Blue Is The Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2) (2013)

Young love, lust, passion, insecurity, loss, regret. Three hours of it. In French.

Abdellatif Kechiche adapts from a graphic novel, telling of the passionate first love affair of young teenage student Adèle for another woman. While this film has generated much interest for being a lesbian drama with some extremely frank and sustained sex scenes, it is rather, a supremely universal tale of that intense, uncontrollable first true love that will be achingly familiar to many.

When critics talk about a "brave" performance in relation to a female role, what they usually really mean is that the actress spends a lot of time naked. Yet, in a film featuring some of the most honest sex scenes in mainstream cinema (by which I mean, sweaty, grindy, lengthy, noisy sex that doesn't come with an orchestral soundtrack and a degree in Eisenstein montage theory), relative newcomer Adèle Exarchopoulos really delivers on the meaning of the word. For almost the entire (substantial) running time, Adèle has the camera thrust about three inches from her face, searching her for every slightest flinch, every furtive glance, every strained muscle, as the young actress has to conjure a lifetime of an emotional journey. It's a stunning and utterly compelling performance that forms the true narrative heart of the movie, and that powers forward this otherwise occasionally meandering tale.

What I can't let pass without comment though is the absolutely gratuitous, endless and utterly explicit scenes of... smoking. Whether eating, drinking, laughing, crying, fighting, fucking, or reclining on a chaise longue whilst being sketched by Jack, sorry, Emma; Adèle is seemingly never without a fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth. I enjoyed this movie in the company of two good friends who also happen to be a lesbian couple. When the credits began to roll I glanced over to find, not that they were making all gooey-eyed at each other, but that they were both frantically constructing roll-ups for the dash outside to light up. Ah... Vive l'Amour.

Rating: 4/5

Norwegian Wood (2010)

A fine example of how a film can portray everything that happens in the book, without portraying anything that happens in the book.

Rating: 3/5

Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi) (2008)

A young boy named Yu, after the passing of his mother, dreams of finding his perfect "Virgin Mary". But years later, and racked with the displaced guilt being piled upon him by his failing priest father, he becomes, naturally, the leader of a martial-arts panty-shot photography gang, and his antics bring him to the attention of both a cult-leading psychotic with an abusive past, and the kick-ass girl of his dreams who falls in love with his cross-dressing alter-ego.

At this point we are about fifty minutes into the set-up of Sion Sono's epic Japanese misfit soap opera, and now the opening titles roll. This is not your traditional romance. It's overlong, undisciplined, funny - both ha-ha, and peculiar. But, almost sneaking it in under the radar, unexpectedly affecting.

As Geoffrey Rush once sagely observed of his punters' entertainment needs in Shakespeare In Love, "You see - comedy, love, and a bit with a dog", and he was nearly right. Just add Catholic guilt, cult brainwashing, terrorism, madness, bobbitting, upskirt-fu, blood-soaked chopsocky vengeance and a lot of awkward erections. Oh but leave out the dog. At four hours running time there's only so much you can fit in.

Rating: 3/5

The Artist (2011)

Comedy, love, and a bit with a dog.

It is the late 1920s, and a silent screen idol is at the height of his fame when a chance encounter with a girl in the crowd starts her out on the road to stardom, while his own hubris will cause him to risk everything when the coming of sound changes their fortunes.

If a few months ago, I had suggested that the best film of the year would be a completely silent movie shot in black and white, with intertitle cards, a 1.33 aspect ratio and all the rest of the 1920s movie trimmings , what might have you expected? Most likely a cunning spoof or skit on early movies, made with a knowing wink to a modern audience? Or perhaps a resolutely technical exercise? a slavish copy of the authentic article, perfectly reproducing every nuance of the form for a minority group of buffs to stroke beards sagely in appreciation of?

The wonder of Michel Hazanavicius' slice of silent heaven is that all the skills needed for the above, and more, are deployed invisibly, seemingly effortlessly, in creating pure, unabashed entertainment. This is a simple, but expertly honed tale of fame and fortune, of loss and despair, of romance, friendship and second chances. It is exactly the sort of charming, snappy caper that they (we are oft told) don't make 'em like any more, and the seemingly bold move to make a movie, about silent movies, as a silent movie, is no arch piece of artistic grandstanding, but a spot-on decision from a master craftsman to put film-making form totally at the service of the story being told.

Great performances abound across the board. The central couple of Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo are wonderful as the debonair, self-obsessed matinee idol, and the perky starlet-in-the-making. John Goodman has never been better cast than as a cigar chomping Hollywood producer, and the ever dependable James Cromwell oozes quiet dignity as a faithful assistant. But it is no poor reflection upon any of these uniformly superb players to note that they are nonetheless repeatedly acted off the screen by a Jack Russell named Uggie!

Whatever you may be expecting, whatever misgivings you might have about the idea of sitting for two hours in a darkened room watching what one could reasonably imagine to be some kind of quirky satire or art-house indulgence will swiftly be forgotten. The Artist is a perfect little gem of a movie, a joy for anyone who loves cinema.

Rating: 5/5

Cyborg Girl (Boku no kanojo wa saibôgu) (2008)

Ho-hum. Another month, another Korean directed human / cyborg rom-com.

Jiro is just your standard issue shy and nerdy student until, one lonely birthday, a kick-ass robot chick from the future drops in and turns his life upside down. Director Jae-young Kwak, who had already scored a massive hit with the more conventional romance "My Sassy Girl", here directs in Japanese in a wholly more ambitious project, but still feels at his most comfortable when on familiar ground. Keisuke Koide as the gobsmacked Jiro is initially a tad irritating with his dumbstruck jaw-on-the-floor performance, but gradually settles into a likeable and more rounded character. While Haruka Ayase as the beautiful machine from the future is not half as bad-ass as her Terminator-homaging introduction would like us to believe, and is all the more charming for it.

