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Certificate: 
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Release Date: 6 April 1968
Tagline: Let the awe and mystery of a journey unlike any other begin.
Main Cast:
Keir Dullea … Dr. Dave Bowman
Gary Lockwood … Dr. Frank Poole
William Sylvester … Dr. Heywood R. Floyd
If ever there was a film to divide people, then this is surely it! For some it’s confusing and dull, but for others it’s a beautiful masterpiece that depicts the journey of the human race coming full circle. I’ve seen it about three times now during various phases of my life. As a child I was firmly in the ‘confusing and dull’ camp. In my twenties I had one foot in each camp. But now I’m in my thirties and have come to rest in the ‘masterpiece’ camp.
In a nutshell, it’s a film about the dawn of man and his evolution.
You can take from it what you will. Some believe that the journey is the work of aliens, and for others it’s the work of God. Either way is fine. It’s not about who is responsible.
Visually stunning with an absolutely perfect soundtrack, 2001 is a seminal film that deserves watching until the end (many people get frustrated at their lack of initial comprehension and give up).
I would advise watching it twice. After the first viewing, read up on what others believe the film symbolises and then watch it again. An excellent website can be found at The High Weirdness Project: 2001 and Beyond the Infinite.
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Directors: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan (co-director: India)
Release Date: 9 January 2009
Tagline: Love and money… You have mixed them both.
Main Cast:
Dev Patel … Jamal K. Malik
Saurabh Shukla … Sergeant Srinivas
Anil Kapoor … Prem
Freida Pinto … Latika
I’d like to start by mentioning the cast. The above list is really not fair – the children who play the main characters through much of the film are superb and really make the film.
Slumdog Millionaire has been referred to as ‘The feel-good film of the year’. In many ways this is just not true. Yes, the ending is uplifting and leaves you very happy, but the scenes of abject poverty and cruelty are anything but. Yes, Jamal lifts himself out of his awful childhood but most don’t, and it’s very hard to watch knowing that countless children (and adults) live in such conditions. I spent much of the film feeling extreme sadness.
An absolutely unmissable film.
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Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Release Date: 23 August 2002
Main Cast:
Javier Cámara … Benigno Martin
Darío Grandinetti … Marco Zuluaga
Leonor Watling … Alicia
Rosario Flores … Lydia González
Not at all what I expected from an Almodóvar film, Talk to Her is a quiet tale of devotion and male bonding. It tells the story of two men who are each in love with a woman in a coma and how they both handle it.
I enjoyed it, but it didn’t set my world alight. Part of the problem, I think, is that I just couldn’t like the main characters very much and therefore it didn’t move me as it perhaps ought to have done.
Having said that though, I did enjoy it and if you are looking for a gentle film that is far from the Hollywood norm then you could do worse than to watch this.
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Director: Christian Alvart
Release Date: 17 November 2006
Tagline: The Good is the Evil in it.
Main Cast:
Norman Reedus … Polizist Schmitz
Christian von Aster … Polizist Wagner
André Hennicke … Gabriel Engel
Antibodies is the thinking man’s Silence of the Lambs. It’s a quiet paced drama that gets slowly murkier and the lines between good and evil get somewhat blurred. It’s a far darker story than the above, and is, in my opinion, better. Don’t get me wrong – I really liked Lambs, but it was undoubtedly ‘Hollywood’. Antibodies is a far more disturbing experience. I like disturbing films. They really get under your skin and make you question not only life in general, but also aspects of yourself.
Can’t say much else really, as to do so would spoil the film.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a very good film and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Director: Thomas Alfredson
Release Date: 10 April 2009
Tagline: Eli is 12 years old. She’s been 12 for over 200 years and she just moved in next door.
Main Cast:
Kåre Hedebrant … Oskar
Lina Leandersson … Eli
Per Ragnar … Håkan
Patrik Rydmark … Conny
Let the Right One In, is, in a word, stunning. It’s going to be hard for me to tell you quite why it is, so bear with me. It is a story about love, loneliness and finding your place in the world. It’s a very tender and innocent film despite the fact that it is a film about a vampire. Indeed, to describe it as such is doing it a great disservice. It is so much more than your average vampire film. In fact, it’s not really about that at all. It’s about Oskar and Eli. Two children who are outcasts and share so much in common despite their obvious difference. You could even describe it as a love story.
It’s not like watching a film. Both Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson are so utterly perfect that it feels like you are watching real events. I can’t remember the last time I saw two young actors that are so talented and natural. And their on-screen chemistry is a joy.
It’s beautiful, touching and sad, and it deserved to be shown in more cinemas than it was. I live in a city, but neither of our cinemas (Vue and Odeon) showed it. Doubtless, there is not much money in showing ‘foreign’ films when most cinema goers lap up the Hollywood crap that is churned out at a frightening rate. I shake my head at those who say that they don’t watch a film to read. I bet the same people don’t read books as ‘if it’s any good they’ll turn it into a film’.
Rubbish like Marley and Me plays for weeks, but LTROI wasn’t even given so much as a single screening. I was fortunate enough to be in London during its release and was able to (after some searching) watch it there.
Wonderful.
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Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Release Date: 18 May 2001
Tagline: Love. Betrayal. Death.
Main Cast:
Emilio Echevarría … El Chivo
Gael García Bernal … Octavio (as Gael Garcia)
Goya Toledo … Valeria
A horrific car accident connects three stories, each involving characters dealing with loss, regret, and life’s harsh realities, all in the name of love. And bloody marvellous it is too!
