Birth

Jonathan Glazer (1994)

Jonathan Glazer followed up his pulsating London gangland debut with this strange, floating, singular film about a woman who loses her husband before believing he's returned in the body of a ten year old child. 

Birth was marred by controversy upon its release, largely due to a daring bathtub scene featuring Nicole Kidman and her very underage co-star Cameron Bright. Ten years on that sequence still holds an eerie quality but it's in no way out of whack with Glazer's film as a whole.

Kidman offers the performance of a lifetime and Bright plays it just as startling by her side. Glazer's imagery, of course, is never in question but he hones those Kubrickian leanings with a remarkable sense of patience and a clear deftness of touch. The plot line seems to boarder on urban mythology at times but the director manages to keep it tantalizingly in check, knowing exactly when to hold firm on reality and knowing exactly when to let go.

The results are just devastating. A forgotten mystery about love and loss which soars across the screen on Alexandre Desplat's breathtaking, counterpointed chords, never allowing you to catch a grip but always letting you think that you can. Birth still sits with 39% on Rotten Tomatoes but, with the celebrated release of Under the Skin this year; people are beginning to take another look. That’s exactly what this writer did and, if you haven’t already, perhaps you should too. 

If the opening minutes don't catch your eye it might be time to find a new hobby.

The Last Temptation of Christ

Martin Scorsese (1988)

Willem Defoe is Christ but not quite as we know it. He gets pinned up to the cross (after about two hours viewing) but before he goes off to kick the proverbial bucket, the Devil shows up to take him on one last lap of temptation 

Although far from outright sensationalism, many a feather was still ruffled when Martin Scorsese brought his radical take on the Crucifixion to the big screen. Perhaps it's a shame, you do get the feeling the catholic raised director was just trying to get a humanist grasp on the man he was brought up to worship but hey, try telling that to the group who Molotov Cocktailed a Parisian cinema upon the film's release.

Indeed, many other crimes were recorded. Harvey Keitel’s performance and haircut were just some of them.

Stoker

Park Chan Wook (1988)

Oldboy director Park Chan Wook made his English language debut last year with this super stylised incestuous thriller in which the wife and daughter of a recently deceased Doctor are visited and seduced by his prodigal brother.

The film is quite heavy on visual innuendo and a great deal of Wook’s style seems a touch lost in translation but Stoker is still a solid piece of work. Strangely, Nicole Kidman plays a wealthy widow for the second time in this very list- and Harmony Korine inexplicably pops up as an Art teacher for about 5 seconds- but the dazzling Mia Wasikowska- who confirmed her ethereal screen presence here after her Alice in Wonderland breakout- is the lightest of anchors in the lead role.

 

Oldboy

A cinder-block shaped Josh Brolin grunts and groans his way through this fine remake of Park Chan-wook’s Korean-Wave favourite. He plays Joe, a despicable drunk ad-man who is framed for his wife’s murder and left in single room confinement for twenty years before being mysteriously released. Lee took a mighty risk taking on such a beloved cult hit but fans can breathe a collective sigh of relief. He keeps it visceral and strange while, quite remarkably, upping Park’s wicked videogame violence. He even gives a short cameo to a certain squid- and a slightly bigger one for a certain hammer…

  

The Counselor

Like a penalty skied over in the Champions League final, the shear catastrophic calibre of this film is a sight to behold. Michael Fassbender stars as a legal aid to the criminal elite who finds himself in hot water when a sewage truck full of Heroine goes missing on the U.S.-Mexico border. Fassbender is just one of many glittering names responsible but, regretfully, much of the blame must rest on the weighted debut screenplay of Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy- or perhaps whomever let him loose... Oh, and Cameron Diaz has sex with a Ferrari.

Carrie

Chloë Grace Moretz takes on the infamous roll of a teenage social outcast with supernatural powers for the third adaptation of Steven King’s debut novel. Ms. Moretz leads a strong female cast with Judy Greer as her supportive teacher and Julianne Moore playing mother dearest as director Kimberly Pierce takes aim at a younger demographic. The results are decent despite lacking the strangeness of Brian De Palma’s classic but- in light of recent events- seeing kids get mowed down in a U.S. school gymnasium just doesn't sit right. 

