim refusing service, causing Emily to intervene. Anne attempts to defuse the situation, only to be intimidated by Emily into purchasing the most expensive wine on the shelf. As the two sisters leave, Marjorie initiates a verbal confrontation with Anne which degenerates into violence. Kim arms herself with a pistol and forces the sisters out at gunpoint; while leaving Lily taunts Emily about her brother, who is currently in a county prison serving time for raping Anne. Emily’s husband Craig (Jon Beavers) arrives and attempts to defuse the situation but Leslie is incensed and suggests going to Anne’s home to vandalise the property and steal her passport Craig initially refuses but is embarrassed by Emily into going along. Emily mentions certain details about the house, such as Anne’s living there alone and that she inherited it when her mother died. Craig tells Emily he is disturbed that she’s been keeping track of Anne like this. The four women and Craig arrive at the lakeside home and perform acts of petty vandalism before Kim finds Anne’s passport. Before they can leave, Anne and Lily suddenly arrive home and discover the intruders. They weren’t supposed to be fucking home! Confused and unsure of what to do, the home invaders bind and gag Anne and Lily at gunpoint and discuss their options. Unable to condone the situation, Craig leaves. Leslie suggests cleaning up the property to remove physical evidence of their presence and intimidating the sisters to keep them quiet. While drinking, Leslie and Marjorie beat Anne and Lily and force-feed Lily various food and drink. Then Lily begins to choke … The first thing you’ve got to do is take the media back from the Jews. This audacious and disturbing debut written, produced and directed by Beth de Araujo shocks and disturbs from the get go: when Emily arrives at the mixer she gets the first piece of the cherry pie she’s brought. It has a swastika cut into it. The camera lingers on that pie for an awfully long time. Our minds think, Nice as pie. American Pie. This is a meeting of Daughters for Aryan Unity. That’s just the first jaw drop: this isn’t some allegory, this is about actual American Nazis. And they’re all women. When they’re booted out of the church the solution for Emily is to get some wine and make an evening of it but then a girl surfaces who reminds the jittery Emily of what happened to her brother. She instigates a vile prank that goes horribly wrong and results in torture, rape and murder. Her husband exits early as the marital differences that were manifest in a failure to get pregnant now reflect on his masculinity – he’s just concerned that he’s being embroiled in a felony and doesn’t want to go to jail. He’s already participated in kidnapping. It’s the escalation to extreme violence at warp speed that’s so compelling. It’s paralleled and to an extent driven by envy: those apparently mixed race girls (Leslie accuses them of having had a wetback father) have a piano. They have a lot of cash. They live in a really nice house. They can afford a $300 bottle of wine. But Ann is a waitress. So what gives? The screenplay pulls no punches about the older women’s class and financial positions – they’re cheap people with dodgy records, their politics are on the nose and directly confrontational. The aesthetic choice to shoot this entire film in one take (kudos to cinematographer Greta Zozula) gives this a striking urgency. We just can’t look away as we are immersed in awfulness. The media loves to portray us as big scary monsters. Am I really that scary? The rape and murder occur literally just under the camera. The contrast between how Emily looks – she moves like a ballerina, she could be a model with those symmetrical features, lean body and long straight blonde hair – and what she says and how Leslie carries out what Emily really wants to happen couldn’t be starker. And it seems like she’s doing it as a quid pro quo to get Emily to pose in her vintage clothes online. The stakes are high for everyone concerned – Kim is freaking out about losing her kids – but they each just go along with the unfolding horror. White people are the worst! As a comment about the state of race relations in the US this presents a spectrum in terms of representation. One woman is the daughter of a KKK member, another is a housewife stuck at home with her kids, one is a baby boomer, another can’t have babies – and she’s the protagonist, the kindergarten teacher telling a little boy to have a go at an immigrant cleaning lady at the school. The politics they espouse are ‘soft and quiet’ and other than punky crim Leslie they look like butter wouldn’t melt but they’re participating in a gendered race war. It slides straight into genre action territory for the last half hour and there’s even a twist. It’s horrible but like we said – this is made from the perspective of racists and you just can’t take your eyes off it because the viewer is implicated from the off. A Blumhouse production. We all have great genes