Although there are three stories, it never gets confusing as they overlap beautifully.
It’s not really possible to go into it any any great detail because it would take far too long. The above is really all you need to know!
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Director: Mark Herman
Release Date: 12 September 2008
Tagline: A timeless story of innocence lost and humanity found.
Main Cast:
Asa Butterfield … Bruno
Jack Scanlon … Shmuel
David Thewlis … Father
Vera Farmiger … Mother
Set in wartime Germany, the story is seen through the eyes of a young boy whose father is a high ranking Nazi who has been promoted to a commander of a concentration camp. Forced to leave his grand home in Berlin and his friends, Bruno finds himself in a modest house in the middle of nowhere with no peers. From his bedroom window he can see what he thinks is a farm. It is, of course, the camp but he has no idea of the nature of his father’s work and his assumption is not corrected.
Forbidden to leave the front yard of the house, he becomes fascinated with what lies beyond, and curiosity soon gets the better of him. He stumbles upon the outskirts of the camp and meets Shmuel, a boy his own age sitting behind the fence.
I shall end the review here as this is a film that should be allowed to unravel at its own pace.
Simple yet so incredibly powerful, TBITSP will leave you silent as the credits roll.
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Director: Steve McQueen
Release Date: 31 October 2008
Tagline: An odyssey, in which the smallest gestures become epic and when the body is the last resource for protest.
Main Cast:
Michael Fassbender … Bobby Sands
Liam Cunningham … Father Moran
I was born in 1971 and grew up with the threat of IRA terrorism every day of my life for the best part of thirty years. I avoided the Hyde Park bombing by a matter of days, and I never went to London at Christmas because the threat was far too great. I have nothing but contempt for those responsible for the deaths of so many. Let us not forget that these people were responsible for the Enniskillen Remembrance Day service bombing atrocity.However, I heard that Hunger was supposedly neutral, so, despite my reservations and being the film lover that I am I decided to watch it.
No matter how hard the director may have tried for neutrality Hunger almost ends up being pro IRA as there is no balance between viewpoints. The film seems to wish to portray the IRA (and Sands in particular) as men who were treated unfairly by the denial of the Government to grant them political status.
I do see what Steve McQueen was trying to get across, but I think that the film fails in the respect that, as mentioned above, the IRA are seen to be persecuted. The point that Sands made the ultimate sacrifice for his beliefs would have been powerful enough – there was no real need for the first half of the film. The brutality shown seemed to justify the killing of one of the wardens. I get the feeling that we were supposed to cheer when he got shot in the back of the head.
Hunger is a powerful film. I hope it has not been the cause in the recent uprising of the so-called ‘Real IRA’ who have committed yet more murders over the last fortnight.
Asking me to have sympathy for Bobby Sands and the IRA is like asking me to sympathize with Al Qaeda. It’s never going to happen.
I cannot rate this film as I am unable to remove my personal feelings.
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Director: Peter Jackson
Release Date: 10 February 1995
Tagline: The true story of a crime that shocked a nation.
Main Cast:
Melanie Lynskey … Pauline Parker
Kate Winslet … Juliet Hulme
Sarah Peirse … Honora Parker Rieper
Heavenly Creatures is the true story of the infamous Parker-Hulme murder that took place in New Zealand in 1954. Jackson chose to focus on the intense friendship between Pauline and Juliet rather than make an historical look back at the events. This was an excellent decision, because in order to understand how they came to murder Honora you need to understand their relationship.
After the initial prologue which introduces us to 1950s Christchurch, the film starts with what should be the final scene (in much the same way as The Accused did). This scene is taken from testimony from the witness and is therefore extremely accurate.
The film takes its material not only from testimonies of those involved, but most importantly from Pauline’s diaries. Although some of it is disputed by the real life Juliet Hulme (now the author Anne Perry), it is pretty much how things happened. She claims that their relationship was not physical (although the ‘night of the saints’ is taken from the diary), and that they did not make clay figures. If the latter was indeed not the case, then I would suspect that those scenes were in the film as it was the best way of portraying the characters and events of their imaginary world of Borovnia. However, I may be totally wrong about that.
Heavenly Creatures introduced both Lynskey and Winslet and both are superb.
There is a fantastic website called ‘Fourth World – The Heavenly Creatures Website’ and it contains extensive material on both the film and the real life events. In fact, you may find it beneficial to know the background before watching the film. I have seen it twice now, and the film finds a new level when you watch it after reading all about it.
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Director: Mike Leigh
Release Date: 7 January 2005
Tagline: Wife. Mother. Criminal.
Main Cast:
Imelda Staunton … Vera
Richard Graham … George
Eddie Marsan … Reg
Deserving of all its awards, Vera Drake is another superb film by Mike Leigh. It is set in 1950s England and is about a woman who is totally selfless and devoted to her family and to humanity in general. Vera is a hard working woman who ‘helps girls out’ i.e. she performs abortions. She takes no payment and is unaware that Nellie, a lifelong friend and the woman that puts the girls in touch with her, charges them. Nellie also runs a black market on scarce goods. Although her method is the safest possible, unfortunately, one goes wrong and the girl nearly dies. Vera is then arrested and sent to prison.
Imelda Staunton is simply stunning.
One final note – giving this film a rating of 12A is ludicrous. Not only are scenes of abortion not suitable for young children, but I can’t think of many more films that any child could be more bored by.
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