He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not [2002] [Laetitia Colombani]

He Loves me, He Loves Me Not – The very title conjures up images of lovelorn girls bemoaning their romantic tribulations, falling in and out of love and pursuing the un-pursuable. At first it seems like the director makes the typical plot work, with a vibrant visual eye and knack for keeping the relationship at a fast but believable pace. For a time it’s ridiculously but bearably sugary, even the opening credits are laid over images of love heart merchandise, with a delightful bells and whistles score chiming out for new romance in the background. As expected he state of the relationship gets progressively worse, the tone then fades slowly into a darker one, becoming like increasingly like a tragic melodrama. Angelique, the central character, goes overboard and overreacts to the downward slide – As happens due to love, so we sympathise. Then everything changes, a monumental twist occurs and the film changes into a different one. The audacity in such a move isn’t because it’s especially deceptive or unjustifiable (ala The Usual Suspects), but because it so fluidly and intelligently reinvents everything we’ve already seen – But yet still ties in with all we’ve witnessed, making complete sense because of how it is implemented within the boundaries of the film. The sweetness tastes bitter, pleasant events become darkly comedic and the emotional tragedies of the first half have to be urgently reconsidered.

Audrey Tautou, as well as playing the Amelie charm and feminine charisma wonderfully, adds a new level of oddity and disturbance rarely seen in roles played by young women. In tune with the films development her characters real nature comes out gradually, but because she plays up the quintessential lightness it’s almost hard to believe when more is revealed about her. I found myself asking “How could Audrey Tautou do that???”, which was obviously the reaction the director and Tautou herself wanted to project – With her image adorned to the character, the eventual narrative twists and re-assessments that follow are made all the more hard to swallow but even more interesting to consider. An inspired piece of casting and one of many brilliant uses of subversion the film employs. The cinematography carries the same structural and performance development, with the first section making use of slow-motion, colour and intentionally formal methods, in many ways lulling the viewer and taking advantage of the expectation that what we see is the one and only truth. The second half appears more shadowy, with an emphasis on handheld movements. More scenes are inside with a greater feeling of paranoia and worry, with very little bright light or colour. The background appears to be out of focus more often than not, whether this is the case or I just was more aware of it, looking out for another threat, after the sudden burst of unpredictability the twist unleashes.

Even with the elements of romance and suspense, the director manages to squeeze a perfect amount of dark humour out of genuinely macabre situations. Not a single joke is told, but through manipulation of musical and narrative cues and clues, there are some hilariously dark and bizarre comedy elements at play – Not the kind of humour I personally would expect from the romance genre, least of all French romantic cinema. Equally intelligently worked in are some of the more grim strands, looking at the film as a whole some of the revelations are quite shocking, but the subtle humour and tragedy are both secondary to the expertly weaved story structure and character expositions. He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not is riveting because of the director’s ability to celebrate, indulge in, and subvert convention. In a “Why didn’t I notice that?” fashion the director toys with the fundamentals of perception, in the internal sense of character focus and reaction, and the external case of playing with the viewer’s engrained expectations of structure and narrative. The plot does slightly peter out towards the end, as all of the pieces of the puzzle have to naturally fall into place, but we’re left looking at a pleasantly surprising, challenging work of unique excitement.

The Double Life of Veronique [1991] [Krzysztof Kieslowski]

With The Double Life of Veronique Krzysztof Kieslowski wraps a multitude of cinematic mysteries around a highly emotionally diverse tale. Beginning with two identical girls, who grow up to be two identical women, we follow them both separately as they each work, feel and grow. Kieslowski’s strength once again is not in a single element, but in the overall refinement. He fluidly manages to fuse an alarming range of both spiritual, existential concerns with the frequent emotional struggles and occasional simple joys found in modern life - From metaphysical doubles and prophetic puppet shows, to backwards cigarettes and choral solos. I personally find it calls to mind one of Ingmar Bergman’s best works, Fanny and Alexander. In it there was a similar nourishing delight seeping through to the viewer by virtue of the luxurious primary colour and light-based compositions, and a similar hard-hitting conflict of the spirit shining through the characters, with both works giving the viewer the deciding verdict on the definitive truth of it all. Both contain the ever-changing tones of daily life in all its highs, lows and ambiguities. While undeniably ‘unsolvable’, with its true meaning remaining elusive and subjective down to the individual, there is a glorious beating heart to it, emotion constantly in flow and spiralling in all directions, so much so that I would say The Double Life of Veronique’s beauty comes directly from its perplexity. Upon reflection it can be frustrating to try and tie down what makes the experience so affecting, it feels like the futility in trying to remember the single detail that made an idea perfect, or attempting to replicate a drawing done previously, but during each moment there is a preciousness, a feeling of peace and harmony with every frame.

