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Joy is fifteen, good looking, living in a Sydney suburb and ready to hit the excitement of the local shopping mall. There is a theft, a chase, a clinch with a boy, a fight and a homecoming. The hard-edged, choppy cutting allows little dialogue, but words are important: Joy's thoughts during the casual clinch (or is it coitus?) first bring forward the longing and loneliness beneath her self-assurance. Words are there from the start, also, in bold overlain strips of commentary, of parental admonitions and in one instance, ambiguously, possibly, Joy's own words. This highly effective device, as ironic as any Greek chorus, leads naturally to the screaming argument about her that erupts between her parents when Joy returns home. She is, in the end, a lonely girl sitting on her bed, hearing her parents' arguing, looking rather lost. At first this film seems at a distance from the issues it is raising, seems to adopt a position of moral neutrality towards her behaviour, but then the Joy's alienation and the reasons for it start to appear. The theme is serious, but this film is a lot of fun, in its action and visually. Deborah Clay is splendid as Joy, with all the attitude the part requires and with an energy, especially in the chase, that put me in mind of another athletic female lead, Franka Potente in Lola rennt (1998). Watch it if you can.

David Lodge's prize-winning short presents Charles Bukowski's poem on a visit to the dentist by an elderly man. There is boredom, threat (the black trees seen through the surgery window) and even sex (the attractive female dentist), all captured in the brief compass of some ten minutes. This is a film of old age, reflected in the slightly self-conscious retro sepia monochrome with spots and scratches specially added, and titles in ageing typewriter style (thus conforming to the contemporary principle that credits are not there to be read and are therefore made semi-legible). A good watch in a brief time.

This astonishing film, with its screen split between positive and negative (and which is which?), evolves primaeval single-celled nuclear forms into living, rhythmic chains of existence and then, beyond, into creatures of tribal consciousness, both ancient and utterly contemporary. This film captures the mutability of existence, the ambiguity between fertile penetration and aggression, absorption and synthesis. To watch it is an exquisite experience.

So perfect are the performances in this silent send-up of crime melodramas that the rare intertitles are redundant. The plot is simple - Elsa, the innocent heroine (not quite innocently) blows the policeman's whistle she finds outside the house in which the criminals' convention is assembling. The entire police force, the armed forces, all respond to her alarm and she is caught up in the shooting match between police and criminals, her hat an increasingly battered target in the violent turmoil around her. Consistently with its genre, our heroine unknowingly captures the criminals and, rather than being charged with improper use of a police whistle, is rewarded with a broken umbrella.

All but one of the characters can ham their parts with abandon, and do so to great effect. Only Elsa Lanchester must play it straight, if dramatically, and she succeeds so well. The bemused innocence of her expression, every carefully modulated gesture, every movement of her body, tell us that Elsa is at a loss, yet make her interesting, hinting at a subversive mischievousness that is never more than implied. The cinematography is excellent, the sequence of policemen successively blowing their whistles being an example. This film seems as funny, as completely enjoyable now as it was seventy-three years ago.

Watching movies is a disturbing experience these days. Since the outrages of September 11, 2001, we notice so many movies with shots of the old, wonderful, New York; a New York with the World Trade Center dominating the skyline. The scene in "A.I", of New York drowned, with only the WTC towers above the waters, is perhaps the most horribly ironic. There have been many comments on the brilliant allegory that is "Pleasantville". Suddenly, though, it seems so apt for this time. It is a story of a paradise more naive than innocent, suddenly and uncomfortably presented with the beauty and fear of reality experienced in its full complexity. "Pleasantville" seems now to illustrate the process that America and its people are said to be experiencing, a looking outwards, a growing awareness of its position, of its unique power, among the nations; but also an apprehension of the vulnerability that America's people shares with us all, in a dangerous and sometimes evil world. Their success in this process is of historic importance to our world.

In 1943 a miscellaneous group of women and men of several nationalities prepare in London to be parachuted into Belgium. They are to lead sabotage operations against the occupying German forces. A government office is destroyed, a traitor is discovered, one of their number is captured and rescued, several of them die, two fall in love.

This is a classic British WWII adventure, exploiting the potential for romance of the Special Operations Executive, notwithstanding its marginal affect on the conduct of the war. The acting is good, with Simone Signoret very beautiful and suitably soulful, Gordon Jackson playing a characteristically shaky personality and Robert Beatty in a fine, solid role as the saboteur-priest. James Robertson-Justice, of course, plays himself, as always. The plot is a disappointment. The story line does not appear clearly until the second half of the film, after a series of scenes in which the members of the team are assembled and there is a series of half-hearted attempts to establish their backgrounds and motivation. The amateurishness reinforces a certain stereotype of the British people and the lamentable lack of security awareness makes one cringe. Despite the drawbacks, this film is well done and a pleasure to watch.