Back to showcase their picks from the international film community’s elite festival circuit is Berlin’s increasingly sleek looking Around the World in 14 Films and following on from a rather high calibre year, the self-proclaimed festival of festivals has found a selection worthy of such a title with 4 continents and 15 countries represented over this terrific program. It all kicks off in Kino Babylon with A Separation director Asgahr Farhadi’s The Past. Tahar Rahim and Bérénice Bejo both star as Farhadi swaps Tehran with Paris for another familial drama. Legendary space cadet Alejandro Jodorowski will be in attendance as the festival screens his understandably surreal autobiographical film The Dance of Reality. Jem Cohen mixes a visual poem on Vienna with a charming peripheral love story in his quietly beautiful Museum Hours. Out east, Jia Zhangke expresses the bitterness and disillusionment in Chinese society with his violently subversive A Touch of Sin while Hirokazu Kore-Eda continues to find great young performers with his latest effort Like Father, Like Son. Both picked up gongs at Cannes last May. Screening in Thalia Potsdam, Inside Llewyn Davis- the Coen’s wonderfully lonesome take on the pre-Dylan folk scene in New York- offers the festival’s biggest hitter but if there’s one film to seek out, it comes from a little further north as Toronto born Sarah Polley examines our relationship with fatherhood and memory in her soaring documentary heartwrencher Stories We Tell.

Spring Breakers

Harmony Korine’s rampant return to feature films is a loud and garish look at the Britney loving youths of Beach Party MTV and while seemingly bright, thrilling and drenched in EDM tack, with Korine pulling the strings it’s clear that something more sinister is at work.

Teen stars Selena Gomez, Venessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson join Korine’s wife Rachel to play four tempestuous college students who, following a slick one-shot diner hold up, set off on a spring break trip of partying and debauchery. A police bust leaves the girls in prison where they turn to Alien, a RIFF RAFF –channelling Pied Piper played by James Franco, to bail them out. A whirlwind of escalating madness and depravity ensues causing shifts in the group’s eerie dynamic as Alien succumbs to his newfound Sirens.

  The casting really is a phenomenon. Franco provides a welcome break from his baffling descent into half-baked art projects with a great turn as Alien but the squeaky clean girls backing him up are the film’s defining coup. Art wickedly imitates life as Korine dangles the golden carrot of artistic integrity in front of his young starlets.

Korine was 17 years old when he wrote Larry Clark’s Kids and with Spring Breakers  it’s clear the great agent provocateur has lost none of his edge,  a bold, uncompromising director whose work feels as fresh today as it did almost two decades ago. 

Fantasy Filmfest Nights: Stoker

For a weekend in mid-March the ever popular Fantasy Filmfest will return for a springtime instalment and while smaller than its Autumnal counterpart the confident and compact programme should prove a welcome diversion from all those post Berlinale blues. As ever, Sci-Fi and Horror are on the cards with a few big hitters and some promising debutants providing the thrills.

Following the death of her father a gifted girl (Mia Wasikowska) enters a game of cat and mouse with her mysterious Uncle(Matthew Goode) in Park Chan Wook’s Stoker. Well received at Sundance, the Oldboy director’s first English language work is sure to be the weekend’s hottest ticket; Tanked on a new drug called “Soy Sauce”, Paul Giamatti and his friend John must defend the earth from a surreal invasion in the spoilerifically titled John Dies at the End, the latest offering from legendary cult director Don Coscarelli; Oscar winning director Barry Levinson takes a shot at the found footage genre with eco-terror piece The Bay; 26 directors (Including Ben Wheatley) contribute a short piece on death, each one based on a letter of the alphabet in The ABCs of Death; Also screening are debut works from Juan Carlos Medina (Painless), long time horror prosthetics artist Paul Hyett (The Seasoning House) and Irishman Ciarán Foy (Citadel). 

Safe Haven

A girl on the run finds sanctuary in the quaint town of Southport. Taking on a new identity, Katie (Julianne Hough) begins to set up a new life. Here she meets handsome widower Alex (Josh Duhamel) and the pair begin to go through the motions. They ride Kayaks and kiss in the rain- she even charms his kids- but, just as the mush levels hit critical, the skeletons in Katie’s closet show up to crash the party.