Film Reviews by NC

Amoral, very violent, using any means to gain an end, the cops in 'La Balance' make 'The Sweeney' look like pekingese puppies. But when a film has no character to sympathise with, when you don't care what happens to any of them, then it just becomes uninvolving. The story might pass the time, but that's about it. There is a relatively innocent pimp and his girl who get trapped between the cops and the bad guys, but there is no attempt to make them three-dimensional - they are there because the plot demands it.

Some compensation is found in the well-caught imagery and atmosphere of Belleville, and there is a good scene involving a shoot-out in a traffic jam.

Nathalie Baye, fresh from 'The Return of Martin Guerre', gets top-billing, and does O.K., nothing more. Much the same can be said of Philippe Leotard. Richard Berry, thirty-odd years before his role as a very different cop, 'Lanester', (catch it on Walter Presents - recommended) , is given nothing to work with and so too becomes a cipher.

In sum, it's too brash.

The problem with farces (for me, anyway) is that the spectacle of watching grown people acting like kids with high sugar levels in their bloodstreams wears a bit thin pretty quickly.

'Death By Hanging' is obviously very far from the Aldwych variety - not a glimpse of Brian Rix caught with his pants down behind a bedroom door. This is much more in the Dario Fo mode, getting the message across by knocking seven bells out of an authority which regards people from another country as inferior, and which has nonsensical rules about who they can or cannot hang. Oshima also cleverly adds interest by gradually opening out the mise-en-scene, first by the inclusion of a few props around a previously bare execution chamber to suggest a room where the condemned man used to live, then by a sudden eruption into the outside world.

Fo's 'Accidental Death Of An Anarchist' works because at just over an hour it doesn't outstay its welcome. Joe Orton's plays (the execrable film version of 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane' notwithstanding) work because of a relentless invention of plot and dialogue. 'Death By Hanging' has neither brevity nor a script which constantly appeals.

Then, for the last half-hour, the film changes tack completely. While the authority figures get boringly drunk, the condemned man and his 'sister' (he may not have had an actual sister; also the same actress plays one of his murder victims) philosophise endlessly about identity. You know a film isn't ticking the boxes when you keep looking at the clock.

The message is sound, the idea is good, the execution is left hanging.

Two stories run in close parallel, like railway lines, gradually merging into a single track near the end. For the first story, Ghaywan's scathing attack on traditions and double-standards which continue to blight lives (specifically women's, of course) is fine and affecting. Less successful is the counterpart courtship of Deepak and Shaalu. Lower-caste boy meets upper-caste girl needs more than this to make it original and interesting. Deepak works as a cremator on the banks of the Ganges, and there is superb photography of the pyres to alleviate the seen-it-all-before element. Vicky Kushal and Shweta Tripathi as the young couple give performances of pure Hollywood/Bollywood gush.

Much, much better are Richa Chadha and Sanjay Mishra as daughter and father, caught in the net of police corruption and a way of life which lays the blame for anything and everything squarely on the female.

A minor theme of 'Masaan' is the railway, not only taking people away from a narrow-minded existence to the big city, but also demonstrating that some things are steadily modernising. Computers take the place of manual work. Narrow gauges in the hills are being updated. How long before progress can be seen on the caste system, on laws which make life easier for bent cops, and on officially sanctioned misogyny?

'Masaan' won the Cannes 'certain regard', and for half the film it's not hard to understand why. The ending hints at a message of hope that the next generation can burn those traditions and mindsets in pyres of their own. Let us hope so.

We gradually discover that Kopfrkingl is not the faithful, virtuous citizen he'd like the town to think he is. He visits brothels and has regular VD check-ups, whilst boasting that he never touches anyone but his wife ("my angel"). He's miserable when people are happy at the funfair, but practically coos with pleasure at the gore of the waxworks. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the cremator thinking his work helps to free souls from an imprisoned body - according to him it says as much in the holy book of Buddha. But the film follows the steps taken from that position to the madness of Kopfkingl considering himself the next Dalai Lama for performing the beneficial service of cremating thousands of people in mere minutes, freeing all those souls.

Rudolf Hrusinsky is remarkable. Oily and banal, arrogant and dishonest, it takes only a drop or two of poison in the ear to turn him into a Party member of the invading forces, and become the cremator-in-chief.

Some of the surrealism and rapid intercutting is a little disconcerting, especially at the start of the film (it's no surprise to learn that Herz worked with Svankmajer) but there is real style in the way in which one scene slides into the next without the viewer realising for the first second or two that it is a different time and place.

It's the blackest of black comedies. It's the creepiest of noirs. I'll never again be able to see the smile on a Buddha without also thinking of the cremator's insidious grimace.

An interrupted journey in a remote spot results in a meeting which brings back memories of a decision which changed lives. When it came to the crunch Amitabha Roy lacked the courage to commit to his girlfriend Karuna, and happiness becomes nothing but a ghost for not two, but three people. For Karuna is now married to Bimal, (probably arranged, though we are not definitely informed), and he too is now trapped in a loveless relationship, and no amount of wealth and luxuries can alter that as he obliterates his unhappiness in drink, fake joviality, and (if the trophies in the house are anything to go by) taking it out on the innocent wildlife.

Karuna also has her exit strategy: sleeping pills. In a key scene she gives some pills to Roy, instructing him to take "not more than two". When he says "What if I do", she responds - having first-hand knowledge of just how courageous he is - "I don't think you will". The pills take on extra significance in the superb final scene, which I won't spoil.