Carve Her Name With Pride (1958)

If I’d been a man I’d like to have been a professional soldier. Young English war-widow and mother to Tania, a toddler daughter, Violette Szabo (Virginia McKenna) is recruited to become a secret agent in occupied France during World War II following the death in North Africa of her French soldier husband Etienne Szabo (Alain Saury). Teamed with Captain Tony Fraser (Paul Scofield) whom she has encountered socially, she is sent on her first mission to Rouen and does so well she even has time to go shopping in Paris. The second mission to Limoges is much more dangerous and she gets caught when her dodgy ankle gives up but not before she kills a dozen Nazis, allowing French Resistance fighter Jacques (Maurice Ronet) to escape and warn the rest of the cell. Exposed to torture at Avenue Foch by the Gestapo and the degradation of Ravensbruck concentration camp in the company of fellow trainees Denise (Nicole Stephane) and Lilian (Anne Leon) Violette finds herself facing a continual struggle for survival… I think you have certain qualifications that might be of great use. This adaptation by Vernon Harris and director Lewis Gilbert of R. J. Minney’s biography is a British war classic: the true story of a brave young Englishwoman who was selected to serve her country by dint of her ability to speak French, her athleticism and recent widowhood. It’s lightly told in monochrome against the backdrop of grey wartime London, with funny montages illustrating the progression of the relationship with Etienne – Violette is always accompanied by best friend Winnie (Billie Whitelaw) tagging along on their dates; while the antics at training camp are amusingly done and the action scenes are solid. The ending and coda are all the more tragic for their understatement. A story of greatness, very well told and McKenna was rightly recognised for her achievement in the complex role. Lewis Gilbert’s brother-in-law Sydney Tafler plays Potter, the ‘Ministry of Pensions’ official who hired Szabo. Look quickly for Michael Caine as one of the thirsty prisoners on the train. Real-life heroine ‘Odette’ was one of the film’s technical advisers and the poem that’s the source of Violette’s code was written by real-life SOE coder Leo Marks who would later become a playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for the film that killed Michael Powell’s brilliant British career (at least in the eyes of the so-called critics), Peeping Tom. They are not going to catch me

Z (1969)

He is alive. Greece, the 1960s. Doctor Gregorios Lambrakis (Yves Montand) leader of the opposition is injured during an anti-military/nuclear demonstration in an incident that causes his death. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth – their involvement with a right-wing organisation in a covert assassination. But they don’t control the hospital where Lambrakis is brought and the autopsy reveals the cause of death. Then tenacious Examining Magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is determined to not to let them get away with it despite every witness getting beaten up en route to his office … Always blame the Americans. Even if you’re wrong. Adapted from Vassilis Vassilikos’ 1966 novel by Greek-born director Costa-Gavras and Jorge Semprun (with uncredited work by blacklisted Ben Barzman), this political thriller gained its frisson and urgency from its lightly fictionalised portrayal of recent events in Greece which this more or less accurately depicts. Nowadays its style is commonplace but its skill in evoking the dangers of the official version and the suppression of free speech is more important than ever. Inspired by real-life events, including the ‘disappearing’ of opposition Moroccan politician Mehdi Ben Barka in Paris in 1965, with a surgical reference to JFK, the beauty of the construction is in having Montand’s experiences including with wife Helene (Irene Papas) dominating the first half, while the second is about the steady work of investigation carried out by Trintignant, who winds up unmasking a conspiracy at the highest level. Beautifully shot by Raoul Coutard and scored by Mikis Theodorakis. Tough, taut, suspenseful filmmaking that is exciting and dreadful simultaneously, speaking truth to power about corruption, passionate engagement and the casual use of street thugs to commit murder for the state. There is even room for humour as Trintignant insists on treating the officers like anyone else when they are indicted and each one of them believes him to be a Communist when in fact his right wing credentials are impeccable. In real life the military junta came to power and banned the venerable Papas, who was a member of the Communist Party:  she wasn’t the only one of course but she survived to celebrate her 94th birthday on 3rd September last. Essential cinema. Why do the ideas we stand for incite such violence?

