[The Third M?n]

I hope you guys like lists, because I have a very long one here. I have decided to compile a list of films that I think are rather indispensable for a movie lover. The following is an ever-evolving list, in no particular order whatsoever [it may be a little disorganised but I'll do everything possible to keep it tidy], which will grow as I see more films. It does have a beginning, but alas, as for its end, I don't know where it lies. Anywho, without any further ado, I will start soon. I will also put a link list down here so that it makes it easier. Rating, comments and discussion are most welcome. By the way, I did this earlier on GD [I didn't finish it] but it wasn't very successful, mainly because there were lots of foreign films [yes... could that be it?] By the way, I'd love to hear suggestions from you guys. I'm solely fifteen-years old and I seriously got into cinema less than a year ago, so any film-recommendation would be great, really. I want more Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Ozu, Godard and Tarkoskvy. I will start... now.

Hitherto, these are the films:

12 Angry Men
L'Avventura
The Bicycle Thief
Les Diaboliques
Sleuth
Psycho
Chinatown
Breathless
Stalker
Mulholland Dr.
A Night at the Opera
2001: A Space Odyssey
Apocalypse Now
The Third Man
The Shining
Lost in Translation
Memento
Halloween
Il Postino
Suspiria
Lawrence of Arabia

[The Third M?n]

12 Angry Men (1957) Dir: Sidney Lumet



12 Angry Men is one of the finest suspense films I have ever seen. Tightly wound, unforeseeable and densely atmospheric, Sidnley Lumet's debut supposes a milestone in minimalist filmmaking. A flop in its initial release [despite its almost non-existent budget -- $343,000], it was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

A 12 man jury is sent to begin deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of an 18-year-old slum kid who is accused of stabbing his father to the death. What at first sight appears to be an open and shut case, because of the defendant's weak alibi -- a knife he claimed to have lost is found at the murder scene; a nearby woman says she saw him do it and an old man heard screaming and saw him flee the building -- instead turns into something much more difficult. Eleven of the jurors instantly vote guilty; however, Juror #8 says that there is still much room for supposing and that the accused can be indeed innocent. He then must convince the jurors that beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant is guilty.

With the exception of some of the earlier scenes and the ending, the whole film is set in a claustrophobic New York jury room during the hottest day of the year. The location, partly due to the fact that it was based on a play [and indeed, there are many stagy elements to be found in the film] solely serves to excellently augment the intensity and suspense that is crafted by the director. One would have thought that the scenographic limitations could, one way or another, harm the film, or make it tedious. Needless to say, those assumptions would be totally wrong, because 12 Angry Men is a film that turns its restraints into its most superlative assets. During its entire running time, there was not a moment where I was not compelled to what was going on, where the constant debates between the men did not interest me; rather, the film gets you hooked from the very beginning -- but it is as the opinions on the culpability of the kid are altered that the grip gets tighter and tighter. It strikes me as amazing [and odd] that the film remains thoroughly captivating, even though all but three minutes of it was filmed in the same room. 12 Angry Men is what cinema is all about -- acting. It is the full-male, twelve men cast who, with their fleshed out characters, different psychologies and varying ideas, keep the film afloat. The film, no doubt, is an ensemble piece at its core -- and an astonishing one, at that -- whose vast majority of the actors, surprisingly, were not incredibly experienced prior to the making of the film, though the painstaking rehearsals did last a fatiguing two weeks. At the end of the film, one really feels as though we got to fully know each and every one of the men who occupied the room their feelings, opinions, sensations, philosophies on life and whatnot are all magnificently illustrated here, and the script by Reginald Rose uses them all to point out and analyse human weaknesses. We get to know where they work, their back stories, where they're from and their personal prejudices. They are all nameless [except for the two who introduce themselves in the film's final scene], yet that does not keep them from being exceedingly well drawn.

Juror #8, superbly played by Henry Fonda, is the only person who stands firm to his ground and does not change his opinion. He's a liberalist, an individual who thinks that, despite all the given evidence, the death of the kid can still be avoided. As he persuades the weary jurors to re-think it, the psyche of each one slowly flourishes until it fully emerges and becomes visible for the viewer. Juror # 1 [Martin Balsam, who played detective Arbogast in Psycho] is a high school sports coach who'd rather keep things in order than stir up a conflict; not even once in the film does he make a useful point, however. Juror #2 [John Fiedler] is the bank clerk with the bizarrely squeaky, almost Porky Pig voice; at the beginning, he's a little doubtful about the entire thing, but eventually decides to speak out after remembering some pivotal evidence that was nagging him, thus making some very good points. Juror #3 [a towering Lee J. Cobb], a hounding big man, thinks that the kid should be put to the chair. According to him, every single thing that came out in that courtroom says he's guilty. He's also the one who, like Juror #8, stands true to his opinion until the very end, if only for more than personal reasons. He's the angry man, and refuses to believe that there is any chance of the kid being innocent. Juror #4 is played by E.G. Marshall, a just man and a good observer, who clearly follows the evidence but in the end realizes that it's completely the opposite; Juror #5 [Jack Klugman] a mumbling and sensitive man who was also born in a slum background, thinks the kid should not be getting the prejudices he's obtaining, because he knows what it is to live in such poverty. Juror #6 [Edward Bins] is a man willing to listen to everyone's opinions, with an ability to recognize his own strengths and weaknesses and to defend the insulted, such as Juror #9 [Joseph Sweeney], the older man out of the bunch who possesses a strange skill to reflect upon the facial aspects and temperament of some of the witnesses; he makes his comments with clarity and unrivalled attention to detail and often gets shouted at by Juror #7 [Jack Warden], probably the most reluctant of the men; he wants to get out because he has tickets to a baseball game and every once in a while throws wisecracks at the people he thinks inferior to himself. Juror #10 [Ed Begley] always makes his remarks in a more than menacing manner -- he's a bigoted man who doesn't care about the viewpoints of others. Juror #11 [George Voskovec] is a polite European watchmaker who migrated to the United States, with a fine way of speaking and a fair treatment of the people, he thinks the Western system is a shame; and finally, there is Juror #12 [Robert Webber] an advertising executive, familiar with reunions of this sort, he cannot cease his pride by telling the people next to him just how wonderful his job is.

One of the main messages of 12 Angry Men is that the judicial system [at least the one that was used then] is a flawed one. It criticizes it with subtlety, while at the same time cleverly exploring the dialogue and motives. In such a small room, so many things can occur, so many things can be said -- and the life of someone depends on them. Pride, jealousy, fury, frustration and prejudice all emerge in this film, and it seems as though it's inevitable. However, the film underlines all this by saying that sometimes oversimplification of the methods is a bad thing; just because there is some apparent evidence doesn't mean he or she is really guilty. Through a careful investigation of the facts, the impression of the guilt of a person can easily be reversed, thus making us think that in fact, he is not culpable. The very tagline of the poster sums up how judicial workings can often be catastrophic: Life is in their hands - Death is on their minds!

If there ever was such a technically flawless film, then this is it. Boris Kaufman's dazzling cinematography, with its prolonged takes and constant close-ups, makes a particularly astute way of using the black and white to strengthen the growth of the plot. You will notice that, at the beginning of the film, eleven out of the twelve men are wearing dark costumes [mainly suits], save for Juror #8, who wears a light summer suit which is most likely much more appropriate for the time the film is set in. As the film progresses and Juror #8 convinces the rest of the jury, it is clearly visible that each of them takes off their dark jackets to reveal light shirts underneath. The concept of using tone to hint at a light [as in good, open-minded / narrow-minded, dark and evil] is further on backed up when the majority vote leaps from guilty to not guilty. At this precise moment, a thunderstorm begins outside and it becomes much darker, forcing them to turn on the lights inside. So at this point the jury room and those inside it have become lighter than the ones outside. The idea continues at the end of the film, as it culminates with all of them wearing light colours, and as they leave the courtroom they can be seen carrying their jackets instead of wearing them, as though they've left their prejudices behind. This is an extraordinary piece of symbolism that is put to great effect in the film and helps to fortify it even more.

The tension that is weaved in the film is incredible. Because we don't know whether or not the kid is truly guilty; because we, like the 12 men, are not aware of whether what's being said is the truth or not, the more unexpected that it gets. The film does not spend time in showing us the trial beforehand -- rather, it opts for showing us what we have to see: the 12 men battling it out, and at the end it is us who have to decide if they have been just, regardless of whether the kid is guilty or innocent. As the course of the film went on, it is said that Sidney Lumet gradually changed to lenses of longer focal lengths, so that the backgrounds seemed to close in on the characters, creating a greater feeling of claustrophobia and, besides, the close-ups got even more continuous. This was said by Lumet in Making Movies, where he discussed the visual strategy of 12 Angry Men. "In addition," he writes, "I shot the first third of the movie above eye level, shot the second third at eye level and the last third from below eye level. In that way, toward the end the ceiling began to appear. Not only were the walls closing in, the ceiling was as well. The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the movie." For the last shot of the picture, he says he used a wide- angle lens "to let us finally breathe."

The men's sweat can almost be smelled, their confusion can even be touched; all the situations in the film remain plausible yet ever fascinating, and at the end everything is masterfully tied. 12 Angry Men is a film so unique and special; it provokes, it criticizes and it explores. Almost forty years later, its power to enthrall is intact and the questions it raises are still as timeless. Visually unmatched, it is an engrossing and profoundly engaging film that rightly deserves its place amongst the best of all time.

[The Third M?n]

Is there no interest here, either? I thought you critics would like this... I need recommendations, people. Oh yeah, and this time round you can choose what sort of film I'll include next: do you want it to be American or foreign [I have a lot of write-ups already done].

