The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Essential Viewing

France/Italy/Spain

Feature Film

Original Title: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

Director: Luis Buñuel

Writers: Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière

Cinematographer: Edmond Richard

Cast: Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Julien Bertheau, Milena Vukotic

A group of wealthy friends attempt to enjoy a dinner party but are constantly interrupted, in Buñuel’s bitingly funny, enigmatically satirical, and delightfully cynical portrait of the idle rich, attackingly depicting corruption, prejudice, double standards, and illogical social conventions. Iain.Stott

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Love in the Afternoon (1972)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: L'amour l'après-midi

Writer/Director: Eric Rohmer

Cinematographer: Néstor Almendros

Composer: Arié Dzierlatka

Cast: Bernard Verley, Zouzou, Françoise Verley

When the sexy former girlfriend of an old pal re-enters his life after a gap of six years, a Parisian businessman, happily married with a young family and a comfortable bourgeois existence, finds himself reassessing his life and questioning his ingrained notion of sexual ethics, in Rohmer’s subtle, authentic, and thoroughly compelling film, the sixth and final instalment of his Moral Tales series. Iain.Stott

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Garage (2007)

Highly Recommended

Ireland/UK

Feature Film

Director: Leonard Abrahamson

Writer: Mark O'Halloran

Cinematographer: Peter Robertson

Composer: Stephen Rennicks

Cast: Pat Shortt, Conor Ryan, Anne-Marie Duff, Tommy Fitzgerald, John Keogh, Andrew Bennett, Tom Hickey, Denis Conway, George Costigan

A sweet and agreeable if rather slow and terribly lonely middle-aged man, who has spent his entire life in the same small western Irish town, and most of it working at the same small, independent petrol station, forms an unlikely friendship with a confused 15-year-old boy, who has recently started working at the garage on weekends, in Abrahamson’s subtly written, expressively shot, and affectingly acted character study. Iain.Stott

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Better Things (2008)

Recommended

UK/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Duane Hopkins

Cinematographer: Lol Crawley

Composer: Dan Berridge

Cast: Liam McIlfatrick, Che Corr, Tara Ballard, Freddie Cunliffe, Rachel McIntyre, Patricia Loveland, Betty Bench, Frank Bench, Megan Palmer, Kurt Taylor, Mike Randle, Michael Socha, Katie Samuels, Kerry Rowe

Although some of the performances are a tad wooden, and the dialogue occasionally feels a little awkward, Duane Hopkins’s feature debut – following on from a pair of excellent shorts – is an often ethereally beautiful concoction (one sequence in particular, in which a grieving heroin addict fantasises about embracing his dead girlfriend whilst his drug of choice makes its way through his veins, is amongst the most achingly beautiful sequences I’ve ever seen), but at other times, this portrait of disaffected, lovelorn, drug-addled youth is merely wrist-slittingly depressing. Iain.Stott

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The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971)

Highly Recommended

West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Händler der vier Jahreszeiten

Writer/Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Cinematographer: Dietrich Lohmann

Cast: Hans Hirschmüller, Irm Hermann, Hanna Schygulla, Andrea Schober, Gusti Kreissl, Klaus Löwitsch, Karl Scheydt, Ingrid Caven

A violent, hard-drinking Munich man returns from serving in the French Foreign Legion and, after an unhappy spell in the police force, becomes a street vendor, selling fruit to bored hausfraus; he marries, has a child, suffers a heart attack, gives up drinking, and slowly loses the will to live, in Fassbinder’s powerful, bleak, and thoroughly compelling melodrama, which paints a damning and decidedly unpleasant portrait of early ‘70s bourgeois life. Iain.Stott

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In the Loop (2009)

Recommended

UK/Cayman Islands

Feature Film

Director: Armando Iannucci

Writers: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, Ian Martin

Cinematographer: Jamie Cairney

Composer: Adem Ilhan

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky, Enzo Cilenti, Paul Higgins, Mimi Kennedy, Steve Coogan

Armando Iannucci’s trouser-soilingly funny and worryingly credible feeling spin off from his BBC sitcom, The Thick of It, presents the political machinations of a bunch of British and American politicians, spin-doctors, and aids in the build up to a morally dubious middle-eastern conflict, a war that painfully and hilariously mirrors the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iain.Stott

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Nil by Mouth (1997)

Highly Recommended

UK/France

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Gary Oldman

Cinematographer: Ron Fortunato

Composer: Eric Clapton

Cast: Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse, Edna Doré, Chrissie Cotterill, Jon Morrison, Jamie Foreman, Steve Sweeney

