Forest Row Film Society

The film narrates in flashback the story of three generations of women living in a Mexican ranch on the border with Texas during the 1911 Revolution. Tita, the youngest of three sisters, is prevented from marrying her sweetheart to look after strict mama Elena. Tita is bound to the kitchen where she uses the traditional recipes to express her feelings and influence the others’ lives.

Beautifully photographed and acted, this is a feelgood melodrama in the tradition of the magical realism central to Latin American culture.

Yaaba is an old woman, outcast from her village. Despite his family’s warnings, young Bila and his cousin develop a friendship with the old woman, which proves life-saving. Structured around a cycle of life, death and renewal, Yaaba is a fascinating film that shows us an outsider’s wisdom amid the narrative of life in a poor African village.

Zhang Yimou and his favourite actress Gong Li reinvent themselves in this quasi documentary tale of a peasant woman’s dogged search for justice. Qiu Ju’s husband has been kicked in the groin by the village headman; she wants reparation and an apology. The film charts the heavily pregnant Qiu Ju’s stubborn climb up the legal hierarchy, and in the process provides a remarkably detailed and humorous view of contemporary Chinese life. Winner of the best actress and the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice film festival, Qiu Ju has a “mesmerising quality; able to hook the audience from beginning to end.”

Jean Marais plays the successful poet in search of inspiration in Paris during 1940. His muse is a mysterious princess (Maria Casarès) who drives around in a vintage Rolls-Royce flanked by two leather-clad bikers. Representing Death, she eventually leads him through a symbolic mirror into the Underworld (occupied Paris). Orphée is a dark parable which successfully mixes the real and the magical in breathtaking cinematic illusions. Described as “the masterpiece of Cocteau’s maturity as a filmmaker”, the film won major prizes at Venice and Cannes.

All of Mrs Tam’s children have left home, except Geraldine who feels she must stay with her mother. Uncle Tam, however, is keen to marry Mrs Tam, once Geraldine leaves. Centering on these three people and full of gentle charm, this comedy subtly unravels their motives and emotions, providing a humorous take on the changing values among Chinese-Americans in San Francisco.

A beautifully restored print of this Hollywood classic with a psycho edge. A hard up script writer, Joe Gills, having car trouble, pulls off Sunset Boulevard into a strange driveway. There, in a creepy mansion, a forgotten silent movie star lives in shabby opulence. Joe finds himself sucked into a weird world with horrifying results. With Gloria Swanson, William Holden and Erich von Stroheim. The film won the Oscar for Best Script.

Consistently voted one of the best films ever made, Sunrise is an undisputed masterpiece of early cinema. Murnau’s first American film is a tale of betrayal, love and reconciliation, shown in this version with Hugo Reisenfeld’s original orchestral score. “For me it is still the most beautiful film in the world”―Claude Chabrol

Watanabe, a petty government official, learns that he is dying of cancer without ever having known what it is to live! Shattered by the discovery, he decides to make up for the life and gratification he missed. Frantic search for fun in Tokyo’s fleshpots and unsuccessful attempts at hopeless relationships follow. At last he finds a worthwhile task...

Supported by an excellent cast, Takashi Shimura gives a deep insight into the soul of a lonely man, tormented by frustration and the dread of approaching death. Kurosawa’s clear sighted view of human nature is at its most telling.

The expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972 provides the starting point for this story of a love affair between a young Asian woman and an African-American man (Denzel Washington). Exploring the turmoil their relationship engenders, Mississippi Masala is not only a critique of racism and sexism, but also a moving love story from the director of Salaam Bombay.

1832. In Provence ravaged by cholera, an Italian hussar flees Austrian agents hunting down exiled revolutionaries. He tries to help the stricken population of a small town, only to be accused of poisoning the water. Taking refuge in an empty house he is helped by a mysterious woman (Juliette Binoche) searching for her husband. He joins her on her quest across a lovingly photographed Provence.

This is a sumptuous production with a heady mix of pathos, adventure and romance.

Further Reading

1. Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 24th May 1996
2. Stephen Holden 'Romance on the run as a plague closes in' New York Times 17th May 1996 (registration required)

Tarkovsky’s first feature catapulted him to international prominence when it was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Ivan’s Childhood tells the story of a young war scout behind enemy lines, and contains many of the hallmark mystical, ambiguous qualities of his later films.