[The Third M?n]

L'Avventura (1960) Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni


For me, watching L'Avventura for the very first time was a peculiar and meaningful experience. Because L'Avventura, to tell you the truth, is not a mere film - it's a penetrating character study, too. Michelangelo Antonioni's picture is one that requires a lot of patience; because of its gradual unfolding and slow (yet ever-engaging) pace, it is likely to bore and frustrate the average viewer. But isn't that just great? Isn't that precisely what the director intended to do? To split the audience in half, to make some love it and others dislike it? L'Avventura opened at the Cannes festival in 1960 to the hatred and irritated jeers of its initial viewing audience, but perhaps that occurred because the film is not meant to be really comprehended upon a first viewing. Evidently, it is quite understandable (though not entirely logical, in my opinion) that the public did not like it, given that i'ts not an easy film to watch; it may simply be too uninteresting for some people, but, then again, there are admirable elements in the film that one cannot merely ignore.

My opinion, however, was not the same. I found L'Avventura to be a magnificent film - that's it. The plot is simple, although I will try to keep it as short as possible, because, to be honest, the less you know the more you're likely to enjoy it. One summery Saturday afternoon, a group of friends departs from Rome and goes on a yachting trip. But then, a girl mysteriously disappears. While her lover and her best friends search for her across Italy, they fall in love and begin an affair.
By not showing Anna's disappearance, the viewer is left wondering as to what her real destination was. We don't know why she vanished or exactly when she did and we don't see the moment of her going away; all we do is witness her not being there, wer'e just left contemplating her momentary non-existence. But why did she escape? Was it because of her dispute with her boyfriend? Was it because she wanted to be free? The truth is, we do'nt know. Anna's disappearance is supposed to mean a lot of things, yet there isn't a determined motive or symbolism for it all. Perhaps it represents her choosing a distinct path or a turn in her life the thing is, when she gets lost on the island, every single character is affected in some way or another. Nothing seems to work properly anymore, everything seems to be disconnected. And that's what the movie is about: disconnection. After the most pivotal moment of the film, everything around the characters gradually separates. The meaning of their lives, especially that of Sandro's and Claudia's, slowly disintegrates. And by limiting the audience's knowledge to what they both learn, the more compelling that it gets.

This sense of detachment is masterfully illustrated by the director here, and one of the main things that takes this into being is, no doubt, the wonderful cinematography. By using wide-lenses, the director weaves an impression of vast expansion, and not only that; when the characters are exposed against the immense, barren environment of the islands, we're made aware of how insignificant us humans really are. The black and white photography obviously helps in further developing the desperation and blackness that the characters have inside them; not matter what they do, it is exposed, (and with perfect clarity, mind you) that they'll never achieve true happiness. This is all greatly controlled, and what Antonioni manages to do (and successfully) is to communicate to us that ennui which the characters feel. Theyre bored of life; they never get amused by anything. In sexual relations, pleasure, comfort and happiness is what they seek, but somehow, for some reason, they never reach the latter. Their souls are constantly filled with sorrow, and they get absolutely nowhere - nowhere fruitful at least.

One could almost consider L'Avventura to be of a rather Hitchcockian sort. That assumption could not be more erroneous, really, because similarities between L'Avventura and Hitchcocks films are few. Yet, there's one thing I did not overlook, which is what may make these comparisons to Hitchcock inevitable: Antonioni gets rid of the apparent main character not very long after the films begun, just like Hitch did with Janet Leigh in that little masterpiece named Psycho, and, funnily enough, in the same year, 1960. But, unlike in Hitchs films, the suspense is absent, and the big pay off that the viewers been anxiously waiting for never comes. There's no explosion, mainly because the fuse is never lighted, so to speak. In every sense of the word, L'Avventura is not a tense film whatsoever. It's flat, linear and rather underwhelming yet it still proves to be a groundbreaking masterpiece.

One could argue that nothing much occurs in L'Avventura. Of course, I would agree. It isn't a film that tangles itself with the intricacy of its plot (the plot is very simple), no, on the other hand, the complexity lies in what goes on inside the plot. It's all about what happens to the characters and the situations that they find themselves in, it's about their feelings and emotions, about the consequences that the disappearance brings and the way it alters the personages. The solidity of the screenplay is not just the film's major strength; it is also a privilege that few other movies have. Because of the thematic richness that the film contains, because of the biting observations on spiritual isolation and the many meanings of love that L'Avventura encloses, many questions arise and few of them are answered. We're kept being hit in the bat by Antonioni - violently but nevertheless effectively - as he throws is components and constantly investigates our knowledge of who we really are.

Perhaps there are people who hate the film, because, as I've heard and amongst other things, they did not care for the characters. Well, guess what? Neither did I. Nor do I think we're supposed to. Considering that the picture is partly about disengagement, this comes as no surprise. I found myself not caring for the main personages. I did not particularly like them or identify with them, let alone relate to them. I was simply thoroughly intrigued because I was not aware of what was going to occur to them, and that's what I wanted to find out. I just wanted to discover where the paths they chose were going to lead them. Because, one has to consider that, when Anna disappears, a very big abyss is instantly created, which prevents (for some reason or another) the characters from connecting to each other. The thing is, that abyss concerns us, as well. A barrier grows between us and the characters in the feel we just don't care for them. Yet, wait that was the directors intention, wasn't it? To both disconnect the characters from each other and us.

Overall, L'Avventura is a very captivating film to watch. The cinematography, as I've already stated, is rather majestic and the acting is impressive, too; every actor suits their role with a nice capacity, but it is Monica Vitti in the role of Claudia, whom I was fascinated by the most. She's forced to show a very large array of emotions and she does it all superbly, keeping her levels of confidence up and gradually growing more convincing as the film advances.
L'Avventura is the film that, apart from becoming a worldwide success, definitely kick-started Antonioni's career; not only that, it was also a film that confirmed cinema not just as a way of entertainment but as an art form and helped announce a crucial new era in international cinema.

The more I think about L'Avventura, the more my love for it seems to flourish. It was certainly a haunting experience for me, and I do not doubt that when I see it again for a second time, it will be very beneficent, and that I'll love it even more. It is the simple kind of ambiguity which surrounds it all that makes it so very extraordinary. And as for the ending it was entirely enigmatic. What was its significance? What was its purpose, its real meaning? Just... why? Winner of the Special Jury prize at Cannes in 1960, L'Avventura proves to be one of the finest of all time and the new mode of cinematic expression by which others should be measured.

[Beau]

Well, since I am sixteen years old, also a film lover, who is in the same position as you are right now, having watched many films but not nearly as much as I would like to, and trying to catch up on the greats, I'll definately come to check out what you have to say. Plus, I was born in Madrid too, although since I moved to Argentina when I was three, I must inform you that I'm a River Plate fan and not a Real fan (sorry... hey, we produced Di Stefano, so leave me alone ). Anyways, your list looks great, although I have to ask you if you could post new reviews instead of a review one can access through your website anyways.

[The Third M?n]

Originally Posted by Beau

Well, since I am sixteen years old, also a film lover, who is in the same position as you are right now, having watched many films but not nearly as much as I would like to, and trying to catch up on the greats, I'll definately come to check out what you have to say. Plus, I was born in Madrid too, although since I moved to Argentina when I was three, I must inform you that I'm a River Plate fan and not a Real fan (sorry... hey, we produced Di Stefano, so leave me alone ). Anyways, your list looks great, although I have to ask you if you could post new reviews instead of a review one can access through your website anyways.

Whoa, you do know a lot aboot me... But, Real Madrid are the best, and it was the place where Di Stefano had the most success [currently he still works in the team]. Nice to know that you, too, are of a Spanish origin.

That said, thanks for the comments. And, as for you review comment, well, I have some reviews already published on my website which will appear here but as I view more films I will write reviews for them and then put the on my website. And it's not just that, because not all my reviews in my site are positive. Basically, the thrill comes in guessin which ones I'll choose and which will come next!

[Beau]

That was a quick response....

And about my origins, well, I'm half spanish, half italian (although there's some french and Basque in there too, which would not make it 50-50, but that's usually how I divide it up), but both my parents are Argentine. I don't remember much about Madrid except watching some Anime about soccer (Genji I think the title was) in which the characters ran around in this never ending soccer field that kept scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. I'm eagerly anticipating you next pick, although I'm glad with the L'Avventura review (I was specifically going to ask you if you could post that one if you weren't going to write new reviews then decided not to). I could divulge my theories on the ending, but its all theories. The mystery is better left for one to solve alone or just to think aobut it.


P.S: You can never change me, I'll always be RiverPlatense (evil laugh).....

[The Third M?n]

The Bicycle Thief (1948) Dir: Vittorio de Sica



The Bicycle Thief is an example of neorealist cinema, a film movement which was born approximately after the end of the Second World War. This new technical and thematic concept of cinema supposed more than a mere movement of expressive renovation: it was a presumable reaction against the consecutive malice of fascism. For many freedom defenders it had been difficult to find an effective, honest medium with which to portray the world of that immediate social reality in which there were as many indirect and direct victims of the war. That first notable push, so to speak, consulates successfully from 1945, year of the ally victory and the fall of Mussolini. Amid the '40s, films such as Rome, open city, Miracle in Milan, The Earth Trembles, Shoeshine and others that I have probably omitted undoubtedly ignited that change of sense in the art of cinema. But the one and only film that topped this stunning revolutionary cycle and reached the peak of Italian neorealism was Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief.

The first thing that springs to mind when watching this film is the word simplicity. The Bicycle Thief is purely simple, it's not just visible; it's utterly palpable, too. There is nothing technically new or fresh about the film, you can see that it was not made for a big amount of money and the story is as straightforward as it can get. Note, however, that I didn't use the term 'simplistic' to describe the film. There is a vast difference between the two, and the film is anything but that. The picture would have ended up being just that, a numeration of adversities parting from a banal anecdote, if it weren't for the brilliance with which it's told.