On the film Kieslowski said “this story deals with things you can’t name. If you do, they seem trivial and stupid” which in a way instead of making the properties of the film seem unnameable, makes what the film is dealing with seem endless. It is difficult to tie all of the ideas down to earth (it is a metaphysical tale after all) but with such a highly emotional story some things can be recognised. The centrepiece enigma is of course the relationship between Weronika and Veronique. It is important to note the bond is referenced in the film explicitly. The mystical effects are felt acutely by each woman, making the relationship’s literal meanings significantly widen and open up to the metaphysical. Some theories lean towards the notion of skips in time, twin angels and of the spirit as a real, ghostly entity. It’s easier to access when looked at allegorically, functioning as a symbol for the contemporary independent identity, with the freedom of choice bringing the curse of circumstance, and intellect bringing suffering and friction. At heart the twin soul device works in bridging a literal divide in a representation of the duality in modern existence – With one representing the naive, thoughtless, pathless individual, who when shined a light from the heavens (in the form of an external symbol of her place in society) instead remains ensnared in carefree self-involvement, rejecting this sign and reverting to escapism through her art, in this case singing. The other, whether guided by the spirit of the first or not, has a determination to be happy through relations and ties to the world, even to the point where she forgets her own ability to choose and sustain herself spiritually – Only when faced with her double in a photograph (who is notably standing alone, looking directly at the camera) does she realise the importance of both sides of her emotional leanings, weeping uncontrollably as her partner tries to bring her back to him and to submission. At the end, the decision she makes could be seen as a sacrifice, of her artistic leanings, of her romanticised sexual desires, and of her chance to reject responsibility and choice – But there is a definite balance, and perhaps for the first time in her life, a symmetry of mind and spirit.

A continual motif from start (the first shot is an upside down view of a Polish skyline) to finish is the distortion of common, worldly objects and people. Whether by refraction from an internal source, such as coloured glass, layers of windows forming multiple reflections and tones or through vivid lens distortion and quick movement, they evoke a flow of change, both distance and closeness with the outside world, but above all a lack of grounded perspective, emphasising the uncertainties and struggles, both of the self and with others, the women face. I mentioned earlier my preferred way to experience the film, that of surface engagement and ‘giving’ oneself to the picture, stepping out of the well of thought and idea the film clearly possesses and simply gazing in, mesmerized. There are two major reasons why this is my preference. The first is the visual atmosphere, which is arguably the most revelatory aspect of the film. The use of a golden filter gives the film an emanating warmth (lending some to call it 'Three Colours: Gold', referencing Kieslowski's later Three Colours trilogy and their similar visual model of one dominating colour), a luminous hum that can be felt throughout. Coupled with the above uses of internal and external distortion, which like the narrative itself is challenge to the audience to ground their own perspective, the cinematography has an astounding effect few films attain in such simply ingenious ways. The second reason is, as anyone who will have seen the film have guessed, Irene Jacob. While obviously physically beautiful, her capitating effect comes from her ability to inject an honest human quality into even the smallest moments. When Weronika runs after her partner and hops on his motorbike, the practicality of holding on for safety is turned into a tender instance of embrace. Her women are tested by life a great deal (melancholy is the most present feeling in the picture) but Jacob’s talent ensures there’s nothing one-sided about it. While an obvious thing to say, it’s hard not to think it - Her characters feel like real people. Loving, suffering, growing people. Even while her characters writhe in emotion Jacob breathes a powerful, soulful realism into them. The opening moment of Weronika singing with passion as the rain begins to fall down, the other choir girls scattering as she holds the note, seems so heavenly and otherworldly, but the striking thing Jacob is really projecting to us here and throughout is the true, full, beauty of an individual humanity. Her full-faced smile as she finishes the song says it all.

