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Reviews
Ai no mukidashi (2008)
A unique, ragged and electric film.
Perhaps Sion Sono's best work so far, (with Cold Fish being the other contender), this is perhaps his most free, associative and spirited work, funny and sweet and crude and literally unique.
Taking glorious diversions and being brave enough to remain ragged and messy, this is both a joyous and angry work, punching its way to some kind of trembling optimism, this is a useful reminder of what daring, discursive and dreamy cinema can do.
Deep End (1970)
Vivid and indelible.
Vividly shot on location, this is a fantastically alive film, springing nervously and excitedly around the most immediate of instinctual feelings. Managing with precision to communicate the sensory effect of these emotions, Deep End is almost a primal film, and is told largely from the perspective of its lead male character, mirroring his understanding of the world as one of absolutes and intensities. Snappily edited and perceptively performed, this is an indelible experience.
Post Human: An Event (2017)
Doomy and dreamy
Very strange and complex, this is a movie with a thick, heady atmosphere. It's very difficult to categorize, and with its oblique and stately style, it's rather more akin to one of those misty European existential psycho-dramas of the 1970s than it is to a contemporary, straight-ahead horror film. In fact, it's an often challenging movie, with a sorrowful tone and elliptical approach requiring concentration from the viewer.
Often very beautifully filmed, refreshingly female-centric and given to sliding from one genre to another, this is an unusual, doomy and dreamy film; it's very ambiguous, particularly in its conclusions, but if the viewer is in tune with its mood, they will find something quite rich waiting to be unwrapped. Certainly rewarding for when you really crave something off the beaten path.
It's Alive (1974)
Intelligent and engaged.
A fantastically focused and engaged socio-horror film from the last golden age of the 1970s. Anchored around a most committed and persuasive performance from John Ryan and Larry Cohen's empathetic and savvy direction, It's Alive might display some raggedness and lapses in style, but it more than makes up for this with searing intelligence, sharp and sad gallows humour and a beating heart on the side of the ostracized and ridiculed. A fine example of what genre movies can really do.
Possession (1981)
Perfect and unusual.
One of those brilliant films where one has to act as an active viewer, engaged and thoughtful and willing to make an effort, in order to get the best out of the film. Comedic, experimental, horrific and political, this is both baleful and vicious and always brilliant.
With committed and brave performances from all of the cast, and particularly Adjani, this film begins at a high and intense pitch and gets stranger and stronger from thereon. Determindely non-naturalistic, this film is really a most unusual work.
The Premonition (1975)
Ambitious fantasy.
A fantastic, intriguing, fascinating sprawling mess, but a mess of the best kind - full of ideas and avenues and thoughts and musings. Don't believe the low rating on here, this film displays some of the great things that genre-crossing films can manage, things that more straight- laced and disciplined films can't. Hopping from thriller to horror to near avant-garde musical fantasy, this is a brilliant rediscovery and while it might not be the tidiest of films, it is free and explorative and brave and should be seen. That it sometimes tries for more than it achieves is testament to its ambition.
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Funny and grim.
A grungy and blackly funny science fiction film made in a time when the genre was more about ideas than whizz-bang fx. Somewhat mean spirited and filled with gallows humour, this is also a film of lamentation, of characters concerned only with survival at all costs. With fine production design, totally convincing as a barren world of ruin, and sharp-as-a-tack writing, this is a must see.
Punishment Park (1971)
Brilliant mock-documentary
A brilliant and angry piece of filmmaking, so assured in its style as a mock-documentary that the seams of fiction barely show. With the clarity of a working crystal ball, this film saw the world around it as it was when it was made and saw somehow where things were heading and the result is one of the most despairing pieces of work imaginable. Misanthropic, and with good reason, Watkins' film has no hope for the media or the youth and no faith the governing forces that direct them. I urge you to seek this out.
Herostratus (1967)
A viewing experience like no other.
A somewhat avant-garde and confusing - in the best possible way - drama that has proved itself to be remarkably prescient and another fantastic gem in the BFI's series of British rediscoveries.
Combining satire and tragedy, and starring the brilliant Michael Gothard, this is a blazing account of how acts of genuine rebellion are ultimately destined to be commodified and sanitised and deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience looking for drama presented in an offbeat manner.
Play for Today: Red Shift (1978)
A complex and rewarding drama
This is one of the real gems from the BFI's BBC DVD releases, the kind of one-off drama that could never be made in this modern age.
A complex and elusive drama of how history, despite being ever-shifting and ever-changing repeats itself, this is deserving of the over-used phrase original.
with non-realistic dialogue, more theatrical than many viewers might be used to, it is a brave and rewarding experiment and well worth your time if you are truly seeking something different, edifying and illuminating.
Bravo to the BFI for making it available again and shame on current TV executives for turning their backs on such definition-defying material.