Boogie (2008)

Recommended

Romania

Feature Film

Director: Radu Muntean

Writers: Alexandru Baciu, Radu Muntean, Razvan Radulescu

Cinematographer: Tudor Lucaciu

Cast: Dragos Bucur, Anamaria Marinca, Mimi Branescu, Adrian Vancica, Vlad Muntean, Geanina Varga, Roxana Iancu

Whilst on a seaside holiday with his young family, a man in his early thirties, looking to unwind after months of long hours working to keep his small furniture manufacturing business afloat, argues with his girlfriend about priorities when he bumps into two old friends, who are off into town in search of alcohol and sex, in Muntean’s talky, naturalistic, and thoroughly compelling slice-of-life drama. Iain.Stott

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Three Strange Loves (1949)

Highly Recommended

Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: Törst

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Writers: Herbert Grevenius, Birgit Tengroth

Cinematographer: Gunnar Fischer

Composer: Erik Nordgren

Cast: Eva Henning, Birger Malmsten, Birgit Tengroth, Hasse Ekman, Mimi Nelson, Bengt Eklund, Gaby Stenberg, Naima Wifstrand

With exquisite photography, eloquent mise en scène, expressive sound design, and a number of wonderful performances, Bergman brilliantly presents a portrait of three strange loves, filled with misogynistic males, murderous fantasies, lesbian longing, casual affairs, and deeply ironic romance, asking the question “what is more tolerable, the hell of cohabitation or the loneliness of isolation?” Iain.Stott

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Deception (2008)

Not Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Marcel Langenegger

Writer: Mark Bomback

Cinematographer: Dante Spinotti

Composer: Ramin Djawadi

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Maggie Q, Natasha Henstridge, Charlotte Rampling, Paul Sparks, Javier Godino

A timid accountant’s life gets turned upside down – first for better, then for worse – when he meets a charming lawyer, who (seemingly) inadvertently introduces him to The List, an anonymous casual sex network for busy businesspeople, but his nefarious intentions are soon brought to the fore, in Langenegger’s beautifully photographed and mildly diverting if rather silly, plot-hole filled thriller. Iain.Stott

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Star Trek (2009)

Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Film

Director: J.J. Abrams

Writers: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Gene Roddenberry

Cinematographer: Dan Mindel

Composer: Michael Giacchino

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin

Time travelling terrorists ensure that the USS Enterprise’s maiden voyage is an eventful one, with planets destroyed and iconic relationships formed, in Abrams’s oft very funny and generally entertaining reworking of a much loved series, filled with excellent effects work and likable performances. Iain.Stott

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Dexter: Season 2 (2007)

USA

Television Series

Developer: James Manos, Jr.

Cast: Michael C. Hall, Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter, Jaime Murray, Lauren Vélez, David Zayas, James Remar, C.S. Lee, Christina Robinson, Preston Bailey, Erik King, Devon Graye, Dominic Janes, Maxwell Huckabee, Geoff Pierson, Keith Carradine

Dexter’s continuing emotional awakening is complicated by his pursuit of The Bay Harbor Butcher (who is in fact himself), his turbulent relationship with his long-term girlfriend, and his meeting of a sexy, decidedly unbalanced, and rather posh English woman, who’s determined to become a permanent part of his life, in this excellent and perhaps more polished second season. Iain.Stott

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Ciao Bella (2007)

Recommended

Sweden

Feature Film

Director: Mani Maserrat-Agah

Writer: Jens Jonsson

Cinematographer: Andréas Lennartsson

Composer: Martin Willert

Cast: Poyan Karimi, Chanelle Lindell, Oliver Ingrosso, Fredrika Tham, Arash Bolouri, Hussein Kazem, Adam Lundgren, Jimmy Lindström, Lotta Karlge, Mina Azarian, Ali-Reza Modjallal

A quiet, middleclass 16-year-old boy of Iranian decent, desperate for a girlfriend, pretends to be an Italian whilst at an international school football tournament in Gothenburg in order to get to know a (pregnant) local girl, who lives alone with her sophomoric unemployed father, but their secrets and lies soon catch up with them, in Maserrat-Agah’s moving and gently funny film, which transcends its contrived and often silly plot with some affecting performances and sensual photography. Iain.Stott

