Phenomena (1985)

Not Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

aka Creepers

Director: Dario Argento

Writers: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini

Cinematographer: Romano Albani

Composers: Goblin

Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Patrick Bauchau, Donald Pleasence, Fiore Argento, Federica Mastroianni

The teenaged daughter of a famous American actor struggles to fit in at an elite Swiss boarding school, when it becomes known that she has a strange fondness for (and an even stranger kinship with) the local insect population; and, near enough friendless (barring her roommate who has mysteriously disappeared), she makes friends with a paralysed Scots etymologist, who – bafflingly – encourages her to track down a local serial killer, who has been killing teenaged girls, in Argento’s woodenly acted and ridiculously plotted if often quite stylish horror film, which has a deliriously silly yet ridiculously entertaining ending that can’t quite make up for the dross that precedes it. Iain.Stott

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Adieu Philippine (1962)

Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Director: Jacques Rozier

Writers: Michèle O'Glor, Jacques Rozier

Cinematographer: René Mathelin

Composers: Jacques Denjean, Paul Mattei, Maxime Saury

Cast: Jean-Claude Aimini, Stefania Sabatini, Yveline Céry, Daniel Descamps, Vittorio Caprioli, David Tonelli

About to be shipped off to fight in the Algerian War, Michel, a young television camera technician, meets two attractive young girls, whom he begins to pal around with, a friendship/flirtation that soon sees the three of them (though they're occasionally joined by a fourth) heading off to a sun-drenched Corsica, as they await the inevitable adieu, in Rozier’s ramblingly entertaining picaresque tale, which makes up with charm and verve what it lacks in polish and refinement. Iain.Stott

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Ten Canoes (2006)

Recommended

Australia/Italy

Feature Film

Directors: Rolf de Heer, Peter Djigirr

Writer: Rolf de Heer

Cinematographer: Ian Jones

Cast: Crusoe Kurddal, Jamie Dayindi Gulpilil Dalaithngu, Richard Birrinbirrin, Peter Minygululu, Frances Djulibing, David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu, Sonia Djarrabalminym, Cassandra Malangarri Baker, Philip Gudthaykudthay

A young man who covets the youngest of his elder brothers three wives is told a story of a similar situation from his ancestry, whilst on an overnight fishing trip, by said brother, telling of mysterious strangers, kidnappings, sorcery, and mistaken identity, in this informative and formally stimulating if occasionally slightly awkwardly acted film, which has quite the sting in its tale. Iain.Stott

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The Queen (2006)

Not Recommended

UK/France/Italy/USA

Feature Film

Director: Stephen Frears

Writer: Peter Morgan

Cinematographer: Affonso Beato

Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Cast: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings, Helen McCrory, Mark Bazeley, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms

Following the death of her former daughter-in-law, Diana, The Queen, who merely wishes to grieve privately with her family, is gradually and reluctantly persuaded by the recently elected “Labour” prime minister to become a part of the hysterical mourning of an increasingly and irrationally sentimental British public, in this much-lauded though only mildly effective film, which is generally well crafted though always not entirely credible. Iain.Stott

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Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

France/Canada/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: L'instinct de mort

Director: Jean-François Richet

Writers: Abdel Raouf Dafri, Jean-François Richet, Jacques Mesrine

Cinematographer: Robert Gantz

Composer: Eloi Painchaud

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu, Gilles Lellouche, Roy Dupuis, Elena Anaya, Florence Thomassin

The first part of Richet’s two-part biopic of notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine – a stylish (if vaguely flashy) and well-acted thriller – breathlessly flies through the sickeningly violent early years of his career, often feeling like a highlights reel from another film, before (thankfully) relaxing its pace somewhat as it settles down into a prison escape movie for its last forty minutes or so, the film’s most engaging section. Iain.Stott

Followed by Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008)

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The Circle (2000)

Highly Recommended

Iran/Italy/Switzerland

Feature Film

Original Title: دایره

Director: Jafar Panahi

Writers: Kambuzia Partovi, Jafar Panahi

Cinematographer: Bahram Badakshani

Cast: Nargess Mamizadeh, Maryam Parvin Almani, Mojgan Faramarzi, Elham Saboktakin, Monir Arab, Maedeh Tahmasebi, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy

Informative and anger-inducing without ever feeling didactic or polemical, Panahi’s heart-breaking film explores the plight of a number of repressed young women in Tehran, following a series of recently released ex-cons – abandoned by their families, and having no real legal rights – as they desperately and vainly attempt to find a place in the world. Iain.Stott

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Theorem (1968)

Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Teorema

Writer/Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Cinematographer: Giuseppe Ruzzolini

Composer: Ennio Morricone

Cast: Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky, Laura Betti, Andrés José Cruz Soublette, Ninetto Davoli

An enigmatic visitor, staying with a wealthy Milanese family, seduces one by one each of its members (including the maid), and then leaves, leaving each person profoundly and distinctly disparately changed, in Pasolini’s allegorical curio, which alternates between scenes of great power and those of a more tedious nature. Iain.Stott

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The Army in the Shadows (1969)

Highly Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: L'armée des ombres

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Writers: Jean-Pierre Melville, Joseph Kessel

Cinematographers: Pierre Lhomme, Walter Wottitz

Composer: Eric De Marsan

Cast: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet, Christian Barbier

When not fighting the Nazis, a group of unlikely looking freedom fighters in occupied France find themselves battling against traitors, imprisonment, and equipment shortages, in former resistance member Melville’s long gestating Second World War pic, a measured, suspenseful, and pleasingly unromantic work. Iain.Stott

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The Red Desert (1964)

Essential Viewing

Italy/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Il deserto rosso

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra

Cinematographer: Carlo Di Palma

Composer: Giovanni Fusco

Cast: Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti, Xenia Valderi, Rita Renoir, Lili Rheims, Aldo Grotti, Valerio Bartoleschi, Emanuela Paola Carboni

Filled with industrial angst and indistinct anxiety, Vitti’s Giuliana wanders through her rusting, rain soaked, smoky hometown, barely able to cope with the challenges that her life presents her, in Antonioni’s strikingly shot, disquietingly scored, and affectingly acted magnum opus. Iain.Stott

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Il Posto (1961)

Essential Viewing

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Il posto

Director: Ermanno Olmi

Writers: Ettore Lombardo, Ermanno Olmi

Cinematographer: Lamberto Caimi

Cast: Loredana Detto, Sandro Panseri, Tullio Kezich, Mara Revel, Guido Spadea, Guido Chiti, Bice Melegari, Corrado Aprile

Warm, funny, affecting, and filled to the brim with humanity, Olmi’s beautiful film masterfully depicts a young school leaver’s first tentative steps into the adult world, following him as he wins his first job, stumbles into an almost-romance, and suffers a little heartbreak, before settling down into a routine that will likely last for 40-50 years. Iain.Stott

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I Am Love (2009)

Essential Viewing

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Io sono l'amore

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Writers: Barbara Alberti, Ivan Cotroneo, Walter Fasano, Luca Guadagnino

Cinematographer: Yorick Le Saux

Composer: John Adams

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Delbono, Diane Fleri, Maria Paiato

With adventurous mise en scène and an uncommonly bold use of music, Guadagnino’s affectingly acted film follows the progress of an illicit romance conducted between a middle-aged Russian woman, who married into a wealthy Italian family, and her son’s best friend, a talented chef with whom he is about to go into business, which, of course, cannot possibly end well. Iain.Stott

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Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Highly Recommended

Australia/Italy

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Rolf de Heer

Cinematographer: Ian Jones

Composer: Graham Tardif

Cast: Nicholas Hope, Claire Benito, Ralph Cotterill, Carmel Johnson, Paul Philpot, Todd Telford, Paul Simpson, Stephen Smooker, Peter Monaghan, Mark Brouggy

A man raised in solitude and kept as a sex slave by his mother, who uses fear, lies, and religion to keep him under control, sets out into the world for the first time when it becomes clear that she has been lying to him for all these years, but struggles to adjust to society’s many strange rules, in de Heer’s anarchically hilarious, thoughtfully satirical, and strangely tender black comedy, featuring an outstanding central performance, copious quantities of instantly quotable dialogue, and more large mammaries than one could ever need. Iain.Stott

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