As for the plot, it could be summarised in only one sentence, but here it is, anyway: Antonio Ricci, unemployed for over two years, is overjoyed when he's finally given a job putting up posters. However, he needs a bicycle as a requirement of the job, so he pawns the family linen to get a used bicycle back. He goes off to his first day's work, truly happy for the first time in years, until his bike is stolen by the title's character.

The crude black and white evidently contributes in underlining the sadism of the characters and the situations they are found in; the suburbs of Rome and the people who scantily lived there, wounds that don't heal, overwhelming fights to live. The film presents us a world in which none of us would want to live, yet, the thing is, it all occurred, this is all true. The film, in general terms, is nothing more and nothing less than a simplification of post-war reality. Shot on location in Rome, De Sica purposefully avoided the city's most striking monuments in order to make the story more universal. The grisly ambient, the agonising pass of time, the monotony of daily events, these elements all combine to form a world which is certainly sombre, and very at that. The sad fact is that upon viewing the film one realises with perfect clarity the way people lived in that time, how they fought for justice and longed for some food to eat. The film shows us the bad side of life, with both accuracy and painful honesty. It tells us: this, lamentably, is the way people lived then.

One of the components that I most liked about the film was the acting. Italian neorealist pictures were famed for using non-professional actors in order to provide the film with a more realistic tone, and The Bicycle Thief does that very thing, not just nicely but wonderfully. In fact, Lamberto Maggiroani, the film's lead, was a 39 year old steelworker who lost his real job after the film finished production. Vittorio de Sica definitely knows how to treat his actors, and one can instantly see that his level of commitment is abundant. He pulls the finest performances he can from his actors and the work off the camera all translates incredibly well onto the screen; the realism with which the film is depicted, again, mainly due to the actors astonishing work, often made me wonder whether what I was seeing was a film or actual images from real life. Yes, it's that amazing, really. Enzo Staiola, who plays Antonio's son, Bruno, is very, very convincing indeed. As a matter of fact, I found the scenes with him and his dad to be some of the finest of the film. The chemistry between the two is unbelievable, and the father and son relationship even more so.

The connection between the viewer and the characters is solid. We feel the characters exasperation as they go on a search for the missing bike, we are able to relate to them, we even share their sorrow and anger; on the whole, we identify with their feelings. The unfairness of post-war Rome is finely illustrated here, as we contemplate Antonio and his son venture into many different situations, most of the time theyre discriminated, ignored, hurt. Despite all the negativity and ugliness that the film presents us with, it still is able to maintain a fairly optimistic nature, it tells us that there is still hope, and that's a mesmerising thing. Not only because it fills our hearts with sanguinity but because it gives us a message. And we learn from it. Isn't it just great when a film, besides being artistically formidable, gives us something to learn? The Bicycle Thief is heart-wrenching and profoundly moving, telling us one man's struggle to feed his family. The ending, besides being brilliant, inundates us with hope. In every sense of the word, The Bicycle Thief is a treasure of 20th century cinema.

[The Third M?n]

Originally Posted by Beau

That was a quick response....

And about my origins, well, I'm half spanish, half italian (although there's some french and Basque in there too, which would not make it 50-50, but that's usually how I divide it up), but both my parents are Argentine. I don't remember much about Madrid except watching some Anime about soccer (Genji I think the title was) in which the characters ran around in this never ending soccer field that kept scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. I'm eagerly anticipating you next pick, although I'm glad with the L'Avventura review (I was specifically going to ask you if you could post that one if you weren't going to write new reviews then decided not to). I could divulge my theories on the ending, but its all theories. The mystery is better left for one to solve alone or just to think aobut it.

Nice origins! Oh, and that anime series you're talking about was Oliver and Benji [very popular in Spain in its time] -- it was utter s</>hit. Far-fetched, ridiculously exaggerated and absurdly implausible.

And, by the way, do post in your theories, I'd like to hear. The ending shot is brilliant, but it's so open to specualtion that one wonders a lot...

Have you seen any other Antonioni's, or the other two films from his "ennui" trilogy. L'Avventura is the only film of his that I have seen, understand. Recommendations are always immensely appreciated.

[The Third M?n]

Les Diaboliques (1954) Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot




It was director Henri-Georges Clouzot [often referred to as the French Hitchcock] who made Les Diaboliques in 1954, a film that, up until the release of Psycho, was considered to be the scariest picture ever made. What he crafted was a masterwork of meticulously calculated suspense and a finely built sense of pervading dread, a film so cold and intense that it is often referred to as one of the greatest thrillers of all time, far superior to the generic thrillers that are often released nowadays. Ever captivating and intoxicatingly eerie in every sense, Les Diaboliques set a new standard for the horror genre – a standard that, even to this day, has seldom been reached – let alone surpassed. Les Diaboliques is a film so Hitchcockian that one often wonders why it wasn’t directed by the Master of Suspense himself. Indeed, though he’s been always heralded as one of the best directors of all time, he once admitted that, just as he had been a major influence on Clouzot, Clouzot had also been a major influence on him.

Hitchcock’s comparison to Clouzot is one that can be easily justified; for instance, they were both thought to be la crème de la crème of their respective nations [England and France]; and not only that, but it seems as though Hitchcock “borrowed” Clouzot’s lack of music [excluding the credits] in Les Diaboliques and did practically the same in The Birds. It is also well known that Hitchcock would not let people go into Psycho’s showings once it had begun – prior to that, Clouzot had used a similar technique at the end of Les Diaboliques, where he gave the viewers a message that read: “Don’t be devils! Don’t spoil your friends’ interest in seeing the film. Don’t tell them what you’ve seen. Thank you – for their own sake”. And, of course, there were many similarities of Les Diaboliques – traces, so to speak – in Psycho, where Hitch used analogous plot devices, twists, somewhat disturbing images and even the surprise ending. Let’s not forget the infamous bathtub and shower scene [used in Clouzot’s and Hitch’s film respectively], the former being spine-tingling and the latter, well, besides technically brilliant, completely unexpected. As a sidenote, there is also the letter Hitch once received: “Sir, after seeing Les Diaboliques, my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your Psycho and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?” Hitchcock responded by saying: “Send her to the dry cleaners”.

A tyrant school headmaster named Delasalle [Paul Meurisse] in a seedy boarding school has both his wife [Vera Clouzot], who suffers from a heart condition and his mistress [Simone Signoret] continually tortured. Unbeknownst to his wife, he’s having an affair with the mistress, whom he’s taken into beating. Both ensnared by this domineering beast, they weave a plot together and decide to murder their tormentor. The two women drown Delasalle in the bath and then dump the body in a swimming pool. When the pool is drained and no body is found they start to worry. When his suit is returned, cleaned, they start to panic. And could Delassalle be the figure standing in the window behind the boys in a school photograph? Is he alive? Does someone else know?

Les Diaboliques is a film that starts off slowly, but it then hurtles the viewer into an unparalleled terror and anxiety; a constant sense of trepidation looming over the picture. The atmosphere that is weaved is one of the most effective that I have ever seen; despite the fact that there is no music in the film, it still manages to stand your hair on end [its unforgettable finale uses splendid use of silence, thus making the suddenness of a tiny nose all the more terrifying]. Its story, one of the finest horror-oriented ever committed onto the screen, is dark and at times macabre; there is also a slight touch of feminism added to it, what with the two women taking over and all, plus a fairly morbid sense of humour that every once in a while decides to pop up. But it is the twists and turns that lie inside it, executed with such finesse and ingenuity, which prove to be the elements that keep the film going. From the moment that no body is found, problems start to arise for the two women and everything seems to be going wrong. Rather logically, the two women are perturbed by the mysterious events and they start to get slightly baffled. Just what is happening? Where has the body gone? Not very long after a veteran inspector gets involved in the case and begins to investigate the circumstances. Everyone is aware of the headmaster’s bizarre disappearance, but, save for the two women, nobody knows what really occurred to him. Some claim he went away [where, it is not known], but the inspector thinks that there is something else going on, and so he suspects the two women. He asks seemingly redundant questions, likes to chew on a cigar and wears a shabby old rain coat – at the end, he may have figured something out but it seems that he’s been waiting for too long, and cannot do anything about it. So much pressure is exerted upon the murderesses that they are not sure what to do – but it is one night that the headmaster comes back to get revenge upon those who killed him [or did they?], in one of the creepiest climaxes in the history of cinema, flawlessly realised by Clouzot. Les Diaboliques has a terror that is penetrating as hypodermic needles, a terror that engulfs the viewer and does not let go until the ending scene.

Technically, visually, Les Diaboliques is superlative. Although its main strengths may be the director’s manipulation [and misguiding] of the audience, the cinematography of the film, excellently contrasting the dark with the light, evokes that sense of unbalance of the two leads and its sound design is as spooky as it is efficient. There are scenes of sheer terror, such as the bathtub scene or the ending and the acting, as always, is truly great, the female duo being the ones who stand out the most. Seldom has there been an actress able to express pure shock like Vera Clouzot, the director’s wife, or to ooze as much calm sexual power as Simone Signoret did. Les Diaboliques is a film that also subtly criticises the teachers’ incredulity for what the kids often say. There is one specific scene in which a little kid, armed with a slingshot, states that he’s seen the headmaster. Evidently, the teachers do not believe him and so they tell him to face the wall [the closing scene, marvellous, is similar and ends on a “what if?” note that tends to make the viewer both bewildered and astounded]. At the ending scene we don’t wholly know whether what the kid says is true or not, but the possibility of it still lies, which makes it all the freakier. Clouzot often likes to play with the audience, and he does it in a rather delicate yet ever amazing way.