For most of its running time, Cyborg Girl (aka: Cyborg She) is sweet and gently amusing as this odd couple figure out their relationship and get involved in a bunch of life-saving scrapes, before proceedings climax quite unexpectedly in a massive set-piece with surprising emotional punch. Had things been tidied up around this point I would have nothing by praise for this unconventional but sweetly satisfying genre hybrid. However at around the ninety minute mark, Jae-young suddenly remembers he's also making a science-fiction, and we get a largely superfluous extended denouement involving A.I. style departures to new time zones, additional secondary characters and time-looping repeated scenes. It all goes on a bit and makes little sense, but fortunately doesn't completely undo the goodwill generated earlier. Nonetheless a tighter edit would have probably earned it an extra star.

Rating: 3/5

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

While Kick-Ass was busy gobbling up the lion’s share of the attention and Daily Mail outrage, there was another genre-bending alt-superhero comedy mash-up last summer that rather slid under the radar, which is a great shame as, while it may not be as in-your-face outrageous, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a more engaging, funny and sprightly movie that mysteriously failed to storm the summer box office in the face of bigger, badder, swearier competition.

A geek’s paradise, Scott Pilgrim is chock full of gamer references, 8-bit soundbites, and teen-rocking wannabee heroics, however what makes it more than the sum if its slacker culture nods and winks is a genuine warmth and affection for its inhabitants and their world. Brit helmer Edgar Wright, who showed he knows a thing or two about game-obsessed overgrown boys in Shaun Of The Dead, tackles his first transatlantic mega-budget project with a breezy lightness; blending together bitter-sweet moments of awkward teen romance, and heart embiggening scenes of rock & roll camaraderie along with the madcap fights, and surreal flights of fancy.

The young cast, headed by eternal dweeb plus ultra Michael Cera, are largely excellent, with quirky but likeable supporting roles given the same care and attention as our eponymous hero. As a teen ensemble comedy it recalls the films of John Hughes, such is the ease with which it takes its outlandishly fantastical premise and grounds it with deft, easygoing character work.

On the minor negative side, the film is rather undisciplined, being about twenty minutes longer than needed, with an occasional repetitious tendency brought on by its own multi-life, game-level structure, and somewhat lacks a solid dramatic shape as a result. But with so many charming, engaging characters and a sharp, witty script overflowing with quotable banter and inventive non-sequitur moments, the movie carries its excess baggage with a light touch and a giddy energy that is hard to resist.

Rating: 4/5

Far North (2007)

In an unspecified land of tundra and ice, a mother and daughter, estranged from their tribes-people, alone and on the run from a brutal hired army, are struggling to survive in this harsh, desolate landscape. Into their lives walks an escaped press-ganged soldier, barely alive, and a tragic chain of events is set in motion.

London born film-maker Asif Kapadia knows how to capture isolation. He finds it in the sombre monochrome landscapes of this Arctic tale, and equally in the eyes of his lead actress, Michelle Yeoh. She plays Saiva, a woman who has borne a curse since birth foretelling that she will bring misfortune upon anyone who gets close to her. Forced out of her tribe, she lives nomadically, with only her grown-up daughter for company. Theirs is a never ending routine of hand-to-mouth survival and constant relocation to ever more lonely shores. The films' establishing shots of expansive ice flows are set to a soundtrack of groaning, creaking tension and cracks beneath the surface. Once Sean Bean's on-the-run Soldier arrives to upset the balance of their simple existence, it soon becomes apparent that Saiva shares much in common with the ice pack surrounding her.

So effectively does Asif conjure the quiet, contemplative mood and pace of much Scandinavian or Russian cinema that it comes as quite a shock when the main trio of characters open their mouths (which they do only rarely) and talk in English. The point is that it does not matter what language they speak, as the location and even the precise period of this story is kept deliberately vague. Just as it matters not what strange language it is that the other invading soldiers speak to themselves, only that it is not familiar. They are the aliens here.

For much of its short running time not a lot seems to be happening here, but there is not a wasted moment or unnecessary scene. Judicious use of flashbacks provide insight into the moments that have forged Saiva's tough and ruthless survival instincts. While in the present, much is communicated in silence by the glances of desire and jealousy that the trio exchange. Sean Bean comfortably inhabits the role of decent but morally weak man, but it's Michelle Yeoh's steely, haunted central performance that grabs and pulls you in. Like some Merchant-Ivory period drama stripped of all its airs and finery, we are in a world of suppressed emotions and mounting tensions. The palpable sense that something has to give is the overriding drive towards the startling climax.

Rating: 4/5

Audition (Ôdishon) (1999)

A subtle, slow-burning chiller; Audition is by turns touching, gently funny and rather melancholic, and comes on for half of its running time like some sort of Sleepless in Seattle as though directed by Ken Loach. However it slowly builds in layers of creepy unsettling atmosphere, before finally launching a full on assault in the last act that will leave you reeling.

The motivations and experiences of the main characters, all superbly played, seem to really have something to say about the traditions of Japanese male dominance and female submissiveness at odds with the modern world, and the dangerous psychology that can be nurtured by these restrictions and conformities. For me this raises this film not only above the level of other excellent recent Asian horror such as the much better known "The Ring", but easily knocks seven shades out of the current Hollywood trend for torture porn movies. Saw, Hostel and the like, which are just puerile adolescent gore-fantasy by comparison.

A deeply disturbing but profoundly moving experience. "kiri, kiri, kiri"!

Rating: 5/5