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Positif: 2000-2009 bilan d'une décennie

1. The New World (2005)
2. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
3. There Will Be Blood (2007)
4. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
5. We Own the Night (2007)
   Still Life (2006)
6. The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)
   In the Mood for Love (2000)
   Saraband (2003)
   Spirited Away (2001)
7. Elephant (2003)
   Uzak (2002)
8. A History of Violence (2005)
   Private Fears in Public Places (2006)
   Couscous (2007)
   No Country for Old Men (2007)
   Talk to Her (2002)
9. The White Ribbon (2009)
   A One and a Two... (2000)
   2046 (2004)
10. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
    The Best of Youth (2003)
    A Prophet (2009)
11. Climates (2006)
    Mystic River (2003)
    Oasis (2002)
    The Yards (2000)

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Broken Blossoms (1919)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Original Title: Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

Director: D.W. Griffith

Writers: D.W. Griffith, Thomas Burke

Cinematographer: G.W. Bitzer

Cast: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard, Edward Peil, George Beranger, Norman Selby

A teenage waif, who’d known only a loveless life of neglect and battery at the hands of her barbaric boxer father, finds the merest glimpse of hope for a better future when she meets a kindly young Chinese immigrant, who’d come to the country to spread the peaceful ways of Buddha, but who had instead succumbed to drugs and gambling, in Griffith’s gentle, lyrical adaptation of Burke’s short story, The Chink and the Child (1917), which is let down somewhat by some rather broad stereotypes. Iain.Stott

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Dexter: Season 1 (2006)

USA

Television Series

Developer: James Manos, Jr.

Cast: Michael C. Hall, Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter, Lauren Vélez, David Zayas, James Remar, Christian Camargo, C.S. Lee, Christina Robinson, Daniel Goldman, Erik King, Devon Graye, Mark Pellegrino, Dominic Janes, Maxwell Huckabee, Geoff Pierson

Based on Jeff Lindsay’s novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), this uncomfortably entertaining and oft challenging series follows the exploits of Dexter Morgan, a blood splatter expert with the forensics department of the MMPD, who also happens to be a serial killer, but one that, with the memory of his dead foster father’s tutelage, restricts his victims to the lowest of criminals so as to avoid detection. Iain.Stott

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(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Marc Webb

Writers: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg

Composers: Mychael Danna, Rob Simonsen

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Patricia Belcher, Rachel Boston, Minka Kelly

Webb’s bitter-sweet and thoroughly charming if occasionally rather cutesy film, featuring a pair of very likable and affecting central performances, depicts form start to finish (though not necessarily in that order) the relationship that forms, develops, and collapses between a pair of co-workers at a greetings card company, asking the eternal question – what is love? Iain.Stott

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Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

Essential Viewing

France/Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: Au hasard Balthazar

Writer/Director: Robert Bresson

Cinematographer: Ghislain Cloquet

Composer: Jean Wiener

Cast: Anne Wiazemsky, Walter Green, François Lafarge, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Philippe Asselin, Pierre Klossowski, Nathalie Joyaut

A donkey named Balthazar experiences cruelty, mistreatment, and even a little bit of love at the hands of his various owners, whilst also bearing witness to a lifetime’s worth of man’s inhumanity to man (and beast), in Bresson’s beautifully photographed magnum opus, a film that perhaps manages to capture the spirit of all of man's various vices and virtues. Iain.Stott

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Bande à Part (1964)

Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Bande à part

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Writer: Jean-Luc Godard, Dolores Hitchens

Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard

Composer: Michel Legrand

Cast: Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur, Louisa Colpeyn, Danièle Girard, Ernest Menzer

Two unemployed chancers latch onto an innocent young woman, who they met at an English class, and with whom they are planning a rather slapdash robbery, but spend most of their time acting sillily, in Godard’s tremendously fun, tongue-in-cheek crime thriller, filled with iconic moments. Iain.Stott

