Nostalgia - 1983

Andrei Tarkovsky doesn't do fast paced, or clearly understandable plots or story. Instead his films are meditations, poetic both narrative and in his visually arresting images. Time seems to be a preoccupation in all of his films, and in Nostalgia it is ever present, from the slow, drawn out pace, to the memories of protagonist Gorchakov, a Russian poet travelling through Italy researching the life of a composer (Sosnovsky). Whilst there Gorchakov befriends a local madman in a Tuscan village - who similarly feels a sense of displacement and longing for the past. The madmen tells Gorchakov that he wishes to walk across a sulphurous pool with a lit candle and if he achieves it he will save the world.

As with other Tarkovsky films there is a strong sense of the passage of time, and regular motifs of water and fire as well as memories permeate Tarkovsky's images - enhancing the feeling of poeticism which seems to be a stylistic preoccupation for the Russian filmmaker. By the films conclusion, a repeat of the opening sequence but shot from a different perspective reveals and seems to tie together a lot of the themes the film and Tarkovsky are pre-occupied

The film is also interesting as it is the first film made outside of Russia, and is cowritten by Tonino Guerra who was a lifelong contributor of Michelangelo Antonioni. It was shot by Guiseppe Lanci and stars Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - 1974

A far as horror cinema is concerned, there is nothing a streamlined, or purposefully designed and created to terrify audiences as much as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. From its very first image to the last brain frying scene the film is haunting, harrowing, disturbing and any other adjective you can think of to describe the absolute abject terror this film instils within its audience. It might look cheap, you may even feel the acting isn't very good (your wrong), and it may seem utterly unbelievable, and yet all of this essentially makes the film even scarier. The camera work and grainy film stock make it feel as though you are there, crammed inside the camper van. The blistering heat can be physically felt when you watch the film, and to call it unbelievable is to ignore the true life serial killer Ed Gein, upon whom the film is based. It may has taken the concept or artistic license to a extreme, but from the opening voiceover you immediately feel as though this may well have actually happened, and that in the 1970s there may well have been places in America where this could happen.

Horror cinema, especially from the 70s onwards has made great use of the "hick town" middle of nowhere idea and the inbred, cannibalistic tendencies, including most recently films like Cabin Fever. That each of them owes a massive debt to TCSM is evident only when you rewatch it. The story of the making of the film is also as interesting and unnerving as the film itself. Take for example the scene when Leatherface chases Marilyn Burns' Sally up the stairs in the house. Gunnar Hansen, the actor carrying the working chain saw, couldn't actually see Marilyn and so had no idea just how close the swinging chain saw was to striking her. The final scene in the house, with the "he-can't-seriously-be-alive" grandpa, was shot in the day time, in the summer, with temperatures well over 100 degrees and one of the crew accidently injected herself with formaldehyde when creating the set of the house. 

The reputation of TCSM has also helped to create the aura of terror which now surrounds the film. Banned as part of the video nasty era in the 1980s the film built a cult following and reputation for being one of the most violent films ever made. And yet, watching it now, it is amazing how little violence is actually shown onscreen. Though 4 teenagers a brutally murdered, the violence is not explicit in say the way the Saw films are. The horror is all implied - for example in the scene when helpless Pam is hoisted up and put on a meathook. At no point do you see flesh penetrated, instead the image is left to the imagination, making it infinitely more terrifying. The policy is employed throughout and it is through Hooper direction, the set design, the script, and the excellent performances that the sense of macabre horror is created and sustained throughout the 80mins running time. Which is another thing, for a film so short, its incredible how much of an ordeal the experience becomes. From the opening shot, there is a sense of unease the film puts you in, and it only ever gets worse. Just when you think things are getting better, they just get worse, and even the ending, which offers some form of catharsis, doesn't feel satisfying in a cathartic way. Instead you are left with the blood soaked abject horror of Sally as she is seemingly driven off to safety. An expression on her face, that leaves you wondering if death would not have been the better option. 

Texas Chain Saw Massacre may not be the most accomplished or engrossing of horror films. It lacks the majesty found in The Shining or The Exorcist, it lacks the gloss of most slasher films, and the humour or gross out quality of the body horror of the 80s. Yet no horror film ever made has created such a sustained impression of fear on its audience, and for this reason the film is undoubtably the scariest film ever made. It also has one of the greates film posters ever.

Dead Man - 1995

Jim Jarmusch's surreal, darkly comic Western is one of those rare gems in which every element seems to come together perfectly. Johnny Depp is brilliant, at a time before his performances became dictated by mannerisms, as Cleveland accountant William Blake, who arrives in Machine, to work for local steel magnate John Dickinson. However, having turned up a month late, his position has been filled, and with no money to leave, finds himself stuck in the small, miserable town Machine. It's not long before he meets a women and embarks on a journey unlike anything which has ever featured in a Western before.

On his journey Blake is befriended by Nobody, an Indian with a colourful past, who believes Depp's Blake to be the real William Blake, and spends much of the film quoting from the great poet.

