Reviews

I want to openly celebrate this film for how it is able to continually lure you into comfortably thinking you have a grasp of the situation and then completely upturning the entire context of what you've just witnessed, yet what unfolds is so sickening that I'm almost nauseous thinking about it. Pedro Almodóvar does not explore the darkest human behaviour to emphasis the light; he does not orchestrate a grand tragedy of abduction, enslavement, rape, grotesque scientific experiments, incestuous suggestions and sexual mania just to warmly reassure with optimistic triumph.

He's not condemning anybody, even Antonio Banderas - who is so far removed from any image he ever cultivated as a suave Hispanic Clooney – a sociopathic scientist who evokes Doctor Génessier from 'Eyes Without A Face' (1960) more than anybody else, not just in his methods but his brutal persistence in willingly devastating anything around him to achieve his goals. He's losing constantly, losing the trust, admiration, love of those around him, losing control; his human experiment Elena Anaya who he observes in his living room through the one-way glass in her watching cell like a living artwork is losing constantly her identity as she is crafted by his will, losing the tether to her old self as she fails to escape her prison, his Mother a live-in maid is constantly losing her maternal grasp as she watches her family disassemble; it feels like everybody is by default losing until they can stop and win something. Even the ending doesn't promise anything.

So what kind of burdensome descent into darkness is this? Well, it's not descent so much as it is a flaying. The film opens with Anaya exercising most dutifully in her small contained room, posing taut like a sculpture, and then as she receives her food from downstairs and talking to the Mother through an intercom. It's like a bustling hacienda as we see food being prepared, servants working, people communicating in all the ambiance of domesticity in what should be a normal household. But the film challenges our comfort with the scene with odd details that prevent this situation from being usual. Anaya receives her food via dumb-waiter, and downstairs she is being watched on multiple screens. And why does she wear that tight, flesh-toned one-piece, as if she is a human figure not yet finished in its creation? The film doesn't take long to reveal the circumstances of this living-arrangement, but then when we begin to think we understand what is happening and why the film peels back another layer.

The film is strikingly composed like a Kubrikian pallet that burns intensely with certain colours, and if you thought red in the Shining was assaulting take a look at this. The film is so gorgeous in its art-exhibition style that there becomes a cognitive dissonance between the gawking that it elicits from you and the increasing repugnance of what is gradually being revealed, and even when the film is at its most clinical like Kubrick, there is so much abounding passion that it just leaves you dazed. Take the scene in which an assertive, perhaps unhinged man in a tiger costume appears at Banderas' home and tells the Mother that he's her son and he wants to come back into her life. She allows him in and he quickly devolves from assertive to perverted; and the whole thing appears like it's composed too rigidly for the sake of being lurid. But what's happening is important relationships are being tested at a level in which they shouldn't even exist, and the small details of the tiger costume are just realistic details of life; life doesn't stop in awareness of how peculiar it's being and modify itself so it appears normal. It's just f****d up.

And this is Almodóvar, existing in the f****d up, in the most swollen- ready-to-burst Melodrama of life in which people exist in craziness and depravity way beyond ordinary boundaries, and it's as if he is gifting us this madness so we can delight in just how spectacular human behaviour is. Sometimes it feels like it doesn't know what to say or doesn't have anything to say and is doing what it's doing simply for the delight of the perverse, trying on different skins so to speak, but when it pulls back it's skins and reveals whole new truths that you hadn't even contemplated this film really does impact. And it's pulling back those skins that reveal how successful the film is. It wasn't a deception, an elaborate magic trick in which the skin peeling was nothing but provocation eventually to peel back and to nothing but air. Underneath the film is flesh, real substance, and you can look at it and marvel at the creation, and honestly say to yourself as every fortunate human has at some point: "Has there been a better time to be alive?"

Think of the innumerable bad guys that James Bond has ruthlessly dispatched over the years. Not the megalomaniacal villains of infinite ego, just the faceless and nameless body-bags that are just mild plot inconvenience. These people are such an unquestionable part of the world and they're a cog in the machine that keeps the plot moving, but we don't really think about this because these films don't invite us to think deeply about them, about how they became involved in these ridiculous plots, about whether they have a family or if they're struggling with the guilt of what they've left behind to pursue this life. Clerks thought about this over two decades ago, in relation to Star Wars. 25th Hour gives its narrative to one of these people; Monty Brogan is one of these elementary parts that helps sustain an entire operation, something that is taken for granted. He's a drug dealer, and of course there's nothing noble or commendable about that, but rather than being solely defined by that title, he's just another guy.

So Monty Brogan is going to prison. Although this is an unalterable conclusion, he still exists in a kind of transitory state, 24 hours of purgatory, between the closing of his old life and the beginning of a new one, in which judgements can still be cast and relationships re- defined. Edward Norton always verges between 'everyman' and slick self-possessed star, and here he does kind of exist between those two states. As he goes about these final hours trying to ensure some sort of stability, we see both a man who's got that typical wit and verbosity of a protagonist who can always summon the correct words, a man seems to balance the immorality of the job from which he thrives with small moments of compassion, like his saving a dog in the opening scene or giving bills of cash to a sleeping tramp, but also the selfish dick who hasn't quite balanced the good deeds with the bad. There's sometimes a little of his character from Fight Club, except here it's not his masculinity that's in question, his impotence arises from the realisation that he might have wasted his life.

And that feeling of uncertainty and things being questioned exists throughout, both in camera and subject. The cinematography is often kind restless, jumping from this position to the next, giving energy to environment that doesn't seem to have any. When Philip Seymour Hoffman is in English class with his students, there's a feeling of listlessness offset by this cinematography, and then later when scantily-clad student Anna Paquin challenges him about her B grade, in her disarming approach of both flirtation and contempt, the erratic camera almost turns this into some sort of intoxicated sit-com. There's also this occasional editorial choice that happened twice early on in the film in close succession and then (as far as I could tell) not again until the end, in which a certain action is shown twice, from a different angle. This happens as Norton and Hoffman move to embrace each other, and it's almost as if the film is stuttering and re-adjusting itself. In these weird moments the temporality of events is being affected, because I thought maybe these were supposed to be small but defining moments in his life, but maybe the reason is indiscernible.

But what's clear is the film's immediate reaction to 9/11. The book was written before this happened, but just the very nature of it being incorporated into the film surprised me, not because it's a deliberately provocative move but because in the wake of such unfathomable tragedy people would choose to interpret it that way. But this isn't some fantasy land in which all real-world contexts can be ignored. They were edited out of Spider Man, but to do that here would be ignoring something very important about New York, and by extension America, and that's really what this film is. There's a moment in which Barry Pepper and Philip Seymour Hoffman are standing before Pepper's apartment windows, with a full view of the devastation of ground zero. The camera never moves throughout the entire discussion, in stark contrast to what I previously described, and so what you get is an evocative mixture of character and real world consequence. Monty Brogan isn't even present, the topic of discussion, and the script changes perspectives really subtly throughout the entire film, because it's aware that we can learn about our protagonist effectively through other people, and vice versa, but also that the characters can represent something larger than themselves.

Barry Pepper is the slick semi-yuppie, voice of masculinity, Philip Seymour Hoffman, ever reliable, ever wonderfully uncool, is emasculated and anxious and never quite comfortable anywhere, his character described as someone who ran away from his privilege and Edward Norton lies somewhere in between, a man with money and composure but lots of things tearing at him underneath. During his now famous vitriolic monologue in a bathroom mirror, he sees the words 'fuck you' written on its corner and in retaliation releases and explosive condemnation on every culture and ethnicity present in New York, all reservation Norton had kept at this point gone as the melody of his words almost become a poetic performance piece, something which is echoed in the final monologue delivered by the father, Brian Cox. But here, as we cutaway to portraits of the people being described in borderline-racist terms, we're not seeing a character display a sweeping racism or misanthropy for everyone, but a man deflecting his own insecurities and defeats onto every other person available. It's America as both the large multi-cultural nation still thriving in its diversity, and America as a single man who is trying not to lose everything because he might have fuckedup the idea of the American Dream.

So once again Kurosawa, and all players involved, completely demonstrate their endless versatility and ability to approach any subject. Although it's not necessary, I'd recommend watching Drunken Angel first, as Stray Dog is essentially as continuation of the post- war malaise that hung heavy in the atmosphere there, to the point where here it actually has important character and narrative implications. Drunken Angel was particularly memorable in its use of a single stagnant pool that as the one unchanging image of the film, reminded us of humanity's lingering corruption, and on a more national scale, the zeitgeist of Japan at the time. This was in the wake of the bomb, and here the air is oppressively heavy, characters are always marked by sweat and are habitually wiping their foreheads, people who populate the streets look by turns untrustworthy and suspicious of passers-by, many of them are emaciated and seem displaced, and in this fetid and feverish air there's a general feeling of a swelling, something expanding until bursting in exhaustion. The opening-credits shot of a panting dog captures the nature of the film pretty succinctly; fatigue, wear, and perseverance.

What really drives this steady progression of overwhelming heat is the simple act in the beginning of the film of Det. Murakami's (Toshiro Mifune) pistol being stolen, triggering an intense and labouring journey through the city, where every moment in which the gun is clutched in the hands of a criminal, and every time it's used for some crime, the anxiety is increased immeasurably. Paul Thomas Anderson (who used this lost gun element in Magnolia, one of my favourite films) said that we feel every punch of the film, and golly is that true. Much of this dramatic urgency is spurred by Mifune, who as Murakami is everything his character in Drunken Angel, or any other Mifune I've seen, is not. He's awkward, naïve, earnest, but physically unsure of himself. Gone is the swaggering gangster or rabid bandit or stoic samurai. Kurosawa was an innovative director, and has been endlessly influential, so it's no surprise that here what we get is an early progenitor of the procedurals and everybody's favourite buddy- cop dynamic. Lethal Weapon is like children's role play compared to this though.

