Film Reviews by JG

Who could resist this film ? Why would they want to ? Gentle, human, comic, inspired and sometimes completely brilliant, it has a kind of low-key wonder in the little acts and emotions of life that leaves the watcher smiling, laughing, crying, gasping, nodding and, yes, thinking. The whole film is a collection of brilliant touches, quiet but telling. Characters are both naive and thoughtful, funny but never mocked. The story is slight but perfectly enough. And the ending is one of the most wonderful moments you are ever likely to see in cinema. And how often do you see people playing musical instruments in a film (about music, after all) who are actually playing : a casting choice typical of the realistic delights of this wonderful piece of work.

Choose that quiet evening when you are bound to be on your own, and watch this film. Give up any ideas of narrative, conventional action or characters, clever, quick timing or editing, and give yourself up to a slow, flowing, obsessive and obsessing work that is documentary and philosophical reverie, hellish and humane, universal and meticulously detailed, homo-erotic and coldly detatched. If there is a weakness it is maybe the captain and his thoughts. Although this is ostensibly the binding element to the film, and its point, it seems, sometimes, unnecessary. The sheer beauty and relentless passing-of-time of this film are enough to lock any viewer in its method and world without comment. The pointlessly ordered business of the recruits on board and the awful natural bleakness and even active menace of their surroundings are documented in a calm and unsentimental progress. And this, what you look at rather than are told in the captain's commentary, is the real wonder of this film. The most powerful non-Hollywood experience you could wish for.

A well-made, funny and thoughtful film ; but ultimately a bit disappointing because of its well-ploughed content, and unoriginal take on it. There's something for everyone : comedy, philosophy, pornography, social comment, and a real story involving at least 2 interesting people. And it's all filmed according to the strictures of the director's beliefs : musicless, 'real' and a bit off-beat. But really it's a bunch of hippies versus Responsibility, and - apart from a few really funny, shocking and emotional scenes - it doesn't quite pack the punch it occasionally promises. Dogma is fine, and it still looks like a film that is pushing some boundaries, and its 'conventional' setting gives it immediate impact, but, in the end, it doesn't break the mould.

'Blind Chance' is actually quite dull. And quite interesting. The structure of the film - 3 short(ish) sections, each the result of the main character's missing or catching a train - lends a kind of spurious interest to rather tedious tales of unconvincing love, minor politics and unsensational imprisonment. But there's something here that is hard to pin down : a kind of director's intelligence that makes things hard to dismiss. The acting is perfect. Human observation is immaculate. The ending (though predictable 2 minutes from the end) is gasp-making. And the film 'stays with you' in an unexpected way. Perhaps the anti-Hollywood approach - slow, meticulous, self-consciously structured, even dull - is rewarding in itself.