Classic Corner: Through a Glass Darkly

Bergman's knack of presenting unhappy people writhing painfully around in their own psychodramas is as stunningly efficient as ever in 1961's Through a Glass Darkly.

With the aloof patriarch, David (Gunnar Björnstrand) finally returning from overseas, a Swedish family get together at the family home. Unfortunately for them, this happens to be on the desolate, remote island of Faro. David is finishing off his new novel, and with it he's aspiring to greatness rather than his usual barrel loads of sales. His daughter, Karin (Harriet Andersson – in an extraordinary performance) has recently been released from a psychiatric hospital and is still shifting around the edges of sanity with what is, in his view, an incurable mental illness. And the youngest is experiencing an existential, or horomonally-driven, mindfuck of his own. Happy times then.

This all leaves an in-law, Karin's husband Martin (Max Von Sydow) with a lot on his plate. Especially when his wife starts hearing voices and seeing God. But Martin is a largely absent, or at least ineffectual, figure – it's the brother, Minus, who shares the brunt of her breakdown in the house. Minus is Karin's confidante – and with his self-professed hatred of females, it's a curious choice.

The saddest thing about the movie is the feeling that love isn't enough to save these people. The snake that eats its own tale, Ouroboros, seems a good metaphor for the situation – these people are introspective souls and are naturally isolated from their family, this introspection breeds an inability to externalise which leads them to be more introspective and more isolated from each other. The only thing that can exist in these conditions is unhappiness.

What is more is they all see the world through a glass darkly, and for not what it really is. With a spare, Bach soundtrack, austere but hair-raisingly good cinematography and a horribly brilliant sense of doom, you know this ain't going to end well.

Ten days, eight films, I DECIDE: Film Diary 2011, Part I

This year, thus far, I have watched eight films. There may be a ninth tonight, but we shan't talk about that. I have to have some privacy this blogspheric outer space, right? So, in the order of watching, here is my film diary thus far.

Severance – British character actors, and Danny Dyer, get slaughtered in a Hungarian forest. About as scary as an oak tree, but relatively diverting.

The Man Who Would Be King – Colonial wet dream with Sean Connery smouldering in uniform and Michael Caine SHOUTING A LOT ... it also happens to be fiendishly entertaining.

"Fiendishly entertaining"

Gomorrah – hard as bullets Italian mob drama which isn't for those of short attention spans or nervous dispositions, but it's full of intelligence and eye-watering confrontation.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu – life is slow dying apparently, as is this movie; it's well-acted, well-observed stuff but it completely lacks any dramatic tension or verve

White Material – Claire Denis struggles between abstraction and colonial guilt in this muddled thriller which nevertheless showcases Isabelle Huppert's puppy-melting stare at its best.

"Isabelle Huppert's puppy-melting stare"

Die Another Day (second viewing) – not quite the weakest Brosnan Bond (that's The World is Not Enough), but this is a below average caper; it does feature Toby Stephens' glorious (and weirdly attractive?) villainry.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (umpteenth viewing) – a film full of head-smacking stupidity, and it's ridiculously over long, but for all its bells and whistles, your ears will be ring-a-ding-ing afterward

"a film full of head-smacking stupidity"

Lonesome Jim – coming across like a belated gasp of long-forgotten 90s indie cinema, this low-key slow burner features a lead character difficult to empathise with, but it's full of great moments and performances

NEW RELEASE: Nothing to Crowe About ...

After a few years of bad media coverage and some rather unlikeable performances (culminating in the craptacular borefest of Robin Hood last year) Russell Crowe returns showing some rather uncharacteristic warmth in The Next Three Days.

Irritatingly, the film is a less enjoyable, less surprising experience as serial writer/director/ham Paul Haggis stretches believability to the point that your brain will dribble out your ears in protest. And to save any more suffering, you'll encourage it to continue.

Crowe plays a family man and a literature professor trying to break his woman out of jail. She may or may not have murdered one of her rather annoying friends, but reality is of little importance to the crusading Crowe. He shows that someone from a form of skills non-specific academia can fashion explosive devices, find fatal flaws in the US prison system and manage to cleverly evade the cops on more than one occasion. Pass the tissue, that was a bit of my cerebral cortex.

That said, the climax is muscle-botheringly tense and my interest rarely waned throughout the movie. You even get a blustering, slathering cameo from a chain-smoking Liam Neeson injected into the mix. It epitomises the film – it's completely overbearing, barely believable and is prone to spouting clangers. But it's fun and diverting. You could do worse.

Now on DVD: White Material

Last week I wrote a blog about inadvertently distracting things in films. White Material has one of these – Christophe(r) Lambert's face. It is part encased in a surprising agelessness and, perhaps more worryingly, looking like it's about to fall off.