America has entered the second world war. Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten), an American munitions engineer, has completed an assignment to help upgrade guns on ships of the Turkish navy. He and his wife are in Istanbul, en route for home. German agents are attempting to assassinate him to prevent his return. Colonel Haki (Orson Welles), the head of the Turkish secret police, assists Graham to escape by boat to Batumi, on the Soviet Black Sea coast. But the Nazis are on the boat....

Good enough to watch and enjoy, this is an overrated film, riding on Welles's reputation (as the uncredited director) and some perfunctory early film noir elements. The plot is riddled with loose ends. The ridiculous White Russian, Kopeikin (Everett Sloane), fails to warn Graham's wife (Ruth Warrick) of his escape by boat - Haki makes a point of it, but it has no obvious significance to the story. Haki has a reputation as a ladies' man, but the story of his train journey to Batumi with Mrs Graham is not told. Graham says he likes the Turks, he has been working there, he must be a man of some experience, yet he allows Kopeikin to take charge of his stay in Istanbul and drag him off to a Russian night club. These early scenes are dominated by Kopeikin, who seems, at this stage, to have a key role in the plot, but then he is suddenly dropped and the entire pantomime seems to have been created only to stage the bungled shooting, to which Kopeikin seems to have no relation. Again, the main purpose of the recurring theme of Graham's attraction to Josette Martel (Dolores del Rio) is to engineer his perfunctory, unconvincing, search of the cabin of the killer, Banat (Jack Moss). In 'The Third Man', Cotten portrayed a naive American with total conviction, but in this earlier film he is loud and just plain stupid, most notably in his histrionic behaviour on the ship, a caricature of the American abroad. Welles's performance as Haki is surprisingly wooden. A relatively small part, it ought to have offered scope for Welles to play up a sinister Turkish master of spies, but he is just plain dull in the role.

Although the film does not hang together, and fails to create real tension, it has some good things. The dark cinematography (Karl Struss) is atmospheric, especially in the chase in the torrential rain. The hints at a looseness in the relationship between Graham and his wife are surprising and interesting. The exotic and cosmopolitan locations are convincingly evoked, with Turkish, Russian and French spoken where called for. Not an uninteresting film, as any film involving Welles must be, but a bit of a mish-mash.

This is a miserable distortion of Captain Marryat's fine novel for young people; importing modern motivations and behaviour into this thoughtful and humane story, abandoning the theme of life in the forest for a wholly invented adventure yarn. This series is awful, bearing no comparison with the fine BBC series of the early 1970s. Avoid it - read the book.

This really is not a serious movie. But then, who could possibly have expected it to be. Three lively and exceptionally attractive young actresses duck and dive and dance and fight in a film that is visually witty and its stars displaying admirable verve. The sheer silly grinning delight of Cameron Diaz is noteworthy. "Charlie's Angels" makes no demands and delivers what it promises. In short, it is significant only in pleasing. And that is enough.

The original film of Captain R F Scott's expedition to Antarctica and the South Pole in 1910 and 1911, with commentary and music added for the new release in 1933. The first half of the film describes the voyage there in the "Terra Nova", the establishment of the camp, the living conditions, the work of the scientists and the first winter. The second summer and Scott's awful expedition to the Pole with a man-hauled sledge and a diet that must itself have meant death. After the disappointment of finding that Amundsen had reached the Pole some weeks before, the terrible return journey in appalling conditions, the five men frozen, snow-blinded, diseased and exhausted. Petty Officer Evans's death and Captain Oates's walk into the blizzard to die for his comrades, and the death of the last three, just eleven miles from a depot of stores.

The journey to the Pole was recorded by Scott with his own still camera, otherwise the movie camera recorded only a rehearsal and the first stage, but the extensive description of life on the frozen sea is more than impressive. The long scenes of Antarctic scenery, the strange and beautiful landscape of ice and rock, linger in the memory, their images clear and silvery, their shapes and textures mysterious. This film impresses with its subject and its immediacy, and for the conditions in which it was produced. Yet it deserves the highest praise for the quality of its cinematography, its ability to convey the harshness of reality in a landscape that had also the quality of a dream. The introduction and commentary, notwithstanding their stilted manner and outmoded patriotism, yet have a sincerity that only those who were there, were part of that experience, affected by it for ever, can have. And that impresses, too.

