Der Mude Tod (Destiny) - 1921

Well, another silent film review:
This time of a film by the master director Fritz Lang whom I hold is very high esteem, he is mostly known for the extraordinary science fiction epic Metropolis (1927) and his chilling murder mystery M (1931).
I believe he is widely recognised for the part he played in the Expressionist movement as well. This film, "Der Mude Tod" AKA "The Weary Death" AKA "Destiny" is one of the highlights of this movement, along with such films as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu and Faust.

These expressionist films were, in my opinion, a great step forward for Cinema, they easily transcended the action-adventure and heroic fantasy type films that were popular at the time (Lang even directed some himself) and in a way can be called some of the first "art films".

They often deal with themes such as Death (often in physical manifestations), Love (often in it's purest form), Fate and Insanity.
One must remember that this was released at the height of the Expressionist Movement, it was released in 1921, a year before Nosferatu which is arguably the most widely known film of the movement, and  a couple of years after The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari. Yet it has a distinctive feel to it that makes it a rather stand out film.

C'Etait Un Rendez Vous - 1976

I actually saw this many years ago as a young child, it stuck in my mind ever since and I've only recently managed to track in down, it's such an exciting piece of film, if you haven't already seen it then here's a video, if you have, well just watch it again anyway because it's so cool:

Filmed by Claude Lelouch one morning, he had 10 minutes of film left to use after shooting was finished so he just attached the camera to his Ferrari (some say Mercedes, but it's doesn't really matter) and sped across Paris, with no precautions whatsoever and breaking dozens of laws...The result, although it got him into trouble with the authorities, remains a fascinating and so refreshingly real piece of Cinema even after all these years. It's spontaneity and recklessness is endearing and I loved seeing a speeding car non-glamorised by Hollywood films, with their various stunts and precautions.
And it's just great fun to watch!

It remains one of the best car chases, even though it's technically not a chase, ever put on film alongside the ones in The French Connection and Bullitt.

Love On The Run: 3 US films of the 90's

 I have no particular reason for wanting to write this post, but it does concern three of my favourite films that I find are often overlooked and underrated, not that I think they are great films, in fact they could all be classified "guilty pleasures".
This will hardly be one of my most eloquent posts, so don't expect much, I just felt like writing about a few films I enjoy, nothing very complex...

These films don't really share much in common except the basic theme of a young American couple on the run from their enemies, be it the police, gangsters or family. I just happen to lump these three together when thinking of this style of film, a bit like when thinking of Vietnam films one thinks of Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.
All of them are from the 90's and are just great fun to watch, they are colourful, violent and romantic, all slightly disturbing, but hardly very challenging to watch.

J'Accuse - 1919

If you have read my previous review of Abel Gance's Napoleon - 1927, then you will know that I hold Abel Gance is the highest possible esteem, he was one of the first great visionaries of Cinema and a genius director who gets far too little recognition these days.
J'Accuse is one of three films which are widely considered to be Abel Gances finest, the others are Napoleon and La Roue, I'll be viewing La Roue soon and will maybe write a piece about it.

This was not Gances first film, in fact he had directed more than 20 before this one, but this was his breakthrough film and the first film to be made about the First World War. It earned him an international reputation as one of the most important directors in Europe, he was acclaimed by audiences in France and England alike and upon releasing his film in the US was congratulated by D.W. Griffith ,who was greatly impressed.
Out of the films budget of 500,000 Francs, he made more than 3 million, it was a great success, critically and commercially. Yet now it has been almost forgotten and is very hard to find, it's audience is almost entirely composed of film students, in particular those studying French cinema, yet it deserves so much more, it deserves to be recognised as one of highlights of the silent era, alongside such films as Metropolis, The Birth of A Nation and The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari.

But despite the films later successes it hadn't had an easy start, funding was hard to find so soon after the war, especially for an Anti-war film so powerful and full of righteous anger against those responsible for the horrific war, as this one is.
In fact the only reason Gance managed to secure funds for his project was because he claimed it was a patriotic film, when in fact it strongly condemned and even denounced patriotism and it's follies, the politicians, the whole government as the cause of this pointless war, and above all the insanity of war.

2001: A Space Odyssey - 1968

And now for what might be my most ambitious review to date, I will be reviewing a film that, fittingly, ranks among some of the most ambitious films ever made.
2001: A Space Odyssey.

Directed by the great and often revered Stanley Kubrick, 2001 might just be his most widely recognised film by the general public, although that title might belong to The Shining, but I can't be sure for I am not a member of the general public.
But I digress, back to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film ahead of it's time which dramatically changed the way films were made and brought the previously overlooked genre of Science Fiction to it's height in Cinema.

La Jetée (The Jetty) - 1962

La Jetée is a French short directed by Chris Marker in 1962, Marker was a prominent member of the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) movement which itself was part of the much more influential French New Wave.

I am not sure whether to call this work a "film" or not, as it is instead composed entirely of still photos, except for one scene for which Marker had managed to rent a camera for an afternoon.
So many things are peculiar about this work. The fact that there is no dialogue, the story is told entirely through voice-over, the aforementioned fact that it is almost entirely composed of stills and of course the strange yet compelling Science Fiction story.