Longford [2006] [Tom Hooper]

Early in the film the protagonist, the infamous Lord Longford, nervously dodders around a prison meeting room, searching for the prisoner who requested they meet – Myra Hindley. He approaches a woman from behind who shares Myra’s iconic dirty-blonde, big hairdo – But it isn’t Myra, she approaches Lord Longford quietly, and we see she has a generic, long, brown, unkempt hairstyle. This little twist of fakery is representative of everything the film is trying to accomplish with regards to Myra Hindley – To challenge the accepted images and engrained social conclusions, not to separate and elevate her to a demonic creature, but to look at her for what she is, even after all the brutal slayings: A human being. As the film progresses Lord Longford foolishly thinks that he has a significant connection with, a connection founded on a perceived shared deep interest in the catholic faith, resulting in Longford believing that Myra is somehow redeemed, and even more ridiculously believing that his own actions are in service to God. As he puts it, “If you were forgiven by God, who are we to condemn you.” The issues covered and the questions raised while relating specifically to Myra Hindley and the uniqueness of her case, are still extremely relevant in regards to the reaction to the aftermath of terror and in particular if forgiveness and redemption is possible – or should be allowed to be possible – in those who have shown themselves to be empty of the normal behavioural faculties that make us all human. Many questions are posed, is it evil to ignore those who seek help? Is it to be truly good necessary to ignore past evils? Is a good act good regardless of motive? – However you look at it the line between what determines the universal constants of “good” and “evil” is blurred, crossed and erased altogether throughout the film, resulting with Longford and Myra carrying the true-to-life shades of grey, and the ambiguity and futility inherent in attempting to achieve spiritual wholeness and acceptance in oneself, which they uniquely try to seek through each other to debatable degrees of failure.

Myra has a sort of predatorily chameleonic personality, even when she’s acting like the wide-eyed good Christian girl it’s clear that she’s working her thrall on the Lord – Something chillingly ironically the judge in the real case said Myra was under with Ian Brady. She’s rarely cruel, most times seeming quite pleasant on the surface. Her dialogue and the delivery is vaguely sensual, in particular her retelling of her confessional is tinged with a kind of purity and virginity Lord Longford can’t help but buy into. Samantha Morton, who was so ethereal and vulnerable in Minority Report, is so gaunt and hopeless, like a solid brick wall. She shows a great talent for playing the emotion close to her chest, but her character is still fascinating and captivating – Her interpretation of the woman has levels of realistic humanity few would give to such an apparently simplistic insane woman. Each of the three main cast go through a radical transformation for their parts. Jim Broadbent’s physicality is changed entirely, by use of prosthetics, altering his voice and his adoption of Longford’s mannerisms. There’s always a looming shadow of tragedy cast over Lord Longford, behind the bumbling and upper-class joviality lays a troubled individual, and Broadbent knows exactly how to do the character justice by both recreating the famous persona and revealing the man’s desperate, desolate side. Andy Serkis, famous for his other psychopath, Gollum, is absolutely terrifying. Controversially he went to visit the real Ian Brady to better emulate the man – And it shows. Here is a man who is fully aware of his own insanity, even proud of it. He exerts a confidence over all and is simply overpowering to watch. As Gollum, Serkis mastered a character many would call ‘inhuman’, here he does the same but in a very different way, proving, as if there were any doubt, that he is capable of great range in performance.