The Longest Day (1962)

Tonight. I know it’s tonight. In the days leading up to D-Day, 6th June 1944, concentrating on events on both sides of the English Channel the Allies wait for a break in the poor weather while anticipating the reaction of the Axis forces defending northern France which they plan to invade at Normandy. As Supreme Commander of Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) Gen. Dwight Eisenhower (Henry Grace) makes the decision to go after reviewing the initial bad weather reports and the reports about the divisions within the German High Command as to where an invasion might happen and what should be their response as the Allies have made fake preparations for Operation Fortitude, to take place in a quite different landing position:  are the Germans fooled? Allied airborne troops land inland.The French Resistance react. British gliders secure Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal. American paratroopers launch counter-attacks at Manche in Normandy. The Resistance carries out sabotage and infiltrate the German ranks. The Wehrmacht responds ….  He’s dead. I’m crippled. You’re lost. Do you suppose it’s always like that? I mean war. Funny, intense, jaw-dropping in scale, this landmark war epic produced by D-Day veteran Darryl F. Zanuck, whose dream project this was, is a 6th June commemoration like no other, a tribute to the armed forces who launched the magnificent amphibian assault. The screenplay is by Cornelius Ryan (who did not get along with DFZ) who was adapting his 1959 non-fiction book, with additional scenes written by novelists Romain Gary and James Jones, and David Pursall & Jack Seddon. DFZ knew the difficulties of such a mammoth undertaking which included eight battle scenes and hired directors from each of the major participating countries/regions: Ken Annakin directed the British and French exteriors, with Gerd Oswald the uncredited director of the Sainte-Marie-Église parachute drop sequence; while the American exteriors were directed by Andrew Marton; and Austria’s Bernhard Wicki shot the German scenes. Zanuck himself shot some pick ups. There are cameos by the major actors of the era, some of whom actually participated in the events depicted: Irish-born Richard Todd plays Major Howard of D Company and he really was at Pegasus Bridge and is wearing his own beret from the event; Leo Genn plays Major-General Hollander of SHAEF; Kenneth More is Acting Captain Colin Maud of the Royal Navy at Juno Beach and is carrying his shillelagh; Rod Steiger plays Lt. Commander Joseph Witherow Jr., Commander of the USS Satterlee; Eddie Albert is Colonel Lloyd Thompson, ADC to General Norman Cota (Robert Mitchum) of the Fighting 29th Infantry Division; Henry Fonda plays Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Assistant Commander of the 4th Infantry Division. The all-star cast also includes John Wayne (replacing Charlton Heston), Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Mel Ferrer, Tom Tryon, Stuart Whitman, George Segal, Jeffrey Hunter (who’s probably got the best role), Sal Mineo, Robert Wagner; Peter Lawford, Richard Burton and Roddy McDowall (who both volunteered to appear for nothing out of boredom on the Cleopatra set in Rome), Sean Connery,  Leslie Phillips, Frank Finlay; Christian Marquand, Georges Wilson (Lambert’s dad), Bourvil, Jean-Louis Barrault, Arletty;  Paul Hartmann, Werner Hinz (as Rommel), Curd Jürgens, Walter Gotell, Peter van Eyck, Gert Fröbe, Dietmar Schönherr. An astonishing lineup in a production which does not shirk the horrors of war, the number of casualties or the overwhelming noise of terror. It’s a stunning achievement, measured and wonderfully realistically staged with the co-operation of all the forces organised by producer Frank McCarthy who worked at the US Department of War during WW2.  The key scene-sequences are the parachute drop into Sainte-Mère-Église; the advance from the Normandy beaches; the U.S. Ranger Assault Group’s assault on the Pointe du Hoc; the attack on the town of Ouistreham by Free French Forces; and the strafing of the beaches by the only two Luftwaffe pilots in the area. The vastness of the project inevitably means there are flaws:  where’s the point of view? Where are the Canadians?! But it is a majestic reconstruction made at the height of the Cold War of one of the biggest events of the twentieth century. Or, as Basil Fawlty said before he was muzzled by the BBC yesterday, Don’t Mention The War. Yeah, right. Or maybe do like Hitler did – take a sleeping pill and pretend it’s not happening. Thank God for common sense, great soldiers and DFZ, come to think of it. Spectacular.  You remember it. Remember every bit of it, ’cause we are on the eve of a day that people are going to talk about long after we are dead and gone