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Parks and Recreation: Season 1 (2009)

USA

Television Series

Creators: Greg Daniels, Michael Schur

Cast: Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Paul Schneider, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Jim O'Heir

Using the same mockumentary format as their version of The Office, only with much less outlandish characters, Daniels and Schur’s promising new series follows the exploits of the Parks and Recreation department of the local government of a small Indiana town, concentrating on the bizarrely tough task of converting an abandoned, unsightly, and rather dangerous pit into a new park. Iain.Stott

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Looking for Eric (2009)

Recommended

UK/France/Italy/Belgium/Spain

Feature Film

Director: Ken Loach

Writer: Paul Laverty

Cinematographer: Barry Ackroyd

Cast: Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns, Stefan Gumbs, Lucy-Jo Hudson, Matthew McNulty, Laura Ainsworth, John Henshaw, Steve Marsh

A middle-aged, suicidal postman with a passion for traditional rock and roll and Manchester United, when forced to deal with both the feelings of guilt he has about his treatment of his first wife and the problems of his stepson who has become dangerously involved with a local gangster, begins to take the advice of an imaginary friend, a certain Eric Cantona, in Loach’s gently funny and surprisingly moving film, an example of the sort of sentimental socialist propaganda that they just don’t make any more (but perhaps should). Iain.Stott

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The Inbetweeners: Series 2 (2009)

UK

Television Series

Creators: Damon Beesley, Iain Morris

Director: Ben Palmer

Cinematographer: Jamie Cairney

Cast: Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas, Emily Head, Greg Davies, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Belinda Stewart-Wilson, Emily Atack

Various bodily fluids, bullying twelve-year-olds, suave exchange students, and the entirety of the female species ensure that Will, Jay, Neil, and Simon endure as much humiliation, embarrassment, and rejection as in the first series of this guiltily pleasurable and agreeably farcical look at the juvenile behaviour of the adolescent male on the verge of adulthood. Iain.Stott

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The Inbetweeners: Series 1 (2008)

UK

Television Series

Creators: Damon Beesley, Iain Morris

Director: Gordon Anderson

Cinematographer: Rob Kitzmann

Cast: Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas, Emily Head, Greg Davies, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Belinda Stewart-Wilson, Emily Atack

Filled with deliciously foul dialogue and well timed comic performances, Beesley and Morris’s consistently entertaining comedy, which falls somewhere between Rushmore (1998) and American Pie (1999), follows the exploits of Will McKenzie, a confident but clueless 16-year-old, as he enters (after eleven years of private schooling) a comprehensive school, where he strives to make friends and lose his virginity. Iain.Stott

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Wasp (2003)

Recommended

UK

Short Film

Writer/Director: Andrea Arnold

Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan

Cast: Natalie Press, Danny Dyer, Jodie Mitchell, Molly Griffiths, Kaitlyn Raynor, Danny Daley, Lizzie Colbert, Ashley Routledge, Tabitha Crewe

A council estate dwelling single mother with four children, when asked out on a date by an old friend for which she is unable to find a babysitter, contrives to take them with her, leaving them outside of the pub with a glass of pop and a couple of bags of crisps, determined to keep their existence from her potential suitor, in Arnold’s stomach-churning examination of abject poverty and parental negligence. Iain.Stott

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Fish Tank (2009)

Recommended

UK/The Netherlands

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Andrea Arnold

Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan

Cast: Katie Jarvis, Kierston Wareing, Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Griffiths, Sydney Mary Nash, Harry Treadaway

A council estate dwelling 15-year-old with a mean temper and a passion for dancing, recently expelled from school, slowly builds a tender but increasingly inappropriate relationship with her young mother’s charming and handsome Irish boyfriend, but struggles to come to terms with its inevitable conclusion, in Arnold’s cliché-busting and grimly beautiful follow-up to the excellent Red Road (2006). Iain.Stott

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The Office: Season 5 (2008-2009)

USA

Television Series

Developer: Greg Daniels

Cast: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak, Ed Helms, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nuñez, Phyllis Smith, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Kate Flannery, Melora Hardin, Creed Bratton, Holly Flax, Idris Elba, Kelly Erin Hannon

