• Friday 16 April for 6 days

THE STATION AGENT (15)

(US 2003) dir.Thomas McCarthy 90m.
Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale, Raven Goodwin, Paul Benjamin, Michelle Williams.

"Tom McCarthy’s sometimes hilarious, touching film is a small but sprawling comedy of manners that ignores the temptations of cheap melodrama to take us off the map to a place seldom visited by its peers. Like the community Fin (Peter Dinklage) finds when he moves into his new home, McCarthy’s film is alive with personality and intrigue. Sharply written and beautifully realised, these are characters with depth and feeling – oddballs, certainly, but warm and credible. There’s Emily (Michelle Williams), the pretty librarian in lumber with her deadbeat boyfriend. There’s Cleo (Raven Goodwin), the curious little schoolgirl who desperately wants Fin to help with her show-and-tell. But most of all there’s Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), the artist who harbours a fascination for Fin from the day she almost runs him over. It’s THE STATION AGENT’s meditation on the smaller things in life that make it such a big deal."
(Damon Wise, Empire)

• Friday 16 April for 6 days

MONSTER (18)

(US 2003) dir.Patty Jenkins 109m.
Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Scott Wilson.

“By her own confession, Aileen Wuornos murdered six men in the years 1989 and 1990 – all in self defence, she claimed. The media hyped her as America’s first female serial killer, and a lesbian to boot. Here Charlize Theron transforms her cover-girl looks into a fair facsimile of Aileen’s sinewy, sun-coarsened scowl. The casting is ironic, anti-iconic – the film begins with Aileen putting a gun in her mouth, suicidal, reflecting quite articulately on the beauty myths and fairytales which have brought her nothing but destitiution and despair. Then she meets Selby (Christina Ricci) and falls in love despite herself. Theron’s performance goes beyond cosmetics to dig out the blind fury, the madness, and the hope which put Wuornos on death row.”
(Tom Charity, Time Out)

• Thursday 22 April for 15 days

KILL BILL VOLUME 2 (18)

(US 2004) dir.Quentin Tarantino136m.
Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu, Michael Parks, Bo Svenson.

“We know how Quentin Tarantino's four-hour-plus epic KILL BILL will end. The pleasure comes in the journey, and, in contrast to the high style and stylized action of Vol 1, Vol 2 is as seductive for its verbose drama as much for its brilliant fight sequences. Talky and character-driven, languorous yet emotionally charged, Vol 2 completes the story of The Bride who now has a name (Beatrix Kiddo) as she wreaks revenge on Bill and his troupe of assassins who slaughtered her wedding party in a chapel in El Paso and left her in a coma which lasted four years. Like an over-imaginative child creating a fantasy world of characters and history, Tarantino has put to film an entire mythology, a crime saga so fantastical and rich in delicious details that fans will cry out for more. If Vol 1 was all action, Vol 2 is all talk and Tarantino's confidence with dialogue, camera and actors is so strong that he enjoys dwelling on these scenes. The chronology of the drama is all so cleverly mixed up that they also contain dramatic exposition and, in the final Beatrix/Bill showdown, a good deal of emotion. Unlike Vol 1, which had a largely Asian flavour, Vol 2 is chiefly set in the US and Mexico and sees Tarantino pay homage to Sergio Leone and the form of the spaghetti western. Thurman is again a force of nature, adding a maternal, vulnerable dimension to her vengeful, dogged Beatrix Kiddo; David Carradine is the perfect, charismatic foil as the deservedly doomed Bill.”
(Mike Goodridge, Screen International)

• Friday 7 May for 1 week

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (15)
(US 2004) dir.Michel Gondry 108m.

Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, Tom Wilkinson.
"In ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman teleports the screwball genre into the 21st century. The movie opens with Joel, played by Jim Carrey in a dorky woolen cap, and Clementine, played by Kate Winslet in blue hair, meeting screwball cute on a beach at the end of Long Island in the dead of winter. He's painfully shy; she's almost equally painfully gregarious. Joel goes through the normal Kaufman self-conscious nerdy contortions, but something is different: It's almost as if they've known each other before. A short time later (or so it seems-we don't yet grasp the movie's timeline), Joel is weeping in his car, because Clementine didn't recognize him in the bookstore where she works. She was also smooching someone else. It turns out that she has had her memories of their relationship erased by a company called Lacuna Inc., run by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). And, because Joel can't live in the world without Clementine, he decides to have her erased from his brain, too. This is all tricky enough, but in the course of his visit to Lacuna, Joel has a revelation: This isn't happening; it has already happened. As Joel travels back through his memories of the relationship he remembers what he loved in her. In that instant the picture transforms into a different kind of story, in which the object is not to let go of one's memories but hang onto them, whatever the cost. The legendary music-video director Michel Gondry and his cinematographer, Ellen Kuras, get to strut their stuff in these sequences: Joel flees with his mental Clementine to places in his life that he hasn't supplied to his memory erasers – places where she couldn't have been, like his kitchen when he was 4 years old. Gondry is a gorgeous illustrator of Kaufman's inner worlds, and in its splintered syntax the movie is astoundingly fluid. The laws of time and space are constantly flouted, yet the film moves along an unbroken thread of memories – a filament that's white-hot with emotion. Like the greatest science fiction writers, Kaufman is using a bizarre futuristic scenario to tell us something about the here and now: about the loss of our most vivid loves to the impermanence of memory; and about the life we lose when, to go on living, we force ourselves to forget. This is the best movie I've seen in a decade. For once it's no hyperbole to say, ‘Unforgettable!’.”
(David Edelstein, Slate)