The film is littered with cameo's and supporting actors including Robert Mitchum (as Dickinson), Gabriel Byrne. Steve Buscemi, Lance Henriksen, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina and Crispin Glover.

Shot in black and white by Robby Muller, the film is a beautiful as it is beguiling, and along with Johnny Depp's performance - a mixture of bewilderment and a sense of a character completely out of place in a world he has little understanding of - the film offers up a tonally ambiguity which veers from absurdist humour to profound philosophical musing.

The film is also notable for Neil Young stunningly evocative score. Recorded live Young's guitar helps solidify the mood of the film, enhancing its fatalistic aura.

Oscar Nominations 2010

So the Oscar nominations have been announced and for the first time there are 10 Best Picture nominations, which does nothing but highlight the fact that in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker doesn't win, then the people who vote must need their heads examining. Bigelow must surely become the first female to ever win Best Director as well, and about time too. With competition coming in the form of Tarantino, Cameron, Reitman and Daniels (Precious), its hard to imagine how any other director could possibly steal a much deserved haul, and even though Bigelow became the first woman to win the DGA award, cameron walked off with the Golden Globe, and word in America is that its a two horse race. Cameron has achieved enough with Avatar, and it would be a bit of a dissapointment is the Academy finally began to recognise science fiction cinema at the expense of one of the finest war films ever made.

My oeverall opinion though is that 2009 was clearly lacking in some Oscar worthy films, as for the most part those which i've seen are drastically lacking in quality, which only adds to my believe that The Hurt Locker must be the film which triumphs on the night.

Up has also been nominated for Best Feature and Animated Feature so will be unlikely to get a look in for best picture. The real battle though will no doubt take place in the Foreign Language category between Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet. If either of those fails it will come as a big surprise.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=26896 at Empire Online for a full breakdown of the nominations.

Roll on March 7th and the making of history.

Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard) - 1955

Made ten years after the end of the Second World War, one can only imagine how massive the impact was when Alain Resnais Holocaust documentary premiered. That is still manages to shock, horrify and overwhelm is not merely a reinforcement of the tragedy which befell the Jews during World War Two but is also a stamp of the genius Resnais used to create the film.

Both the writer Jean Cayrol and composer Hanns Eisler were liberated from concentration camps, and it was not until Cayrol came onboard that Resnais, originally reluctant, agreed to direct the film. The film cuts between historical footage and photographs of the time as well as footage of the camps, including Auschwitz, as they were in 55, abandoned, seemingly innocuous and yet somehow containing the horrors which took place. The imagery itself is harrowing, especially the footage of dead bodies being piled on top of each other - their bodies looking like nothing more than sacks of bones.

There are no subjects the film shies away from with experiments, prostitution, torture, the gas chambers and executions who shown either in found footage or photographs.

The film ends with the liberation of the camps across and questions who was responsible for them.

The power of Night and Fog in undiminished, even 50 years on, and there is not another film which has addressed the issue is such an honest and impressionable way. Rarely is cinema this brilliant.

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire - 2010

Precious is a film which fails as much as it succeeds. The film has a annoyingly high level of self awareness. Every character that encounters Precious, seems to well up and look as if they are about to cry, sometimes even before she has revealed anything about her plight - as if the filmmakers felt compelled to leave cues to the audiences as to when they should begin to weep. That the film failed to conjure any overwhelming emotional reaction within me might have been a direct result of this attempt to imbue the film with a heightened empathy. Yet the film rarely depicts anything completely shocking, and you feel, as bad a life as Precious has, there are children out there in much similar and even worse scenarios - so what makes Precious so different.

Raped twice by her father, with one child called Mongo - after Mongoloid; the child has down's syndrome, and another on the way, Precious find herself being kicked out of school, and having to attend an alternative school, reserved for a group of cliche-ridden poorly developed characters who predictably grow to become close friends. At home, her mother is a lazy bitch. There is literally no better way to describe her, and she also physically and verbally abuses her daughter, in much the same way everytime. There are at least three scenes which feel as if the dialogue has been lifted and replayed, and so we never really get a deep understanding of the relationship between mother and daughter.

The style of the film is also a bit jarring. The film tries to feel fresh and original, stylish but gritty and ultimately feels like a mishmash of both. The acting is ok, Gabourey Sidibe is very good as Precious as is Mo'nique as her mother, especially in the films denouement, but the rest of the cast, including a supporting role from Mariah Carey spend far too much time playing cutout cliches or looking as though they are a beat away from the sniffles. As a result many of the scenes scupper any real emotional weight, and the performances feel as though they have been misdirected.

Having said that Precious's heart is in the right place, and its contains a character who is difficult not to like, or develop empathy for her. When the films climax arrives, although it may be tinged with a sappy undertone, you do still feel the catharsis of a young girl who has strived to make her life better and might just achieve it.

Overall then, Precious feels too similar and cliched to change your life, but has at its core a uniquely endearing character and enough poignant moments and humour to carry what feels like an exploitation of your emotions when it didn't need to be.