This collaborative film, banned for more than a decade by French censors as an attack on French colonialism (and now available only in shortened form), is a deeply felt study of African art and the decline it underwent as a result of its contact with Western civilization. Marker’s characteristically witty and thoughtful commentary is combined with images of a stark formal beauty in this passionate outcry against the fate of an art that was once integral to communal life but became debased as it fell victim to the demands of another culture.Read More »

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Making the most of the family home while her parents are away, Nicole, 22 years old, is enjoying a peaceful summer with her best friend Véronique. When Nicole’s older brother shows up with his band to record an album, the girls’ friendship is put to the test. Their vacation takes an unexpected turn, punctuated by a heatwave, Nicole’s growing insomnia and the persistent courtship of a 10-year-old boy.Read More »

Synopsis
The great gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, engages in a series of daring schemes to deprive his wealthy countrymen of rare jewels and priceless paintings. His activities arouse the interest of Kaiser William II of Germany who arranges for Lupin to be kidnapped and brought to his castle. The Kaiser offers Lupin a challenge: to steal a jewel of great value from a secret hiding place. Should Lupin accept the wager? Read More »

A 48-hour leave from reform school brings life lessons for the teenage protagonist of “7 Virgins,” a street-kids piece that combines energy and delicacy to striking and subtle effect. The best Spanish movie of its type since Fernando Leon’s 1998 “Barrio,” pic rises above genre standard with scrupulous attention to detail and an engaging central tandem. Downsides are lapses into sentimentality and visual deja vu, and an occasional inability to exploit the emotional potential. “Virgins” should snuggle up in plenty of fest beds, with arthouse interest a certainty in Spain-friendly territories.Read More »

Synopsis

Hollywood royalty Joan Collins and husband Percy hold a dinner party for a few of their friends/acquaintances. Among the invited is the acclaimed artist Banksy, renowned for his aversion to the spotlight. Inviting him is fraught with social risk; will he come? How will he behave at table? This would, after all, be the first time he’s revealed himself on camera.

The preparations, the dinner and the goodbyes… the characters speak in the shared language of the famous. Or do they? Perhaps they are commenting on this language, creating a second film within the first; the first being a drama, the second a satire.Read More »

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An unmoving, overheard shot of a series of photographs, slowly burning on a heating coil. On the soundtrack, there are autobiographical notes (read by Michael Snow) about each photo. However, the audio and video are jumbled, so that you’re never hearing about the picture you’re seeing. It’s a simple but effective bit of recontextualization, each image transformed not only by its immolation – a perversely hypnotic thing to behold – but also its associations (dissociated audio and video seems to be a common theme in Frampton’s work). When you watch, you can choose to match the picture onscreen with the story, or try to recall the photo he’s talking about, or keep the narration in mind when we eventually see it. Or attempt to absorb it all as a whole. The most intriguing and rewarding I’ve seen by Frampton yet.Read More »

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A table with a small cactus, a cup of coffee and a stack of paper. One by one, separated by white flashes, we see the text written on the pages. It is a screenplay, each of the 240 pages describing a single shot of a four-part film. The screenplay contains no dialogue, but concerns some sort of melancholy romantic tryst between “yourself” and “your lover”, with occasional appearances by “me” (or more frequently, “my hand”). There’s something to be said about the relationship between filmmaker and viewer, as well as a twisted take on the voyeurism of cinema. But as an experience it can be a tough slog. The most interesting part is the third “tableau”, a surreal and often comical scene consisting entirely of sexual congress while assorted bizarre things are going on outside the window. I also liked the very ending. Much of the rest of it is significantly less compelling, as the concept wears thin.Read More »

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As soon as Los was completed I added Sogobi to make it a trilogy, the urban and rural portraits needed the Californian wilderness to put them in perspective. Following the same structure Sogobi would look and listen to that wilderness. The first shot of Sogobi would relate to the last shot of Los, and the last shot of Sogobi would return to the first shot of El Valley Centro, revealing its mystery. The entire trilogy would become an interrelated puzzle.

James Benning, December 2001

Coming after the spectacular El Valley Centro and Los, Sogobi is a colossal disappointment. James Benning is the most methodical, careful and mathematically precise of film-makers, so it’s baffling that he should abandon the logical progression established in the first two parts of his California trilogy. Centro examined California’s farming heartland. Los explored the greater LA county, and skirted around the edge of the city itself. Surely the next step should have been to tackle Los Angeles in all its garish, terrible splendour, providing a filmic counterpart to Mike Davis’ books of dystopian polemicism, ‘Ecology of Fear’ and ‘City of Quartz.’Read More »

These two one act plays were shown as part of the “A Wake for Sam” season on the BBC.

Krapp’s Last Tape (UK, BBC, 1972, 35 mins)

Theatre play, written 1957 in English
First published: New York 1958; Paris 1959
First production: Royal Court Theatre, London, 1958, directed by Donald McWhinnie

Directed by Donald McWhinnie
Cast: Patrick MageeRead More »