Film

I appreciate Kino Eye highlighting films that many Solidarity readers will not have seen. I would have been keen to watch the Hungarian film John recommends, Kontroll ( Solidarity 650 ). I may still do. Knowing the details of the final scene, and who the metro killer was, may have dampened my desire somewhat. It is surely possible to précis and promote a film without giving away the major plot points. Jay Dawkey, London

Despite its appalling record on women’s rights, Iran is home to some excellent films by female film directors. Persepolis (2007) is a mainly black-and-white animation directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parranoud, adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Satrapi. The main character Marjane, “Marji”, grows up witnessing the downfall of the Shah and the takeover by Ayatollah Khomeini, who introduces an increasingly oppressive fundamentalist regime. Marji rebels. She buys a “Punk is not dead!” T-shirt and listens to western rock music tapes, all purchased on the black market. Her...

Comrades working on the London Underground should enjoy this. Kontroll (2003, directed by Hungarian Antal Nimród) takes place entirely within the Budapest Metro, where a hilariously incompetent team of ticket inspectors (the “kontroll”) attempt to carry out their duties, only to be harassed at every turn by ticker-dodgers, drunks, gangs of thugs and tourists. Meanwhile a hooded killer is pushing people under oncoming trains. Trying to hold his team of deadbeats together and keep his sanity in all this is Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi). Bulscú’s rival, the thuggish Gonzó (Balázs Mihályfi), challenges...

The mention of Banned Book Week (Katy Dollar, Solidarity 647) took me back to 1966, when Francois Truffaut made probably the ultimate film about banned literature, Fahrenheit 451 (referring to the temperature at which paper burns). Based on Ray Bradbury’s novel of the same name, the film shows a future 1984-ish dystopia where all books are not only banned and burned by a special government department, “The Firemen”. The Firemen burn books, while mind-bogglingly stupid TV shows feed the population with a trashy alternative to thinking about the world around them. Montag, one of the Firemen...

The recent death of country and western singer Loretta Lynn evokes the biographical film Coal Miner’s Daughter (Michael Apted, 1980). With Sissy Spacek as Loretta the film traces her early life in a remote coal mining community in Kentucky, and her move with her husband (played by Tommy Lee Jones) to the Pacific North West, where her singing and musical ability is discovered. She befriends fellow country and western singer Patsy Kline and goes on to a glittering career. Her songs, many of which she wrote herself, often portrayed the hardships of her early life, as in the song Coal Miner’s...

The term “gaslighting” (manipulating someone psychologically into doubting the reality around them) comes from Gas Light , a stage play written by Patrick Hamilton and first performed in London in 1938. Set in the Victorian era, the play depicts a schizophrenic who drives his wife insane when she seems likely to discover a murder he committed many years ago. Gas Light was adapted for the British screen in 1940 (director: Thorold Dickinson), using the same title. In 1944 it was again adapted for the screen by Hollywood director George Cukor. and it is probably from that film that the verb “to...

When film academic David Bordwell wrote his classic Narration in the Fiction Film he brought together various directors under headings — Montage cinema, Classical Hollywood etc. — but only the Franco-Swiss Jean-Luc Godard had a chapter all to himself. Bordwell, like many others, saw Godard, who died on 13 September, as unique. His career spanned sixty years but he will be best remembered for his early films, which were an important part of the French New Wave and a major influence on filmmakers such as Bernardo Bertolucci in Parma, István Szabó in Hungary, Jiři Menzel in Prague and Quentin...

Sacheen Littlefeather at the 1973 Oscars The recent apology to Native American Sacheen Littlefeather for her treatment at the 1973 Academy Awards Ceremony when she declined an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando is about 50 years too late, but welcome all the same. While attempting to speak for the cause of Native American rights she was booed and, some allege, threatened by John Wayne. Officials told her to keep her speech to one minute or face arrest. It could well be the case that Native Americans have been subjected to more racist abuse, onscreen, than any other ethnic minority in the world...

German director Wolfgang Petersen, who died in August, was renowned for his brilliant World War Two film Das Boot (“The Boat”, 1981). Based on Lothar Bucheim’s novel, Das Boot follows the German U-Boat U96 as it stalks Allied convoys in the North Atlantic. The film is notable for its lack of conventional heroics and its stress on the details of submarine life — very smelly, grubby, cramped and tedious. The U96 captain, played by Jürgen Prochnow, dislikes the Nazis but he carries out his duty (as he sees it) with a degree of detachment and subdued cynicism. The crew share his sentiments and...

Mohammad Rasoulof (recent winner of the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival) and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, two internationally known Iranian film directors, have been arrested after posting an online appeal to the Iranian security services, urging them not to use their weapons against demonstrators. Another film director, Jafar Panahi, who went to the police to complain about the arrests, was himself arrested. The whereabouts of all three are currently not known. This follows hard on the heels of the arrests of two documentary film-makers, Mina Keshavarz and Firouzeh Khosravani in May this...