Koktobel

dirs. Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebski

Russia, 2003

Very much like The Return, which I liked rather more

Happy Together

dir. Wong Kar Wai

Hong Kong, 1997

Al got me this DVD for £2 years ago, when Global Video on Great Western Road was shutting down, and when I was in the initial blooms of a Wong Kar Wai obsession. Strange, then, that I hadn't gotten round to watching it til now. Perhaps it's to do with seeing a film at the CCA a while ago that used a few frames from Happy Together ran on a loop as the visual back-up for a film essay on diasporas, travelling, love, theory, literature, film and so on. It reminded me Wong Kar Wai's wonderful use of colour, and the use of that colour to create emotional states visually, of making the film be the state, rather than show it, of making film live as a feeling, I suppose.

Rewatch: Songs From The Second Floor

dir. Roy Andersson

Sweden, 2000

I remember seeing this when it came out, when I was 17. I had recently got glasses for short-sightedness, but had forgotten them on that particular evening, which meant that I watched the entirety of this film squinting - but not a full squint, a semi-squint - trying to read the subtitles. Luckily there aren't many.

From that first watch 11 years ago, all I remember really is the general aspect of apocalypse and humour, and the scene where a mountain-top of dignitaries push a gifted child off a cliff.

Watching it now, I feel more aware of it fitting in to a particularly European existential sense, maybe, or a dark/black humour, the sort that connects Bunuel and Monty Python with the grey landscapes of Scandinavian winters. It's much more explicitly political than I remember, although I do remember the large proportion of shots of middle-aged men sat pondering, in their pants and vest, on the edge of their bed, in the middle of the night, their bedside lamp on, their wife asleep.

Oranges and Sunshine

dir. Jim Loach

UK/Australia, 2011

A bit over-written/expository, but an important story told.

Source Code

dir. Duncan Jones

USA, 2011

Like a much much better version of Inception. Made me comment on the preoccupations of a lot of American cinema and TV at the moment - hard to pin down ideas about time travel, control over time, terrorism, heroism, the organisation of memory, the role of the armed forces, a low-level constant murmur of suspicion. This is a fascinating film that I think I should see again to write about properly.

Repo Man

dir. Alex Cox

USA, 1984

Great B-movie-punk-sci-fi-slacker something-film. Endlessly well-written, great performances, a brilliant soundtrack, and heavy heavy heavy with revealing stuff about American culture - the food and drink packaging an eerily similar design to Tesco's value range (plain white packets, blue writing - "FOOD", "DRINK"), chasing money, the weird cult-like spirituality, strange observing government agencies, street-corner philosophers. This is a brilliant film.

Seconds

dir. John Frankenheimer

USA, 1966

Another dark Cold War-era paranoia picture from the director of The Manchurian Candidate, again focussing on singular identity in a world where no-one quite knows who is who. The cinematography by James Wong Howe is absolutely superb, especially the camera attached to the actor to give a sort of "floating head" effect, and the masterly use (and non-use) of music - the opening sequence of a man being followed is conducted entirely without music, or dialogue, with the floating head camera the only overtly "expressive" aspect. Here it is, with opening titles by the master, Saul Bass:

There is something in it too about image and self-image, about the relationship between identity and image, between inside and outside, surface and depth, all wrapped up in a hair-raising, skin-tingling air of suspicion and vaguely-defined menace.

This is a fantastic film, certainly one of the best I've seen for a long time.