Over the course of time, some of the plot twists of Les Diaboliques may have been imitated countless times [its influence cannot be denied], yet it still manages to both terrify and enthral, in a way very few films have done. Sinister, densely atmospheric and incredibly intriguing, Les Diaboliques is one of the best horror films ever made. This is a film so layered and balanced, so terrifying and yet so exquisite… it’s hard to describe, but one thing is for certain: Les Diaboliques is not for the faint of heart, come to think of it.

[The Third M?n]

Since this is the only Clouzot film I've seen, I was just wondering: has anyone seen The Wages of Fear, The Mystery of Picasso or some of his earlier work?

[Aguirre1]

Originally Posted by The Third M?n

Since this is the only Clouzot film I've seen, I was just wondering: has anyone seen The Wages of Fear, The Mystery of Picasso or some of his earlier work?

I've seen Le salaire de la peur (Wages of Fear) and I would strongly recommend it. I didn't like everything about it, the film stagnates a little bit at the beginning and the ending's not the greatest but overall it's still one hell of a harrowing experience.

Keep'em coming.

[The Third M?n]

Originally Posted by Aguirre1

I've seen Le salaire de la peur (Wages of Fear) and I would strongly recommend it. I didn't like everything about it, the film stagnates a little bit at the beginning and the ending's not the greatest but overall it's still one hell of a harrowing experience.

Keep'em coming.

Cool, thanks.

Okay, but you have to choose: American or foreign?

[Son of HAL]

Originally Posted by The Third M?n

Real Madrid are the best

They were the best already back in 2000, withouth Figo et al. Now they are just monstruous. No contest. And they are the bravest team. Their style: attack, attack, attack.

Did you watch the Valencia-RM game on Wednesday? We took 'em to schooool! pwnage w00t w00t

And yes, Di Stefano owns almost everything to RM. That's where he became great. In any event, there is only one who matters now: Zizou, aka God.

So you're 15? Well, good writing! I'll add comments later.

I want to do what you're doing - write about my all-time favorites. In fact, last night I finished listing my Top 100. Now what I want to do is write a bi-weekly article - an actually researched article - on each, starting at #1. It will take me two years to go over the whole list, but it will be a great learning experience.

[Son of HAL]

Originally Posted by The Third M?n

Since this is the only Clouzot film I've seen, I was just wondering: has anyone seen The Wages of Fear, The Mystery of Picasso or some of his earlier work?

WAGES OF FEAR is great, great stuff. It's very unnerving, masterly shot. There are images you won't forget. QUAI DES ORFEVES (available from Criterion) is okay, nothing essential though.

Gabe says MYSTERY of PICASSO is excellent. Check his review: http://www.ecinemacenter.com/mysteryofpicasso.html

[The Third M?n]

Originally Posted by Son of HAL

WAGES OF FEAR is great, great stuff. It's very unnerving, masterly shot. There are images you won't forget. QUAI DES ORFEVES (available from Criterion) is okay, nothing essential though.

Gabe says MYSTERY of PICASSO is excellent. Check his review: http://www.ecinemacenter.com/mysteryofpicasso.html

Great, thanks a lot for the comments.

Gabe's review I had read earlier, which is why I asked.

[The Third M?n]

Originally Posted by Son of HAL

They were the best already back in 2000, withouth Figo et al. Now they are just monstruous. No contest. And they are the bravest team. Their style: attack, attack, attack.

Did you watch the Valencia-RM game on Wednesday? We took 'em to schooool! pwnage w00t w00t

I did indeed. 3-0; impressive, eh?!

Originally Posted by Son of HAL

And yes, Di Stefano owns almost everything to RM. That's where he became great. In any event, there is only one who matters now: Zizou, aka God.

Originally Posted by Son of HAL

So you're 15? Well, good writing! I'll add comments later.

Yes, I do get that lot. Thanks very much. By the way, you have a brilliant website.

Originally Posted by Son of HAL

I want to do what you're doing - write about my all-time favorites. In fact, last night I finished listing my Top 100. Now what I want to do is write a bi-weekly article - an actually researched article - on each, starting at #1. It will take me two years to go over the whole list, but it will be a great learning experience.

That's a terrific idea -- the hard thing, however, is the execution of it. But what I'm doing is not a Top 100 list; I actually plan it to have more and more entries as I view more films. It's sort of like Ebert's "Great Films", and I don't know when exactly it's going to end.

That said, keep the comments going!

[The Third M?n]

Sleuth (1972) Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz



WARNING: This review contains major spoilers which reveal pivotal information about the film. Read no further if you have not seen it.

Monstrously funny and delightfully intriguing, Sleuth was based upon a mystery stage play by Anthony Shaffer and was also director Joseph L Mankiewicz's last film. Sleuth is one of the finest cat-and-mouse thrillers I have ever seen; proving to be both entertaining and incredibly suspenseful, it manages not to just have a twist ending, but a twist beginning and middle, too. It tells the story of Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) a half-Italian owner of a hair salon chain in London who pays a visit to Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) a best-selling author of detective fiction who lives in a grand 16th century mansion. It is soon revealed that Andrew knows about Milo's affair with his ever-distancing wife, Marguerite, yet instead of being vengeful he declares, to Milo's surprise, that he's glad of getting rid of her. "So I understand you wish to marry my wife," Andrew says, in one of the screenplay's many memorable lines. He then states that he's already crafted a strategy, which apparently will be helpful for the two of them. However, both men have different prospects, and not everything will go according to the plan.

Sleuth takes the familiar phrase "Nothing is what it seems" and completely turns it upside down. Sleuth is a film that fools, deliberately and elegantly at the same time, disorienting and manipulating the audience, as though misguiding us through a labyrinth. It is not easy to know what really is going on in the minds of the two central characters; we don't often know whether what they're saying or doing is true or false. Tables are turned and roles are reversed - in the end, the result is nothing short of stunning. A charade of great moments, impressive inventions, games within games, rotten lies and half-truths, Sleuth tricks and bamboozles with admirable finesse.

Located solely in one setting (the mansion and its surroundings) and with just two actors (Inspector Doppler was in fact played by Michael Caine with heavy make-up on - Alec Cawthorne is a fictitious actor whom the director invented in order to fool audiences), Sleuth may at first glance seem to have a rather big amount of limitations, yet they're somehow turned into the main and most imperative virtues of the picture. One would've thought that they could have seriously harmed the film - instead, they don't just benefit it, they improve it and act as its foundations. To be honest, not any director could have easily overcome the film's restraints with such gusto and skill, but Mankiewicz does it all, and wonderfully, at that. The two lead actors, Olivier and Caine, are simply mesmerising. It was Olivier who at that time had much more experience in acting, having been in countless plays and numerous films before, but rather startlingly, they're both as good. Olivier is fascinating in the role of Andrew Wyke: extravagant, nicely-spoken, pompous and wildly satirical, he portrays him with a distinctive theatrical touch that manages to impress to a very large extent. Michael Caine, on the other hand, is a rather naïve, mild-mannered young man whose shortcomings often make him to be humiliated, but despite that, he always keeps his composure and behaves finely. He doesn't trust Andrew as much as he should do, and this is all very well shown by Caine, who has seldom been better. It is that perfect sense of balance between the two giants of British acting, that sense of understanding and knowing that's always floating around them, which makes the movie so much more interesting. Caine and Olivier are not trying to outshine each other, they're not competing - they're simply doing their jobs, and with equal amount of expertise. I mean, who wouldve thought that Caine could hold his own against the so-labelled greatest actor of all time? While watching it, I constantly got the feeling that the director was aware of what he was doing, and that he was able to comfortably control all the actors and scenarios. John Addison's musical score and Ken Adam's imposing set designs, not excluding Oswald Morris's thoughtful cinematography, are also other well-polished components that add more to the film.

The screenplay of Sleuth, written by Anthony Shaffer himself, is one of the best in cinema history. Intricate, carefully structured and layered with a profound criticism pointing at the upper class, the screenplay contains some of the richest and most elaborate dialogue that I have ever come to witness. The dialogue sparkles with dark humour and subtle irony, keeping our interest high while revealing key plot points that will prove to be crucial later on. The language used is so graceful and stylish, so very English, that, when spoken (and mainly by Laurence Olivier, who dominates it flawlessly) one can't avoid but be fascinated by the splendour of it all. The copious conversations between the two actors are full of meaning and shimmer with utter charm, and the sheep rapist line is memorable

Who is playing a trick on whom? At the end of the day, it turns out that they were both playing a trick on each other. Andrew fooled Milo and Milo fooled Andrew while fooling themselves simultaneously. They cheated on each other for their own advantage and in order to get revenge, for different reasons, yet in the end no-one really wins. They both lose, and the director clearly highlights this by telling us that they both are succumbed to the powers of lust and avarice, and this makes them lose. Andrew at first seems to have really overpowered Milo, but it is then him who pays vengeance by pretending to be Inspector Doppler who is searching for Milo's corpse. Roles are reversed - Andrew loses his power and now Milo stands on top, triumphant. Yet at the very end, after one of the most nail-biting climaxes in film history, Milo gets shot and Andrew is arrested. "He who laughs last laughs best" is the final message of the film. How very true. Nominated for four Academy Awards in 1972, Sleuth remains one of the most tautly-paced, finely acted and majestically directed films ever made. It was only a bloody game.

[The Third M?n]

The film above is a little underseen on these boards. I wish more people watched it, because it truly is fantastic -- Olivier gives the performance of a lifetime.