Julian Craster (Marius Goring) is a talented young composer, Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) wants only to dance. Both wish to work with the Ballet Lermontov and Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who lives only for the ballet, is shrewd enough to hire them both. After shaky starts, they achieve first success when Vicky plays the lead in Craster's 'The Red Shoes' at Monte Carlo. But Lermontov demands total commitment to their art, so when Vicky and Craster fall in love, they must leave the company. They marry. Some time later, Vicky returns to Monte Carlo on holiday. Lermontov relents and she is again to star in 'The Red Shoes'. Unexpectedly, her husband turns up to reclaim her, with tragic consequences.

Who but Powell and Pressburger would have the nerve to present an entire ballet, specially written, within a feature film drama? The "Wanna Dance" sequence in "Singin' in the Rain", is, though magnificent, but a bagatelle compared with the "Red Shoes" ballet. The ballet itself is lavishly staged and is a clever cheat, slipping smoothly in and out of the theatre into a world of pure cinema, seeing with the eyes of the audience at one moment, then looking out into an amphitheatre filled with swirling colours. So, too, the more prosaic moments are perfectly rendered, with the wonderful sense of colour and design and costume that is a badge of The Archers. And the dancers! Robert Helpman and Leonide Massine (also the choreographer) dazzle us with their energy and command. And the puppeteer, or rather the Shoemaker to the the Ballet Lermontov, sits in his Monte Carlo office. To Vicky's Sylphide he is the basilisk gargoyle that sits on the parapet outside his window.

Anton Walbrook delivers a masterly performance as the fanatical, tyrannical, director of the Ballet. He can be ice cold, but then, a faint smile will seem filled with warmth. Every nuance of his performance is perfectly timed and delivered. In his final, passionate, pleading that Vicky abandon love and dedicate herself to dance, he glances momentarily at her dresser, indicating that Vicky is ready to put on her shoes. He calculates and he controls them all. But he has miscalculated, and his subsequent address to the theatre audience is delivered with raw chunks of grief, his voice strained, rasping. Marius Goring, too, is completely convincing as the young musician, his every word and action witnessing his commitment to his art. So, too, the collection of Russian emigres around Lermontov give sympathetic and well-modulated performances. Brian Easdale's music supplies all that is needed credibly to support the claims of the film. But, in the end, even amongst such talent, it is the image of Moira Shearer that endures, dancing her heart out in the ballet, then losing it in the shocking closing scenes.

Clive Candy (Roger Livesey), a British army officer, wins a Victoria Cross in South Africa, fights a duel in Berlin in 1902, acquires a lifelong friend and his lifelong love for a woman (or women), commands in Flanders in the Great War and brings the experience of a lifetime's service to the Second World War.

It is soon apparent that this fine film portrays a Colonel Blimp very different from David Low's jingoistic and hidebound comic strip character. Here, Candy is a sympathetic figure from the start; firm in his principles, certainly, but courteous and sensitive with those whom he respects - indeed, how could Livesey not appear as a sympathetic character: it seems to be in his very nature. The film is clever and deceptive in its structure. The action is framed by the opening WWII exercise, in which the "invaders" capture the elderly General Wynne-Candy. These scenes are repeated and elaborated at the end of the film, where the effect of the exercise in demonstrating the obsolescence of Candy's values becomes clear and when he makes clear his great stature in embracing the uncongenial reality that confronts him. Within this frame, the story of Candy's life is told, and here is the greater deception, for, at the beginning, it seems like a straightforward romantic comedy, perhaps even disappointing in its lack of ideas. Then, after the Armistice, the mood changes, becomes philosophical, as the nature of loyalty and friendship, of love and patriotism are explored.

Representatives of the British establishment, assembled around a dinner table, assert their resolve to see Germany rebuilt in a fair peace. Credulity is strained here, when one recalls the oppressive reality and disastrous consequences of the Versailles Treaty. Yet the principles are praiseworthy and would be reflected in the settlement after WWII. The two defining moments of the film are both given to Candy's long-time friend, the German uhlan officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). He delivers two set-piece speeches, one explaining why he had abandoned Germany for England in 1935, the second a manifesto for the survival of a democracy in total war. They, like the rest of his performance, are given impeccably and, with their quiet delivery by a German character, intensely moving.

Deborah Kerr, lovely yet brimming with personality, plays superbly her three roles, each a woman Candy loves at different stages in his career and, incidentally, disclosing his character as socially democratic, unlikely but attractive none the less. Kerr succeeds in subtly differentiating each role, whilst revealing the characteristics that were bound to attract Candy. Both Walbrook and Livesey give outstanding performances, despite ageing forty years, a process Kerr avoids. John Laurie, as Murdoch, Candy's batman, has a less outrageous role than those usually assigned to this fine character actor. Alfred Junge presents his usual excellent design, taking full advantage of Technicolor.