Three of Ray's regulars make up what is essentially a three-hander. Haradhan Bannerjee gives his usual fine performance as Bimal. Madhabi Mukherjee is one of those actresses who light up the screen. Immaculate - just contrast her married emotionless detachment with the scenes in flashback as her affection for Roy grows into love, and then the bitter realisation that his love is not strong enough. Soumitra Chatterjee is the weak link. His feeling seem forced and strained, something I haven't noticed in other films he's appeared in.

It's not one of Ray's masterpieces, but even his lesser films are better than the vast majority of other directors' finest achievements.

A murderer thinks a young woman may be able to identify him, so looks for a chance to eliminate her. It's an above average cheapie with several moments of real suspense, particularly one beach scene, wordless and perfectly judged in its eerie atmosphere, reminiscent of Jonathan Miller's 'Whistle and I'll Come to You'. There is genuine edginess in the dark man's shadowy presence, patiently awaiting his chance.

Unfortunately, a minus or two prevent a better viewing experience. There are some cringeworthy lines, stereotypical characterisation, holes in the plot large enough for the whole cast to fall through, threads taken up and dropped for no discernible reason. Most damaging is the supposed romance between Edward Underdown's policeman and Natasha Parry, the dark man's quarry. Not for a moment does it ring true.

Maxwell Reed plays the dark man, William Hartnell is a high-ranking policeman, and an impossibly young Barbara Murray plays Parry's friend.

It's not meant to be anything but entertainment, and in that sense it succeeds.

With such a story, and such a cast, under a renowned director, this should be a great watch. What a shame it isn't - it just ends up being one of those films that are 'not bad'.

The script and the structure are too loose. There is no tension created in the build-up to each execution - on the contrary, a couple of them seem to drag. And there are loose ends and improbabilities galore

Maybe Truffaut was trying to ape Hitchcock and shoot for an international market, I don't know. He should instead surely have learnt from the great thrillers and films-noir made in France from the '30's onwards. Trying to be all things to all people usually ends in being stretched too thin.

Jeanne Moreau is, of course, mesmerising. No wonder Orson Welles called her the greatest actress in the world. There's support from a gallery of top actors, including the consummate Michel Lonsdale. But it's a hopeless task to impress with such a script and unimaginative direction.

I've always considered Truffaut overrated. I cannot for the life of me see why 'Jules et Jim', 'The 400 Blows', and 'Day for Night' are raved about so much. 'The Bride Wore Black' serves to reinforce my opinion.

By the way, if anybody thinks the French male in the era the film was made (1967) was sexist and misogynistic, then the belief will be confirmed.

This is one of those films which stop the breath, make the hair tingle, and leave you powerless to move for an age after the last credit. So many scenes are worth a paean of glorious praise, but a woman's frantic ascent up a circular staircase of a bombed-out building, no walls around her, just the exterior wreckage of the air raid receding as she rushes higher and higher, only to reach a door and open it onto empty space, a clock hanging by a projecting piece of masonry, still ticking, has to rank as one of the most perfect pieces of cinema I've ever seen.

The story is hardly original: war separates two sweethearts, but Kalatozov hardly lets a few minutes go by before feasting the eyes with another sequence. The crowd scenes must be some of the greatest ever filmed. The script, too, is beautifully poignant - a good few classes above the usual weepie.

Tatyana Samoylova is a marvel. Flawless at being happy, sad, expectant, angry, distraught, numb - a screen performance to stand with the highest. There are fine showings by everybody else.

A timeless classic then, one which comes to mind when making a list of the best films ever made.

Girl escapes small town life, including impending marriage to the one prospect available, in search of work, adventure and romance. It is 1959, an age of speed-typewriting competitions, marked gender discrimination beginning to be questioned, and an ocean of American romcoms. 'Populaire' copies the style of those films (except for one sex scene which would never have got past the censors) and therein lies its weakness. There is not enough originality and not enough of the quirky comedy the French can be so good at (Amelie, Le Diner des Cons, La Cage aux Folles).

The acting too is only fair to middling. One ingredient essential in films of this kind is evident chemistry between the two leads - there is little on show here. Berenice Bejo, so good in 'The Past', has a supporting role, but can make nothing of a script which fails to sparkle.

There is charm, there is good photography, and there is enough of an interest in this trip back in time to keep watching, but it's not great.

There is a scene in this astonishing film which will haunt the memory for many moons to come. A girl is in a pit, we see what she sees, looking up through the eyeholes of a hood. A group of boys stand around like evil hours of a clock, holding stones. She has to be punished for wanting an education, and carrying lipstick (to be used as a substitute for an unaffordable pencil). It may be child's play - to the boys - but we see the terror a genuine victim must experience.

But the greatness of the film is that it shows the boys, playing at being the Taliban, are victims too. Brought up to believe in violence and inequality, they turn the paper of the girl's notebook into a swarm of floating planes. War(planes) instead of school. Division (girls cannot be educated with boys) instead of unity.

The acting from the children is as natural as the air - no self-conscious Hollywood starlet with dollar signs in their eyes here. And the photography is breathtaking.

The girl, Bakhtay, is one of those children we see so often in Iranian cinema. She has a goal - to go to school and learn to read 'funny stories', and the camera follows the journey. Familiar, maybe, but film-makers like Mohsen and Samira Makhmalbaf, Marziyeh Meshkini, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi, Asghar Farhadi, and others, rarely fail to create something immeasurably rewarding out of it. With 'Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame' a 19 year old Hana Makhmalbaf joined the elite.