While the script is necessarily ambiguous, the compositions and drained colours are telling of the characters’ senses and impulses. Myra is shot like a withered, dead flower decaying in her chair, never given colour or real light to bloom, always engulfed by the walls and barriers. When she does briefly go outside it’s an extra-sensory experience for both her and us, I found myself gasping as children walked by serenely unaware of who was in their midst. Myra’s eyes dart around in extremely extreme close up. She’s just as intensely anxious as we are, the full effect of society’s outcast of her is felt: strangling, displacing, it’s bizarre to see so honestly the effects of imprisonment, like an after-effect, a cruel scar she can never be rid of. There’s a very British aesthetic to the film, with the sense of emotion lingering underneath everything, bottled up pain dying to surface, claustrophobia in every room. This mood can be seen in all of the Myra and Longford scenes, further suggesting the two of them never really know each other, each of them withholding thoughts and emotions from the other to suit their own requirements. For a film mostly taking place in prison it’s shocking how visually varied and engaging it is, the blank surroundings and luminous unnatural light sources are put to excellent use, having strange presence in the background around the characters, they’re sterile and unwelcoming and feel like they will swallow the characters and we the viewer whole.

Thinking over the motives of both Myra and Lord Longford in their relationship is something the film encourages from the start, intelligently straying away from easy answers (that in such widely documented criminally cases are rare to find but the public jumps upon) Society misunderstood both of them, more so with Longford, and as the film progresses it becomes clear that they never fully understood each other either, which seems to be at least a partial conscious decision. Their relationship is compelling, and realistically lacks sentimental development – There’s no moment of realisation (at least not one vocalised outright), an even-level togetherness or anything resembling a shared sense of happiness. Even with those deficits it is clear that the relationship was important to each of them on some level. While Myra is someone I would call ‘forever unknowable’, even in cinematic form (the greatest praise I can give to the films treatment of Myra is that we don’t know her at the end of it all), there is some kind of urge of hers that Longford shares to stay loyal, and hold some of Longford’s trust – Whether she wants it for her own gain, and at times she clearly does, she wants it none the less – And something so strong cannot be simply tied down to basic manipulation.

The start of Longford’s involvement with Myra comes from her desire to see Ian Brady, something he discourages claiming it would affect her parole. Her shock at this suggestion is the turning point for both of them – In him, she sees someone with an impulse to help others, which superficially she can use to her advantage but perhaps also longs for – In her, he sees a damaged girl needing to be healed, and in turn from this he gets a kind of false spiritual pleasure, something he fails to see the perversity in. This calls into question whether his act of sporting a woman so unfairly maligned should be considered respectful and taken seriously due to the complex motivations behind it, when looked at his involvement as a whole was he seeking some kind of self-aggrandizing redemption through Myra, or genuinely caring for her well being? As we see later in the film Longford briefly moves onto attempting to ban pornography and even offering Ian Brady his hand in aiding his hunger strike, which in turn with the odd atmosphere around the Myra/Longford scenes, I see as effectively confirming the invalidity of his ‘social missions’, with them instead serving as self indulgent, faux-emotional flights of fancy to aid his own insecure spiritual well being – He claims a personal spiritual development in himself through his prison visits, even being thankful of Myra, but when faced directly with the massive true evil of Myra Hindley, in the film’s most breathtaking moment during their final meeting*, it looks like the enormity of his mistake has just hit him. It’s amazing that even during this brutal, soul-bruising moment he remains loyal to her and her to him. I feel that what makes this almost unbelievable, impossible relationship so touching is its honesty and the unspoken compassion that they clearly share for each other. At the end of it all they are both fully aware of the other’s manipulation, Longford of Myra’s trickery and Myra of Longford’s self gratification through her. Despite the alarming number of blockades between them, literal, social, and ones they erected themselves, there’s a solace to be found in someone who shares the same powerful longing for meaning. They both share a personal emptiness, but together it is filled.


*Quote: “But If you had been there, on the moors, in the moonlight, when we did the first one, you’d know, that evil can be a spiritual experience too.”