This film was, supposedly, produced in 1943 as British propaganda. It is noteworthy that even Churchill could not suppress exhibition of this film when he was concerned at its message. That message embraces loyalty and steadfastness, honesty, democracy, realism and fairness. It is about the importance of relationships that transcend nationality. It is about love, between woman and man, and as a general concept. It is about being resolute and pragmatic in conflict and generous in victory. It recognizes the value of individuals beyond the categories in which they find themselves. If this film can be represented as British propaganda, then no-one need be ashamed to be British.

This film transcends its format and, perhaps, the intentions with which it was produced. It is another wonderful surprise from the Archers which everyone should see.

The concept is unquestionably brilliant and inimitable: spoofing gangster movies, and the gangster mentality, in a musical with a cast of children equipped with splurge guns and limousines powered by pedals. Some of the kids are excellent, notably Jodie Foster as Tallulah, of course. Some of the musical numbers are good. But in the end, the detail of the plot lacks the originality of the concept, the film is too dull and too many voices are squeaky and speak too fast, with the unmodulated expression of pubescents. A worthy try, essential to watch, but in the end a bit disappointing.

The Empress Elizabeth II rules mid-eighteenth century Russia. She marries her heir, the physically impotent German prince Peter, to the German princess, Catherine (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Catherine takes a lover, bears a child, plots against her husband and deposes him after he has reigned only six months. She becomes the Empress Catherine II. Well-educated and with liberal ideas, she is an astute politician and wages war with success. Yet when rebellion confronts her with the choice between fostering freedom and suppressing rebellion, she chooses suppression.

Catherine II was a fascinating and complex ruler, the period was crucial in determining the future course of Russia, its expansionary empire, its reactionary society and primitive economy. This film, however, addresses none of these great themes, except in the most cursory and superficial manner. It is a shallow drama of empty spectacle, in which intimate diversions are followed by unconvincing public events, battles and rebellions. The psychological characteristics of the protagonists, the motivations that drive them, the reasons for their decisions are all left unexplained. "There are great matters at stake", says Catherine to Potyomkin (Paul McGann), but we are never told what they are. Such rationalizations as do emerge involve the anachronistic importation of late twentieth-century western liberal concerns into eighteenth-century Russian society.

Television drama need not seem cheap. This film does. There is a good cast, but the dialogue is empty and its delivery perfunctory, although Ian Richardson's Vorontsov is done well and Brian Blessed is surprisingly well-moduated (and exceptionally quiet) as Bestuzhev. Generally, the cast seems dispirited by the trite, thin, lines they are asked to utter. One hundred minutes spent watching Miss Zeta-Jones will always have its rewards. None the less, she is miscast. Most particularly, her voice is in its nature contemporary and middle class, with its very modern inability correctly to pronounce the letter 'r'; it is unsuitable to the role of an eighteenth century aristocrat and Empress. The set pieces are sparse and unconvincing and the direction humdrum.

The story and this cast deserved better than this slight spectacle.

A retired nurse is murdered in her apartment. More are murdered in several jurisdictions in Greater Boston, then younger women. There is no rape, but the attacks have a sexual component. Bottomley (Henry Fonda), a law professor, is appointed to lead a task force to find the killer. A failed attack, then a failed break-in, result in the arrest of De Salvo (Tony Curtis). Bottomley interrogates him, his schizophrenia emerges and he begins to confront it.

What I like best about this film is that it demonstrates that a tense thriller need not depend on the pornography of violence and blood. The attacks are substantially either not shown, or are not on screen in the scene, but their impact is described in the reactions and words of those who have to deal with the bodies. The approach is classical and intellectual. The film is interesting visually. The innovative split-screen sequences work well, introducing a kind of simultaneous dramatic irony through showing an event from two points of view at the same time - though the technique was used with greater clarity in The Thomas Crown Affair. The semi-documentary approach works well in keeping the temperature down. As a social-historical document the film is interesting from its neutral, on occasion even sympathetic, portrayal of a series of sexual deviants. The blindingly bare white interrogation room and De Salvo's overall starkly concentrate attention on the murderer's tortured expressions as he discovers the evil that he has done. Curtis delivers a superlative performance that succeeds in reconciling the warm family man with the schizophrenic. For once, a typically wooden performance is just right for the rather dry character that Fonda portrays. The supporting cast delivers uniformly good performances.