Europa (1991)

Aka Zentropa. I thought the war was over. Just after World War II Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr), an American of German descent takes a job on the Zentropa train line in US-occupied Germany to help the country rebuild. He becomes a sleeping-car conductor under the tutelage of his drunken uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård). He falls under the spell of the mysterious Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa) daughter of Zentropa railway magnate Max (Jørgen Reenberg) whose friendship with US Colonel Harris (Eddie Constantine) has raised hackles. Her gay brother Lawrence (Udo Kier) is the family embarrassment because like Leopold he didn’t serve his country. Leopold inadvertently becomes embroiled with a pro-Nazi fascist organisation known as the Werewolves who are conspiring to overthrow the state. Simultaneously being used by the US Army, Leopold finds neutrality an impossible position … I understand unemployment in Germany a lot better now. It costs too much to work here. Danish auteur Lars von Trier made this great train thriller long before he became a trying controversialist down the Dogma 95 rabbit hole. It plugs into that febrile post-war atmosphere which we already know from films of the late 40s like Berlin Express as well as sensational character-driven pre-war comedy thrillers like The Lady Vanishes. It’s the final part of the director’s first trilogy (following The Element of Crime and The Epidemic) and it gained a lot of kudos upon release, particularly for its visual style, principally shot in black and white with rear projections in colour (photographed by Henning Bendtsen, Edward Klosinski and Jean-Paul Meurisse) lending an eerie aspect to what is already an innovative production, shifting tone as surely as it shifts pigments. The hypnotic (literally) narration by Max von Sydow lulls you into submission like the mesmerising shuffle of the carriages along the tracks; while the charm of the leading man on his journey which is physical, emotional and political, all at once, carries you through a sensitive yet experimental scenario.The miraculous editing achievement is by Hervé Schneid. It feels like a new kind of film is being born, reformulating the grammar of the language with its surrealist nods and noir references. A cult item from the casting of Kier and Constantine alone, with Sukowa’s role harking back to her Fassbinder films, this is a classic of modern European cinema. Written by von Trier (who appears as a Jew) & Niels Vørsel with a shooting script by von Trier & Tómas Gislason. You have carried out your orders. Now relax

 

 

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

In our country, General, they say never blow a bridge until you come to it. During the Spanish Civil War, an American professor of Spanish and explosives expert, Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) allied with the Republicans finds romance with freedom fighting peasant Maria (Ingrid Bergman) during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge in the mountains while the Axis powers attempt to establish a base in Europe … Each of us must do this thing alone. Bergman got another Oscar nomination for her performance and Cooper displays his stoic masculinity in Dudley Nichols’ romantic (and lengthy) adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel. The protean quality of both stars is much in evidence here – Bergman is luminous as the Loyalist and Cooper is a perfect hero, strong, reliable and deeply felt. I’ve always loved you but I never saw you before. They make an awesome couple.  They don’t shoot you for being a Republican in America. However the adaptation isn’t as focused on action as it ought to be, the dialogue is occasionally too on the nose (explaining that Germany and Italy are using Spain against Russia) and overall this is not especially well staged, confined as it is to studio settings (imagine if they’d done this somewhere as lush as Northern Spain). Katina Paxou got the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award and she’s tremendous as the tough plain-speaking older woman Pilar in this story of betrayals and compromise – and, inevitably, sacrifice. With Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Cordova, Vladimir Sokoloff and Joseph Calleia in a characterful ensemble, this doesn’t lack for interesting exchanges or tension which escalates as the moment descends. The original running time was trimmed from 168 minutes to 130 and then restored to 165. It’s too long but as a relic of classic screen performances and despite the issues it’s still one of the better Hemingway adaptations and simply must be seen. Directed by Sam Wood. Each of us must do this thing alone

Code Name: Emerald (1985)

