The Sleeping Tiger

1954, UK, directed by Joseph Losey (under the pseudonym Victor Hanbury)

As so often, a viewing choice inspired by David Cairns, this is an enjoyably ripe melodrama, over-stuffed with plot and challenges to logic, but Dirk Bogarde does good sleaze, Losey directs with great energy, and the climax has a nice bit of visual poetry to it.

The Man Who Cheated Himself

1950, US, directed by Felix E. Feist

A pretty classic, B-level noir, in which Lee J. Cobb's cop is bewitched and betrayed by a femme fatale, again a classically misogynistic trope of the genre. Cinematically, it's worth a look, with some striking shot choices, especially as the film reaches its climax, while there's surely a nod to Hitchcock's Suspicion in the prominent appearances of several glasses of milk. There's also a nice mix of San Francisco location work and back projection shots.

Tanzania Transit

2018, Netherlands/Tanzania, directed by Jeroen van Velzen

I came across this when searching for the film Transit; it's a documentary filmed aboard long-distance trains in Tanzania, and the filmmakers manage to get exceptionally intimate access to the key players, ranging from a woman who's the definition of a survivor to a preacher/scammer preying on those a little further down the pecking order than himself. It's very engagingly filmed, with camerawork that gives a sense of an expansive rather than enclose world on board. 

The Pretender

1947, US, directed by W. Lee Wilder

Stronger on plot than on execution, with a nice, bitterly sardonic sting in the tail. 

The Red House

1947, US, directed by Delmer Daves

A sweaty, tense thriller, that picks away at the apparently benign exteriors of location and character to reveal the darkness beneath -- just as the quiet small town setting becomes less innocent, Edward G. Robinson's character starts to drift off the rails, and it's all set up for quite the fervid psycho-sexual climax. It's an interesting counterpoint to the more common urban settings of post-war noir, too. 

Wives Under Suspicion

1938, US, directed by James Whale

A rather precipitous fall from the standards that Whale set earlier in the decade, this is an efficient enough vehicle for Warren William, who is good value -- as ever -- in a role as a prosecutor who senses some overlap between his current case and his own wife's behavior. However, there's nothing of the distinctiveness of Whale's Universal horrors, even in the visuals. 

Tomka and His Friends

1977, Albania, directed by Xhanfise Keko (aka Tomka dhe shokët e tij)

An Albanian film that I became aware of through Mark Cousins' A Story of Children and Film, on one level a standard coming-of-age film, but of course also a film about oppression and survival on multiple levels, set against the backdrop of the German occupation of Albania, with charming, naturalistic performances from the kids, and a sometimes infectious insistence on living and thriving in adversity; there's also a terrific tracking shot to start the film. 

Le Samouraï

1967, France, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

A rewatch, to see the restored version, which looks glorious from the wonderful first shot to the last. Pretty much the concentration of both Melville and Delon, even if not necessarily my favourite film by/with either.

La Poison

1951, France, directed by Sacha Guitry

One of the most extraordinarily misogynistic films I've seen, as well as being very much of the postwar tradition of bitter, black, self-lacerating social examination in French film (the two may be linked, of course; several of those key French noirs are hardly kind to their central female characters, who are at times depicted as taking advantage of the men in their lives -- men rarely seem to have to take responsibility for themselves). 

Ginette Vincendeau's Criterion piece that accompanies the DVD of the film is extremely useful in providing the context for Guitry's tone, without ever defending the writer/director. 

Of note in the background: a rare non-comic role for Louis de Funès.

Persona

1966, Sweden, directed by Ingmar Bergman

One of the Bergmans that really retains its power, a genuinely disconcerting film that must have been an especially strong jolt on its release, and which is both strange, not-quite-like-anything-else, and acutely perceptive of its particular psychological pathology. The sense of an enclosed world got under my skin in the same way as when I first saw the film as an undergrad -- there's a sense that both characters and audiences can't escape. 

Brute Force

1947, US, directed by Jules Dassin

A film that lives up to its title, depicting the constant, claustrophobic drumbeat of violence, both psychological and physical, in prison. The characters are never unaware of the restrictions under which they operate, whether it's the bars on their cells, or the (often arbitrary) rules with which they must comply. Dassin's framing, as in the picture above, is often very strong, quickly delineating the free and unfree zones. The film isn't as strong in its social analysis sections, inventing a somewhat unconvincing context in which several characters debate the meaning and utility of prison; it's much stronger down in the bowels with the men, and the tick-tock sense of a bomb about to explode. Burt Lancaster, in one of his earliest roles, is already every inch the star, commanding the screen. The decision to cast Hume Cronyn as the sadistic warder is a stroke of genius, though he's alarmingly into it at times.