[Achilles Heel]

You are to be congratulated on your hard work, writing and observations, Third Man. I'm pleased to see L'Avventura here, as it's grown on me with each viewing. Twelve Angry Men had a strong impact on me as a teenager and it makes a potent case against capital punishment (too many innocent people get executed and most of them, in the US at least, are black, so it's still extremely relevant). Sleuth is great fun. Bicycle Thieves is an involving, very worthy and important film but one that after 2 viewings hasn't really stayed with me.
Here are films i think are essential- a mix of objectivity and personal taste:

1916 Intolerance (Griffith)
1922 Nosferatu (Murnau)
1925 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)*
The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
1926 The General (Keaton, Bruckman)
1927 Metropolis (Lang)*
Sunrise (Murnau)**
1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
1929 Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov)
1933 King Kong (Cooper, Schoedsack)
1934 L'Atalante (Vigo)
1937 La Grande Illusion (Renoir)
1939 Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi)*
The Rules of the Game (Renoir)**
1941 Citizen Kane (Welles)**
The Maltese Falcon (Huston)
The Loyal 47 Ronin (Mizoguchi)
1942 Casablanca (Curtiz)*
To Be or not to Be (Lubitsch)
1945 Les Enfants du Paradis (Carné)
1946 The Big Sleep (Hawks)
It's a Wonderful Life (Capra)
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell, Pressburger)
1948 Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophuls)
1949 The Third Man (Reed)
Orphée (Cocteau)
Late Spring (Ozu)
1950 Rashomon (Kurosawa)
1952 Singin in the Rain (Donen, Kelly)*
1953 Tokyo Story (Ozu)*
Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
The Band Wagon (Minnelli)
1954 Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)**
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)**
1955 The Night of the Hunter (Laughton)*
Pather Panchali (Ray)*
Ordet (Dreyer)
1956 The Searchers (Ford)*
A Man Escaped (Bresson)
1957 The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
1958 Vertigo (Hitchcock)*
1959 North by Northwest (Hitchcock)*
Some Like it Hot (Wilder)*
Hiroshima mon Amour (Resnais)
Breathless (Godard)
Les 400 Coups (Truffaut)
1960 L'Avventura (Antonioni)*
Breathless (Godard)
Cloud-Capped Star (Ghatak)
Psycho (Hitchcock)
1962 Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
1963 8 1/2 (Fellini)*
The Leopard (Visconti)
1964 Dr Strangelove (Kubrick)
1965 Pierrot le Fou (Godard)*
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
1966 Persona (Bergman)*
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)**
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone)
1969 Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)**
The Colour of Pomegranates (Paradjanov)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
1972-4 The Godfather 1&2 (Coppola)
1973 Spirit of the Beehive (Erice)
1974 Mirror (Tarkovsky)**
Celine and Julie go Boating (Rivette)
1979 Apocalypse Now (Coppola)*
Manhattan (Allen)
1980 Raging Bull (Scorsese)
1982 Blade Runner (Scott)
1983 Once Upon a Time in America (Leone)
1984 Paris, Texas (Wenders)**
1985 Brazil (Gilliam)
1991 The Double Life of Veronique (Kieslowski)
1992 Abraham Valley (Oliveira)
And Life Goes On (Kiarostami)
1993 Schindler's List (Spielberg)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Tarantino)
1995 Ulysses' Gaze (Angelopoulos)
Maborosi (Kore-eda)*
1998 The Thin Red Line (Malick)
1999 Rosetta (Dardenne bros)
2001 Mulholland Drive (Lynch)*

so no Star Wars, Jaws, Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Matrix, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest?

[The Third M?n]

Psycho (1960) Dir: Alfred Hitchcock



The infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has with the passing of time become one of the most memorable scenes in cinema history. When Psycho was released, it shocked cinema audiences to the point that some of them never wanted to take a shower again or go to a road motel, for that matter. However, it is evident that Hitchcock could not have easily foretold that this was going to occur, and during the making of the movie, he never could've imagined that Psycho would become one of the greatest and most suspense-filled thrillers of all time. Psycho completely changed the way movies were seen, as well as totally revolutionising the horror genre. With its uncompromising scenes of violence, it was thought to be a very controversial movie upon its release. The immense impact it caused was as stunning as it was odd because Psycho was a film that took a lot of risk, as many things that were included in it had never been seen before on the silver screen. Hitchcock completely ruptured the strict rules of the Hays Code, a committee of censorship that decided what could be and could not be seen onscreen. Not only did the film start with a steamy after-sex scene that suggested countless things; it deliberately (and self-consciously) showed scenes of immense violence. Also, it was the first movie to feature a toilet being flushed and its scenes with partial nudity turned out to be very notorious amongst the public. With Psycho, Hitchcock crossed the boundaries. Not that he was ashamed of that or anything.
Despite all this, Psycho ended up being a gigantic critical and commercial success as well as winning several Academy Award nominations along the way, and gradually became one of cinema's most beloved gems, a film for the ages that dazed and enthralled and, surprisingly, is still able to.

To tell you the truth, it's not very difficult to see why all this happened, because Psycho truly is a work of genius. The sheer brilliance of it is as impressive as it is bewildering, but then again, what more could you expect from the Master of Suspense? Every single shot is so carefully taken and layered with such vast significance and symbolism that it's a marvel to behold. Hitch makes use of all the weapons in his armoury to spectacular effect; the music, the photography, the acting, the lighting, the visual style and his usual nasty surprises are all given a magnificent approach in the film.

The plot, full of mystery and intrigue, was adapted from a book by Robert Bloch of the same name, which at the same time was based upon the real life killings of Ed Gein. It has been rumoured that Hitchcock once bought as many copies of the book as he could so that people wouldnt be able to know the surprise ending of the movie although this has not been confirmed. The story begins with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) who, after stealing 40,000 dollars from her boss, escapes from town in her car afraid that he will find out. Having been on the road for various days, she decides to stay in a motel, where she meets Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a young man whose seemingly shy appearance is not all what it seems. There, she discovers that in a nearby eerie-looking house resides his ill wheelchair-bound mother whom he is uncommonly dependant on. That very night, however, Mother Bates savagely murders Marion while having a shower. Meanwhile, unaware of her destiny, her sister and her boyfriend go on a search to find her...

The plot then wraps the audience in a web of inscrutability and enigmatic twists and turns, which grabs the viewer by the throat and never lets go. Hitchcock, oh so ingeniously and magically and with his usual malevolence and charm, creates moments of truly sustained brilliance. The technical and visual fineness of the shower scene shows yet again why Hitchcock is regarded as one of the greatest directors of the 20th century. Seven days of hard work and a frantic editing containing series of rapid cuts was what gave birth to one of the most unforgettable moments in film history, a scene that was actually shy of forty-five seconds. The tension is excellently kept throughout the entire film, and there's this permanent and unsettling sense of anticipation for something to occur which makes it all the more amazing.

There are countless ingredients that make Psycho a classic, but one of the motives I adore it so much is because it is diabolically clever - there's not getting around it. Killing off the (apparent) main character was an incredibly wise decision made by Hitchcock, and it surprised moviegoers to a very large extent. However, while Hitchcock is most of the time vastly credited for this, it was mainly Bloch's idea, as he did the very same thing in the original novel (Marion Crane gets murdered in the shower too, but what's different is that she gets her head lopped off - ouch!) Nonetheless, it is not just the mere concept of getting rid of her when the audience least expects it; it's the thoughtful execution of it which makes it work. Besides showing Marion Crane as an ultimately sympathetic character, Hitchcock depicts her as a flawed and susceptible woman; she's puzzled, concerned about her life and her boyfriend, a shadow of doubt continuously hanging above her. The audience therefore instantly relates to her and feels for her in ways we could never have imagined thus, when she's killed, we actually feel sorry for her.
And it is after that precise moment where another example of brilliance is shown; the film's narrative switches from the main character to Norman Bates.
Also, the twist at the end was found to be much unexpected and came out of the blue. I, for one, had it not been ruined for me by AFI's Top 100 Thrillers of All Time, would never have predicted it. It's that clever.

What Hitchcock so masterfully and delicately does is behave like a magician. It is evident that he's an individual who likes to bewitch and enchant his public. Out of his hat he grabs the things we could least predict to observe while at the same time doing interminable magic tricks that make the audience go "whoa!" Astutely and carefully he chooses the scenes he wants us to see first and does so, in order to make the next scare or killing even more horrifying. For instance, just when we think we've seen it all in the shower scene, Detective Arbogast is then killed in a terrible manner, and it is the brutality, suddenness and unpredictability of it all, which will most likely make first time viewers jump even today.

As a whole, Psycho is a visually captivating film. The cinematography is incredible: the black and white surround the film with a rather mystical look, and there are several camera shots and movements which will most likely makes you swoon as a result of their uncommon grace. One of my true favourites, beside the shower sequence, has to be when Norman Bates is looking through the peephole located behind the picture on the wall, silently contemplating Marion, who, beside not knowing that she's being watched, is undressing, ready for her (last) shower. Apart from giving us a neat close up of his ever-observing eye, it also manages to immediately provide the viewer with his spiteful intentions; we just know that he's going to kill her. Hitchcock does not give us any cheesy dialogue or anything, as he simply plunges us into Norman's mind, whispering to us what he's going to do next. The very same thing could be said about the moment in which Marion is packing and the money lies on her bed; we know that she's going to take it and run away with it. It goes without saying, but nonetheless it needs to be said again: the shower scene is marvellous and showcases Hitchcock's love for visuality. See for yourself and judge it whichever way you want, but I guarantee that it's as shocking as it is impressive. And Bernard Herrman's score is one of the pivotal things that makes it work.