Before he is paired with Takashi Shimura, the other detective, we get a lengthy sequence of Murakami tailing a woman across the city that he knows is involved with the disappearance of his gun. This chase has that street-level intensity that is a defining characteristic of the noir, and as he chases her through the city they pass through alleys and bars and even take a ride on public transport, and through all this it's easy to imagine this being Los Angeles or New York. Eventually he corners her to a restaurant, which she holes up in. Being the pleasant and patient man he is, rather than hounding away at her, he waits outside for hours until she eventually gives in and talks to him. All of this was worth it simply for the beautiful composition of this scene, in which a harmonica player occupies the foreground, as Mifune sits dejectedly behind him, face drawn to his legs. After the woman tells him that his gun is lost somewhere in the gun racket of the city's seedy underbelly, he knows he'll have to go undercover, poor bastard. There's a wonderful moment where they both look up at the stars, and not only does this a offer a chance to breathe after being overwhelmed by the gravity of the streets, but it's perhaps also something of a ancestor to that iconic shot in Rashōmon, which stares directly into the piercing sun.

The sequence in which a dirtied and ragged Mifune goes undercover and wanders the streets looking for a way into the gun racket perhaps goes on for too long, as its point was made as soon as we understand that the people are a combination of suspicious and indifferent towards him and he is having no success. But I think perhaps what Kurosawa is underlining is the actual condition of these people, and I think it's no coincidence that we see emaciated and forlorn individuals who all seem so fixed in their places they're like unquestionable parts of the environment. It's a post-war distress, and when Mifune is partnered with Shimura, their dinner conversation that they have (In Shimura's house, who as the older, experienced cop, is obligated to invited Mifune over for dinner, because that's how buddy-cop dynamics work) returns to this idea of the war as a generational dividing line. "Maybe there are no bad people, only bad situations" Mifune wonders, who despite being a war veteran, still has a reserve of optimism which he clutches on to. "Leave the writing to the writers" Shimura retorts, as he's a house of wisdom, a man who's seen all there is to see, who knows what he knows and has no room left for philosophical changes of heart.

Kurosawa loved the master/pupil dynamic, and this is employed brilliantly in the police procedural format, so as the two detectives scour the city through blood and sweat, dirt and shimmering heat, from a Baseball game to a Burlesque show, getting closer to the man with the gun, the final confrontation itself rests purely on the shoulders of Mifune, in what is a beautiful unburdening of all that accumulated tension. What ultimately you have here is a police story that is an evocative journey through post-war Japan, a gradual peeling back of layer after layer in Kurosawa side-wipe fashion that is no less thrilling than any of its American counterparts.

Confined to the mere dimensions of his poster, he's a shark rising from territorial depths, bearing an almost menacing grin as he prepares to feast on a helpless swimmer. But he's long since broken free of that frame, assuming he ever needed to. He is a harbinger of fear, that great primal substance that sent people scurrying from their televisions, from their beaches and from any signs of water in 1975, and brought them back again in their rushes of adrenaline and wonder and the masochistic human need to subject themselves to something more powerful or terrifying or that which we can't entirely understand. And he still encourages this process if not in adults then in new generations who are for the first time dipping their toes into that great foreboding water. Because whatever you believe of his cinematic credibility or enjoyment, his indomitable presence cannot be understated. In that carnivorous madness, he not only ate the limbs of unfortunate swimmers, but of last legs of the old Hollywood machine and in that bloodied wake was born the summer blockbuster. In this enduring legacy he's an icon; a symbol of change and the cinematic talent that struck the hearts of enough filmgoers to bring about that. I caught this film on the TV a few weeks ago, about 10 minutes in, and put it on not so much out of a nostalgic indulgence but out of intellectual curiosity to see how I'd immediately respond to it with a mind freshened over the years since I'd last seen it. Within about five minutes, I'd downloaded the film and began watching from the beginning. I don't know what I expected. As much as this is the kind of film that you revisit frequently, playing memory hopscotch as you jump from scene to scene registering the quirks, quoting your favourite lines and waiting for those 'big' moments, whether a scare or some catharsis or triumph of character, it's still ultimately a Spielberg film and that means there's always more to discover each and every time. Great cinema is timeless yes, but his name almost guarantees the film will have a longer life expectancy.

Being in a Spielberg film, we are of course almost immediately introduced to a family, and one that will be core to which the protagonist gravitates, because of course there's more than just the audience's composure on the line in this film, there's the family unit to maintain. I like how in Spielberg's '70s families exist somewhere between a 1950s nuclear family and the Wonder Years era of freedom and discord and strife that became more apparent in the domestic environment. Introducing our timeless Chief Brody, unwitting hero, the man whom I seem to recall earned much adoration from me as a child, wakes up alongside his wife, bathed in the radiant summer glow, checks the window to ascertain the whereabouts of his kids, and trades quips with his wife and then leaves. It's fairly standard stuff, but it's great in introducing the warm domestic heart of Amity, Brody's life, and the man himself. This is what is being threatened constantly throughout the film, and we take much delight in that. Chief Brody is a perfect character with which to embark on this adventure, because he's neither particularly macho or domineering or timid and inhibited. He's played by Roy Schieder with both composure and hesitance, his glasses and his patience carry a bookish reticence to him, but he's also firm and resolute, like every good hero, and I dedicate this paragraph to him because I've always been drawn to the guy. I think as a child I had some sort of Freudian complex with his character, because to me he always emanated paternal qualities. Glasses, cigarette and black turtleneck are eminently respectable.

Perhaps the wife, is a little underdeveloped, as she's really more of figure of quiet domestic life, and extension of Brody's family responsibility than much of a character herself, and maybe some of Amity itself, like the Mayor (played with shady-contempt and-a-thin-façade-of -beach-front- good-guy-with-that-bloody-sports-coat-of-his by Murray Hamilton who I actually recognised from an episode of the Twilight Zone), is a little underexplored, who insists on keeping the beaches open, innumerable times, despite his children also being there, but then, Spielberg knows to keep this film focused on the actual terror driving its way through the narrative, and that all the other stuff is there to keep us involved in the world and actually care beyond visceral thrill, but not start wondering in-depth about it all. It's a tight picture, and like Aliens what is does is initially suggest at the terror, which we know is there but can't be certain of, introduce us to the characters and see their dynamics unfold naturally, all whilst the tension slowly coils up, then thrusts these characters into danger, as that tension snaps violently in our faces. People may be surprised how little Jaws is actually seen, as the film taunts us with his presence and consequence but not a physical sighting and in one case the carnivorous beast becomes a floating pier, which is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.

Of course the immortal dynamic of this film is in the troublesome trio of Brody, Hooper and Quint, the latter two played by Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. The former is an animated dramatic-exposition- unloader, played to a wonderful point where he almost seems unhinged in his love of sharks, and the latter really needs little introduction, except to say that the monologue never diminishes in power, partly because Shaw in playing such a haggard and crude man is utterly arresting when he's quiet and haunted, and the silence that hangs over that seen is so heavy, and it's both a brilliant move in humanising a character and furthering the horrific mythology and possibility of this shark, and thus the sense of dread that becomes so palpable.

In re-watching this film for the first time in three years, I think what helped turn the key in this slick retro engine and build a momentum where I didn't feel there was one before, is my understanding of Ryan Gosling's performance. I had expected a Tarantino exercise in verbosity of pop culture shenanigans and quick wit laced with escalating levels of violence, what I instead got was some love story in an idiosyncratic world that was punctuated with endless silences where the people felt like marionettes in stasis, and all of this carried by a glum and solidarity unnamed protagonist who seemed to me like an anthropomorphic equivalent of the toothpicks he was so fond of. But of course, one does not forget Drive.

Whether it's the intense, eye-lid stapling opening sequence that burns itself in your mind, in which the journey through the dark neon-tinged streets under the looming presence of the cityscape is both furiously thrilling - as we sit passenger, both accomplice and overwhelmed audience in this high-speed pursuit whilst the police scanner and sports coverage on the radio duets and becomes a countdown and a challenge - and a smooth and casual ride in the calmed presence of our Driver, Ryan Gosling, as he effortlessly navigates us through this cultural labyrinth, the retro ambiance of the soundtrack and the city which creates a timeless quality which mythologises Los Angeles as some cinematic world, or maybe just the Driver himself, Drive is the antithesis of a forgettable movie.

Until re-watching this, Gosling was still completely an enigma to me. Granted I haven't seen any of his other works, and as far as I'm aware this performance doesn't exactly encapsulate the man, he does appear to have been working in a versatile selection of films for a while now, but there was always something I felt whenever I would see him in picture or in trailer, that felt a little lacking. Maybe it's those impenetrable eyes. But it must be my greater cinematic understanding since first watching this film, because I realise now that an actor can convey just as much through physicality, expression and general demeanour as they can through dialogue. And Gosling excels in this. His Driver, a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway one, seems to be a descendant in the long line of silent heroes, another creation of the Hollywood mythos that favours actions over words. And this is something fascinating that this film creates, as it is a clearly very cine-literate piece, far more so than me, in that it plays between the fiction of its setting and the actual real emotion of its people. The Driver is caught somewhere between some being a confused young man without precise direction and a lovelorn white-knight that continues the legacy of our filmic heroes. There are many why's that you could throw at this character and his world, but I think it's important to accept that he is a product of this place, and in falling in love with his beautiful and dainty and reticent neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and subsequently in finding himself taking responsibility for her and her son, he is fulfilling the necessary journey as a protector, or hero, because that is all he understands. Both the most grandiose and intimate moments come from their all-to- brief time together; in one triumphant sequence that feels like we're gliding along the golden light of a dream, as the synth-y triumph of 'Real Hero' plays, The Driver takes Irene and her son out on to the LA riverbed, and they soar along existing outside of any reality but their own. The silences between these characters, like when the son stares up at the driver, in wonder and adoration, challenging him to a no-blink contest, and when he shares the company of Irene, nothing necessarily needs to be said, because in the silences that they cultivate and share they are at peace in the mystery of each other. He is a man without a past; she is a woman who seems to maintain an emotional composure despite her difficult domestic situation with a husband in jail.