Michael continues to insult and alienate just about everyone that he comes across, forever trying to be everyone’s friend, instigating wild ideas; yet, with sales figures confounding expectations, he manages to keep his job, but when a no-nonsense manager is appointed at corporate genuine tensions arise, in this consistently funny and slightly more restrained-than-previous fifth season. Iain.Stott

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All About My Mother (1999)

Essential Viewing

Spain/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Todo sobre mi madre

Writer/Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Cinematographer: Affonso Beato

Composer: Alberto Iglesias

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz, Rosa María Sardá, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Toni Cantó, Eloy Azorín, Carlos Lozano

When her son dies after being hit by a car, Manuela, a Madrid based nurse from Argentina, travels to Barcelona to find the boy’s father, but instead becomes involved with a pregnant HIV+ nun, a transvestite prostitute, and a middle-aged actress whom her son adored, in Almodóvar’s gorgeously photographed and affectingly acted melodrama; a gently funny and terribly moving tribute to all the mothers of the world. Iain.Stott

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The Office: Season 4 (2007-2008)

USA

Television Series

Developer: Greg Daniels

Cast: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak, Ed Helms, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nuñez, Phyllis Smith, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Kate Flannery, Melora Hardin, Creed Bratton

Jim and Pam have finally got together and Ryan has taken over from Jan at corporate, however it’s pretty much business as usual at Dunder Mifflin, with the office continuing to provide a fertile breeding ground for pranks, parties, unlikely romances, and occasionally even a little bit of work, in this consistently entertaining and delightfully silly fourth season. Iain.Stott

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Casque d'Or (1952)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Casque d'or

Director: Jacques Becker

Writers: Jacques Becker, Jacques Companéez

Cinematographer: Robert Lefebvre

Composer: Georges Van Parys

Cast: Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani, Claude Dauphin, Raymond Bussières, William Sabatier, Claude Castaing

After killing a man in a knife fight, a simple carpenter attempts to start a new life with a prostitute that he has fallen for, but when an old friend is implicated in the killing he feels obliged to turn himself in, leaving his beloved Marie in the hands of the duplicitous gangster who orchestrated the whole sordid affair, in Becker’s beautifully photographed, expertly acted, and thoroughly compelling fatalistic gem. Iain.Stott

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Adventureland (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Greg Mottola

Cinematographer: Terry Stacey

Composers: Yo La Tengo

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Margarita Levieva, Matt Bush, Jack Gilpin, Wendie Malick

When his father receives a demotion at work, James, a sweet natured recent graduate, is forced to abandon his trip to Europe and take a job at Adventureland (a rather rubbishy theme park), where he meets and falls for Em, a gorgeous but troubled young woman, who is having an affair with a married, struggling musician, in Mottola’s very likable if rather familiar comedy-drama. Iain.Stott

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The Office: Season 3 (2006-2007)

USA

Television Series

Developer: Greg Daniels

Cast: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak, Rashida Jones, Ed Helms, David Denman, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nuñez, Phyllis Smith, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Kate Flannery, Melora Hardin, Creed Bratton

Jim’s move to Stanford proves to be short lived when his new branch is merged with his old one, awkwardly bringing to the fore past feelings and painful memories, in this entertaining if rather patchy third instalment of the increasingly silly workplace comedy, with the mixture of cringe-inducing humour, gentle satire, delicate character study, and pathos-laden romance being not quite so well balanced as before. Iain.Stott

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The Silence of Lorna (2008)

Recommended

Belgium/France/Italy/Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Le silence de Lorna

Writer/Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Cinematographer: Alain Marcoen

Cast: Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukaj

An Albanian immigrant, just about to achieve Belgian citizenship, begins to have second thoughts about her part in the potential murder of her junkie husband, whom she married to gain citizenship, when he decides to kick his habit, much to the chagrin of the ruthless gangsters that she is involved with, leaving her with a number of difficult decisions to make, in the Dardenne Brothers (surprisingly) plot-packed thriller, a gripping examination of guilt and consequence. Iain.Stott