I was expecting Peter Lorre. Augustus Lang aka Emerald (Ed Harris) is a spy for the Allies working undercover in Nazi-Occupied Paris during World War II but the Nazis believe he’s their man. With his assistance they capture Wheeler (Eric Stoltz) an ‘Overlord’ thought to know the plans for D-Day. Lang is planted as his cell mate and their conversations are monitored by Gestapo officer Walter Hoffman (Horst Buchholz) who is constantly at odds with his SS colleague Ernst Ritter (Helmut Berger) but retains friendly relations with decent Jurgen Brausch (Max Von Sydow).  Outside the cell in everyday Paris, Lang is in contact with Claire Jouvet  (Cyrielle Clair) who is trying to help him engineer Wheeler’s escape. But Wheeler is weakening under threat of torture and Hoffman suspects there might be more than one spy in the wings … Averages aren’t everything. There’s such a thing as grace. A really good premise in a terrific screenplay by Ronald Bass from his novel is largely laid waste by miscasting and some underpowered directing. That makes a change! Harris is not expressive enough to elicit our sympathy as the hero of the piece and Stoltz is unconvincing and probably too young in his role; paradoxically it’s Buchholz who has the most interesting character to play – how often do we see Nazis in civvies in WW2 films? Von Sydow is good as a vitally placed German officer and Clair does very well as the woman at the centre of the romance/resistance storyline. While the tension isn’t strictly maintained, the magnificent score by John Addison goes a long way to giving this a sense of urgency that isn’t necessarily in the dénouement – the outcome of the war is at stake but you wouldn’t know it from the way this is staged. C’est la guerre. Directed by Jonathan Sanger for NBC in their first theatrical production. One of these Krauts is on our side. Problem is, I don’t which one it is

 

Veronika Voss (1982)

Aka Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss. Light and shadow; the two secrets of motion pictures. Munich 1955. Ageing Third Reich film star Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) who is rumoured to have slept with Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda Josef Goebbels, becomes a drug addict at the mercy of corrupt Lesbian neurologist Marianne Katz (Annemarie Düringer), who keeps her supplied with morphine, draining her of her money. Veronika attends at the clinic where Katz cohabits with her lover and a black American GI (Günther Kaufmann) who is also a drug dealer. After meeting impressionable sports writer Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) in a nightclub, Veronika begins to dream of a return to the silver screen. As the couple’s relationship escalates in intensity and Krohn sees the possibility of a story, Veronika begins seriously planning her return to the cinema – only to realise how debilitated she has become through her drug habit as things don’t go according to plan … Artists are different from ordinary people. They are wrapped up in themselves, or simply forgetful. The prolific Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s penultimate film and one of his greatest, its predictive theme would have horrible resonance as he died just a few months after its release. Conceived as the third part of his economic trilogy including The Marriage of Maria Braun and Lola, this reworking of or homage to Sunset Blvd., whose ideas it broadly limns, has many of his usual tropes and characters and even features his sometime lover Kaufmann who could also be seen in Maria Braun; while Krohn tells his fellow journalist girlfriend Henriette (Cornelia Froboess) of his experience and potential scoop but Veronika’s hoped-for return is not what he anticipates with a Billy Wilder-like figure despairing of her problem. Its message about life in 1950s Germany is told through the style of movies themselves without offering the kind of escapist narratives Veronika seems to have acted in during her heyday.  She’ll be your downfall. There’s nothing you can do about it. She’ll destroy you, because she’s a pitiful creature. Fassbinder was hugely influenced not just by Douglas Sirk but Carl Dreyer and this story is also inspired by the tragic life of gifted actress Sybille Schmitz, who performed in Vampyr.  She died in 1955 in a suicide apparently facilitated by a corrupt Lesbian doctor.  The unusually characterful Zech is tremendous in the role. She would later play the lead in Percy Adlon’s Alaska-set Salmonberries as well as having a long career in TV. She died in 2011. It’s an extraordinary looking film with all the possibilities of cinematography deployed by Xaver Schwarzenberger to achieve a classical Hollywood effect for a story that has no redemption, no gain, no safety, no love.  Fassbinder himself appears briefly at the beginning of the film, seated behind Zech in a cinema. This is where movie dreams become a country’s nightmare. All that lustrous whiteness dazzles the eye and covers so much. Screenplay by Fassbinder with regular collaborators Peter Märtesheimer and Pea Fröhlich.  Let me tell you, it was a joy for me that someone should take care of me without knowing I’m Veronika Voss, and how famous I am. I felt like a human being again. A human being!