A British army colonel, pensioned off and embittered, assembles a motley group of specialist, criminal and deviant ex-officers who share his bitterness. He has in mind a bank robbery. They arm themselves, courtesy of their former employer, then execute the robbery impeccably, right in the centre of the City of London. The bags of loot are filled, but, at the pictures, crime seldom pays....

That this film has been reviewed as a comedy demonstrates, once again, that British and American are two cultures disguised by a common language. The humour here, of that characteristically British sardonic kind, is incidental to a drama of frustration, disappointment and inadequacy. The humour is just the way the British speak.

The clever and low key "raid" on the army training centre is finely done. So much so that it overshadows the robbery itself and therefore slightly unbalances the action.

This is one of those films, craftsmanlike and enjoyable, yet not desperately exciting, that finds its greatest value precisely in being a period piece. The League of Gentleman is a fascinating social document. Made in 1959, it catches the moment in British history when, as its Empire dissolved, the social infrastructure that supported it and that had made Colonel Hyde what he had been, also disintegrated. This aspect could almost have been deliberate, explaining the very long opening sequence (another unbalancing factor) that introduces us to the seven main characters. There are shockingly frank moments: the honourable man with the overtly promiscuous wife; the gigolo; the religious fraudster (or pervert - the message is obscured); another of the heroes an "other man", a homosexual; the pressure of life in a small house with a loud television set. So, too, the casualness with which machine guns are used in a robbery by men trained in the code of gentlemen. The dull and seedy presentation of Hyde's home and base, large but far from grand, is further evidence of the decline of his class. So, too, a robbery that was intended as a hymn to the effectiveness of military planning, brought to naught by one stupid mistake and a small boy.

Yet this is not a sententious film, their is no preaching, none of that British nostalgia for the old ways, but almost a respect for the robbers and a recognition that life had to become more ruthless as a stiff society began to flex. How it was elsewhere, I do not know, but this watchable film will show anyone what was happening in Britain just before the Sixties began to swing.

The music and the dancing, of course, are wonderful. So, too, is the cinematography, mainly in black and white. They sustain our interest through a subtle, even difficult, film that is pre-occupied with identifying the qualities and spheres of professionalism and of the personal in life. That Sally Potter's acting is amateurish, that her dancing is not consummate, that the dialogue is predictable to the point of being banal, is the point. The slick attempt at a film she abandons, 'Rage', and the narcissism to which Pablo is prey, both demonstrate the limits and dangers of skill untempered by the subjective, the personal. The great truth of this film is banal: that it is only in trust, in abandoning yourself to another, that you can find your deepest potentialities. It is then that professionalism finds its purpose, in supporting that trust, in providing the medium through which your potential is realized, as is so enthralling demonstrated in the dance. Sally and Pablo start as professionals and end the film having, through each other, discovered themselves.

This film helped me understand my life, it might help you understand yours. In any case, you can certainly enjoy the tangos.

Heaven's Gate seems to attract extreme reactions: outright dismissal or unqualified admiration. It is an extreme film, in length, theme and treatment. Its faults have been well-rehearsed, but some are overstated and, equally, some extraordinary virtues seem to have been little noticed. The film is very slow, certainly in the first half, but the central plot is interesting. The Johnson County disturbances exemplify a critical moment in American history, even if the sub-plot of the alienated Harvard man, at the opening and closing of the film, is irredeemably trite. That the working out of the plot is incoherent and chaotic is not a problem - these characteristics are implicit in the term "disturbances" and are an effective metaphor for the central concern of the film. The settlers are disorderly in the conduct their lives and community affairs, they are thieves, not especially lovely people, and the moral balance is tipped in their favour only by the arrogance of power of the Stockmen's leader.

Kris Kristofferson's plays his leading role to the limit of his talent as an actor, but sadly that talent is very small. However, since the part requires him to say little, this is not a fatal flaw. John Hurt plays a decadent drunk as well as an irrelevant and ridiculous part will permit. On the other hand, Isabelle Huppert's performance is outstanding: every expression, every nuance in the tone of her voice, is convincing. The subdued photography, with its narrow palette, is highly effective in communicating the sheer colourless drudgery that life at the frontier must have involved. Most striking of all is the soundtrack, that constant bustle of noise, the rushing of trains and carts and horses and men and wind across the range. This film captures a living experience and the soundtrack does most to bring it alive.

Heaven's Gate is a strange confusion of a film, but in that confusion many good things can be found.