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters [1985] [Paul Schrader]

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is an emotional mosaic of a film, there is as the title suggests a clear structure of four chapters, but inside these are three separate - but cohesively linked through what they observe in the character of Mishima - modes of storytelling. They can be broken down as past (From childhood to the last day of his life), present (a real-time following of Mishima, ending with his famous act of public seppuku) and imagination (Three of his novels brought to life). It’s rare that a film is so interconnected through style, substance and structure, the organised wholeness reflecting the subconscious life-long mission of perfection that Mishima embarks upon, ending in (when observed as a whole) what seems like a predestined fusion of artistic expression, destruction and a longing to change the world. There is a rolling development to the character, glimpses of ideas and emotions in his past are exposed and consciously studied in his novels, and are fully realised in his final act of self-crafted spiritual beautification, an act which can be viewed as a culmination of the depths probed in the first three chapters of the film; art, beauty and action. The final chapter, The Harmony of the Pen and the Sword, is the most honest and brutally real, no novel to hide his extreme personality and ideals, baring his soul forcefully through protest and finally destroying himself at his highest point of honour and power.

The film is incredibly arresting, the style different for each mode, each with its own visual language and manner of exploring Mishima. His past, in harsh black and white, is shown in an un-probing way, in a near historical-recollection fashion, and we simply follow his life. At first the novel sequences are quite jarring, they are so vibrant, raw and colourful, full of telling compositions and beautifully crafted, hyper-stylised sets. They are all rooted in total blackness, like they’ve just sprung up in Mishima’s mind (occasionally the novel sequences are preceded by a scene of Mishima writing), the absorbing artificiality of it all is at odds with the shut-out realistic style of his past. It’s a bold move to blend such opposite visual storytelling techniques, but the events of his past amalgamate with the beauty and emotional forwardness of the novel sections to fully conjure up Mishima. Neither would work on its own, but together they work as one and fill in the gaps that they other left out, the lack of expression in his past is filled with the constant rampage of passion found in the novel sequences, and the lack of conjunction of each novel sequence is an irrelevance as they compose of crucial elements we are now able to see reflected in Mishima’s past life, and most importantly his final day. Starting with Mishima getting ready, there’s a roaming kineticism to the camera. The focus is stuck on Mishima, gliding over his immaculate army uniform and watching him button up in close up. It’s a very finalised way of shooting, like everything is being seen for the last time so is given a grand send-off. He is followed documentary style, hand-held camera and tracking shots structured in real-time. This almost displaces Mishima in the external world, in some ways casting him in a different light, making him seem like a determined mad man in a world full of coasters. Philip Glass’ score is outstanding, punctuating Mishima’s fixed path with absorbing rushes of sound. Like Mishima, the score has an evocative presence, a complicated array of short stabs of strings and bells, repeated over and over again but never faulting in aiding the visual climate.

The film is an interpretation of Mishima, but is surprisingly without conclusion. This is not a flaw, Schrader bravely chooses to avoid judgment or criticism, putting Mishima in an as-close-to objective light as possible. Through the sociological fundamentals of sexuality, political action, art, and the body, Mishima attempted to perfect himself. He achieved great literary success, he body-built himself into a towering statuesque figure, he formed a private army of dedicated fellow traditionalists. What conclusions can be drawn from these achievements? Many, but I believe that Mishima is a man who never lost his childlike yearning to change the world. He carved his own destiny out of his body and his work, set his mind on a clear path early on and obstinately followed it to the glorious end. Whether or not one agrees with his life’s work, I cannot help but admire his yearning for fullness. Someone who is so rigid and immovably confident in everything he does may seem unlikable, and he most certainly isn’t a likable character in the strictest sense. He is, simply put, a self-formed piece of art. A piece of art that I cannot help but be fascinated by. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters does the impossible and shows a life eternally connected to art, a life defined and destroyed through art, and fittingly it is a colossally profound and ambiguous work, a ravishing exploration of a man who melded integral desires of creation and impact together to shape something unique and special in himself, in death he was his own vision of perfection, even when the world was not.

The Dark Knight [2008] [Christopher Nolan]

As James Gordon said at the end of Batman Begins, as Batman turned over the Joker playing card found at a murder scene, setting the wheels in motion for him to confront his greatest enemy, “He’s got a taste for the theatrical, like you” And that comparative outlook, the extreme differences and similarities in their oath-like rules of action and image gives The Dark Knight one of its numerous points of intrigue and depth, the points of which set in a better realm than other action films. In fact, the term “action” would be low-down on my list of how I’d label The Dark Knight. Character-drama, psychological thriller and a twisted crime saga would come before it, but the film is so extraordinary because it weaves these together, creating a beating black-hearted tone of enthralling, realistic confrontation and tragedy – a purely awe inspiring piece of cinema, exhilarating and fascinating in equal measure.