No matter, Isabelle Huppert acts her socks off in an act of desperate compensation in Claire Denis's handsome post-colonial existential horror movie. At least, that's what I think this is. We begin with a helicopter encircling Huppet's wandering French farm-owner, complete with a men shouting down from the chopper, advising her to abandon the African country she is living and working in. Yet something makes her stay. But we're never sure what. Things don't tend to get any less ominous in a film which is a procession of almost-events, from naked tatooed men with gammy feet through to children with machetes.

Consequently, there's very little get a grip on, let alone care about. Denis's evasion of a plot line and backstory is almost as self-conscious as some of the free-falling hand held camera action. And it's incredibly humourless, joyless artifice too.

That said, Huppert is as great as usual. She's got a rare ability to portray a character's inner life all through her eyes. A steely gaze with some terrible trauma bubbling underneath, it's textbook Huppert but it's nevertheless compelling to watch.

And I've no doubt that Claire Denis has something significant to say about colonialism and racism in modern Africa. But in a film which holds its cards very close to its chest thoughout, I just got the impression the oblique and the mysterious was far more important to her than the truth. And that's troubling.

Movies That Are Good For You

Inspired by watching The Death of Mr Lazerescu (think Eastern European art house cinema verite WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS .. SLOWLY) I have compiled a list of Movies That Are Good For You.

Call it cinematic bran, call it a xx hour burst of masochistic endurance, watch one of the following films and you know, be totally on my wave length.

Movies That Teach You Patience
Ingmar Bergman, Scenes of a Marriage. A couple get together, bicker and fall apart. And it takes three hours. The TV series it was edited down from runs for over five hours. Along the way we get involves copious monologues, middle class hand-wringing and strong scenes of Liv Ullmann emoting. And it's absolutely brilliant.

The virtue of experimentation
David Lynch, Inland Empire The question whether it has a plot or not is irrelevant when you get David Lynch's most uncompromising movie since his debut in 1977 with Eraserhead. Succumb to the three hours of headfuckery and bunny-headed soap stars, and you'll get something rather special.

For appreciating Hollywood's golden past
John Huston, The Misfits The tone shifts more than Marilyn Monroe's alleged onset mood swings, but this John Huston film is the quintessential noble failure. Career best perfromances from Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift, and you get the elegaic sunset of Hollywood glamour.

To appreciate that you shouldn't take things for granted
Woody Allen's output since 1997. From Celebrity onwards, the comatosed presence of Woody Allen's genius has only shown the odd twitch of genius. It's a cautionary tale though – you can't make films that often, about subject matters that narrow, and still be putting out great stuff forty years on. But you need to see at least a couple of them to appreciate this – and how good he once was.

To appreciate that good does always mean pleasant
Krzysztof Kieślowski, A Short Film About Killing A nasty little film about crime and punishment, this – like Scenes from a Marriage – also came from a TV series – Dekalog. Not only the perfect introduction to that series, Kieslowski's work and Polish miserabism, this is a lesson in how less can sometimes be more.

To appreciate a master of cinema
Charlie Chaplin, Limelight Although not his best film by far, its his most poignant. A visibly ageing Chaplin plays an entertainer struggling to entertain as his act becomes obsolete. Call it a metaphor for his career and the long-gone days of silent cinema – or just call it a perfect introduction to an icon of twentieth century cinema. Your call.

"Young men's love then lies/ Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes"

Like many people growing up in my generation, Pete Postlethewaite will always be the Priest in Baz L's Romeo and Juliet. I've since gone on to see him in all kinds of other stuff, of which he's equally brilliant in too.

Just the other week I saw a production of the play by Pilot Theatre - and their Priest was virtually a carbon copy of PP's performance.

Mr Postlethwaite - you'll be missed.

In praise of Jake Gyllenhaal

There are many things to like about Jake Gyllenhaal. Firstly, and probably most importantly, this:

But lest we forget his acting talents too (heaven forbid). He has delivered us one of the most iconic performances of the noughties before the noughties really began. In Donnie Darko, he brooded his little cottons off and showed that leading barely 20-something men could have something between the ears. In a thespian climate replete with such actorly luminaries as Seann William Scott, DJ Qualls and a pre-Buried Ryan Reynolds, it was nigh on miraculous.

It was a performance he replicated in a note-for-note fashion in the criminally underrated The Good Girl. Well, note-for-note if you replace the sci-fi element with chain-smoking and The Catcher in the Rye. What remained the same was his hotness.

In a similarly indie vein, he starred in an adaptation of Pullitzer Prize winning Proof, almost bursting out of his t-shirt. And cropped up in Nicole 'Please Give' Holofcener's Lovely and Amazing And, er, got stuck in a library in The Day After Tomorrow (I'd totally like to be rifling through his reference collection).

But surely his masterstroke was in Brokeback Mountain. His portrayal of gay cowboy Jack Twist was a masterstroke in hotness understatement.

He then had worked with a bunch of great directors and actors like David Fincher, Dustin Hoffman, Sam Mendes and …

Screw it, here's another picture:

Such a dreamboat.