It is difficult to judge the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair without continually comparing, and contrasting, it with the superb original which it touches at many points. Yet it is far from being a pastiche. The fundamentals of the plot are the same in both cases: crime as a diversion from extreme wealth and alienation, and the mutual fascination of investigator and investigated. In the original, Steve McQueen's Crown was as serious and professional about the theft of money as he was about everything else in his life. The problem with the plot of this version is that the crime is just too much of a hobby, too much of a silly game intended to indulge Crown's whimsy or to please a girl. His alienation, especially as evidenced in the rather ridiculous sessions with the psychiatrist (Faye Dunaway), seems merely inconsequential, even childish.

Denise Russo's Catherine Banning is interestingly different from the Vicky of the original. They are alike in being roles that require little action or acting, but Miss Russo's investigator is an intriguing confusion of the sophisticated with the banal, of the sleek with the tawdry, with none of the dependence of slight gestures to signify major transformations. The central game that made the 1968 original a masterpiece, that defining game of chess, is absent in the remake. It turns out that after a little attention and a few days in the Caribbean, Banning falls for her man. Just like that. There is no tension to it, nor, despite all the talk of it, is there really any sense of a cat and mouse contest. Although Banning is given, and takes, the opportunity to betray Crown, she is not the master of this game - throughout, it is Crown who sets the rules and leads the play. And, in the end, it is he who gets the girl on his terms: the uncertainty and ambiguity, that in 1968 had peppered the relationship of Crown and Vicky right through to the end, is absent in the newer version.

Still, this is an enjoyable and clever movie, with good performances from the two leading characters. They completely eclipse the rest of the cast. The final museum scene, with Magritte's derby multiplying exponentially, is well done and tremendous fun. Russo's portrayal of social ambiguity and slightly forced sensuality are particularly admirable. A strange sidelight on her role is cast by her preoccupation with liquids, the consumption of which seems almost a fetish. She consumes, often noisily, a vast quantity and range of fluids during this movie, from vintage champagne to a product most closely resembling sludge. Perhaps this affectation exposes the fundamental absurdity of the plot, an absurdity that is there in the original, but to which we there willingly surrender. Here, in 1999, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's just silly.

A small group of nuns, working nuns, not contemplatives, journey to the Himalayas to establish a school and dispensary in a high and remote deserted palace. It was a palace built for a ruler's women, and every wall painting, every decoration, contrasts the sensuality of this society with the chaste and energetic vocation of the nuns. Only Dean (David Farrar), the ruling General's Agent, links the steamy life of the valley with the wind-blown austerity of the nunnery above.

It is the destructive power of emotions reppressed and released that is most obvious in 'Black Narcissus', but more fundamental to this beautiful film is a stronger, yet quieter, ancient and more subtle power, that of place. The Himalayan setting is established surprisingly convincingly for the period, in a series of vivid shots that disclose the fact of that landscape's power from the beginning. And the particular quality, the particular power of that place is continuously present in the wind that blows constantly, stirring every fabric, every soft thing. Only as that power of place begins to work its insidious magic on the nuns does it begin to reveal its nature. Everyone there is affected, their practical efforts diverted by poetry and passion. Somehow flowers are planted, not potatoes. The Young General (Sabu) falls in love with a dancing girl (Jean Simmons). Two of the nuns are drawn to the rough Agent, already sunk into the life of the society around him. Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), the Sister Superior, initially drawn back to memories of her lover in Ireland, remains strong in her faith, yet is softened, becomes more human. Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), on the other hand, becomes maddened by jealous passion and it is her tragedy, itself peculiarly bound up with the geography of the place, that brings the drama to an end.

The testing of a few people brought together in isolation is a familiar theme, but this is an unusual example. 'Black Narcissus' has an unusual symmetry: acceptance of this tainted life, in the person of the agent, is compared with the surrender to her passions of Sister Ruth, whose irrational passion, in turn, contrasts with the gentle loves of the Sister Clodagh; the abandonment of this world by the holy contemplative who lives in the nunnery grounds contrasts with the nun's holy yet practical struggles. So, too, we see the valley richly coloured, but the Mopu Palace nunnery almost monochrome, washed out.

The project at Mopu fails, the struggle against the genius of the place is abandoned. But not everything fails: Sister Clodagh has become wiser and less proud. Some struggles are too great, but we learn that there can be victories in small things: the Young General wins Kanchi, his dancing girl.