Reflections also play a significant part in the picture. It probably will go unnoticed upon first viewing, but when one watches a film many times and pays close attention to detail, few details are overlooked. Movies often invoke mirrors to indicate when characters might be guarding underhanded motives, or divided loyalties, or ambivalent emotions. Mirrors are usually portrayed in movies as tellers of what someone may not want to tell - they tell us what some people know yet wish to hide. Just listen closely to a character who is reflected in a mirror: he or she may not be telling the whole story, factually or emotionally. He or she is probably lying. Psycho's use of reflections is simply great! Various times are the characters juxtaposed with a mirror: for example, when Marion and Norman first meet and Marion checks into the Bates Motel under a fake name, the mirror images suggest that they may both be involved in duplications (and they indeed are, although one does not know about the other and vice versa).

Double-identities also are a crucial element to the film, and it is all very well realised by Hitchcock, who has used that motif in numerous other films of his, such as North by Northwest and Vertigo to name a couple. Norman Bates is both a child-like, wretched and seemingly defenceless creature who does not have a place in this world. Yet what we don't know, until we find out at the climax, is that he's also a cross dresser; well, not exactly, he's a schizophrenic loony with a double personality. He's his own mother, a powerful, reigning figure who controls him (or rather, used to control him, as it is her presence that still haunts him and has come onto him) and an isolated, lonely, miserable alien whose impotence (both literal and figurative) prevents him from going out, socialising with those of the opposite sex or even saying the word "bathroom". As he himself cleverly puts it, "You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch." He's segregated from the outside world. He's in a situation where both sides of his mind wont let him do the things he'd like to do (or ought to do), he's confined to the pains of life, and it is in killing (which he mostly does absent-mindedly) where he finds pleasure. Norman Bates is a genuinely complex character. It is because of his happy-go-lucky way of living and his philosophies on life that he gains the viewers sympathy with admirable ease. Yet, there's a contrast to that as well. It is the darkness that lurks within his soul, his internal pain and disturbing behaviour which make him one of the most frightening villains in film history. And, let's not forget, it is Anthony Perkins' portrayal of this mad man that makes the personage so unforgettable.

One can instantly sum it all up: Psycho is the work of a major artist. I still have my doubts, however: it is hard to determine whether or not Vertigo surpasses it in terms of superiority, but for me, Psycho is the epitome of Hitchcock's films. A milestone in film history, Psycho nowadays still proves to be as relevant as it did forty three years ago, and continues to be enduringly appealing. While perhaps Hitchcock never thought it would improve with age, I can certainly affirm that it does; every single time that I see it, there is something new about it. Truly one of the most influential, daring and shocking films ever made, Psycho is a frightening, engaging and incredibly effective horror film. It never has failed to truly mesmerise me, and during the pass of time its brilliance has endured and never diminished, and most likely never will.

[mary_darko]

this is reaaaally hard but i will try....

in no particular order(trying to ...remember...)
-Blow up by antonioni
-Lola Rennt by Tikwer
-Rebecca by Hitchcock
-Clockwork Orange by Kubrick
The Shining by Kubrick
-Hamlet by Olivier
-Saint Elmo's fire by Hughes
-8 1/2 by fellini
-Dreams by Kurosawa
-Requiem for a dream by Aranofski
-Close encounters by Lean
-Close encounters of the third kind by Spielberg
-The china syndrome by Bridges
-Silkwood by Nickols
-fairwell my concubine by Chen
-Amateur by Hartley
-Dead man by Jarmusch
-Fahrenheit 451 by truffeaut
-La ceremonie by Chabrol
-Hiroshima mon amour by Resnais
-Les parapluies de Cherbourg de Demy
-L'atalante de Vigo
-Le mepris de Godard
-Magnolia de PT anderson
-La double vie de veronique by kislowski
-Irreversible by Noe
-Breaking the waves my trier
Dancing in the dark by trier
-los amandos de circolo polar de medem
-High heels by Almodovar
-andalusian dog by Bunuel
-Morte a venezia by visconti
-the lonliness of the long distance runner by Richardson
-stone years by pantelis Vulgaris
-the crying game by Jordan
-the fisher king by Guilliam
-beetlejuice by Burton
Edward schissorhands by Burton
Pee wees Big adventure by burton
-toy story 2
-the tiger movie
-All that jazz by Fosse
-The wizard of Ozz by Fleming
-mary poppins by stevenson
-Tha party by Blake edwards
a shot in the dark by Edwards
-Blazing sadles by Mel brooks
-start the revolution without me by Yorkin
-Hear no evil see no evil by Hiller
-braindead by peter jackson
-exorcist by friedkin
-nightmare on elm street by craven
-diabolique by bava
-polyester by waters
-Hedwig and the angry inch by Mitchel
-caro diario by moretti
bianca by morreti
-Fireworks by kitano
ill get back to u now i cant think more;PPPP

[The Third M?n]

Thanks a lot for the lists, guys, I really appreciate it.

[Hitchcockian]

Originally Posted by Son of HAL

They were the best already back in 2000, withouth Figo et al. Now they are just monstruous. No contest. And they are the bravest team. Their style: attack, attack, attack.

Did you watch the Valencia-RM game on Wednesday? We took 'em to schooool! pwnage w00t w00t

And yes, Di Stefano owns almost everything to RM. That's where he became great. In any event, there is only one who matters now: Zizou, aka God.

So you're 15? Well, good writing! I'll add comments later.

I want to do what you're doing - write about my all-time favorites. In fact, last night I finished listing my Top 100. Now what I want to do is write a bi-weekly article - an actually researched article - on each, starting at #1. It will take me two years to go over the whole list, but it will be a great learning experience.

SOCCER (FOOTBALL) FANS!?!?!? WOOT WOOT

Real Madrid certainly did pawn Valencia.

[The Third M?n]

Originally Posted by Hitchcockian

SOCCER (FOOTBALL) FANS!?!?!? WOOT WOOT

Hey, Hitchcokian, recommend me some Hitch films, please. Thus far I've seen [in order of preference and with how many times I've seen each]:

01. Vertigo [3]
02. Psycho [4]
03. Rear Window [1]
04. North by Northwest [1]
05. The Birds [2]
06. The 39 Steps [1]

He's one of my favourite dirtectors, but I obviously need to see more from him. How's Frenzy?

[The Third M?n]

Achilles, out of your list the ones highlit in red are the ones I've seen. You may rapidly come to the conclusion that I still have to watch loads more [those not highlit I'll try watch as soon as possible]. Anywho:

1916 Intolerance (Griffith)
1922 Nosferatu (Murnau)
1925 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)*
The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
1926 The General (Keaton, Bruckman)
1927 Metropolis (Lang)*
Sunrise (Murnau)**
1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
1929 Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov)
1933 King Kong (Cooper, Schoedsack)
1934 L'Atalante (Vigo)
1937 La Grande Illusion (Renoir)
1939 Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi)*
The Rules of the Game (Renoir)**
1941 Citizen Kane (Welles)**
The Maltese Falcon (Huston)
The Loyal 47 Ronin (Mizoguchi)
1942 Casablanca (Curtiz)*
To Be or not to Be (Lubitsch)
1945 Les Enfants du Paradis (Carné)
1946 The Big Sleep (Hawks)
It's a Wonderful Life (Capra)
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell, Pressburger)
1948 Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophuls)
1949 The Third Man (Reed)
Orphée (Cocteau)
Late Spring (Ozu)
1950 Rashomon (Kurosawa)
1952 Singin in the Rain (Donen, Kelly)*
1953 Tokyo Story (Ozu)*
Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
The Band Wagon (Minnelli)
1954 Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)**
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)**
1955 The Night of the Hunter (Laughton)*
Pather Panchali (Ray)*
Ordet (Dreyer)
1956 The Searchers (Ford)*
A Man Escaped (Bresson)
1957 The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
1958 Vertigo (Hitchcock)*
1959 North by Northwest (Hitchcock)*
Some Like it Hot (Wilder)*
Hiroshima mon Amour (Resnais)
Breathless (Godard)
Les 400 Coups (Truffaut)
1960 L'Avventura (Antonioni)*
Cloud-Capped Star (Ghatak)
Psycho (Hitchcock)
1962 Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
1963 8 1/2 (Fellini)*
The Leopard (Visconti)
1964 Dr Strangelove (Kubrick)
1965 Pierrot le Fou (Godard)*
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
1966 Persona (Bergman)*
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)**
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone)
1969 Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)**
The Colour of Pomegranates (Paradjanov)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
1972-4 The Godfather 1&2 (Coppola)
1973 Spirit of the Beehive (Erice)
1974 Mirror (Tarkovsky)**
Celine and Julie go Boating (Rivette)
1979 Apocalypse Now (Coppola)*
Manhattan (Allen)
1980 Raging Bull (Scorsese)
1982 Blade Runner (Scott)
1983 Once Upon a Time in America (Leone)
1984 Paris, Texas (Wenders)**
1985 Brazil (Gilliam)
1991 The Double Life of Veronique (Kieslowski)
1992 Abraham Valley (Oliveira)
And Life Goes On (Kiarostami)
1993 Schindler's List (Spielberg)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Tarantino)
1995 Ulysses' Gaze (Angelopoulos)
Maborosi (Kore-eda)*
1998 The Thin Red Line (Malick)
1999 Rosetta (Dardenne bros)
2001 Mulholland Drive (Lynch)*

[The Third M?n]

Chinatown (1974) Dir: Roman Polanski




An undisputed milestone in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's masterful Chinatown stands as a true screen classic. Chinatown is one of those movies that you immediately want to see again; it just leaves you astounded, fascinated. I, for one, could not help thinking about it long after I finished watching it - it definitely stays with you. Its power to entrance the viewer and keep him thoroughly intrigued for two hours is as amazing as it is odd, because very few films actually can (or perhaps don't dare?) do that. Like Roger Ebert said in his review, "...the whole movie is a tour-de-force". I simply could not agree more.

