Director - Michael Haneke
The film that put Haneke on the map. Two young men take a family hostage in their summer home. Really uncomfortable to watch despite the fact that almost none of the violence happens on screen. By far and away the best film to deal with one of Haneke’s major obsessions - the depiction of violence in films and how the audience reacts to it. Haneke doesn’t make bad films. Essential viewing.
Director - Spencer Susser
Mum dies in a car crash, dad finds it hard to leave the sofa and TJ (Devin Brochu) their teen son is getting into all sorts of post-traumatic trouble. So far so American indie drama. Then Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns up as the title character. It's almost as if he’s stepped out of a totally different movie. Hesher is a potty-mouthed delinquent. You know this as he has long hair and looks perma-stoned. The whole thing never really gels. Levitt tries his best to act like he imagines those sort of people are, but comes across as a total caricature. Could have been good, Brochu is a real find, but the film just doesn’t work. Best avoided.
Director - David Fincher
How the social media phenomenon of the noughties came to be. Despite the subject matter being about as exciting as the that time your dad got into an dispute with his neighbour about the shared driveway, this actually works. It helps that Aaron Sorkin was on script duties, and Fincher has seems to have dropped his flashier visuals of yore and adopted a more mature visual style. Perfect Sunday afternoon drama.
Director - Stuart Cooper
One of those ‘adapted from the stage’ films that struggles to get away from its theatre roots. John Hurt is on fire as perma-angry Malcolm, who having been thrown out of art school is determined to get back at his teacher by kidnapping him. Suffers from the usual stage adaptation problem of being very talky and trundling along quite slowly. Despite some great actors (Hurt and David Warner are both up to their usual standard), you can’t help but think they they were already way to old to be playing angry teens. The humour feels ever so dated too, the analogy between Malcolm not being able to get an erection and not being much of a political leader quickly becomes tiresome. All a bit ho-hum really, only worth a watch if you really want to see John Hurt acting his young socks off.
Director - Maurice Pialat
Pialat turns his eye on a group of bored teens in a tiny French town. We follow them as they mooch about town, meet up in the one café where they hang out, watch them form relationships that fall apart in the time it takes to smoke an incredibly strong French cigarette. They all dream of escaping to Paris, but will any of them actually get it together to do it? On paper it sounds dull, on screen it’s anything but. Hypnotic.