“For me Tarkovsky is the greatest filmmaker”―Ingmar Bergman

Further Reading

1. Fergus Daly and Katherine Waugh, Senses of Cinema, June 2001
2. nostalghia.com: an Andrei Tarkovsky information site

Ankur is a powerful drama of class, caste, gender and hypocrisy. Surya is the son of a feudal landowner forced to give up his studies and marry a young girl much against his will. Not only is he impatient of the social conventions of the caste system, but the ‘progressive’ Surya has an affair with his servant Lakshmi, the wife of a local labourer, and she becomes pregnant. Her husband believes the child to be his, only to be beaten by a confused and isolated Surya. The acclaimed first feature by one of the great Indian film makers.

Further Reading

1. Shyam Benegal, from Strictly Film School
2. The Daily Texan, 21st July, 1980
3. The Tribune 29th November, 1998
4. Shyam Benegal, from Chaos Magazine

A moving version of Ivan Goncharov's great tragi-comic novel (1858), the story focuses on Oblomov, the Russian aristocrat, who would rather sleep than take part in modern life. Set in the beautiful imperial St Petersburg, this delicate story of friendship, family and daydreams is a sharp social satire, as well as an evocative portrait of Russia's past. From the director of Burnt by the Sun, the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Further Reading

1. Janet Maslin 'A Dreamlike Soviet Oblomov' New York Times, 6th March 1981 (registration required)
2. David Gurevich 'Masterworks of Soviet Cinema' Images Journal
3. 'Nikita Mikhalkov' in http://www.filmbug.com

Lionel Jeffries' adaptation of E. Nesbit's classic story is an enduring popular children's film. Starring Dinah Sheridan, Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett and Bernard Cribbins, the film begins with the three children's father being arrested on suspicion of being a spy. Having to move to the country, the children soon settle into their new life, with the railway at the bottom of the garden. Meeting a colourful collection of people, the children enlist them to help prove their father's innocence.

This film may be the first Restoration comedy-mystery. It is the none-too-solemn enigmatic tale of a murder set in a great English house where morals among the newly rich were as loose as possible under cover of a mad mannerism of speech and dress. As he is hired by Lady Herbert to make precise drawings of her grand house, the draughtsman strikes a strange bargain.

Filmed locally at Groombridge, this is an astonishingly elegant film and one that is as rich to listen to as to see. With music by Michael Nyman, and excellent performances by Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman and Anne Louise Lambert. The film will be preceded by Greenaway’s Water Wrackets (1975).

Further Reading

1. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 29th September 1983
2. Peter Greenaway's site
3. Greenaway on the film (The Guardian)
4. James Mackenzie, Senses of Cinema January 2001
5. Information about Water Wrackets

The land is an awesome presence in this film, with striking images of the Northern Rural Chinese region of Shaanxi. A teenage girl, Cuiqiao, does not wish to continue to carry water for three miles a day nor to accept the marriage that has been arranged for her. However, it is 200 miles to go south where she could be a hairdresser, or possibly join the Communist Army. A soldier, Gu Qing, is seen walking across this vast landscape, coming to forge links with the region and listen to and collect folk songs to inspire the army. He stays in Cuiqiao’s poor family home and they fall in love but too soon Gu Qing has to return. A landmark film made by the exciting group of film makers that went on to make Farewell My Concubine.

Further Reading

1. Review from Subjective Camera
2. Review from Talking Pictures

This is the story of the rise and fall of a vocal group who were disbanded as part of the mounting persecution of the Jews. With their romantic songs in intricate harmony, inspired by American jazz, they were wildly popular in Germany in the 1920s.

Early cheerfulness leads to eventual defeat, but most of the time the film plays like a show-biz biopic, with lots of entertaining musical numbers. There is also a complicated romantic element, as two men are in love with the same woman. The subtle manner in which the political story is gradually folded into the individual tales ensured the success of this very satisfying film.

Further Reading

1. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times 19th March 1999

Set in eleventh century Japan, Sansho is a powerful, cruel bailiff who acquires two young slaves, Zushio and his sister Anju. Zushio escapes, his sister dies, and Zushio makes his way to Kyoto to plead his case. Subsequently appointed governor of Sansho’s province, Zushio is determined to free the slaves, loses his post and embarks on a long search for his mother.