Ray Winstone is extraordinary as a bullying yet charismatic small time criminal, who spends much of his time drinking heavily and taking out his frustrations on his long-suffering wife’s face, in Gary Oldman’s painfully visceral, emotionally devastating, and absolutely convincing portrait of booze soaked, blood stained lives. Iain.Stott

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Hana-Bi (1997)

Essential Viewing

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: はなび

Writer/Director: Kitano Takeshi

Cinematographer: Yamamoto Hideo

Composer: Hisaishi Jō

Cast: Beat Takeshi, Kishimoto Kayoko, Osugi Ren, Terajima Susumu, Watanabe Tetsu, Hakuryu

A laconic former police detective, whose wife is slowly dying of cancer in a hospice, and who is seriously indebted to a Yakuza boss, resorts to drastic measures in order to solve his problems; whilst a friend and former colleague of his, who has become wheelchair bound after being struck by a hitman’s bullet, approaches his problems in a decidedly different manner, in Kitano’s painfully violent, poetically beautiful, and terribly moving film. Iain.Stott

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Starship Troopers (1997)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Ed Neumeier, Robert A. Heinlein

Cinematographer: Jost Vacano

Composer: Basil Poledouris

Cast: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Patrick Muldoon, Michael Ironside

Verhoeven’s viscerally compelling, blackly comic, and cynically perceptive sci-fi film presents a satirical portrait of a group of Buenos Airean high school graduates, who sign up for the armed forces, in a culturally homogenised, Americanised military dictatorship, following them as they become involved in their War on Bugs (which proves to be eerily foreboding of the American-lead War on Terror). Iain.Stott

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Xiao Wu (1997)

Highly Recommended

China/Hong Kong

Feature Film

Original Title: 小武

Writer/Director: Jia Zhangke

Cinematographer: Nelson Yu Lik-wai

Cast: Wang Hongwei, Hao Hongjian, Zuo Baitao Ma Jinrei, Liu Junying, Liang, Yonghao, An Qunyan, Jiang Dongdong

Xiao Wu, a twenty-something pickpocket who has yet to graduate to the more socially acceptable forms of pilfering proffered by rampant capitalism that his former friends have, begins to question his lot in life when his best friend fails to invite him to his forthcoming wedding, leaving him to seek comfort in the arms of a bar girl, in Jia’s witty, touching, and thoroughly compelling portrait of provincial (low)life. Iain.Stott

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Lost Highway (1997)

Recommended

USA/France

Feature Film

Director: David Lynch

Writers: Barry Gifford, David Lynch

Cinematographer: Peter Deming

Composer: Angelo Badalamenti

Cast: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Loggia, Robert Blake, Gary Busey, Lucy Butler, Natasha Gregson Wagner

Lynch’s enigmatic, disquieting, and thoroughly bonkers thriller presents a pair of intertwining lives brought nightmarishly together with dream logic, combining tales of gangsters, jazz musicians, mechanics, and porn stars in a sexy, blood-stained Los Angeles. Iain.Stott

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Journey to the Beginning of the World (1997)

Essential Viewing

Portugal/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo

Writer/Director: Manoel de Oliveira

Cinematographer: Renato Berta

Composer: Emmanuel Nuñes

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Yves Gautier, Leonor Silveira, Diogo Dória, Isabel de Castro, Cécile Sanz de Alba, José Pinto, Adelaide Teixeira, Isabel Ruth

Whilst participating in a French-Portuguese co-production being filmed in Portugal, members of a film’s cast and crew take a journey into their past, visiting the hometown of the director’s youth and the ancestral home of the lead actor, unveiling a rich tapestry of personal, familial, and national history, in de Oliveira’s gently humorous, quietly moving, and painfully yet beautifully human film. Iain.Stott

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U Turn (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

USA/France

Feature Film

Director: Oliver Stone

Writer: John Ridley

Cinematographer: Robert Richardson

Composer: Ennio Morricone

Cast: Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Voight, Powers Boothe, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes

A down-on-his-luck former tennis pro, in debt to the Russian mob to the tune of $13,000, finds himself stranded in the small Arizona town of Superior when his car overheats and he loses all of his money in a bungled robbery; thoughts of escape seems futile until a potential murder or two offer a chink of hope, in Stone’s sexy, unpredictable, and guiltily pleasurable jet black comedy. Iain.Stott

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Syndromes and a Century (2006)

Essential Viewing

Thailand/France/Austria/UK

Feature Film

Original Title: แสงศตวรรษ

Writer/Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Cinematographer: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom

Cast: Nantarat Sawaddikul, Jaruchai Iamaram, Nu Nimsomboon, Sophon Pukanok, Jenjira Pongpas, Arkanae Cherkam, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Sin Kaewpakpin