The husband who is released from jail and brings with him criminal residual that he cannot escape just as these characters are bonding seems like a convenient catalyst for the plot, but the film takes delight in these genre conventions and entrapping the Driver in this pre-determined cinematic journey. When Irene's husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) who seems relatively sincere about making an honest lifestyle yet is still caught up in crime, there is only one course of action we know the Driver can take.

The film loves its contrasts and contradictions. The Driver never carries a gun, a principle that seems weirdly pacifist, but then we learn he favours far more personal resolutions. When Christina Hendricks fails to answer his question on whether she set him up on their heist, he slaps her, pins her to the bed, and all intimidation and all power is achieved through one pointed finger. He points it furiously at her, like a gun, and it seems to be a conduit for all his anger and heroism. When things are complicated further, later on in the film, he and Irene share a tender-most-probably-good-bye-kiss in an elevator they share with a man the Driver knows he is going to have to immediately kill, Irene still present. This valiant white knight will go to psychotic levels to protect innocence, and it's an irony that the world enforces. All this is without even mentioning the talents of Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, their characters each a little more dubious than the next. Ultimately they each serve bloody purpose in this offbeat LA mythological genre love odyssey that within so little time has found a place as an iconic film, something it will not fail to maintain because it exists in the beating heart of cinema itself.

I remember first looking at the poster and marvelling at the vibrant hipster-ness of it all; wondering whether the bold pink background and the ever-so- slightly neglected moustache was part of some manicured irony. But Her is sincere at its heart, and is no more of an elaborate fashion statement than Wes Anderson is a hipster who dresses his worlds in sumptuous arraignments to avoid any feeling. The world of this film, in which people wear cut-off trousers, live in open, stylized apartments and are inseparable from their technology, is just a reflection of where we are now and where we are headed. It's a near future look at the Apple Generation – obsessed with the latest refreshment of material trends, living in a world of perfect technological shortcuts – and although there is some obvious satire in this, like the job Joaquin Phoenix has at 'handwrittenletters.com' writing love letters on behalf of couples, the film isn't mocking or necessarily judging these people so much as it is just speculating how we would just romantically navigate in a world like this. A common criticism seems to be that the film, like the state of much of the population in it, is emotionally disconnected and that the concept of people having romantic surrogates to write letters on their behalf is implausible, which I don't understand. These are just one of the many ways in which people are utilising short-cuts in their lives, technological or otherwise, to reduce their energy and commitment to a task. We do it constantly; we're always finding ways of reducing the distance from A to B. What this film doesn't portray is a world of Orwellian automatons complete devoid of emotion. There is still genuine feeling in the world, but the problem is that people are becoming less capable of expressing it.

Theodore Twombly, the reserved and melancholy protagonist, awkward and slightly askew like his name, is played with absolute tenderness by Joaquin Phoenix. He's both fragile and innocent and youthfully exuberant and seeing a tentative smile on his face was like seeing Toby Maguire, if he was a far more convincing actor. Phoenix is so far removed from his role in The Master that I struggle to accept the two are the same person. That is a wonderful thing. And what he has to do here, in communicating and falling in love with a disembodied voice, is drawn on his emotions without the usual external stimuli and still make it convincing. But it's not entirely due to Phoenix that his journey is so captivating to watch. His character experiences throughout the film the aching pains of the purgatorial post-break-up, the surging currents of falling in love and the precariousness of that position, and revitalisation in a new awareness of one's situation - all of which the film beautifully captures as it feels in a constant state of heightened feeling. The film exists in this odd amalgamation of the Los Angeles and Shanghai, of smooth sweeping walkways and scattered shrubbery and neon, and so it looks perfect and comforting but it's also artificial. Early on in the film when we see Theodore walking home against the tall imposing cityscape I was reminded of Lost in Translation, in which a lively and personable city just furthers the sense of inward isolation. All this gestating emotion is also captured in the soft and occasionally subdued palette, which looks as if all the warmth and energy is just under the surface, waiting to burst forth. Often the most vibrant object on screen is Theodore himself, with his wonderful array of shirts, because he's a lonely beacon of colour in a world he's too detached from, ya see?

But the film doesn't make the mistake of condoning Theodore's isolationism, or romanticising his inwardness and failure in maintain healthy relationships. The Operating System which he purchases, which is advertised as being able to adapt and perfectly implement itself in his lifestyle reflects this; he wants something that can entirely meet his needs and support him, because he hasn't quite built the momentum to do that himself. Enter Scarlett Johansson, in disembodied form, as Samantha, whose performance, like Phoenix's, is a testament to her versatility. She, as this artificial intelligence, seems so far removed from an emotionally dulled robot, the blossoming relationship between her and Theodore requires little, if any, active suspension of disbelief. She is effervescent, sweet, seductive, thoughtful, caring, and the smallest displays of vocal presence, from giggles of delight to breathy and nervous sighs were halfway there in making me fall in love with her too. In Under the Skin, Johansson plays an alien who arrives on Earth effectively a blank slate and throughout her journey we see a slowly growing and struggling humanity, and here Johansson takes a similar path, in that she is an intelligent A.I that we witness become more sentient and aware until it begins to develop its own life, the fundamental difference being that she is designed to specifically emulate human behaviour, and is convincing at it.

As the film goes on and Theodore deepens his relationship with Samantha, we see from him past relationship with Catherine, played by the ever scintillating Rooney Mara, why he is probably drawn to her in the first place. In the many warm and polaroid-like flashbacks with Catherine, everything is alive and awash in the great highs of love, but when she actually makes an appearance in the present she accuses him of neglecting her needs. Amy Adams also warrants a mention, and here is the first time I've seen her playing an ordinary person just going through the motions of life.

There is much philosophical subtext beyond the confines of this review, particularly in the implications of what actually happens to Samantha and her fellow A.I in the end. There is a suggestion of enlightenment, of some crystalline world not yet ready to us, but the film itself feels so damn pure.

This is my third (proper) viewing of Kurosawa, and although each previous experience left enough of an impression on me to anticipate the next one, and although almost a year later images of The Hidden Fortress (1958) are still burned in my mind and playing like a permanent slideshow, only now something has really clicked with me. Like the best music albums that slowly unfurl their layers after repeated listening, my relationship with Kurosawa has now progressed beyond admiration to borderline love. Even Rashomon (1950) took a while to settle in my mind before I could fully comprehend exactly what it was doing and why I couldn't leave the thought of it alone. Kurosawa had such a masterful command of film that each and every moment feels alive, and not just kinetic but thoughtful.

A scene here that I immediately recall is one in the dance hall which much of the action revolves around, in which the camera is tightly focused on a corridor, and we see our resident gangster Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune) drunkenly stumble in, barely supported by two cronies, and then quickly pulled off frame. The camera waits for the rest of the flood of people to issue in, before pulling back along the corridor and stopping at a table of women, who talk of Matsunaga and his company, who are just off-screen. Just describing this scene does little much to illustrate its importance, but it significantly raises the drama and captures the chaos of the environment in a single interesting shot: our character has been warned not to drink and has been actively resisting the temptation, his being dragged off screen in pathetic stupor helps only adds to his increasing helplessness that we the audience share with him and the choice to suddenly stop on this group of women cleverly allows a piece of exposition to be delivered about a character in the form of relished gossip without artificially slowing the action down.

Maybe what makes Kurosawa more readily accessible, on a superficial level at least, is how intertwined he seems to be with Western culture. Whether the film is borrowing elements from the West, or what you're seeing is the original prototype that was taken and remade in Westernized form, ala Seven Samurai, it's hard to escape the meeting of cultures in his work. Not that you'd want to. Here, the film takes place in a more immediate Post-WWII setting, and so the streets and its inhabitants are infused with a foreign presence; some signs are English, the gangsters dress and posture like Americans, and the malaise of recent war is still in the air, relayed to us through the cranky and cynical Doctor who really, it appears, just wants to help and hearten his fellow people. There sits a wide stagnant pool outside his office that Kurosawa's camera frequently returns to, and the Doctor at one point tries to warn off a group of children gathered around it, his aged, grumpy presence masking the fact, to the children at least, that he doesn't have to warn them of the typhoid they'll get for hanging around such places.

This compassionate man is played impeccably by Takashi Shimura, who I've learned to be a Kurosawa regular. He is both cantankerous and quietly sensitive. He struggles with alcoholism but is entirely dedicated to his job. Shimura has this wonderful lower lip which works to great comic effect and can earn our sympathy easily; sometimes he looks so indignant at the happenings of the world, others he blusters and bumbles and drags it across the top of a glass loaded with alcohol. This Doctor is visited one night by an injured man, Toshiro Mifune, who it turns out is a gangster with a threatening case of TB, and an odd bond is solidified between them that comes not so much from friendship as it does just their yearning need to exist; the Doctor needs to help his patient and the patient knows, despite all his posturing, the he needs the Doctor. Mifune is like lightning here, striking at every turn and always carrying some threat of destruction. But that destruction isn't so much outward violence as it is him slowly killing himself. Much of the pathos in the film comes from seeing him ever so slowly and consistently deteriorate, until it seems like there is hardly anything left of him. Toward the end of the film, when Matsunaga realises he has been stripped of all power and is effectively waiting for his own grave to be filled, he has so little strength his body can barely take the realisation; his hanging limbs and ghoulish frozen face seem to call back to the Silent era of bold theatrical movement, and in fact in the pale desperation of his face I was reminded of Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr Cagliari.

This film runs at little over 95 minutes and Kurosawa keeps the relatively simple story alive in every frame, and is filled with wonderful touches. In the first half of the film, a street musician regularly plays a mournful piece on his guitar at night, the same rhythm and the same place each time, and the world feels repeated and cyclical. When a recently released Gangster returns from prison, he asks for the guitar the musician has and plays his own piece; not just hearkening his own arrival to the world but announcing the film's shift into the second half and the darker place it is taking us and its characters. This includes a haunting fever dream of two Mifunes and final confrontation that is reckless and intense and pathetic and in its spontaneity feels proto-Godard (without the pretension). This is Kurosawa's eighth film but what he considered his first, and it is clear that he has taken away the experience from those seven previous features and distilled it into something entirely his own; a clear indication of all the masterpieces to come.