Gotham City is subjected to a mastermind of mayhem, destroying its civilians as quick as its values, his reign and Gotham’s crime challenged by an ambiguous hidden protector and a fiercely morally dedicated lawyer, Harvey Dent. Though Batman is The Dark Knight, it’s this trio of independent forces together that form the core of the film’s intellectual and emotional weight, the three are connected by crime, between them a cracked mirror of opposite yet parallel self-guiding philosophies, morals, and social visions. The three all test and are tested by the criminal flow of Gotham, their characters shattered and defined by the world around them, Batman and Dent have limits, but their mutual enemy is, in his own words, an unstoppable force. The Joker comes pre-damaged, we do hear of his past but he provides two conflicting stories, an important move underlining his present evolving threat, there is no way inside him, no way to evoke empathy or sympathy within him, and in a wise move we too aren’t given the opportunity to do the same – He’s the frontman of the apocalypse, mental scars and sicknesses burn in him, he loves every infliction of pain he gives, but most of all relishing at the evil in others, as if he takes his own insanity as a given. Like Batman, he’s introverted in his actions, using his personal damage to manipulate and destroy others, extracting from himself an evil so engrained, unleashing it on everyone he meets, until they either submit or perish. All the praise I have for The Joker goes to Heath Ledger. His lines are gleefully dark and superbly written, but they wouldn’t be half as much without his delivery. I must say that I didn’t feel sad watching his performance, I saw an actor so embodied in the role, so passionate and dedicated to the character I found it impossible to separate them, there was only The Joker. His performance reminded me of Daniel Day Lewis’ of There Will Be Blood, like Plainview The Joker operates on a different wavelength than anyone else on the screen, it’s like there is frame within the frame around him, I couldn’t help but look at a scene from the Joker’s eye and find myself celebrating his orchestrations of chaos, and laughing at some of his twisted jokes (the now infamous pencil trick comes to mind) and like Plainview the actor knew when to bring out the true monster, momentarily shock and disturb more so than usual, showing even more madness and rage than thought humanly possible. His lust (the way Ledger plays many scenes makes it appear that the Joker is salivating at all the terror he’s causing) for atrocity and anarchy is captivating, an unrelenting need for sin is rarely performed with such versatility and commitment.

Cities are so often alienating when shot from such heights and angles, but here the city is absorbing, the photography drew me in to Gotham, through its shadowy streets and around its economical monoliths. The incredible wide shots and slow-moving high-angle tracks give the expansive urban landscape an all-encompassing epic sensibility, and watching Batman sail over it he truly does look like Gotham’s only saviour. There are several stylistic touches that bring out the emotions from the consistently well-textured screenplay. When The Joker crashes a party, the camera sticks to him, going in and out of focus, jittering around to follow his movements, it’s a perfect way of expressing his unpredictability and concentrated form of lunacy. The mood is very well represented from a visual point (the scenes in Batman’s empty warehouse make excellent use of the alternating bright lights and total blackness, and the long, empty spaces), and the action sequences are staged and choreographed with great precision and skill. There are more than the previous Batman film, but each one tries something different than the one preceding it, so they all feel thrilling and invigorating in different ways. Christopher Nolan’s direction is outstanding, whether it’s an effects laden action scene or a conversation of emotional significance, he brings a genuine flair for depth and originality. He wants the viewer to become immersed in the all scenes, not just the expensive ones, and I personally was engrossed and entertained by his work in this film.

