go fish
very much of it's time and very indicative of lesbian communities we all knew from the 90s and early thousands.
think of it as 'dykes to look out for: the movie and it's as political, angry, funny and heart warming as the comic
the angelic conversation
jarman's dreamlike realisation of Shakespeare's sonnets via some beautiful photography and even more pretty men
blue
in for a penny, in for a pound...
a third jarman film and the second in a row this is his meditation on image when he had gone blind. which becomes not a maudlin confessional or diary of illness but a meditation on life, art and love
simply one of the most moving films ever (and yes, it's a blue screen with no image)
For accustomed to believing in image, an absolute idea of value, his world had forgotten the command of essence: Thou Shall Not Create Unto Thyself Any Graven Image, although you know the task is to fill the empty page. From the bottom of your heart, pray to be released from image.
a Canterbury tale
powel and pressburger made a series of odd films during and just after world war two. many of them where intended as propaganda (by the government anyway) but all proved too challenging for such a purpose.
this film has british an american troops and land girls all stationed in a village along the pilgrim's way where a mysterious figure called 'the glue man' is pouring glue into women's hair during the blackout if they speak to soldiers.
the irony of the film is that the glue man's acts literally bind the community together especially the three people who set out to prove who his is (each representing one of the groups mentioned above) and provide the opportunity for them to complete their own pilgrimages, each of which are experienced in Canterbury in the film's deeply moving final segment.
peeping tom
powel's meditation on the danger of images and what obsession with art can do to a person is the inverse of a film like 'a cantabury tale' and effectively finished his career.
it follows the story of a young man who was damaged by his psychologist father experimenting on him in an attempt to study fear in children. he continues his father's work by trying to film the look of terror on a person's face just before they die.
that powel and his son played the psychiatrist and child in this film makes it even more challenging
'Don't be a silly boy. There's nothing to be afraid of!
Good night Daddy. Hold my hand.
vampyres
jose ramon larraz's soft-core take on the vampire myth is an odd mis: set in a muddy and dull autumn in a ruined house where the erotisism can not hide the character's fear of their own decent into animalism.
a strangely sad entry into the 'erotic horror' genera
plague of the zombies
an odd hammer film which predates much of the zombie genera and which provides us with a troubling set of images most notably the woman awakening from the sleep of death and getting out of her coffin.
the witches
nigel kneale strikes again, this time in a much earlier trip into the dark heart of the less than friendly english village.
mounting paranoia abounds in this decidedly odd hammer classic.
life is sweet
and after all the darkness the light, mike leigh's wonderful 'life is sweet' because you know everything will turn out ok in the long run (and besides, we all want a mum like alison steadman)
the singing detective
to end with potter's finest moment, the tale of a writer of detective fiction rewriting his last book and writing himself out of illness through the power of his own imagination.