Apparently Paul Thomas Anderson watched this film frequently throughout the making of There Will Be Blood, and I can see how that this might have got him into the necessary mindset – sweltering desolate landscapes with small pockets of civilisation that sit like mirages in the expanse, the lifestyle of finding your fortune or wait until you die, and the drive of hunger and greed that both films share. This isn't a film about gold so much as it is about the people who seek it and how the fantastical material pursuit affects character. Fred Dobbs is no Daniel Plainview, but both of them travel down a road to the worst of their humanity. Dobbs is a Bogart I didn't expect. This was my first experience of him, and cornerstone of American acting and cultural icon such as he is, the image I had of him in mind was more one of nobility and bravado. The sentiment of Rick Blaine is not welcome here. From the moment we're introduced to Dobbs, he's washed up, desperate, scrounging for meals and for work. But this is Bogart, and he's got a hardened edge to him. In that sharp equine face, there's an eagerness for adventure. But instead of that, he gets conned out of a pay check for doing back-breaking labour in the intense heat. It's an inhospitable world, where self-preservation is the ultimate concern.

I like the languid Mexican town, Tampico, which the film and its characters initially dwell in, struggling to find a way out. It's sort of like a Casablanca; not a destination that you choose, but a place in which you end up. Except this little Oasis doesn't have that beating heart of optimism, romance, or solidarity. The only common ground the people find here is their need for their next monetary fix. Dobbs meets another American in the same tired situation as him, a man named Curtin (Tim Holt) who counterbalances his roughness and edginess with a more relaxed, take-it-as-it-comes personality, and when they eventually decide on their quest of gold and shake their hands in bargain, you just know which one of them is going to hold up their end of the deal. But it's how you get there of course, not necessarily where you're going.

There's a wonderful saloon brawl early on in the film, when Dobbs and Curtin confront the man who cheated them out of their pay, and it's an uneven and almost pathetic display of flailing limbs and thrown weight that is interesting to watch, because it ignores the standard of a quick and easy fight that usually ends in some cheap retribution, and thereby kind of sets the tone for the film; that in this Western world, things can be unfair and bloody and one has to go to uncomfortable lengths to protect or pursue your interests.

The third adventurer, Howard, is a delicious performance by Walter Huston and he plays that wizened yet giddy old man perfectly; he's the type of character that can impart sage advice and dance and click his heels simultaneously, so it's something to relish in. So the three men all provide interesting counter-points to each other, with Howard as a reflection of the hardened selfishness of Dobbs and the compassion and loyalty of Curtin, yet neither entirely either one. He is an old man who has been through more than these two men combined, and still reached this far. He admits at one point that had he been younger he might have actually succumbed to the temptation to betray his partners. Wikipedia describes this as neo-western, and however credible that may be, as these weird categorisations are often convoluted and obtuse, it is definitely not incorrect, as this is not a typical, romanticised Western, where everything hero prevails and everything is right in the world. Yet it is not an 'anti-western' like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, where there is no hope or unconditional love in the world and everyone's lives are subject to the whims of nature and man, entirely out of their control. This film has a fairly neat, melodramatic conclusion where the characters reflect on preceding events and reach some sort of realisation in their lives (two other films, both of which I love and were coincidentally also released in the same year as this, 'Drunken Angel' and 'Rope', include this type of ending) and the heroes, if we wish to restrict them to a simple title, do prevail, and the bad guys do die, and everyone does, arguably, get their just reward, but this conclusion is earned rather than forced, as there is real human conflict to get there.

The actual gold-procuring part of the film in which the three men live on the mountain for however long reminded me, oddly, or not so oddly, of Brokeback Mountain. In writing that I realise that it may seem my mind has wandered to stupid and immature territory, but I like making odd and tenuous connections with things. Both films have their most consequential moments in the isolated natural landscapes of their respective western worlds, in which their characters become their truest selves. In Brokeback, the two men are alone, herding, in these gorgeous sweeping vistas, and they are in the heart of their Western, slowly drawing closer together but realising this can't happen back home. Here, the men are in a rough, harsh landscape and become more suspicious of each other. They elect to kill a man who insists on working with them, because they can't summon the necessary trust as their energies are consumed entirely by their fortunes. The fortune is gold of course, and we realise, in a concise moral conclusion like those at the end of movies released in 1948, that when man reaches gold, the gold often reaches the worst of him.

I like it when a film really understands its characters and as we follow them we can see their foibles and their follies and their humanity being opened up and challenged. The Coen Brothers do this with impeccable black comedy in the framework of a thriller, as in Fargo or Barton Fink or Burn After Reading, whereby the entire tenuous structure of people's lives begins to collapse and we are left perfectly conflicted with sympathy and delight in how this will play out. Then there's the Before Trilogy, and Journey to Italy, which quietly follows its characters learning about themselves as we are too. Certified Copy plays like a condensed version of the Trilogy, and has some of the 'lost in a landscape bigger than themselves' exploration of Journey, yet this film never feels as in control or as vitally connected to its ideas as those films do. Many things are discussed, and layers revealed, but it's just not entirely convincing.

Not entirely convincing, but an excoriating watch nonetheless. When this film was finished, I felt like I had just witnessed an entire relationship, from the first fruitful seeds, to infatuation and love and friction and wear and decay, and in a sense I had because that is essentially what the two characters of the film take us through. The film begins with William Shimell, playing the role of modest and charming British academic who is promoting his book in Italy. The idea of this book gives the film its title and what the whole film begins to play around with: the copy. The copy, and it's relation to the original, its authenticity, and whether one should invest any time in an original if a recreation is believable. He would answer 'no' to that last thought. Juliette Binoche appears at his speech, leaves his translator a note, and the next day he appears at her small museum/exhibition/trinket shop, artistic debate is continued, and thus their journey begins. The boundaries of conversation between two people who are seemingly strangers soon dissolves and they are soon fluctuating between moments of bitterness, delight and contemplation, and soon enough in what appears to be a bizarre role-play, the assume the role of a married couple and any façade that they try to wear is soon being flayed.

Binoche is utterly captivating and her award for Best Actress at Cannes is entirely deserved. She is seemingly inexhaustible, communicating in Italian, French and English and losing no degree of vulnerability, bitterness or magnetism between the languages, and she has a remarkable way of kind of softly inhabiting any given situation but being able to turn caustic and uncomfortable with immediacy. There are moments when the characters are sitting opposite each other in conversation and they are speaking directly into the camera, and when Binoche does this it's never less than transfixing.

Shimmel, for a first time actor is for the most part quite grounded and reserved, but it's with him that the film often feels at its flattest. He's the more outwardly ruminating intellectual, always approaching things with a contemplative thought, and it often feels like the film is struggling to maintain a deep thought, as if in fear of being mocked for being nothing less than poetic. Maybe that's the way the character is supposed to be, but all his affectations get tiring. He comments on Eucalyptus trees being so totally unique, how each one has its own shape and definition and being unlike the other one, and as truthful as it might be, it's just a comment that leaves you thinking 'And?' At other times the exchanges of these characters are scintillating, as when an innocuous pit-stop at a café becomes changes the gears of their relationship, and Binoche begins to furiously criticise his cool, charming bullshit-masquerade. The dialogue operates in these two modes, between fascinating and questionable, but never really finds its footing.

Abbas Kiarostami is clearly a man who knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it, and at the jolly age of 74 all the wisdom and joy and despair he must have accumulated in his lifetime can be felt here, in the vivaciousness and the bitterness of the characters, in the way a camera can just sit and stay trained for minutes on end and let the people unfurl themselves, but sometimes it feels like all he is trying to much to do justice to all his collected experience in life. There's a shot toward the end with our couple standing in a courtyard together and just in front of them is a far older couple, man and wife, standing on the same side of each other, tentatively walking and supporting each other. The imagery is obvious but the connotations are beautiful, and it's the sort of a shot that could only have worked as aposiopesis to the journey preceding it. (Maybe that is the point)

So there was an ambivalence I felt throughout the film, but it's hard to dismiss something this lovingly made, as an expression of the melancholy of our relationships in life. There's a blustery and picturesque feel throughout this Italian journey that is hard to argue with.

The film begins with an intimate close-up of Martin Luther King facing the camera, speaking. In dim lighting, against an ill-defined background, he could be anywhere, talking to anyone, the power of his words carrying an unquantifiable potential for change. Then we learn he is in a hotel room, 'backstage' so to speak, preparing his acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize in the company of his wife. This introduces what the film does so well: giving us a real, tangible human King beyond the thunderously confident public presence that we are all acquainted with, and choosing a time in history that perfectly illustrates this. Had the film gone back earlier in time, we might have had a day-time biopic in a 'rising through the ranks' type manner, if any later it would lose the significance of what was achieved here. It can be too easy to forget that beyond the impeccably delivered speeches King was a living, breathing man living moment-to- moment, fighting against ever-opposing tides. In just the first few minutes in King's eyes we can see both his trademark indomitable confidence and a real tentativeness, and I wondered why David Oyelowo has not just been brushed aside all awards season, but rarely talked about. I mean, all resounding adjectives aside, surely this is one of the most convincing performances of the last year alone.

An admirable performance can only elevate a film so far, and this might have been another Dallas Buyers Club scenario in which its actors' magic is such that it convinces you the film is better than it really is. I think Selma avoids this, and never lets itself become a satisfied, crowd-pleasing uplift that we leave the cinema from convinced that humanity is wonderful and will always triumph. There is generally enough weight to the film to keep it grounded in not just something that feels like reality, but one that could collapse at any moment, even though the general course of events have been rendered and we know their destination. Oyelowo is largely responsible for this, yes, as he really conveys the perpetual-struggle of King's position, but the director and cinematographer deserve credit too. When King is in prison, he is barely lit, swamped in doubt, and in this quiet reflection we can really appreciate the immense difficulty of fulfilling his responsibility to himself, to the God he frequently talks about and prays too and the legions of black people across America that he has to ensure remain just that, legions, united, and not just a chaotic and vengeful swarm, which they probably have every right to be. When he and his followers are assaulted by police as they attempt to protest outside the registration office, we can see the anger, disgust, sympathy, and barely repressible instinct to physically act somehow, as he holds so firmly to his complete civility. Would a more by-the-numbers biopic have done this? Perhaps, but not so well.