This is a fine film, well acted. David Farrar, though at times uneasy in a difficult role, requiring roughness and sympathy in equal measure, generally manages to strike the right balance. Kathleen Byron grows convincingly mad with jealousy and is stupendous in her dramatic final scene. Flora Robson, as Sister Phillipa, tending her gardens, has a small part which she plays to perfection. Deborah Kerr is outstanding: that Sister Clodagh has a fundamental sympathy disguised by pride is apparent from the beginning, and the progressive disclose of the quiet, loving, passion of her character, is finely judged. The art direction and cinematography, too, is excellent: the wind tugging at every fabric, the sputtering candles, the long shots of the landscape, Sister L pausing momentarily to caress a strikingly phallic baluster. It is astonishing that this was all achieved without leaving the suburbs of London. The music is ravishing and, in the later scenes, intense. Finally, in its emphasis on the spirit of place, even set in the Himalayas, 'Black Narcissus' is a very British film.

This complex and beautiful film is built on correspondences and contrasts; between landscape and society, man and nature, between passive and active, death and life, sanity and madness, the repressed and the unbridled, sexuality and abstinence, comedy and tragedy, alienation and redemption. The many strands to these themes are woven together in a complex pattern that defies complete analysis. Yet 'The Eel' is well-paced and is easy to watch and enjoy.

The film is set in Japan, that most self-disciplined and compliant of countries, and it is the limits, and limitations, of conformity and control that are explored. Behaviour is checked, emotions kept inward; yet when people look inward they find a seething that terrifies.

The landscape here is a damp, featureless, washed-out coastland, exquisitely shot in a subdued palette that embodies the film's subject. The people, too, are generally quiet, gentle, good citizens. Yet violence and disturbance erupt into their lives as norms are broken: a woman makes love, intensely, exultantly, adulterously. Her husband discovers her and stabs her to death in the very act. After eight years in prison Yamashita is released on parole, alienated and withdrawn, and, accompanied by his eel companion, opens a barber's shop. He finds Keiko, unconscious after a suicide attempt, and she begins to work for him. She, too, is on conditional release, from her crazy mother and unpleasant extortionist boyfriend. There is an immediate sympathy between Yamashita and Keiko, a sympathy that he, especially, cannot bring himself to express, driven to repression and passivity by his guilt and fear.

Each of these principal characters correspond with other characters in the film, providing a network of symmetry and contrast. Thus, Yamashita's failure to express his yearning for Keiko is set against Dojima's earlier lovemaking with her, and a fellow ex-convict's attempted rape. The ex-con haunts Yamashita, taunting him with his weaknesses, until he is transformed into a phantasm of Yamashita's imagination. Yamashita's wife's affair, too, finds resonance in Keiko's sensuality - and in both women's determination to provide a lunch box whenever Yamashita goes fishing. At the end, the man volunteers to assume paternity of Keiko's unborn child by Dojima.

Attempts by minor characters in the film to reach out beyond febrile compliance and quietism provide humour but little comfort: Keiko's mother's Spanish dancing is but a manifestation of her madness, and Yamashita's friend seeks only the unattainable and absurd, in his obsession with contacting UFOs. The moments of irony and humour are generally introduced with a light touch, but the transition is less satisfactory in the climactic fight at the barber's shop. This crucial moment in the film, when Yamashita fights Dojima and his thugs, against her past and his, is filmed as slapstick; the humour in unnerving.

In the end there is redemption, but the contrast of the conventional with the unruly is resolved, once more, quietly, almost submissively. Yamashita, his parole broken, returns to gaol for a year; Keiko waits for the birth of her child and Yamashita's release. Harmony is restored - on the surface. The eel, at last, is released.

'The Eel' is a subtle and complex film, with a succession of images that require more than one viewing and more than this brief note to tease out. But doing so will be a rewarding experience. Imamura's film is strong and subtle, warm yet critical. It will reward many viewings.

This is a film about games: the defining image, a game of chess; and then, as well, the intellectual game that robbery provides for Crown (McQueen), and the two games, professional and sexual, in which Vicki and Crown stalk each other. For these players, games are very serious and the outcome of each uncertain.

The film is of its time, but works in ours, as well and better than the recent remake. Those looking for a fast action "heist" movie will be disappointed: this film is about alienation and attraction, trust and betrayal, about working out what matters - all those eternal themes. It will appeal to those content to focus on personal chemistry unpunctuated by regular gunfire. None the less, the planning and execution of the bank robbery is cleverly done and provides sufficient impetus to drive the rest of the straightforward plot. Crown's motivations, tedium and greed, are readily understandable; Vicki's are similar. As people they are similar and evenly matched. Vicki is stylish and beautiful and, using her sexuality as well as her intellect, she is Crown's equal or better - which is not true of the remake. In the end, it is she who defines the outcome, but what it will be and why Vicki makes the choice she does are left unresolved. So, too, we remain uncertain whether the possibility truly exists, that their alienation might be healed.