Corruption in all its forms is an important element, shown through nearly all the characters as they’re tested by Gotham’s bent police force, The Joker’s special brand of disaster scenarios, and his taste for bringing out corruption in others. Harvey Dent is the White Knight to Batman’s Dark, and there are numerous ties between them. The combination of a humanistic, equal type of justice, which Dent enforces and Batman lacks, and a righteous self-elevation to overpower criminals that Batman utilizes and Dent turns to in a situation of tragedy, flits between them at varying levels as they both try and internally balance the two to defeat the worst of Gotham. Batman is almost lawless, with not killing being his only rule. The Joker is the Batman’s first threat to compromise that rule, it’s more the human side of him fighting through the Batman persona driven to consider murder, the one we saw nearly attempt murder before the creation of Batman in the first film, if it were possible for the dark knight himself to get even darker, it’s done through his wickedly black chemistry with the Joker.

The supporting cast all do excellent work, notably Gary Oldman and Michael Caine. Batman’s relationship with these two takes a backseat to all the action and plot, but all the scenes they share with him do entertain and give a sense of variety next to the frequent Dent and Joker scenes. Like the three main players, Oldman’s character is tested by The Joker and perhaps has the most difficult job of any of the characters, his allegiance with Batman threatens his own personal safety but is required to aid Gotham, as well Batman infringing upon his state-enforced limits as a police officer. Alfred is often very funny, and occasionally wise, his story about how in his younger days he caught a gem thief by burning a forest to the ground is a clear influence adding to Batman’s clash between compromising his values and maintaining his morality in the face of the Joker. Maggie Gylenhaal is an improvement on Katie Holmes, pulling off well Rachel Dawes’ different kind of dilemma. Torn in love between the dark and white knight, she looks visibly weary at having to choose, and even though her character isn’t given much depth, she is convincing and works well with the other cast.

The Dark Knight is alarming in how much it accomplishes. It cares as much for pure thrilling violent spectacle than it does for forming an unpredictable, haunting atmosphere. Watching it it feels like there isn’t anything that was neglected or favoured. It’s a supremely balanced achievement, a truly artistic endeavour that delivers everything that one could possibly want from a film. Christopher Nolan set a new precedent with Batman Begins, a humanly-minded portrait of a creation of a symbol. The Dark Knight is deeper, darker, more dangerous, more ambitious, more character-driven and more downright electrifying film than I thought possible for a film about a man in a costume fighting crime.

Only Yesterday [1991] [Isao Takahata]

Isao Takahata is well known for his WW2 story, Grave of the Fireflies. That film is deservedly highly acclaimed for its tender and tragic vision of war-time orphans, offering a story that’s at odds with the usual conventions of anime, straying far away from fantasy and heavy confrontations and concentrating on the realistic and true to life. Only Yesterday shares that films humanistic values but focuses more on a personal dilemma, more detached from the outside world and self-reflexive. Grave of the Fireflies worked as a window into the past, a vision of a global tragic event scaled down, Only Yesterday is more relatable and profound because of its individualistic subdued style, character development and in turn offering a more concise study of human nature that’s debatably more fundamental than coping with tragedy, in this case focusing on the effects and even the act itself of recalling memories, the difficulty in overcoming one’s own mistakes, and of the complexity of reflection and change.

Taeko, an unmarried 27 year old, born and raised in Tokyo decides to go and visit her sister’s in-laws in the countryside, while on the train she starts to remember events from her life when she was a young girl of about 11. We witness her past and see her find out and worry about puberty, struggle with maths problems and become more interested in boys. There isn’t an exact structure to the recall of events, they function as real memories, avoiding the neatness of having each one fit firmly into the story and serve to show everyday moments of development of the younger Taeko, despite an apparent lack of magnitude each one has had a cumulative emotional effect on her present in her as an adult, and we can see that Taeko enjoys dipping into her past as much as we do.

Taeko isn’t a large character, in both childhood and adulthood, but through the film we do get to know her immensely and I found myself calm in her company and fascinated with her memories and the slight jolts they give her, watching them build up, her character changing and in many ways becoming the person that she was prevented being as a child. Atmospherically Only Yesterday reminded me of Ozu’s best, relaxed and timid but capable of surprising me and forcing a powerful reaction out of little narrative, such as Taeko recalling her time in a school play and the passion she put into the single line that was attributed her. Being a Studio Ghibli film the animation is naturally fluid and stunning to admire, there are little touches of brilliance in the animation that aid the characters and story structure. During the memory sequences the colour is noticeably less prominent in the background, and the edges of the frame have a faded hue to them, accentuating the act of recollection and drawing attention to the people and less on the surroundings. I wasn’t surprised to read that the facial expressions were, in an unusual move, animated after the dialogue had been recorded, giving the people more physical detail and presence, making them seem more human in a medium that makes doing so a task in itself.