When Mrs King quietly confronts her husband about his possible infidelities, his yes-or-no response takes an agonisingly long time to arrive, and as the camera lingers on his face we can sense him desperately considering everything, because here is not just a man caught in an uncomfortable domestic situation, but something much larger than that. His personal and public life are so intertwined that they cannot be separated. That long silence between the question and the answer is evidence of a director knowing exactly what they are doing. Ava Gardner knows that this is a man in a unique situation, and she really allows us to experience that. As well as this film escapes a by-the-numbers routine, there are still times where it feels like its lapsing into a formulaic mode to push the drama forward. All of the presidential scenes, as competently acted as they were and as necessary as they were for dramatic conflict, just felt perfunctory compared to the rest of the film. People have complained that the portrayal of Lyndon B Johnson is historically inaccurate to the point where he is disreputable or unforgiving, but the film makes it pretty clear that as much as this man might be hesitant for his own selfish reasons is essentially navigating a vast field of political land mines, and is not so much uncooperative as he is cautious. But all these scenes of the president that the film regularly cuts away to, usually to present the political reaction to the latest event, just seem like the film wants to keep reminding us of the scale of King's fight, or that the fight isn't with El Presidento himself but with something more abstract like the firm values of society, or maybe so we can feel warm and exhilarated every time we cut back to King. When King and Johnson are together the strained relationship between the two is constantly tugging in differing directions, and it's interesting, but otherwise not so much. Tom Wilkinson is always effective, but maybe his character just feels like most other reluctant-to-help-the-hero types we've encountered before, and does get to do much more. Giovanni Ribisi is like a less amorous Waylon Smithers, and Tim Roth added to the novelty of having two British actors playing the most important American politicians of the film.

Then there's Oprah Winfrey, who managed to sneak into the film without drawing attention to her, or without the film having to constantly announce her presence. The film has integrity, which comes naturally with the material, it has authenticity, as the archive footage at the end demonstrates the attention to detail and the sound-bites of King himself prove how indistinguishable Oyelowo is from the figure he is playing, and it has artistic flourish, and my mind is continually drawn back to the shot of the protesters in the nightly march, silhouetted against stark white light and running desperately, in a moment of an overpowering societal divide that feels like something from Schindler's List.

Not everyone can find their voice through writing, find the right rhythm or pace or just the general ideas they want to express. But when someone can write, it's often the purest form of communication. This is a film about people who can write, and write to each other, because it's their consolation and fulfilment. Mary and Max, the titular characters, two disparate figures from separate continents share and understand the world from the beginnings to ends of their pieces of paper, as it's the only way they know how. But it's not a film about writing itself; writing is the beautiful catalyst for the most beautiful friendship, a bond that binds atoms together because these characters will it, and if they will it the universe wills it too.

"Mary Dinkle's eyes were the colour of muddy puddles. Her birthmark, the colour of poo." observes the narrator in the opening lines of the film, his clear, precise voice, like that of a television presenter, perfectly capturing the tone to come. It's a simple truth, both humorous and melancholy, because in life if you have one you often have the other. These are essential elements of her, she hates them but they're fundamental to who she is. She's a lonely pre-pubescent girl in a drained, sepia Australian suburbia, an environment of grinding routine, and she is most often alone to absorb and pour over everything in her own colourful inner- life, a cauldron of innocent wonder and a quiet, growing despair, which contains ideas such beliefs such as that in Australia Babies are found in the bottom of beer mugs, and her musing over where they are found in America (she deduces that although Americans drink much Cola, Babies wouldn't be found in the cans because they'd have no means of escape) prompts her to pick at random an address in the telephone book and pose this question. She couldn't clarify this with her parents because they are not present in any sense of the word, the mother a perpetual drunk and the father an extreme recluse. This is not a decaying suburban marriage but just one of a mutual desire to be withdrawn in their own world. Or perhaps they forget the other one exists. Each person is lonely, but Mary reaches out. She doesn't expect a friendship, but serendipity grants her one, and of course she deserves it.

Does this not sound immensely relatable? And thus enters Max, a lonely obese Jew living in a stark black-and-white New York City, almost a Noirish landscape. But not one of intrigue, one of melancholy, one of good and bad, black-and-white. When Max is in his apartment, indulging in his own adventurous recipes, watching his favourite television show, the world is good. Anywhere outside is bad, where the world to him seems to favour madness over operating on any logical system. It doesn't take long to see he may have Asperger's. People are immediately distant and judgemental of him (as when he is mocked for wearing a helmet) but when Mary begins to write none of this matters. Max doesn't question the fact and 8 year old is writing to him, because initially in their minds they are just following a logical and path and asking each other's questions, and then it becomes an opportunity to express all the things that have ever crossed their mind but were never able to do any more than that. Philip Seymour Hoffman is extraordinary, with his despondent, breathless Jewish cadence, and I had I gone into the film without any knowledge I wouldn't have known it was him. In fact, the reason for me watching this was as a sort of Hoffman retrospective, in light of the one year anniversary of his untimely passing, and I thought selecting a film solely of his voice-acting would display an aspect of him not yet seen, but I realised this voice is just one of his many, and every performance was some aspect, however slight, unseen, and so this is a real testament to his ability to inhabit the character, not to announce his presence but not failing to distinguish himself either.

The film has very little story beyond this friendship, and the people that occupy their individual worlds are more or less just figures to aid their development in the world and to provide them material for their letters rather than being fully-fleshed characters, but that's OK, because what is given through their exchanges than more poignant and witty and abrasive, and just damn real than most films could achieve through this concept. It's always convincing, and that's down to how honestly portrayed these characters are; Max doesn't understand social conventions, and tells Mary that he once worked in a condom factory but has never tried one on, Mary describes her neighbour's fear of the outside as 'homophobia', and although her older self eventually uses the correct term, the film doesn't need to show us her learning her error, she eventually pursues the naïve idea that she can cure Max's Asperger's

I haven't even mentioned the animation, which is a beautiful clay style in which much looks bloated and listless and melancholy but also so lovingly and meticulously crafted that it's impossible not to admire. Clay of course is so malleable that it's almost infinite in its possibilities, and the film knows this and is able to capture every passing emotion with care. Although it's animation, this is not a children's film. It's a film of retrospect, as we watch Mary grow up - and even Max too, who grows to accept his position in the world – we see in her ourselves learning and travelling through life, and we hope, or at least I do, that we can remain as warm and as eternally optimistic as this film, which I think believes as much injustice and tragedy as there is, we are capable of balancing it out.

This is my second recent foray into the world of Cronenberg, and it just got infinitely more unhinged. In fact so unhinged that the door promptly collapsed and I fell forward into a strange world of ill- defined, amorphous strangeness, a world that left me like Alice without any wit. Whereas Eastern Promises played like a relatively straightforward drama, but with brooding human exploration in the corners, this is Lynchian, a bizarre psychosexual landscape that has no discernible markings of reality's beginning or end.

Can I possible recall what happened, never mind why it happened? Initially, it's structured like some Stephen King-esque mystery- horror, in which we follow James Woods, a sleazy, exploitative, my morals-are- as-malleable-as-playdoh cable-executive, who discovers a mysterious, lurid broadcast signal of quasi-Japanese game-show torture porn and wants to sell it, and despite the uncomfortable air and the apartment of dirt and cold pizza in which he dwells, there's some slight charm in his edge, enough of the mundane ordinariness in him that we can sympathise when he begins to venture out of his depth and grow Freudian vaginas on his stomach that also function as safety- deposit boxes. And once this signal is discovered, and a dirty and detached Debbie Harry enters into his life, reality begins to crinkle like tissue paper.

This film has a fixation on video, which functions as important plot- devices among other things, and feels like it is perfectly at home in the world of dubious video-rentals. It has a cold, closeted grimy feel to it, like it could be schlock of the 80s, but it's far too sophisticated for that. From the beginning of the film, which opens with a video recording of a woman supposedly talking to James Woods, our confidence in reality is being uprooted, the relationship between the video-world, however fictitious, and our current here-and-now reality is being played with and tested. James Woods's character seems to be a connoisseur of the form, living much of his life supposedly in front of the TV, sustaining relationships even through the TV, in the form of the aforementioned video tapes. The film has an almost fetishistic interest in tapes, with them being inserted into the body, at various points in the film. Now this leads into two interesting areas.

Firstly, the make-up and special effects. David Cronenberg's earlier output is known for its wild, brazen and wry willingness to stir the audience with its gruesome practical effects. These really don't disappoint. Here we get all manner of the grotesque, (credit of course to Rick Baker for making this all possible) from a writhing and almost sensual television set, to the complete mutilation of a human body. It's hilarious and unsettling yet it's never indulgent, and always feels like it's in service of something. Cronenberg seems interested in exploring the extreme possibilities of the human condition, like what happens when violence takes hold of us? What do we become? In Eastern Promises, when the camera lingers on the sight of a slit throat, it's not indulging but forcing us to witness the truth of this reality. At the end of this film, after many incomprehensible plot turns, a man is shot and we watch as is body seems to eviscerate itself as if the internal is trying to escape the internal. We see all of this because Cronenberg is concerned with the entire body; our entire physical form exists, and is vulnerable. In I think the film's only moment of intimacy, James Woods and Debbie Harry are splayed out, entirely naked together, indulging in their carnal appetites. Of course, the mind and the body are inextricably linked, and one does not do something without the other. This leads to the second area, of what the films ideas actually are.

It's hard to comprehend this film, in the latter half at least, when James Woods is so lost in a chasm between reality and unreality, and new revelations are being thrust upon him at every turn. I think there's some sort of new-order, dystopian thing going on, about harnessing the human weakness or propensity for this violence and using it for things and stuff and dubious machinations, but maybe it's all psychological, or metaphysical. The gore and surrealistic metamorphoses all serve a purpose, and talk about the underlying conditions of the characters, and this world. There's the obvious things, like the tape insertion, whereby the human becomes the direct, physical receiver of this content, and so I suppose rather than experiencing something vicariously, you are experiencing it, or you are actually it. You in this case being James Woods. It's also information being directly plugged into the body, which offers much squeamishness and more opportunities to adore the effects on display. So are people's relationships with television so severe that we're psychologically reliant on them? There's more than simple condemnation of our tele-saturated world going on here, it's Cronenberg after all, this strikes me as the sort of film that would a topic of study on a University course.