The premise of Chinatown goes like this: Jack J Gittes, ex policeman of Chinatown in Los Angeles works now as a private detective. Evelyn Cross Mulwray hires him in order to find out if her husband, director of the water department, is having an affair with someone else. The investigator discovers the man with a young woman, but immediately things start to complicate: Evelyn is not in fact who she claimed to be, while her husband appears drowned in a canal. All these events take him on a dangerous and winding road, until finally it all comes to a memorable conclusion in the streets of... Chinatown.

Film noir truly began with John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, in 1941. It was the film that created a whole new genre; menacing situations, cigarettes, darkness and shadows, priceless objects, guns, femmes fatales, betrayal and murder all formed part of film noir. Then came magnificent pieces of work such as The Third Man, Sunset Boulevard, Touch of Evil, The Big Sleep, which not only were masterpieces by their own right, but also helped in constructing and expanding film noir with admirable delicacy. But Chinatown, which was released in 1974, did not just do what these earlier films did - it did much more. Not only did it completely push the boundaries by carrying film-noir to another frontier; it took risks, and plenty of them.

You see, Chinatown is no ordinary film. What starts as a simple detective story suddenly develops into something much more complicated, full of twists and turns, deceits, corruption, lies and half truths. Director Roman Polanski's subtle methods of storytelling are merely majestic; the story carefully unfolds, and the film is one of those rare cases in which we find out every single thing at the same moment that the main character does. Taking sensitivity, patience and time, Polanski unravels a story that gets all the more intricate and richer as the course of the film goes on. There merely is no denying that Polanski's direction is masterful; Chinatown is a picture that evokes a lost era, and as a result of this Polanski films it in the most elegant and classic of ways. But it is the stellar contributions that make Chinatown one of the greatest American films ever made.

Chinatown's Academy-Award winning screenplay was written by Robert Towne. It was loosely based on the events that took place during the river Owne scandal, in 1900, with which many corrupt cops from South Carolina became millionaires with the selling of land. The screenplay does not just prove to be arguably the greatest strength of the film - it's the foundation of it. It's the very thing that holds the weight of all the other components with surprising finesse. The film is filled with characters we actually are interested in or care about, and Jack Gittes instantly wins our sympathy, as he's portrayed as a vulnerable and flawed hero. One cannot describe it in a few words; it's everything you've heard it is, and more: taut, thrilling, mysterious, sizzling, intense and very well-paced, it manages to illustrate an illusory world set in 1930s' Los Angeles full of malevolence and falsehoods.

The acting is top-notch. Jack Nicholson gives one of his finest performances ever, depicting private detective Gittes with amazing grace and fluidity - whether he's expressing pain, anger or apprehension, he constantly remains extremely convincing. Faye Dunaway provides fine support as the worrying wife; she's a personage full of doubt and confusion, blackened by a dark past that she tries to erase out of her mind, and her chemistry with Nicholson is merely electrifying. As brief as though it may be, John Huston's performance is unique; his performance as the malicious and wealthy Noah Cross is simply, well, unforgettable.

The cinematography is exceptional; capturing barren landscapes of the sun-baked outskirts of Los Angeles, it gives us a sense of heat and dreading atmosphere. Jerry Goldsmith's score is as fine as it is suitable; it integrates perfectly with the film's scenes, with catchy Jazz piano and trumpet tunes, providing the film with a dreamy ambiance.

Despite being nominated to eleven Oscars, Chinatown only took home one: that of the aforementioned Best Screenplay. The other ten nominations were: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Director (Roman Polanski), Best Cinematography (John A. Alonzo), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Original Dramatic Score (Jerry Goldsmith), Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design. But of course, this was understandable, considering that it was under extreme competition from Coppolas' The Godfather Part II. Even though he did not win the Oscar, for Jack Nicholson Chinatown was the film that definitely consecrated him in Hollywood. Partly for gratitude and partly because of nostalgia, the actor slipped into Jack Gittes' shoes once again in 1990 to involve him in another investigation. The film was named The Two Jakes, which Nicholson directed apart from starring in it.

Perhaps Chinatown is the great movie it is because it's a film of two dimensions. It tells one story which suddenly splits into two layers and turns out to be a double-plot; that of the water plot and the incest plot. Although seemingly different at first glance, both plots are in truth related to each other. They're both matters about desire for power, greed and selfishness. The incest plot is blood-curdingly morbid (which partly is what irritated some viewers on its initial release, besides its "unnecessary" scenes of onscreen violence). As a result of this, the viewer is taken to places where he least expects to go and is shown the things he least expects to see. Chinatown is a picture that plays with the audiences' expectations, and excellently at that.
One of the most impressive sequences in the film was the infamous scene in which a small thug (an unpredictable cameo by Roman Polanski) cuts Gittes nose with a flick knife. Again, shortly before this occurs, we never expect to see our hero get done that, and in the end, we get much more he is not just savagely cut; we actually see it with our very eyes.

On the whole, Chinatown proves to be much more than a movie - it's a landmark in the history of cinema. Ever-engaging, superbly acted and phenomenally directed, Chinatown is a richly rewarding experience that has managed to successfully pass the test of time and still stand as one of the greatest films of all time. A sublime masterpiece which, apart from that, contains one of the bleakest, darkest (and finest) climaxes in film history, ending with the classic line, "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown".

[The Third M?n]

Breathless (1959) Dir: Jean Luc Godard



The epitome of cinematic cool, Jean Luc Godard's debut, Breathless (A Bout De Souffle) is a stylistic tour-de-force from beginning to end. Upon its initial release, back in 1959, both audiences and critics alike applauded its unconventional and rare approach to filmmaking, while at the same time admiring the burst of power it gave to French cinema; it won various international awards and became an unexpected box-office triumph. What it did for film it did for its director: not only did it help in further weaving the French New Wave movement, it also introduced Godard to a new generation and confirmed him as one of the most talented and creative foreign directors. It completely changed the face of cinema and, even today, stands as one of the most influential and greatest films ever made.

Jean Luc Godard was a former Les Cahiers du Cinema critic, a French film magazine to which artists such as Truffaut and Rohmer contributed. They watched approximately 1,000 films a year and thus Godard had a source to find all the cinema-related knowledge from. There is no denying that with Breathless, Godard didn't only pay tribute to American films, as he used everything he knew about filmmaking to great effect.

Godard was once famously quoted as saying, "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun." And that's precisely what we have here. A girl. And a gun. Throw in a man whos' interested in the girl and there you go, we have a film that's now all then more complex. One can't say that the plot of Breathless is exactly what one could call complicated. Indeed, it's incredibly simple and the less you know, the better: it's a fast tale of a young man on the run in Paris at the end of the '50s who meets the stunning Jean Seberg, a 20-year old New Yorker who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. As the film goes, their relationship develops, reaching what is an indescribably tragic ending.

While watching Breathless for the first time, I could not help but think that what I was watching was a real spectacle. There is nothing colossal or monumental about the picture; on the other hand, it's rather straightforward, simple and intimate. What turns it into spectacle, however, is the way it's told. The narrative structure is loose and disorganised - it's not that its broken, told in reverse or anything; you just get that strange feeling of non-linearity. Shot in a grainy, stark black and white with a hand-held camera in natural light, the picture has a documentary-like feel to it, meaning that, despite being a film, it often feels like it's not. We are transported to the streets of Paris, or to the bedroom of two lovers and not even once did I feel as though they were standing on a set. It all felt so real, so authentic and genuine. This visual style has often been compared to Italian Neo-realist classics like The Bicycle Thief or Miracle in Milan, but what turns it into a completely different thing is that the film has no rules, really. The film does not have any rules. It does not follow a How to Make a Good Film pocket book. There are no cinematic regulations, no laws and no order - they're not broken; they simply do not exist. Characters and walking-by pedestrians stare directly into the camera, constant, sudden jump cuts occur in midshots, the camera restlessly moves to an fro, back and front, left to right, capturing the characters' emotions with great ease while at the same time providing them with more freedom to act and adapt to the circumstances. Improvising took place a lot too, and this is clearly visible during some of the film's scenes. It all helps in constructing a sense of palpable reality, even though Godard constantly reminds us that we're just watching a film, nothing more and nothing less.

There is a lot to admire in Breathless. The acting, for example, is extraordinary: Jean Paul Belmondo is sensational as the foul-mouthed Michel Poiccard, portraying him with bizarre finesse and classy sexual magnetism. He plays a woman hunter, a ruthless thug who tries to be like Humphrey Bogart, kills for no reason and constantly beds different women, both for sheer pleasure and (supposedly) for love. He's a despicable personage, worthy of any American film-noir film, an individual who likes to talk about love yet seldom truly finds it, despite his interminable search for it. Cigarettes, hats, sunglasses and determined unconformity make Michel Poiccard a real cinematic icon.

Jean Seberg is phenomenal as Patricia Franchini; sweet-looking, innocent and with no real direction or path in life, her performance is as great as it is unique - Breathless was one of the very few highlights of her poor career that apart from Lillith made her slightly famous. Patricia is a character looking for something; what exactly she does not know, but there is something in her heart which she somehow has to obtain. Is it love? Is it an escape? Is it death, friendship, sex? She;s possibly pregnant, and despite the usual press conferences she does for the paper she has no real goal. Her internal uncertainty is as uncertain for her as it is for us, as we never get to know what she truly was seeking, not even at the end. Even so, she does not refuse Michel, though she won't commit to him, she will not give herself to him. All we know is that she;s not entirely comfortable with her life, as though something was missing, like a chain that lacks a link.