Spanning almost twenty years of a family’s life, Sansho Dayu is a thoughtful work of intense visual beauty from one of the world’s greatest film makers.

Further Reading

1. Movie Reviews UK
2. Review from Talking Pictures
3. Gary Morris 'The Spirit Moves: The World of Kenji Mizoguchi' Bright Lights September 1998, Issue 22

The restored version of one of the great classics of French cinema.

A pair of ardent young newlyweds begin married life aboard a Seine barge (L’Atalante) with an eccentric crew and a large collection of cats. The girl gets bored, leaves, and is brought back by the rascally mate (Michel Simon in tremendous form).

A film of extraordinary lyricism and beauty that manages to combine wild comedy with romantic yearning, it will be screened with Vigo’s Zéro de Conduite.

Further Reading

1. Desson Howe, Washington Post, 9th November, 1990
2. Hal Hinson, Washington Post, 10th November, 1990
3. David Thomson 'Love on the water' The Guardian 30th April 2005
4. Ian Johns 'Jean Vigo - longing shots and brief lives' The Times 28th April 2005
5. Derek Malcolm 'Jean Vigo: L'Atalante' The Guardian 4th February, 1999
6. Maximilian Le Cain Senses of Cinema July 2002

Based on the lives of the 17th century French musician and composer Sainte Colombe, his two daughters and their passionate attraction to his brilliant and flamboyant student Marin Marais (played by Guillaume Depardieu and as a grown man Gérard Depardieu), who plays at court for the king. The costumes and sets are impressive as is the music, which includes some of the original works by both men. A film of pastoral beauty and winner of seven Césars.

Further Reading

1. New York Times

One of the great silent comics, alongside Chaplin and Keaton, Harold Lloyd made nearly 200 films between 1914 and 1947. From Hand to Mouth (22 mins, 1919) was Lloyd’s first film with Mildred Davis, whom he married in 1923. Penniless, he foils a plot to swindle Davis of her inheritance.

Originally a three-reeler, I Do (25 mins, Hal Roach, 1921) was cut down to two, and was one of the films that made Lloyd a major star. Beginning with an animated sequence, it charts the tale of a young couple asked to look after some children, resulting in a series of mishaps.

Screened with live musical accompaniment by Stephen Warbeck, Jonathan Truscott, Terry Davies and Sarah Homer.

Further Reading

1. Wikipedia article
2. Alan Vanneman “Step Right Up and Call Me Speedy!” Bright Lights Film Journal, 2006

Never Weaken (31 mins, Fred C. Newmeyer, 1921) was Lloyd’s last two-reeler and was the third film in which he experimented with thrills as the foundations of his comedy, and has clear parallels with his later Safety Last. Charting the course of an office romance, which he subsequently (and wrongly) assumes is over, he tries to end it all in increasingly lunatic ways, only to find out his mistake at the end.

In Spring Fever (Hal Roach, 1919) Lloyd is a dreamy young man whose mind isn't on his dull office job. Wandering off, he causes endless trouble in the park, hides in a bush, and finds a young woman.

Screened with live musical accompaniment.

A hugely entertaining classic, based on a novel by C.S. Forester, The African Queen earned Humphrey Bogart his only Oscar. Playing the part of a coarse trader, Bogart helps missionary Katharine Hepburn escape German East Africa in the First World War. Despite their differences, their travails throw them together and the two gradually fall in love, to face their greatest test.

Further Reading

1. New York Times February 21, 1952
2. article from The Times
3. Screenplay

The legendary follow-up to Citizen Kane, this is a fascinating late nineteenth century period drama told in brilliant cinematic snippets with a delightful fast moving narrative, based on the book by Booth Tarkington, which won the Pulitzer Prize. The film is about the proud and celebrated aristocratic Amberson family who refuse to change with the times.

Isabel Amberson is in love with brash and handsome Eugene (Joseph Cotton), a motor designer. Social customs, however, prevent her from marrying him and she weds the more respectable Wilbur. Later on in life, after she becomes a widow, her egotistic only son still prevents her from marrying her first love.