In the end, a television explodes in a propulsion of human gore, suggesting that we have become inextricably bound with the technology, to a questionable degree. Cronenberg does extremes, like parody which creates an exaggerated display of its subject, Cronenberg's extremes are human hypotheticals, not realist portrayals. "Long live the new flesh!" becomes a cultist chant iterated throughout the film. Maybe this new flesh is just the next of our relationships with the next of our technology, a process that will continue until one engulfs the other. At least we're not flailing cancerous arm-guns that have attached malignantly to our bodies. Not yet.

"They're the worst thoughts in the world" Will Graham tenderly confides in his son, sharing with him the unique and seemingly impossible burden that he is carrying, to a boy who can't possibly grasp the full implications of it but is nonetheless haunted by his father's now tentative walk through life. I was haunted too, as William Peterson plays this character as he should be played, a figure staring into the abyss, and nearly destroyed by this. He seems fragile and anxious, yet with a firmness and resoluteness usually found in the best cops and detectives and investigators. What also brilliantly conveys this psychologically perturbed mind is the general 'look' of the film; the set design, the lighting, the cinematography. I'm particularly fixated with the idea of the exterior worlds being expressionistic and reflective of a character's psychology, and here that is present without being overbearing.

There's a cold neon glare to much of the film, as in the scenes in the police department, a decay to the scenes of Dollarhyde, a sterile desolation to the environment of Lektor, but a warm melancholic blue to Will's family life, which I like to think reflects the general undercurrent of sorrow throughout the film. The film largely works because it allows us to understand Will Graham's mind-set enough to know that every step he takes in the investigation is a chipping against the rock of his fortitude, every time he commits himself psychology it threatens to derail him, and leave his family behind. This driving force keeps momentum, and is also sustained in the dynamic between him and both Crawford and Lektor (spelled with a K in this instance as if he is the product of some Nazi experiment or a perhaps just a Krautrock band). Crawford, played by Dennis Farina is suitably hardened and relatively unsympathetic, yet manages to get across the genuine concern of his character, and the protection that he knows is necessary to give to preserve Graham as it were. Continuing with my appreciation of the production design, I love the cacti that sit in darkened corners of Crawford's office, looking lifeless if not manufactured and a dismissive attempt at bringing some life into a cold environment. Even colder is the lair of Lektor, who resides in an almost dystopian looking building, with endless stairways that Graham can't seem to escape and walls of pure white.

I've held off from mentioning Silence of the Lambs until this point, if only to let Manhunter stand on its own terms and has a minor protest against how heavily that overshadows this film. But Anthony Hopkin's interpretation is so solidified and absolute in the minds of some people that it is helpful to describe Cox in contrasts to him. Whereas Hopkins had more of an intellectual charm, a superiority that was in play with his savage and sadistic aspect, Cox is far more cold and detached. He has a presence that is indomitable and feels like it might asphyxiate you, but he feels further away. Of course the way the character is played is specific to the material, and in Silence, Lector needed a sort of intimacy to be able to communicate with Clarice, something that isn't present here with Will. He sits with his mouth always slightly agape, as if both the intellectual and physical menace is readying to spill forth. The conversation between these two is framed perfectly, with their faces each appearing to be caught between the bars of Lektor's cell. Whereas Demme used zooms to arrive intensely close to faces, particularly on Starling and Lector to indicate the overpowering and demanding weight of their relationship, here Mann lets the camera rest back somewhat, watching these two men caught in the sight of each other and the psychological chains binding them.

Much of the melancholy of the film situates in the tragedy of Francis Dollarhyde, played with a perfect amount of physical imposure and as far as this character goes, emotional vulnerability, by Tom Noonan. Dollarhyde and Gumb both share a mystery to their character by not having their origins or motivations explained to simply justify the way they are, and although Gumb was a pitiful character trying to craft an identity, Dollarhyde in comparison feels like a character that we can both loathe and actively feel despair for, but both are impeccably played, so I'm not going to pick favourites. I will however admire both for their decisions to loudly play music that creates unsettling juxtaposition between their psychotic unstable states and the charm and melody of the song. Goodbye Horses wins for the unsettling serenity, but In-Gadda-Da-Vida has swells to an intense cacophony.

Dollarhyde goes tentatively on a romantic journey that almost feels like it could be a part of another film, yet it plays with such miserable inevitability and a neon dampness that it works really well as a part of the whole narrative. The character is trying to fulfil some utterly distorted vision of change, of becoming something impossible, that when he falls in love, or the distant and regressed and ordinary part of him does, he rejects it. There is a beautiful moment when in bed with his infatuation, Joan Allen, he pulls his hand up to her face, resting it there, beginning to cry. There is such conflict between the two identities, battling for their own change, that is inner fire and destruction is tangible.

The music, particularly the ending song, drifts into sentimental '80s triumph, and I got the impression that perhaps that was a commercial studio decision, and not Mann's, but the jarring effect is I suppose only in keeping with the odd, unhinged atmosphere. This is a product of its time, in the best sense, and to visualise this imagine an old, green-screen computer, with the glass of the monitor broken and blood seeping between the cracks. That is Manhunter.

This is a brutally visceral and haunting film about the overlap of two worlds and what this reflects of human behaviour. I know very little about Cronenberg but he seems to be a director interested in psychological and physical extremities, as in his body horrors, a History of Violence in which a man finds himself in a violent encounter which ruptures the peace of the suburban life he created for himself, and now here, where Naomi Watts plays a quiet and unassuming midwife whose safety is threatened when the death of a pregnant girl leads her to the Russian Mafia.

These extremes are fascinating for numerous reasons; because they challenge our assumptions of characters, because in Cronenberg's world of uncertain people we discover with the characters that they truly are and because in Cronenberg's deft hands it's often a perfectly energised synthesis of elements. An exhaustingly visceral sequence toward the end of film demonstrated this; a completely primal and urgent fight which rests on the accumulation of character and the masterfully cinematography, editing and choreography which never glorifies what's happening or intrudes. There's a kind of distance and clinical approach to the violence here and from what I remember of A History of Violence; there are several throats slit, completely unhidden to the audience, but the film never feels like it's relishing in this, just precisely stating what has happened before arriving at the subsequent consequences. I'm reminded again of a moment in A History of Violence, where Viggo Mortenson's acknowledgement of the gun in his hand that he's just used to dispatch two murderers is also the character and presumably us acknowledging the impending consequences.

I've mentioned this film so much in this short musing, but there are evidently many similarities between the two. Most obviously is the world of quiet domesticity being threatened by something darker and unforgiving. What this film does, and does well, is balancing the weight of its two main characters. In Naomi Watts' discovery of this seedy Russian Underworld, the film shifts focus to Viggo Mortenson, yet never relegates her to a supporting role, because both characters have important journeys that need to be followed through to the end. Viggo Mortenson is phenomenal, and it is odd why he has not been given more accolades, or is just talked about more often. All trace of any aspect of him you were familiar with disperses in mind when you see this performance such is the immersion, the transformation. He hasn't gone through some immense metamorphosis ala Christian Bale, but this a very physical performance, which ranges from dubious yet polite foreigner, assertive and don't –fuck-with-me, brooding and calculating, bruised, battered, and limp yet still determined and also sympathetic with some tenderness that penetrates the hardened façade he wears. This isn't mentioning the completely believable Russian accent he dons, which is entirely convincing, as is Vincent Cassel's, who plays virulent, pugnacious and sneering son of the mafia head, and Viggo's sort-of blood brother, with whom he shares such a convincing relationship, that is by turns potent and pathetic, at least on Cassel's end. This is the complete antithesis of pantomime Russian. (I perhaps neglected to mention that much of the dialogue actually is Russian.) The authenticity is all in service of the film, with the most recognisable element probably being the tattoos, which feature of the poster and on probably every piece of marketing associated with the film. The tattoos are these Russians' identities, they tell their story and their value, and as stated in the film, without tattoos you don't exist.

And then there is the Father, the figure of mafia authority, the puppeteer, who operates a restaurant and a jovial and welcoming façade which is what Naoimi Watts finds when she follows the lead in a diary of the aforementioned pregnant girl. He is repulsive, yet plays well just an old, wizened man of the community. This duality is present in many places, in the restaurant that functions as both a public dining room and a meet of important criminal figures, as well as having some part in the sex-trafficking of which the pregnant girl was a victim, a conflict in Viggo's character between the honourable choices he makes for Naomi Watts and the abject violence he is regularly involved with; there is a struggle of human extremes but no definitive conclusion. Maybe there can't be. There seems to be a lot of ideas in the background, but in the 100 minute running time, they remain there, as if they're extras hired for some realism and atmosphere but not an active participation. I've read Cronenberg described as an ideas man, so maybe there is far more subtext to be procured that I can't reach. I'm in the midst of reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, a book set in a world devoid of morality and that seems to have no interest in finding it, a landscape in which humanity is of little use, whereas here both morality and immorality are ever present, neither replacing the other but fuelling it. The child, born of rape, around which much of the plot gravitates, seems to symbolise this.

My opinions on Nolan's films need refreshing. Before I undertook this cosmic voyage the other night, I hadn't experienced any work of his since The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, which is in retrospect a turgid and self-important affair. I understand that many probably appreciate him for his abilities in forming a sort of marriage between grandiose and exhilarating blockbuster spectacle and quieter, experimental sensibilities, but in the vast library of cinema he hasn't really attracted me, and I make this point clear because perhaps in reviewing this film I lack the insight into his body of work to make interesting distinctions and fully appreciate what he is doing here. As it stands on its own terms it is a thoroughly engaging piece of cinema. And more….wholesome than Inception.

