Film Reviews by RhysH

Double Life is an enigmatic and always intriguing film. This doppelgänger story has an emotional intensity without ever descending into histrionics. There is no attempt to unravel uncertainty; just watch and let it all flow in. The cinematography is poetic.

Irène Jacob is a wonderful beauty without the need of any embellishment.

Joan bennet plays the protective American mom Lucia with some aplomb.

James Mason plays the crook Donnelly, caught between villainy and his growing love for Lucia. He gives a steely performance.

The director Max Ophuls was known for his tracking shots and elaborate camera movements.

James Mason wrote;

A shot that does not call for tracks,

Is agony for poor old Max,

Who, separated from his dolly,

Is wrapped in deepest melancholy

Once, they took away his crane,

I thought he'd never smile again.

The depiction of the black maid reflects life at the time but viewing today it is rather disturbing. Francis E. Williams who plays Sybil went on to have a distinguished role as a political activist, amongst many other things she was chairperson of the National Anti-Imperialist Movement in Solidarity with African Liberation. For this film she is not listed on the credits.

It is perfectly acceptable for a film to take the narrative of a novel and change its location and its time as Carlos Carrera has done with Eça de Quiroz's novel set in late 19th century Portugal. The change to 21st century Mexico gives a contemporary slant to the story but the real essence of the novel is left behind. Eça's novel is an attack on the hypocrisy of a small town dominated by the church and the rich and powerful. The love story is a slow and torturous affair, the film sketches over the inner turmoil of the young couple and many of the smaller characters are briefly portrayed.

Gael Garcia Bernal gives a fine performance although not helped by the dubbing which comes out in a rather mannered monotone.

The volatile relationship between Zola and Cézanne captured on film with strong performances from Guillaume Canet and Guillaume Gallienne. They are at their best in an angry exchange on the stairs leading to Zola's study, here the loving relationship between them comes to an end.

The film just about avoids the cliché style of "Are you going to write a novel today Emile?" The dialogue, however, is rather stilted and the trite slang subtitles like "butt out" don't help. Then there was the line, "Can I have your autograph Mr Maupassant?"

It is a beautiful film to watch, the costumes, the landscape, the furniture but the camera flits so quickly from one shot to another that there is no time to take it all in. Similarly with the ideas developed you are in the middle of an argument, a discussion and then jumped back in time, pushed forward again and so much is left in the air. It tries to deliver too much, a slower and tighter focus was needed.

If you wanted to construct the perfect image of a gangster you would end up with Lino Ventura. The stocky build, the chiselled features and the defiant stare. It is the eyes that give Ventura's character, the gangster on the run Abel Davos, the only hint of emotion. He kills with no hint of remorse, it's what gangsters do, but when he looks at his children there is a flicker of humanity.

Jean-Paul Belmondo, as Eric Stark, leaps from delighted young lover to aspiring hardened criminal with one swing of his left hook.

Sandro Milo plays Lillane with the right mixture of naivety and worldliness.

From the robbery in Milan to the blood in Paris this is a French gangster film par excellence.

The opening sequence is as amazing as it is puzzling. The woodland is being destroyed, the trees are falling in waves, there is no obvious visual explanation. Could it be the start of some magical surrealist film? The rather mundane reason at the end of the sequence returns the viewer to reality.

The director Laxe takes time over each shot, a gallery of images with space to contemplate each one.

Amador Arias as Amador doesn't have a lot to say, he just observes the world around him. His face a relief map of the surrounding landscape. A wonderful performance from Benedicta Sanchez as his mother. What a life she lives with her three cows. All five mentioned are non-professional actors!

Shaw said of Pascal that he was "doing for the films what Diaghileff (sic) did for the Russian ballet. Pascal said that Shaw had "the greatest God-given gift of expressing the truth". Such talents should surely produce a great film. There was correspondence between Pascal and Shaw about the colour of Britannus's (Cecil Parker) eyebrows!

The production was beset with problems. Four days after filming started the Germans launched their V2 rockets. Parts of the set and workshops were destroyed. There was a shortage of people to make costumes, a shortage of material for the costumes, a shortage of skilled workers to build the sets. Then there was the weather, days and days were spent waiting for a bit of sunshine.

When shooting moved to Egypt days were lost because of rain! In Egypt 1,200 troops used as soldiers for the film were given papier-mâché shields held together by fish glue. The soldiers found these most edible and new shields had to be made.

The film was made using the new technicolour cameras. The resulting colour is very brash, no subtlety of shades. Stewart Grainger looks as if he has been spray tanned. The cameras were also very heavy and there is little camera movement, acting is done directly to camera in a very staged manner. All the performances, perhaps with the exception of Claude Rains, are very mannered almost hammy.

Pascal wanted the extras in the crown scenes to have individuality. It didn't quite work out for him. The crowd runs one way waving their arms in the air for fear and walk another way shaking their fists for anger. The depiction of the black slaves is embarrassing.

It takes a little while to realise this is Antonioni shooting in colour so bleak is the background, not until Monica Vitti appears in her green coat is the full range of the palette revealed.