The focus is clearly on the couple. Eddy Malone's role as the police detective does not extend beyond that of a Greek chorus, providing the conventional and moral reference against which the actions of the principals are to be judged. Jack Weston's Erwin, a very worried getaway driver, simply contrasts the player of the game, Crown, with the instruments with which he plays it.

The performances of the entire cast are exemplary. McQueen's clipped manner builds the tension and intensifies the effect of his weakening to Vicki's seductive moves during the chess game. The role of Vicki is perfect for Dunaway, making no great demands on her to project herself, no extended dialogue, which she does not generally manage well; but the disposition of her body, her power of gesture, and her brief, pithy statements all work brilliantly. Jack Weston produces an excellent cameo performance that pretty well had me perspiring as much as he was. Malone plays a straight role straight, the way it should be.

The split screen title sequence and passages in the film work well; they do not distract, as this technique can, but are used to capture and compress moments of action that are significant but do not require extended treatment. The Legrand soundtrack is brilliantly effective, including the long passages of real tension, without music.

This really is a great classic, a film that will endure, and those who have difficulty with it should see it again and allow themselves the time to be seduced by its low key perfection.

I suppose we can accept the excitement of thievery, but not really its romance. In this film, the uncertainty as to who is stealing what, for which purpose and for whom adds some extra interest to a story, the outcome of which can be predicted almost from the beginning.

I do not really think that the film is about theft, or that it takes an ethical position in relation to theft (in itself, perhaps, ethically risky). Rather, it is about excellence, about being the best at what you do; and it succeeds in demonstrating something of the commitment needed, and the satisfactions to be found, in the exercise of superlative skills.

It is amazing that Connery still manages to convince in action roles, but how very clever to give him so lithe and stunning an amanuensis as Miss Zeta-Jones. In her role as Gin Baker, she claims a perfection that seems justified and which is an undeniable part of the appeal of the film. In the rehearsal for and performance of the defining theft scene, which could so easily have slipped into bathos, Miss Zeta-Jones is convincing and her balletic grace entrances. The switches between the tough girl and vulnerability are intrinsic to the stereotype, but are well done, and we manage to admire and sympathize with her character throughout. The action scene towards the end is sufficiently tense for the genre, and the final scene twists the plot, and the people and roles switch sufficiently, to add a final touch of irony.

This film succeeds completely in what it seeks to achieve, without troubling to puzzle us with the plot, it is thoroughly entertaining, with some interesting locations, plenty of action and enough tension. Recommended.

I enjoyed this film from first to last. But then, I would. An English expatriate watching his city, watching all those amusing, articulate, silly ass, Brits, that give Americans such a strange notion of us. And that one stunning American, Julia Roberts, liking our city and its people, too. How could I not enjoy it. Hmmm....

Well, from the moment Anna Scott walks into the bookshop, the plot is predictable. We are given very little data to explain why the two leading characters are as they are, and not much to explain their attraction to each other. Indeed, there is not much explanation of anything; part of its English charm are the long silences, the pauses in the rhythm of the action, as in Grant's manner of speech. Perhaps with such an obvious plot, explanation or any attempt at elaboration would have been banal. Perhaps that is why the real glory of the film (after, that is, Miss Roberts' radiant smile) is the eccentric collection of supporting roles, each perfectly played, although Rhys Evans's Spike deserves to be singled out as impeccably offbeat. Miss Roberts, too, deserves appreciation for a precision in phrasing that turns the rather stock character she plays into something more interesting. Grant, though, really does need to lift himself from that English middle class bemusement that seems his only manner, whether he is in contemporary London, in Jane Austen's West Country, or Norman Lindsay's early 20th century Australia.

Certainly a well-made and enjoyable film, but the principal protagonists should go on and do more and better things, as I sense they can.

It's a while since I saw it, but this fine film demands someone's comment. Edith Hope (Massey) attempts exile from a failing affair, and from her loneliness, in that quintessential place of exile, a Swiss lakeside hotel. But the other residents, ridiculous and sad, only compound her isolation, revealing the emptiness of disengagement. Flashbacks to her affair in London have a colour and vibrancy that startle in their contrast with Hope's melancholy quiet in Switzerland. Hope must return, without hope, and face the reality of her life in England, no matter how painful. The acting is immaculate: Massey plain and still, passion hidden deep within her; Elliott in a typical role of wise counsel; Julia McKenzie as the absurd lubricious vulgarian, they and the rest of the cast all deliver perfectly pitched performances. Quiet and introverted, accurately reflecting Anita Brookner's novel, this is a very English film and about as good as an English film gets.