We begin small in setting, big in thematic possibilities. The world is dying, and has regressed into a failing crop society, which our intrepid protagonist Coop (Matthew McConaughey) is a part of. He's the humble but ambitious mid-western Dad, living on a farm with his Nuclear family. This isn't anything we haven't seen before; they're a functioning unit held together by the love and will of Hero Dad, the every-man who although relatable and ostensibly normal, we know is going to be far more talented and auspicious than any of us could ever hope to be. Will he be the saviour of man-kind? Who knows? What's important is McConaughey is unsurprisingly excellent here, with all the rustic charm we could want. As derivative and by-the-numbers sentimental as this film gets, it's never tiresome, simply because it is done so well, as evinced in the first hour and the final minutes of the film, which are work despite their Hollywood convictions.

It's quiet and familial at first, and there's a nice dawning sense of adventure contrasting with the eerie Dust Bowl wilderness that society is becoming, which is seemingly already post-apocalyptic, having settled into this new reality, where for example people's roles in society are determined for them based on their qualities, and so there a pre-established categories waiting to be filled, quite a dystopic idea. But this film isn't dystopian. It's too warm and optimistic, and for every portentous philosophical pondering that inhabits the script – "We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt" – there's the saccharine elements, like the films (particularly in the form of the wizened contemplative Michael Caine) constant quoting of Dylan Thomas' 'Do not go Gentle into that good night' which becomes some sort of mantra for humanity's perseverance in the depths of universal darkness.

When the film does begin its space-faring quest, it is a spectacle and an excitement that is unparalleled in current blockbusters. Seeing the detail of the ship against the vast background of space, peering through the windows at the distant earth, and eventually journeying into the wondrous unknown of new planets is something profound in itself, and perhaps Nolan should have taken a note from Kubrick and relied more on the power of these visuals to communicate ideas rather than resorting to platitudes and tiring exposition. There are of course going to be comparisons to 2001, but the similarities are only superficial and the tone of each film strikingly different. The film bears a little more resemblance to Close Encounters of a Third Kind, in that familial life is interrupted by cosmic events, particularly in the father who is torn between the domestic and the wider possibilities of existence. Even that is only a passing resemblance, and there are probably far more influences and connections I'm not aware of.

Speaking of the expository, too much of it is used during moments on the ship when the characters could be developing and acting like people with the weight of humanity on their shoulders. Wes Bentley, an actor whom I love but have tragically seen very little of, is unfortunately an example of this, his character just a tool for the explanatory, and so is wasted. Anne Hathaway is Anne Hathaway the Astronaut, dressing up in all the gear and wearing a different name, yet still the same person. Although though mentioning only her would be far too selective, as almost every actor is just the recognizable face working within the confines of the script. A special mention should be given to Mackenzie Foy, Coop's 10 year old daughter who gives a poignant performance.

So, this film isn't subtle, but it is an enthralling journey. There are smaller touches I appreciated, like the sound bridge of the T Minus Countdown linking the scenes of McConaughey reluctantly (McConaughey probably cries more than he does than in all his other films collectively, and boy is it an affecting sight) leaving his family behind and the ship taking off from Earth; the immediacy of this making his decision all the more emotional, but ultimately the film excels during its space exploration, a time when, like 2001, it is the definition of awesome.

I think this is less horror than it is a drama of existential anguish in which horrifying things happen; all of the characters in some way are struggling to hold together or discover a certain reality and the truthfulness of what is happening, with little to no result. Doctor Génessier, the father who has grievously wounded his daughter in a car accident and desperately seeks to repair his daughter's face is a brilliant play on the 'mad scientist' archetype: he has a realised goal to which all of his energy is channelled, but he doesn't flail around with typical melodramatic ambition. His eyes are haunted and distant, and when he communicates with the outside world it is often brief philosophical responses. In all his preoccupation he seems to exist restlessly in a purgatory. But this purgatory is beautiful though; a subdued monochrome world built on fairly quiet visuals that are sharply punctuated by moments of horror which are surprisingly gruesome for 1960.

One of the most disturbing scenes in the film comes at a moment when the Doctor presents a slideshow charting the gradual failure of a skin graft operation. We see pictures of his daughter's face as the body slowly rejects it and it becomes more deformed, and we wonder what he is willing to do to achieve success, and how much she has to suffer in its pursuit. There are moral ambiguities here, but his goal is not as unreasonable as it is his methods. He coldly buries someone's daughter under the pretence that it is his own, he ensnares young women in his house, and he keeps dogs and birds locked away somewhere in his cellar like a fairy-tale villain, the said dogs cruelly confined in these odd, almost space-age pens. But the ultimate emotional pain comes from his daughter, Christiane, who is the final victim of all this, as she to carry the weight of everything her father does, which is supposedly for her.

Her introduction is marvellous, using the striking mise-en-scene and confusing spatiality of the mansion to great surreal effect. It reminded me of The Shining, which uses a similar effect in the geographical discrepancies of the Hotel to maintain a sense of isolation and discomfort. We follow Doctor Génessier as he arrives in the dark, obscured cellar of the mansion, his arrival greeted only by the endless barking and howling of the dogs. He then slowly begins to ascend through the levels of the house; at first quite foreboding with the high windows and cage-like chandelier, and then quite comforting in the final floor of the house, which is soft and serene with its white corridors and crackling fireplace. This is almost a hell to heaven transition, but Christiane's situation is too painful for this to be heavenly. She is locked away like a princess in a tower, and her rescue is not imminent.

One of the most singularly beautiful and yet haunting images is the mask she wears to disguise her face. This is a testament to the ability of Edith Scob who has to convey almost entirely through the eyes, the striking emotion of which is painfully juxtaposed against the inhuman stillness of the mask. I wonder how Keanu Reeves would emote if he were to wear a mask like this. When she calls her fiancé (who is believes she is dead) but cannot bring herself to speak is now probably the single greatest silent phone call I've seen, which is refreshing because the call-but-not-a-call can be an insufferable cliché sometimes.

I wish the two Policemen had been given a little more development. There was perhaps a little comedy that could have been found in the veteran/rookie pairing, which could have lightened the load of all the melancholy, if only briefly, but if not that just a little more character to heighten the dramatic value of their investigation a little more. I look to The Exorcist for an interesting secondary story, in which the Policeman character creates a conflict between our need to see him succeed or escape harm and our interests in their MacNeil family and their wellbeing. The eventual plan of the Police in order to ascertain the guilt of Génessier felt a little weak though, as they use a decoy to try and prove their suspicions, yet don't do anything to make sure they are nearby and could intervene if her safety is compromised.

But maybe that's just a misguided attempt at trying to suggest 'improvement'. This film is a stunningly poetic look at the longing for identity, a theme which finely presents itself in the characters. Louise, Génessier's assistant, is the only one to have had a successful face transplant, yet despite this sense of self she fails to integrate into society, and instead helps Génessier with his crimes. Her presence is always accompanied by this slightly menacing fairground-esque music, or something echoing a carnival, which is appropriate because she is a freak-show, presenting the dire moral implications of Génessier's pursuit.

In the end, Christiane, who like a Snow White, complete with the birds fluttering around her shoulders, is almost beautiful, yet the physical sense of self has not been reconciled with the soul. The eyes are considered windows to the soul, but how much of that soul remains if those eyes are without a face?

Where do I begin? Well, there is absolutely no need to introduce the premise or detail the narrative in any way as I am sure this film, as influential and timeless as it is, has been thoroughly ingrained in the consciousness of every man woman and child, through one of the single biggest acts of horror-culture osmosis. Perhaps that's a little overblown, but if you haven't seen the film yet you have somehow trawled through unimaginable depths to read this review, then stop here, and watch the film with haste, you oblivious little thing. Like Freddy and Jason, Michael Myers is one of the eminent figures of horror, and like the other two, he sports iconic clothes and relies on simple acts to scare us witless. He stalks silently, determinedly, he lets his hulking frame stand seemingly indomitable in the sight of his soon-to-be-victims and the audience, yet he disappears and re-appears so ethereally that we are left terrified. Myers is a perfect composition of an intimidating human physicality and a menacing supernaturalism, chillingly demonstrated in the final moments of the film.

I was fortunate enough to see this in the cinema on Halloween night, as part of a one-off screening, and of course it was nothing short of marvellous. The film supposedly had some sort of 'digital restoration' but none of that modern-technological-intervening-crap harmed the film, or seemed to have any effect whatsoever. The grain was intact, and the film still had the generally warm and the rich pallet that is exclusive to shooting on film. That said, the film's look, especially in the outdoor scenes, is distinctly cold and greyish and that wasn't eliminated here, perfectly in keeping with the isolation and seclusion that Laurie and the audiences are subjected to. It looked stunning, sounded stunning, with an occasional vinyl-like crackle quality to it that made it all the more authentic. Seeing all the events unfold on the big screen is nothing short of spectacular; it completes the experience. There was a couple sitting in front of me that was giggling, but the dread of the film is so palpable that they were easily ignored. B*****ds.

The opening, in which we are forced into the POV of a young Michael Myers, is a master-class unease and discomfort. It is one long, brooding take, in which the malicious child slowly approaches his house and orchestrates his ritual with such calm; peering in windows and lurking in the shadows of staircases carrying us every step of the way. We are the unwilling participant. Even in the act of killing his sister we are not allowed to leave his eyes. I love how the stabbing is shown in this scene, which recalled the infamous shower moment in Psycho. We don't see any penetration, which would be completely unnecessary, but we hear the impact of the knife, and we see the brutally methodical motion of it as it swings back and forth. It's mechanical and has enough consequence to be horrifying but never graphic enough to be tasteless. None of this encourages identifying with the killer because we don't know anything about him, and the reveal that what we just witnessed was through the eyes of a 6 year old boy is brilliantly disgusting and confounding, because we are forced to acknowledge that the innocent exterior of the child evokes some humanity, yet completely disagrees with his previous actions.