There are several moments in Only Yesterday that aren’t related to the narrative but still revelatory of Taeko’s inner meditations and conclusions. One in particular is of her and the others farming in the fields , they all stop and watch in awe as the sun peeks over a mountain and pours light across the field. This and the others like it serve more as moments of life than of character, showing snippets of emotions and reactions universally present in our behaviour, but still remaining connected to Taeko and her gradual development. Another of these low-key moments is Taeko and a man she meets, Toshio, engaging in small-talk and slowly getting at ease with each other. In scenes like these we see that the film isn’t intending to make grand, sweeping statements about behaviour and thought, it’s more concerned with those which could be labelled as ordinary, the special qualities of which arise not from a extreme demonstrations of emotion, but fundamental truths exposed in Taeko’s past and present that make watching the film and going on her journey an empathetically involving one, showing us that these (often ignored in cinema) day-to-day trials and experiences can be just as important as the grander, life-changing ones found in Grave of the Fireflies. Only Yesterday stands as one of animations most mature works of genius, joining the likes of Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa as one of Studio Ghibli’s best pieces of pure cinema.

Hard Boiled [1992] [John Woo]

There’s only so much that can be done onscreen involving a gun. There’s using them to hit people, shooting them out of opponents’ hands, and of course a barrage of bullets delivered by a variety of weapons. Hard Boiled accomplishes all of these options and then some. The early action scenes are exhilarating, bodies fly all over the place like shrapnel and blood explodes out of people in slow-motion. Centred around 4 action scenes, the other scenes don’t offer much else to engage with, just moving the narrative to different locations and bringing the characters along to reveal new motives for making fresh corpses.

Outside of the set-pieces we follow the underworld of the Triads and the police procedure, though there’s no realism to either group. It’s all rather silly and cheesy, with the obvious metallic-whooshing sound effects to attempt to heighten tension and suspense, it all rather falls flat. The music is excruciatingly bad, and accompanied by poor editing, specifically an overabundance of fading during mid-scene, make some scenes unbearable to watch from a technical standpoint.

Chow Yun Fat made his name in three “heroic bloodshed” (the name of the sub-genre of stylised-action Hong-Kong films) films directed by John Woo. One of the facets of this sub-genre is honour and duty, inspiring the “heroic” part of the term. There is a kind of twisted morality to the film, in the first lengthy opening shootout at least 50 people are taken out with one every couple of seconds, but the lead cop only shows sadness and overwrought regret when his partner is shot down – there’s no thought to the masses of other bodies littering the now-destroyed restaurant. The characterisations similarly don’t make sense, there’s an old gang leader who’s presented more like a doddering old grandpa, there’s no logic or reason to the writing. I found myself wincing at the image of the previously shown tough female cop going all of a flutter around babies at the nursery in the hospital, where the final showdown takes place. The script is sloppy and clichéd, in an early scene a killer takes out a man by shooting him in the head, a cop says out of nowhere “His shooting style is unique “ in a lazy attempt to build up the character and add mystery, it doesn’t work and just comes across as false – there’s nothing unique about shooting someone in the head.

Hard Boiled entertains when it abandons its attempts at truth and emotion and just goes all-out with the violence. But about two thirds into the film I was getting sick of it, there was nothing left to do with a gun. All the action scenes take place in irregular places, adding props and structures to blow up and to utilize in the fight, the most impressive being the midway warehouse scene. The body count is recorded as being 307, and the final action sequence is at least 25 minutes long (set in a hospital it mainly consisted of running through corridors, shooting patients – which didn’t aid the already long-gone ethics) – blood and guts are fine, but when there was this much of it the film got tedious fast.