The Million Pound Note

1954, UK, directed by Ronald Neame

Something of an Ealing knockoff, this is a generally charming fable about the chaotic consequences of a bet/social experiment as to how a penniless American will handle the titular banknote (Trading Places followed a similar template, albeit with more 1980s grit and volume). The fun mostly comes from the reactions of other people to Gregory Peck's dilemma -- one sequence in a restaurant is especially good -- and the supporting cast is, predictably, very strong, with many familiar faces of the period given some work.

Les Invisibles

2018, France, directed by Louis-Julien Petit

A picture that walks its walk, not only depicting the reaction of a group of women to the closure of their shelter, but actually casting women from homeless backgrounds in many of the key roles. While it certainly hits beats from the Full Monty school, sometimes pretty insistently, some of the spikier edges feel as though they've come from genuine collaboration between cast and director, and those fragments give the film its most significant charge.

If Beale Street Could Talk

2018, US, directed by Barry Jenkins

Not, perhaps, as luminously successful as Jenkins' previous Moonlight, but this is still very strong, grounded in very engaging performances and complemented by gorgeous photography, with an exceptionally rich palette of colours, and a warmth of feeling toward its characters (James Baldwin's characters) that's very affecting, though perhaps more beautiful than real. As much as we want to root for the pair, at times it feels as though the film's hardest edges lie in the background, in the lives, and traumas, of the other characters.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

2018, US, directed by Marielle Heller

Wonderfully absorbing, with two terrific performances: Melissa McCarthy gets to show more of her range, without having to bottle up her energy, and Richard E. Grant hasn't been as good for years. Heller has a great feel for the period and milieu of the film, or more accurately the multiple milieus, from grimy day-drinking bars to down-at-heel walk-ups to glimpses of the other side at swanky parties or warm academic havens. She also has a tenderness toward her characters, as weak and self-deluding as they can sometimes be, that's deeply affecting -- and gives lovely scenes to many of the supporting players.

Shame

1988, Australia, directed by Steve Jodrell

A very strong 1980s film that sadly feels equally relevant today. It's grounded in a sharp analysis of toxic masculinity, grounded in a specific rural Australian reality but not in any way restricted to that environment, and features an excellent central performance by Deborra-Lee Furness, as an unapologetic, self-confident lawyer taking a solo trip through the outback. Her character draws on Western tropes, literally riding into the dusty small town and introducing a new vocabulary of justice. The film neither shies away from nor revels in its depiction of violence, and the conclusion comes as a genuine gut-punch.

Le Jeu

2018, France, directed by Fred Cavayé

Although very competently made (or rather re-made), and visually slick, the picture has little meaningful to say about the consequences of our modern technological obsession -- centered on a game wherein the characters allow the contents of their phones to be shared, the picture is all plot mechanics, no commentary.

Bad Blood

1981, New Zealand/United Kingdom, directed by Mike Newell

A fairly straightforward retelling of the mass murder perpetrated by Stanley Graham in 1941, a series of crimes that was the culmination of a lengthy standoff with police over the surrender of weapons in wartime. There's a broader resonance in the New Zealand context of the man asserting himself in relation to the authorities, as well as the relationship with the bush, both a source of refuge and a threat (already explored in films like Sleeping Dogs and, later, in more sophisticated pictures like Utu). While the film is centered on Jack Thompson's character, Carol Burns, as Graham's wife, matches him beat for beat as his mental state collapses. The sense of a tight-knit, yet poisonous, community is very well drawn, and was surely influenced also by the aftermath of the Crewe murders, which would have been in the news throughout the 1970s (and which formed the basis for the film Beyond Reasonable Doubt).

La Fiancée du pirate

1969, France, directed by Nelly Kaplan

I thought that Yves Boisset's Dupont Lajoie was pretty acid in its analysis of French society, but Nelly Kaplan's first feature film is at least as bleak, and certainly more thorough in its merciless dissection of the mores of its small-town setting. At times, Kaplan's wide-ranging condemnation recalls Simenon, though Kaplan is far more interested in society's view of women than Simenon ever was. The film constantly surprises in its tone, veering from the cynical to the carnivalesque, with Bernadette Lafont providing a central performance of exceptional energy and frankness that still feels fresh today, even if the character's turning-of-the-tables might take a different form in 2019.

Police Story 2

1988, Hong Kong, directed by Jackie Chan

A letdown -- the film opens with a summary of the exceptional stuntwork of the first film, but very little of what follows has the same rhythm and verve.