There is a voyeurism that continues throughout the film in which we watch with Michael Myers the people he stalks. His body is never entirely in view, yet we are not completely disconnected from him and it all the more uncomfortable. There is a moment when the camera sits in the passenger seat alongside him, and we don't feel like an accomplice but a victim of kidnap; the brief glimpses of his haunting white mask and frenzied hair separate us even more. Later in the film, when Laurie is being attacked in the closet, we are thrust into the situation and the camera remains on the floor beside her. This involvement is brilliant because in a way we are fearing just as much as for Laurie as we are ourselves, and we can't help but think how we would react in that situation. Of course, we can't know how we would respond, and in the height of such fear and irrational actions are perfectly acceptable. Criticisms of Laurie's response are invalid because they fail to take into account vital elements such as the extreme weight of Laurie's fear, the fact of her injuries, that she had a responsibility not only to her own wellbeing but the children she was looking after, the fact that Michael Myers is a completely relentless unnatural being and that she is a fictional character and not us. The shot of Myers in the background in which he is lying down listlessly, hopefully dead, and then raises himself so mechanically upright is one of the most chilling and malevolent moments in cinema.

Of course, Donald Pleasance hasn't been mentioned, but his gravitas and the emotional weight he conveys goes without saying. He is given some of the (for lack of a better word) cheesiest lines in the film, but in context, and when uttered by him, they work without fail. They are haunting because Pleasance is haunted, and because he believes them, so do we.

The film plays beautifully with the power of suggestion, and what we don't see, or what we barely see. There is no indulgence in gore, or any violence. Atmosphere is the key to horror, and every element is perfectly constructed to heighten this; the soundtrack, layered and moody, the cinematography beautifully employing wide desolate spaces with oppressive confines, the acting, all of it conveying the necessary terror and confusion, the unforgettable figure of Michael Myers himself…..

There is much more I would like to have written about, but this will have to suffice.

I am wondering myself whether the old 'you just don't get it' argument is true of me on this occasion. Probably. Lynch films aren't supposed to be logically deduced, I think everyone agrees on that, but is the reverence for his apparent genius so strong that people won't question whether a film of his has any substance or not? I'm curious to experience more of his films, to see if I can gauge some wider understanding of his work. Are there recurring themes and motifs in his filmography that develop an overall psychology?

Anyway, this film was fairly fun. Like watching the 'best of' compilation of someone else's fever dreams. Blue Velvet held similar ideas in that it took the serene, easy-going superficiality of people's lives and then delved under the surface, to the dark foundations that we embrace by night and ignore by day. This conceit is taken to a more psychological level in Lost Highway, and rather than a disturbing nightlife we have the disturbing unconscious mind. Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) is a man put on death-row for presumably murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette) and from there undergoes a bizarre metamorphosis whereby he assumes the identity of another man and is promptly released from prison.

The first act of the film feels relatively art-house. It's more about colour, about space, about what we feel from the environment than we do from the human characters. The house is plain and robust, often bathed in a criminal red light, with high narrow windows like something from a castle prison cell. Bill Pullman sulks around, never conveying much to his wife, and neither she to him. He is a Jazz musician, and in concert he plays wildly and frantically. The terror begins after the couple start receiving video-tapes on their door-step; videos from the perspective of someone who has apparently broken into their house, and who ethereally floats down the hallway, silently approaching their bedroom….who is this disembodied menace?

The most uncomfortable scene of the film, and a brilliant manipulation of the audience's sense of reality, is in which Fred meets a man at a social gathering, a man who seems convinced they've met before. This stranger, dressed in a black jumpsuit, with his pale white face, and penetrating eyes is like a new-wave Bela Lugosi. He holds out a phone to Fred, and asks him to call home; promising him there'll be someone to answer on the other end…..This scene allows us a vague sense of where the film is going, and the reasons for doing so. Mr Lugosi tells Fred that he was the one who 'invited him in'. But we know this stranger isn't talking in the most literal sense, and when he appears again in the film, he is never get in, or out, of reality. He is like some vampire of the psyche.

After his metamorphosis, Pullman turns into Charlie Sheen's doppelgänger, a young greaser-type kid who besides his physicality shares all the lust of Sheen, but not much else. In fact, he's quite boring, and seems even more lost in this world than we do. This second act puts the reins on reality, but only a little more superficially. We begin to get overlaps between old Pullman's world and new Pullman's world, amid a B-movie story of gangster betrayal and young love. Patricia Arquette returns and claims to be someone else, and is apparently a moll, and in this introduction of parallel-Arquette Lou Reed's cover of 'This Magic Moment' is used absolutely majestically, conveying the overwhelming feelings of instant attraction, and the tenuousness of the reality here. In this act there's a lot of moody-noirish cinematography, with intimate close-ups of eyes and lips, and it's all gorgeous too look at, but it's stretched thin with the lack of emotional involvement. Even Gary Busey the redneck father only gets mere moments of screen time.

Blue Velvet however, in all its feverish melodrama, had a more colourful cast of characters and a readily available emotional core. Despite the alien-rectangular-stillness of Kyle MacLachlan's face, we were given his blossoming romance that was threatened by his naïve curiosity, and a psychotic oedipal relationship that no one is going to forget any time soon. Dreams can't be intellectually appreciated, rather they need to be felt, and experienced, but you'll have to plumb through all the plasmatic layers of this film's dreams to find something to emotionally involve you. This is something that holds your interest with a morbid curiosity and appreciation for the cinematic technique.

The opening credits have us plummeting down this vague sketch of a highway, lit with an ethereal blue light, and never reaching any destination. Someone likened it to a Möbius strip, and this quite reflective of the film as a whole; we travel endlessly around and arrive where we began, feeling like we've achieved very little, but both the strip and film are wonders to the human brain.

I don't want to give the film a number, because numbers are too limiting and don't really encapsulate the essence of a film. A 10 suggests a film to be completely perfect, and although I believe The Babadook is, it still seems almost hyperbolic. A number is just a digestible verdict of a compendium of thoughts, so rather than this continued waffling I'll actually try to articulate my opinion of the film.

I'm no connoisseur of Horror cinema, and really couldn't confidently point out all the influences and tropes that make up each film, but as a general self-confessed film buff I'd like to, with some measure of certainty, declare this a masterpiece. Again, hyperbolic. But I don't bestow that phrase lightly. It is one of the most overwhelming, emotionally exhausting films I've had the pleasure of seeing. It is a complete drainage of the psyche; not an unwelcome one like Lucy (2014) that in its stupidity and banality seems like an intellectual thief trying to rob you of your enjoyment, but a welcome fatigue, one that in tiring you invites you to enjoy every frame available to the eye. (Which is limited in this event, as your shirt will be desperately pulled up to your forehead, as you try to wish away the terror of this spectacle)

The atmosphere is so perfectly realised from the get-go. The subdued and repressed blues and greys of the house in which the film largely takes place, and the drab and tediously homely colours of our protagonist Amelia's clothes set the tone immediately, and also forewarn us as to what we've gotten ourselves in to. The set-design is immaculate; the house empty and sparsely decorated enough to put us at unease and yet accurately reflect the psychology and financial struggle of the mother Amelia. On this note, I should say the film is true to life. The premise, which sees a soon-to-be mother (Essie Davies) lose her Husband in childbirth and mid-journey to hospital, and never recover from this loss, is not glossed over, the material implications of this never ignored. In American cinema, particularly horror and comedy, we always see the world through this filter of artifice. The people are so perfect and privileged, and their world is so infuriatingly unperturbed before whatever horror or mishap it is that sets the plot rolling.

Our mother, and her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) do not have a happy life when we first see them, and their modest-at-best-household conveys this perfectly. Amelia diligently works to support herself and her son, yet Samuel is a troubled and exasperated young boy, plagued by the child's irrationality, and a young boy's longing for a father he never had, and so she is constantly fighting for some peace of mind. She herself is still reeling from her husband's death. The opening sequence sets this premise, yet in the world of the intangible nightmare; the sound is muted and drowned, and Amelia crashes back to bed. (The sound design reminded me briefly of the Exorcist, with its surreal use of silence) She is a vulnerable woman, instantly sympathetic in her plight, and is a true triumph of character that American counter-parts don't give us. She has a mental precariousness and financial instability that is wholly relatable.

As she increasingly grows exhausted and frail, we feel as if we are too. Her and the son, whom the film allows to share such a sincere and tender, yet unstable relationship, steal our sympathy, and we are emotionally involved without realising it. The dynamic of mother-son relationship is so unfiltered in its unflinching domesticity, that as we progress and the horrors unfold we are almost screaming of them to be allowed some relief. Some shred of respite. Essie Davies is most comparable to Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, and her performance is inarguably equal. Without theatrics or over-the-top hysterics, she marvellously plays the psychologically unravelling mother. Noah Wiseman offers one of the best child performances I've seen.

I watched The Conjuring last night, and it is plagued by all the flaws I described. The people in it are ultimately just hollow tools, puppets to orchestrate some mild scares for the audience, but the Babadook is so far removed from that, that it's undoubtedly triumphant. They are real people. And we care for them, completely. Jennifer Kent's direction and script-work, and the two leading performances, the only significant (in size) performances, are utterly magnificent. The other character, The Babadook itself, is a masterpiece in tease, in taunting the imagination but never revealing itself to the eye. It largely inhabits a book in which the characters read, and these illustrations are malevolent, so sinister in their creation that they are enough to haunt our dreams for weeks. When the creature does manifest itself in some vague physical form, obscured in shadow, it is almost more than enough.

The Babadook doesn't do jump-scares. Nothing throw-away or cheap. What it does do is slowly encroaching terror, like a shadow gradually invading your periphery. As the characters fall into terror, so do we. The gnawing anxiety in my stomach was such that I considered leaving the screening to calm myself.

The cinematography, the presentation of the film is subtle, and always lets the anxiety unfurl. An early example, a transition, in which sinister shadows travel across a duvet in a time-lapse like fashion is ambiguous in its nature, and offers us no comfort. Are they the shadows of some malevolent presence, or can we seek a rational explanation, such as the shadows of the sun progressing with the day? The film maintains this careful ambiguity, to the point that the film can work on two levels. But ultimately, it is one of these levels which best fits, and encapsulates the idea of the film: There is nothing more destructive than the human consciousness.