“It was a much better picture than Kane—if they’d just left it as it was”—Orson Welles

Further Reading

1. www.filmsite.org
2. www.ambersons.com: with clips, comment, and hints of what was cut by RKO
3. Village Voice

Screened as part of the centenary of Rossellini’s birth, Paisa recounts the liberation of Italy during WWII in six random incidents with no connection except by war. His lucid yet compassionate treatment of the characters makes this film one of the first and most notable examples of the Italian post-war neo-realist tradition, using actuality photography and non-professional actors.

“Brilliant, absorbing and provocative”—Daily Telegraph; “This is a film to be seen—and seen again”—New York Times

Further Reading

1. New York Times (1948)
2. Senses of Cinema on Roberto Rossellini

Starting with a robbery at a petrol station in a city in Burkina Faso, the thief returns back to his village with the air of someone who has made it in the world. However, his conspicuous wealth and excess begin to generate suspicion, and in the end he has to face up to his deceit.

In Samba Traoré, Ouedraogo creates an archetypal exploration of human failings, guilt and atonement. From the director of Yaaba, which we screened two years ago, Samba Traoré won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Further Reading

1. New York Times
2. www.filmref.com
3. Senses of Cinema on Idrissa Ouedraogo

In 1937, just as Hitler was about to invade Czechoslovakia, Renoir turned this archetypal WWI prison camp escape story into a moving pacifist statement. But the film is also a shrewd commentary on threatened social values, the demise of aristocratic rule and ideals (embodied by the German camp commandant Eric von Stroheim and the French senior officer Pierre Fresnay), and the “grand illusion” that peace or social equality can ever become a permanent reality. Also starring Jean Gabin.

Winner of the International Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and consistently voted one of the best films ever made.

Further Reading

1. www.filmref.com
2. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

From the director of Ankur which we screened last year, Junoon is set during the days of the first Indian freedom struggle: the Indian Mutiny of 1857. When the British garrison is massacred, a Pathan nobleman offers refuge to three women survivors. He develops an obsessive love for the beautiful daughter whom he plans to make his second wife. He finds himself torn in the conflict between his aristocratic code of honour and his obsession, between the demands of love and patriotic duty.

The marvellous thing about this film, beside the great visual beauty, the first class rendering of the complex background of colonial conflict and the excellent acting, is how Benegal suggests the power of passion without any of its exterior violence. Although Benegal has here adopted some of the ingredients of the popular Indian extravaganza — music and spectacle romantic passion and heroic sacrifice, he has welded them in a beautiful film. Starring Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi and Jennifer Kendal.

“A beautifully decorative tale, full of comic ironies and tragic ambiguities, like The Chess Players on an epic scale” — Sunday Times

Further Reading

1. Mubarak Ali, "Shyam Benegal and the New Indian Cinema" Lumière 2, Summer 2004
2. Interview with Shyam Benegal, BFI

Jacques Tati, as M Hulot, tall, angular, awkward, arrives at the seaside in Brittany, in his improbable little car. Smoking a pipe, friendly to a fault, he is the man that nobody notices until things go wrong, and they will often do, but he faces a life where nothing goes as planned with an amazingly detached acceptance.

This a charming film, full of beautifully observed quaint characters: the overburdened waiter, the faultfinding old couple, the supercilious retired general, the children, the lovely girl who will keep his advances at a distance with her gentle smile. Even the sea plays tricks on our unsuspecting hero. With few words but lots of sound effects, this is a story about the simplest of human pleasures which captures subtly and completely the nostalgia of past happiness. It had a huge success, and is still a firm favourite with all audiences.

Further Reading

1. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
2. New York Times

A boat, believed to have $91 million in cocaine on board, is docked at a pier in San Pedro, just south of L.A. Suddenly an enormous explosion rips through the still of the night and you know that whatever or whoever was unlucky enough to be on that boat was blown halfway to hell. Within hours, a charred floating carcass is all that’s left. That, and twenty-seven dead bodies. Miraculously, there are two survivors: a Hungarian gangster who lies, clinging to life and burnt to a crisp, in a hospital bed; and Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey), a crippled con-man from New York, whose twisted, convoluted story is unraveled by a smart, shrewd U.S. government agent.

Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacey, Suzy Amis, Benicio Del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito

“Gripping and diabolically clever” — The Wall Street Journal; “A maze you'll be happy to get lost in” — Los Angeles Times; Winner of two 1995 Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay

Further Reading

1. Washington Post
2. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Leonor, a widow in a small South American town, gives birth to Charlotte, a dwarf. The mother not only provides a rich childhood for her daughter, she erases any clues her daughter might see that would lead her to think she is different, burning books such as Snow White and destroying lawn statues of gnomes. In short, she doesn't want to talk about it. The mother succeeds in creating a modern-day Rapunzel: Charlotte becomes an accomplished young woman who captures the heart of Ludovico (Marcello Mastroianni), a local playboy with a fondness for collecting small things, and he falls in love with her, in part because of her stature. But then the circus comes to town.

“To make a film is always an adventure and a defiance. I Don't Want to Talk about It is the riskiest of my films and also the one that taught me the most about myself... Charlotte is a metaphor for all of us who are in one way or another different from the flock. In that sense... she could be any independent spirit.” —Maria Luisa Bemberg

Further Reading

1. Washington Post
2. New York Times

A lovely and delicate Anglo-Indian film set in the last days of the British Raj about a troupe of Shakespearean actors led by Mr and Mrs Buckingham and their daughter (Felicity Kendal) who travel around giving performances, though with very little money.

Lizzie falls in love with a young wealthy Indian, Sonju (Shashi Kapoor). He is involved in a romance with a glamorous Bombay film star (Madhur Jaffrey). How will this situation be resolved? Set in the beautiful scenery of Simla and with music by Satyajit Ray, Shakespeare Wallah presents an ironic intimation of an empire’s inevitable demise.

Further Reading

1. Merchant Ivory Productions
2. New York Times
3. DVD Times

An elegant film about a heist and a major influence on Truffaut and Godard, Bob le Flambeur was one of the films that styled the New Wave. Bob is an all-night gambler willing to risk his serenity for one last big score among the crooks of Montmartre and Pigalle. Described as “a comedy of manners” by Melville, it is a remarkable tale of chance, destiny and human nature.

Echoing American films noirs of the 40s, Jean-Pierre Melville reworks the genre with a distinctive French flavour, creating something very different. At first sight, Bob is the classic film noir hero, a cynical and streetwise loner. Yet Melville breaks with convention and shows us his softer side through his relationships with his young protégé Paolo, the police inspector and the prostitutes in the neighbourhood.

“A wonderful movie”—Time Out

Further Reading

1. Senses of Cinema
2. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
3. New York Times
4. www.filmref.com

Rashomon tells of the rape of a woman (Machiko Kyo) and the murder of a man (Masayuki Mori), possibly by a bandit (Toshiro Mifune). It is presented entirely in flashbacks from the perspectives of four narrators. At Kyoto's crumbling Rashomon gate some people seeking shelter from a rain storm discuss the recent crime, which has shocked the region. One of the men, a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), was a witness to the events, and, with the help of a priest (Minoru Chiaki), he puzzles over what really happened, and what such a horrible occurrence says about human nature. This masterpiece by Kurosawa focuses on something far more profound and thought-provoking than culpability or innocence: the inability of any one man to know the truth, no matter how clearly he thinks he sees things. Perspective distorts reality and makes the absolute truth unknowable. The film is presented almost as visual poetry, paying a great deal of attention to sights and images while sound and dialogue have lesser importance.

“A rare piece of film art”—New York Times

Further Reading

1. Criterion
2. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
3. www.kamera.co.uk
4. Senses of Cinema on Kurosawa

Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle is vintage Eric Rohmer, a summery slice of life shot through with light, and rife with the chatter of two articulate young girls. Reinette and Mirabelle are the two young girls. Reinette lives in the countryside, Mirabelle in Paris. They meet during a holiday of Mirabelle in the country, when Reinette helps her to repair the tube of her bicycle and shows her the beauties of nature and in particular the ‘blue hour’. They like each other and decide to take a flat together in Paris, where they’ll attend the university. Their exchanges, sharp as garlic and sweet as smiles, are as naive as they are knowing.

Further Reading

1. Washington Post