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Moon (2009)

Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Film

Director: Duncan Jones

Writers: Nathan Parker, Duncan Jones

Cinematographer: Gary Shaw

Composer: Clint Mansell

Cast: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Kaya Scodelario

When Sam, an astronaut approaching the end of a three year stint mining moon rocks, crashes his buggy whilst out performing his duties, he is surprised to be rescued by Sam, an astronaut just beginning a three year stint mining moon rocks, who looks suspiciously like himself, in Jones’s intriguing feature debut, a thoroughly absorbing and strangely moving piece of science fiction. Iain.Stott

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Autumn Sonata (1978)

Highly Recommended

Sweden/France/UK/West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Höstsonaten

Writer/Director: Ingmar Bergman

Cinematographer: Sven Nykvist

Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman, Halvar Björk

After her Italian lover dies, a concert pianist travels home to Sweden to visit her grieving daughter and son-in-law, whom she hasn’t seen for several years, but the reunion doesn’t prove to be a happy one, as long repressed resentments seep to the surface, in Bergman’s emotionally exhausting and extremely visceral family drama, which boasts a pair of outstanding and very affecting performances from Bergman and Ullmann. Iain.Stott

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The Office: Season 2 (2005-2006)

USA

Television Series

Developer: Greg Daniels

Cast: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak, David Denman, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nuñez, Phyllis Smith, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Kate Flannery, Melora Hardin, Creed Bratton

The second season of this consistently funny and perceptive workplace comedy sees it gently surpass its BBC progenitor as it gradually teases out fully rounded characters from behind their often misleading public facades, tickling the funny bone and caressing the emotions whilst it does so. Iain.Stott

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The Office: Season 1 (2005)

USA

Television Series

Developer: Greg Daniels

Cast: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak, David Denman, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nuñez, Phyllis Smith, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Kate Flannery, Melora Hardin

This gently satirical and pathos-laden yet trouser-soilingly funny remake of the Gervais/Merchant BBC programme of the same name follows, in the form of a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary, the workers of the Scranton branch of the Dunder Mifflin, Inc Paper Company as they go about their daily routines, capturing the juvenile pranks and inane conversations that make their time there just about tolerable. Iain.Stott

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Genevieve (1953)

Highly Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: Henry Cornelius

Writer: William Rose

Cinematographer: Christopher Challis

Composer: Larry Adler

Cast: John Gregson, Dinah Sheridan, Kenneth More, Kay Kendall

At the climax of the London to Brighton Rally, an alcohol, machismo, and jealousy fuelled night of increasing tensions leads to two old friends making a £100 wager on whose classic car will make it back to London first the next day, much to the chagrin of their charming female companions, in Cornelius’s beautifully nuanced, decidedly tittersome, and quite delightful look at gently evolving post-war attitudes. Iain.Stott

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Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Joe Swanberg

Writers/Cast: Greta Gerwig, Kent Osborne, Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, Mark Duplass, Todd Rohal, Kevin Bewersdorf, Tipper Newton, Kris Williams

Hannah, a twenty-something aspiring playwright, working on the writing staff of a small satirical sketch show, struggles to find her place in life, drifting from boyfriend to boyfriend, finding moments of happiness but not the lasting satisfaction that she craves, in Swanberg (and friends’) collaborative slice-of-life drama, which proves to be as inconsequential, mundane, ugly, beautiful, and fascinating as the lives of any of us. Iain.Stott

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The Edge of Heaven (2007)

Recommended

Germany/Turkey/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Auf der anderen Seite

Writer/Director: Fatih Akin

Cinematographer: Rainer Klausmann

Composer: Shantel

Cast: Nurgül Yesilçay, Baki Davrak, Tuncel Kurtiz, Hanna Schygulla, Patrycia Ziolkowska, Nursel Köse

When an elderly Turkish immigrant is jailed for the manslaughter of his prostitute girlfriend, his son travels to Turkey to find the woman’s student daughter, intending to offer to pay for her tuition, but unbeknownst to him she is already in Germany fighting, with the help of her German girlfriend, against her extradition back to Turkey, from where she is a political refugee, in Akin’s intricately plotted, beautifully acted, and really quite moving if rather far fetched (in a grand, operatic kind of way) film of love, loss, and coincidence. Iain.Stott