Antonioni is obsessed with the industrial landscape which he imbues with an improbable beauty and obsessed with Monica Vitti's hair. I wonder if she had a stylist to give it that dishevelled beauty. Vitti's performance perfectly captures the woman on the edge.

Richard Harris gives a rather wooden performance. Maybe it was something to do with the dubbing into Italian which made him sound like an automaton.

Despite reservations it is an Antonioni masterpiece.

This is not a black and white film it is a grey and grey film. The scenery is unrelentingly bleak but the perfect background to the story that unfolds.

Steve Cochran is excellent as the morose Aldo. the character craves affection but after he is seen hitting the woman he loves you realise that his disdainful attitude to women is not going to get what he desires.

Cochran is one of a number of American actors in the film dubbed into Italian.

Despite the fact that most of the scenes are in small interior spaces it is the outside landscape that dominates. It is always there, uncompromisingly cold, vast and unyielding. That coldness has seeped into the characters in this intriguing Nuri Bilge Ceylan film. There is little genuine warmth between any of the characters. They talk endlessly about evil, social divisions and religion but the talk never really develops into debate as each pontificates, their ideas well rehearsed. Nobody smiles except the local imam, a great performance by Serhat Mustafa Kiliç, and his smile is pure obsequiousness.

The main character Aydin wears his intellectual arrogance lightly not aware that he always lapses into condescension. A studied and poignant performance by Haluk Bilginer.

Aydin's wife, beautifully played by Melisa Sozen, realises that even so young, her life has not turned out in the idealistic manner she would have liked. And Aydin's sister, a measured performance by Demet Akbag, oozes sarcastic indifference.

One of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Chekovian masterclasses.

When the Peter Barnes's play "The Ruling Class" was first performed at the Nottingham Playhouse (1969) Harold Hobson writing in The Sunday Times described it as "a scorching and savage tragedy". A tragedy it is but it is played through anarchic humour.

The film follows the play very closely as it would with Barnes having written the screenplay. It is a vituperative satire on a country ruled by incompetent old Etonians!

Peter O'Toole is completely OTT but you couldn't play the part any other way. There is a fine cast of British actors. For me, two stand out performances came from Alistair Sim as the bumbling bishop and James Villiers as the incompetent buffoon soon to be MP.

Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton continues his morose journey through the miasma of mid twentieth century northern politics and commerce. Harvey's performance is as centred as it was in "Room At The Top" although the character shows no more understanding of the world around him as he did in the previous film ten years ago. His dissatisfaction with everything touches all around him.

Jean Simmons gives a nuanced performance as his wife Susan, although exploited by Joe she retains a love for him.

Again, as in the previous film, Joe is given the opportunity of love and understanding, this time by Norah Huxley played with genuine understated compassion by Honor Blackman. But Joe's only raison d'etre is wealth and power which he achieves but at what cost to himself?

Donald Wolfit plays the irascible Mr Brown with great aplomb.

A fine example of British 1960s cinematography.

This is a British TV adaptation of William Boyd's espionage novel, presented on the BBC in December 2012. The script by Boyd, as you would expect, is a faithful interpretation of the novel.

Sometimes in a spy film the plot can become a little incoherent, as is the case here. The performances, however make up for any lack of clarity. It is a cast par excellence. Rufus Sewell, Michelle Dockery and Charlotte Rampling are at the top of their game. Hayley Atwell as the young Eva Delectorskaya gives some awkward and hesitant traits to her character not quite in keeping with the highly trained agent she is.

The icing on the cake is the performance by Michael Gambon in the last few scenes.

A film that sums a lot about French cinema. The characters talk, eat, talk, drink, talk, smoke, talk, have sex, talk, meet in bars to talk, got to cafes to talk, have affairs to talk. The main debate is about changes to the publishing industry. The conversations go over and over the same ground. Why can't they change tack and talk about the weather? Of course not this is a French film. Despite all this one gets drawn in to the characters, observing the nuances of their lives.

Some good performances; Juliette Biinoche assured and stylish, Vincent Macaigne slightly over the top comic performance, Guillaume Canet, the epitome of French cool, Christa Theret, a delight and the best from Nora Hamzawi, an honest and compelling performance

Sometime in the fifties John Braine in hospital being treated for tuberculosis gave birth to his novel "Room At The Top" and at its publication in 1957 Braine was placed in that very loose grouping of "angry young men".

This film made in 1959 is an accurate rendition of the novel. Although the novel was set just after the second world war the film is placed firmly in the 1950s. The clothes, the cars, even the office furniture are fascinatingly evocative of the time.

The look may have changed considerably but have attitudes? Wealth breeds wealth, success is achieved by the exploitation of others. Men gawp at women lustfully provided they conform to certain stereotypes. Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) has a degrading grading system.

Harvey's performance is spot on, you can see the avarice in his face in the opening shots on the train. The film belongs, however, to Oscar winning Simone Signoret, she doesn't conform to the stereotype, her beauty comes from within and the way she portrays Alice's love for Joe is movingly sincere.

Most of the other performances are caricature , the boozy mates, the self made man of brass, the upper class twits. Some actors don't get a mention on the cast list. It's good to spot Richard Caldicot, Wendy Craig, Miriam Karlin, Wilfrid Lawson and Prunella Scales