Breathless is essentially a character study. It;s a film about psychology. It deals with people and the situations they often find themselves immersed in. It;s a film about the human character, nice and clear. Though we may not necessarily like the characters, there simply is no denying that we might somehow relate to them and their emotions. Michel and Patricia are both trapped in a cage. One;s running away from the cops, the other is running away from the harsh reality of life. Breathless is about running away. No matter what it may be, it;s something we;re all constantly doing. Aren;t we all? Is it not true that we often try to escape and plunge ourselves into something completely different, into a world of our own? Godard weaves the pains and pleasures of the characters' lives with attention to detail and impressive delicacy; he does it all masterfully.

One can consider Breathless to be a romance. Alas, I could not agree more - of course it's a romance. We simply have to see the DVD cover in order to realise that. Breathless is about forbidden (or perhaps impossible) love and this is clearly depicted with several references made to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. But it's not just that; it's about betrayal, murder, robbery which is what provides the film with admirable shades of film noir. It all leads to that, really; cigarettes, guns, stolen cars, sexy galic exchanges and a sharp and catchy Jazz score with a love story set in the coolest of cities practically amount to the film-noir genre. The man on the run, the chasing cops, the unaware girl - it certainly does depend on how you look at it, but since Breathless is a film of many dimensions and layers this interpretation could be valid enough.

On another level, however, Breathless is a comedy. And a subtle one at that. What with all the constant comparisons between the American and the French, the way Swedish girls are not as people say they are, etc. It's more of a sort of satire, as Godard, instead of writing his criticisms as he used to do, merely films them.

François Truffaut once stated, "There is the cinema before Godard and the cinema after Godard." Bright, fast dynamic and ineffably distinct, Breathless does not just convince, it astounds. Its high artistic quality is as stunning as it was forty-four years ago and its subject matter still manages to be relevant. Godard created a film that has proved to be able to successfully pass the test of time while at the simultaneously improving with age. It's enduringly appealing, genuinely brilliant and simply splendid; a seminal film to see again and again.

[Achilles Heel]

Chinatown is surely Polanski's finest couple of hours, so no complaints with that here.

You've seen pretty well the best by Hitchcock, i 'd say, though i've also got a soft spot for the underrated Marnie, which makes for interesting comparisons with Vertigo. Notorious is superb and extremely suspenseful- i could feel my heart pounding at one point.

In some ways i envy you; having so many wonderful discoveries to come. There's nothing to match that lovesick feeling when you come across a film that leaves you reeling. I'd suggest you watch the films on my list that have a double asterisk first; perhaps Andrei Rublev as the first Tarkovsky? As you can cope with languorous pacing in L'Avventura you may find some films by Angelopoulos to your liking. He's a great admirer of Antonioni (& Mizoguchi, Dreyer, Welles), also has long takes, and influenced by Antonioni's compositions, placing of characters in their environment, among buildings etc. Eternity and a Day i find more moving than Ulysses' Gaze, which is longer and more majestic, though perhaps a little grim/downbeat, towards the end especially. He is a master; some of the camera moves are barely perceptible and he also slides serenely into memories and reverie. There's a season of his films in London at the moment, including his earlier The Travelling Players, which put him on the map, but yet to get to my neck of the woods.

If you've not seen any Mizoguchi, Sansho the Bailiff is an ideal place to start (and finish). It's beautiful, involving, touching, sublime. Leave 47 Ronin till you've got used to his style and strengths; it's too slow and demanding for most tastes, and many find it ponderous compared with his most famous films. I'm sure others here will agree Seven Samurai, La Regle du Jeu, Sunrise (a wonderful silent whose reputation is growing again to new heights) and Citizen Kane are absolutely essential.
I left out a few personal favourites, including The Green Ray, Alice in the Cities, cos they may be more a matter of taste.

[The Third M?n]

Stalker (1979) Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky



Often described as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is a visually captivating, metaphor-filled journey for the search of the essence of the human soul. Deep within The Zone, a bleak and devastated forbidden landscape, lies a mysterious room with the power to grant the innermost wishes of those strong enough to make the hazardous journey there. Desperate to reach it, a scientist and a writer approach the Stalker, one of the few able to navigate The Zones menacing terrain, and begin dangerous trek into the unknown.

Stalker is a film about meaning. As the three men venture into the unknown wasteland, they don't know what to expect. All they know is that each one of them is looking for something: the writer is willing to obtain inspiration for his stories, the scientist wants the truth more than anything else and the Stalker simply wants faith. While their desires do not inter-relate, it is the mere fact that theyre desiring for something which connects them all. And after all, it is The Room which they're really looking for. Their lives are not as they would like them to be, and for some reason or other they are certain that this room will solve all their problems. The Stalker, despite his wretchedness and his being, as he well puts it, "a louse" is the man with the most conviction. He's a philosopher, a hunter of implication, a man who wants to be with God above everything else. He seeks happiness, yet he does not truly know how to obtain it. While his two comrades do not fully trust him, it is his determination to finish what he has begun that makes them follow him to the end.

Cinematically speaking, Stalker is one of the most visually arresting movies I have ever seen. The film presents us with a world as saddening as the people who inhabit it, a harsh environment full of vastness and isolation, painted in grey, where it rains almost every day. It's a world that seems more artificial than natural, as pollution reigns over it, due to the nuclear power centres, an eerie quietness fills every spot and people dare not rebel. As austere and miserable as though this world may sound, Tarkovsky gently tells us that there can always be a small glint of hope, and indeed, this can be seen in the characters' courage, as they go to a place where few people have been, or even dare to go. This barren, emotionless landscape of silence and seemingly eternal stillness is flawlessly captured by Aleksandr Knyazhnisky's cinematography; there are scenes shot in a stunningly raw, grainy and dark brownish colour, which are the parts in which there is no hope, or where things are not going smoothly - the lack of dye and the presence of shadows clearly represent the characters' turbulent feelings. Tarkovsky painted the black and white with sepia, and the results are nothing short of mind-buggering. However, there are others, such as when we see The Zone or Stalker's mutant daughter, Monkey, that are shot in colour which is when there is anticipation for a better future, or a search for a dream. The vast majority of the shots are done in gloriously long takes that give a sense of prolonged slowness while at the same time permitting the viewer to explore the concepts which are touched. As usual, Tarkovsky weaves extraordinary images unlike anything we've ever seen before. The positivism and negativity of the characters' lives are magnificently conveyed, but it is Tarkovsky's execution of the rest of the film's elements which fascinate the most. Let's face it: few people would have been able to take a camera, three men and a field and constructed the masterpiece that this film is.

As the writer, the scientist and the Stalker take on The Zone's mysteries, our eagerness to see what they themselves will discover immediately heightens. Because Stalker is a beautiful film; it is an illustration of man's fear to live life to the full and his inability to comprehend its meaning. And as he longs to discover The Room, so do we - we want to see what they see, we want to get to where they go. The pace of the film is slow yet strongly delicate - of course, if you're looking for an action film of sorts, then this movie is not for you by any means. On their trip several times does the Stalker cite that going on a straight line is almost impossible and that no-one ever comes back the way he went. So they take a detour - they go all the way round, which, despite slowing down their pace and swelling their time, gives way for a discussion of countless themes: death, suffering and the meaning of life are all talked about by them. There are innumerable symbolisms to be found in the film, and one of the main ones is how the Stalker and his companions have to take the long way in order to attain The Room. Because The Room is a place where our deepest wishes come true, because it represents a sort of Heaven on earth, Tarkovsky tell us, it evidently will not be a place that can be easily reached. One will have to suffer through a lot of things, and follow the hardest - path but for the better. Stalker, as one would expect from Tarkovsky, is not a superficial film. In fact, it simply has to be one of the most complex and tantalizingly weaved films I have ever seen. It is a film as powerful as few others are, profound, reflective and thoughtful. While the plot itself may be perplexingly simple, it is the things inside it which carry it to a whole new (and altogether different) level.

The Zone represents the Promised Land, the Garden of Eden. Yet it all seems so pitiful and abject. Surely this is not meant to be a place where we're all meant to be happy? For Stalker, it seems as though it is. Despite all the dangers, he values it for what it is: a place for the humans to live and be content. It is mentioned in the film by the professor that a meteorite fell twenty years ago and thus The Zone was born - after that, strange things began to occur. The writer then asks what it could have been if it wasn't a meteorite, to which the professor replies by saying that perhaps it was a gift or a message to mankind. Sent by whom, though? Tarkovsky was a devout Christian, and evidently God played an imperative role in his life as, it does in the film. Despite his name being mentioned once in a while, no real direct allusions are given to Him. However, Tarkovsky suggests instead of clarifying, and asks instead of answering. It is us who have to solve the riddle, not the director. The Zone could have been a paradise created by an almighty figure, a result of the meteorite crashing into the area, or perhaps it merely is an allegory of the disastrous Chernobyl incidents.

Stalker is a film of ineffable ambiguity. First of all, it is very hard to determine which genre it really belongs to; is it a drama, a science fiction, a parable or a pseudo-religious analysis? It's rather difficult to define, yet I'd say its none and all of them simultaneously. Tarkovsky keeps shifting genres every time, but they all remain the same, they're all still there, they're all palpable. Secondly, one really takes a long time wondering as to what it all means. What is Tarkovsky trying to tell us? What is he trying to communicate with us? At one point in the film, a character says, "It is better to live a bitter happiness than a dull grey life." If this is the message of the film, it is all superbly conveyed, but there's more to that than meets the eye. The enigmatic (though somewhat logical) ending, with the mutant daughter and her supposedly telekinetic powers, means much more than what is shown, but it is the bizarre vagueness which makes it so spectacular. Ultimately, Stalker is not mere cinema, it's a masterwork of poetry created by a major artist. Insinuating, compelling, amazing and distinctive, Stalker truly is one of the greats. Pure genius.