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Couscous (2007)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: La graine et le mulet

Writer/Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Cinematographer: Lubomir Bakchev

Cast: Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Farida Benkhetache, Abdelhamid Aktouche, Bouraouïa Marzouk, Alice Houri, Leila D'Issernio, Abelkader Djeloulli, Olivier Loustau, Sabrina Ouazani, Mohamed Benabdeslem, Bruno Lochet, Cyril Favre, Sami Zitouni, Mohamed Karaoui

A 61-year-old divorced Tunisian immigrant, after being made redundant from his dockyard job of 35 years, strives to open a couscous restaurant on a boat, but receives little help from the authorities; luckily both his old and new families pitch-in (eventually) to help him, but life still gets in the way, in Kechiche’s painfully and beautifully human film, a simultaneously heart warming and heart breaking tale, filled with affecting, authentic feeling performances. Iain.Stott

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I'm Going Home (2001)

Highly Recommended

France/Portugal

Feature Film

Original Title: Je rentre à la maison

Director: Manoel de Oliveira

Writers: Manoel de Oliveira, Eugène Ionesco, James Joyce, William Shakespeare

Cinematographer: Sabine Lancelin

Cast: Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich, Antoine Chappey, Leonor Baldaque, Jean Koeltgen

When his wife, daughter, and son-in-law die in a car crash, Gilbert, an elderly actor of moderate fame, strives to continue with life as normal, taking comfort in the routines of everyday life and the labours of his work, leaving the care of his orphaned grandson primarily to his housekeeper, but his grief and loneliness slowly begin to creep up on him, in de Oliveira’s gently humorous and quietly moving little film, filled with exquisitely expressive mise en scène and boasting an excellent central performance from Piccoli. Iain.Stott

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Uncle Ernest (1959)

UK

Short Story

Author: Alan Sillitoe

Sillitoe’s pathos-laden and all too brief short story sees a world weary and desperately lonely middle-aged man, a veteran of the First World War, take a brief respite from his alcohol fuelled journey towards oblivion when he forms an unlikely friendship with a pair of malnourished pre-teen sisters, treating them to meals and other presents on a regular basis; but, unfortunately for three of them, society doesn’t allow old men and little girls to become friends. Iain.Stott

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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959)

UK

Short Story

Author: Alan Sillitoe

An angry young man from Nottingham, fresh out of borstal, recounts how he came to be there, how he (quite accidentally) became the darling of the governor through his talent for long distance running, and how he rejected the establishment’s attentions with a show of great defiance, in Sillitoe’s absorbing and thoroughly authentic feeling short story, a sort of working class Catcher in the Rye (1951). Iain.Stott

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Under the Sand (2000)

Highly Recommended

France/Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: Sous le sable

Director: François Ozon

Writers: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Marina de Van, François Ozon, Marcia Romano

Cinematographers: Antoine Héberlé, Jeanne Lapoirie

Composer: Philippe Rombi

Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Bruno Cremer, Jacques Nolot, Alexandra Stewart, Pierre Vernier, Andrée Tainsy

When her husband disappears (presumably drowned) whilst on a seaside holiday, a middle-aged English lady struggles to come to terms with the reality of her situation, refusing to believe that her French husband of more than 25 years is really dead, in Ozon’s brilliant and affecting psychological portrait of a woman suffering from severe emotional turmoil, featuring an outstanding central performance from the ever excellent Rampling. Iain.Stott

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Mister Roberts (2008)

UK

Novel

Author: Alexei Sayle

A bullied thirteen-year-old boy, a member of the British ex-pat community of a small Spanish town, discovers a man-shaped robot suit, designed to house an alien being whilst it explores Earth, which he climbs into and learns to control, using it to have all manner of fun, but unfortunately his scheming mother has other, less savoury ideas for it, in Sayle’s perceptively jaundiced, tremendously inventive, and thoroughly bonkers comic novel. Iain.Stott

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