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Progress will be compiled at the end of each month with the films listed in order of preference.
At five In the Afternoon
Samira Makhmalbaf (2003)
Samira Makhmalbaf gives a beautiful, honest portrayal of the
hopes and hardships of a young woman in the ruins of Kabul. The woman is thrilled with the idea of a female Afghan president and so enters her class election before her optimism is chipped away. Shot with tremendous balance, Makhmalbaf treats her subjects with
absolute dignity no matter how tough their lives become. It might sound grim
but there is an incredibly human beauty to Makhmalbaf’s film; the imagery is patient and composed and the natural performances flow with vitality as the women’s pale blue head
scarves soak up the gentle light of the Afghan sun.
They Live…
John Carpenter (1988)
This iconic late 80s Sci-fi concerns a blue collar
worker played by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper who happens upon a pair of special sunnies
which reveal the world as it really is. Piper taps his WWF background for some
ludicrous brawls but it’s in the film’s remarkable imagery- as seen above- that
we get the most thrills. Imagery so powerful it inspired Shepard Fairey to plaster it onto the streets of LA. He later tweaked his work to make the defining
image of Barrack Obama’s inaugural campaign. The work was sincere- and it
certainly did the job- but what wonderful irony.
Youth of the Beast
Seijun Sazuki (1963)
An explosive lone gun with a connection to some sort of
knitting club infiltrates the Tokyo yakuza and starts to play two bosses
against each other. The film swaggers to its own slick, nihilistic tune with Sazuki’s
eye for colour and composition providing a wonderful counterpoint to all the
rat-a-tat action and loud mouth jabbering. Its renegade director, at 90, is
still with us today.
Spellbound
Alfred Hitchcock (1945)
Hitchcock was already a sensation stateside and well into
the studio groove by the time he released this dreamy effort. Gregory Peck
plays a doctor who’s convinced he’s committed murder. The lovely Ingred Bergman
plays a Freudian psychologist. She falls for Peck and so uses some fairly broad
psychoanalysis to get to the bottom of things. The themes haven’t aged well but
a wonderful Dali dream sequence and a couple of great shocks late on keep this
amongst the director’s better works.
Notorious
Alfred Hitchcock (1946)
One year older and one year wiser, Hitchcock looked less concerned with cheap thrills and more with dream factory longing when he made this story of love and espionage.
Bergman once again stars, this time as the daughter of a Nazi spy whose given
the chance to make amends by infiltrating some friends of her Dad who’ve
exiled to Rio. Cary Grant plays the agent in charge. You can see where this is going.
