Forest Row Film Society

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