Weerasethakul’s spellbindingly compelling, gently humorous, vaguely unsettling, and joyously human film, one of seven pieces commissioned for the New Crowned Hope Festival (part of Vienna’s celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday), pays tribute to the film-maker’s parents, both of whom were doctors, presenting, plotlessly in two mirrored parts, Thai hospital life (the first part in a small rural hospital, the second in a large urban one). Iain.Stott

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Bubble (2005)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writer: Coleman Hough

Cinematographer: Steven Soderbergh (as Peter Andrews)

Composer: Robert Pollard

Cast: Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin Ashley, Misty Wilkins, Decker Moody, Omar Cowan, Daniel R. Christian

A directionless high school drop-out and a lonely middle-aged woman, who looks after her ailing father, have managed to form a rather unlikely friendship whilst working together at a small doll factory in a sleepy Ohio town, but the arrival of a new co-worker, a comely young single mother, looks set to drive them apart, in Soderbergh’s deliciously low-key murder mystery, a surprisingly well acted (giving its non-professional cast) and thoroughly compelling little film. Iain.Stott

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Matinee (1993)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Joe Dante

Writers: Charlie Haas, Jerico

Cinematographer: John Hora

Composer: Jerry Goldsmith

Cast: John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Kellie Martin, Jesse Lee, Lucinda Jenney, James Villemaire, Robert Picardo, Jesse White

At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, film-maker and arch showman, Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman, hilarious) comes to Key West, Florida with his new film, Mant!, a gimmick laden nucsploitation epic, much to the joy of the nerve shredded, thrill seeking local populace, in Dante’s thoroughly entertaining and gently nostalgic love letter to William Castle. Iain.Stott

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Live Flesh (1997)

Recommended

Spain/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Carne trémula

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Writers: Pedro Almodóvar, Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Ray Loriga, Ruth Rendell

Cinematographer: Affonso Beato

Composer: Alberto Iglesias

Cast: Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina, José Sancho, Penélope Cruz

A devilishly handsome but slightly naïve young man, the son of a prostitute who gave birth to him on a bus, gets out of prison, after serving six years for causing the paralysis of a police officer with an errant bullet, and determines to gain vengeance upon those he deems responsible for his ill deserved incarceration, but as time passes he begins to change his mind…. only fate has other ideas, in Almodóvar’s sexy, stylish, and thoroughly unpredictable thriller. Iain.Stott

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Mrs Brown (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/Ireland/USA

Feature Film

Director: John Madden

Writer: Jeremy Brock

Cinematographer: Richard Greatrex

Composer: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher, Gerard Butler, Richard Pasco, David Westhead

Three years into her period of mourning, Queen Victoria sends for John Brown, a no-nonsense Scotsman who was a favourite servant of her late husband; gradually, an unlikely friendship develops, much to the chagrin of just about everyone else, in Madden’s beautifully acted and quietly moving if slightly cold and disjointed film. Iain.Stott

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La Vie de Jésus (1997)

Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: La vie de Jésus

Writer/Director: Bruno Dumont

Cinematographer: Philippe Van Leeuw

Composer: Richard Cuvillier

Cast: David Douche, Marjorie Cottreel, Kader Chaatouf, Sébastien Delbaere, Samuel Boidin, Steve Smagghe, Sébastien Bailleul, Geneviève Cottreel

A bored, unemployed teenager afflicted with epilepsy, living in a small town in rural northern France, spends his days driving his motorbike around town with his friends and having sex with his girlfriend; but when a handsome Arab boy begins to show an interest her, tensions arise, in Dumont’s powerful debut, a thoroughly compelling and painfully authentic feeling anthropological study. Iain.Stott

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Terribly Happy (2008)

Recommended

Denmark

Feature Film

Original Title: Frygtelig lykkelig

Director: Henrik Ruben Genz

Writers: Henrik Ruben Genz, Dunja Gry Jensen, Erling Jepsen

Cinematographer: Jørgen Johansson

Composer: Kåre Bjerkø

Cast: Jakob Cedergren, Lene Maria Christensen, Kim Bodnia, Lars Brygmann, Anders Hove

A Copenhagen policeman is given a compulsory transfer to a one street town in South Jutland, for reasons unknown, where he discovers that his role is merely ceremonial, as the locals administer justice in their own special way; so when he becomes involved with the perma-beaten wife of the town bully, things begin to go horribly wrong, in Henrik Ruben Genz’s beautifully photographed, blackly comic, and strangely entertaining curio, a modern (sort of) western. Iain.Stott

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