• Friday 14 May for 2 weeks

SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER... AND SPRING (15)

(South Korea/Germany 2003) dir.Kim Ki-duk 103m. Subtitles.
Oh Yeong-su, Kim Ki-duk, Kim Yeong-min, Seo Jae-gyeong, Ha Yeo-jin, Kim Jung-ho.

“Korean cinema's original Angry Young Man, Kim Ki-duk, takes a big step forward with this sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey. Entirely set on a tree-lined lake where a tiny monastery floats on a raft, and expertly played by a chamber cast, the film represents a refreshing change for the director of such emotionally violent fare as ADDRESS UNKNOWN, BAD GUY and THE COAST GUARD. Its major accomplishment is that it deals with abstract ideas, in what for most audiences will be an exotic setting, without exoticizing its subject or setting, or boring the audience into a Zen-like stupor. Kim's rough humour (and, in ‘Summer’, animal-like sexuality) acts as a counterweight to Baek Dong-hyeon's magisterial lensing of mist, water, trees and hills. But even when the film gets into Buddhist ritual, the actions are always clear in lay terms, and not used as a picturesque crutch for the movie. Down to small details, such as using a different animal as visual decoration for each episode, the flavour of what Kim is trying to convey remains clear. Tightly cut by Kim himself, the film hasn't an ounce of spare flesh, and Bark Jee-woong's sometimes unconventional, varied score is a further fillip.“
(Derek Elley, Variety)

• Friday 21 May for 1 week

THE BASQUE BALL (15)

(Sp 2003) dir.Julio Medem 120m. Subtitles. Documentary

The first feature documentary by Julio Medem (SEX AND LUCIA, LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE) has proved extremely controversial. Using poetic imagery and an innovative structure, the director offers an admittedly subjective exploration of Basque nationalism and the complex ‘Basque Question’. Around 70 people contribute their opinions. “The relevance and rightness of Medem’s controversial look at questions of Basque identity, status, and the Basques’ relationship to central Spanish government were shown by the Aznar administration’s response to the recent Madrid bombings. It’s a tough film, in many respects, but stay with its ‘polyphonic’ call for dialogue – ther’s much to admire, much to think about, and much to learn.”
(Geoff Andrew, Time Out)

• Friday 28 May for 2 weeks

BAD EDUCATION (15)

(Sp 2004) dir.Pedro Almodóvar 104m. Subtitles.
Gael Garcia Bernal, Fele Martinez, Javier Camara, Daniel Gimenez-Cacho, Lluis Homar, Francisco Boira Ignacio Perez, Raul Garcia Forneiro.

“Pedro Almodóvar’s status as Europe’s most distinctive auteur is effortlessly maintained with Bad Education, a rich fusion of film noir and melodrama spun with all the intricacy of a spider’s web. Autobiographical memories and Almodóvar’s trademark preoccupations with death and desire are imbued with the sensibility of an encyclopaedic film buff. In previous ‘Almodramas’, the writer-director has drawn magpie-like inspiration from such diverse sources as Tennessee Williams, Ingmar Bergman and Joseph L Mankiewicz. Here, he plunders the doomed lovers, deluded saps and dangerous liaisons of Hollywood film noir. The story begins in Madrid in 1980. Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) is a young, gay director. Desperately seeking inspiration for his fourth feature, he is visited by a handsome young man who claims to be his old schoolfriend and first love Ignacio Rodriguez (Gael Garcia Bernal). He presents Enrique with a story entitled The Visit, inspired by their childhood experiences at the hand of abusive school Principal Father Manolo (Daniel Gimenez-Cacho) and by Ignacio’s subsequent life as Zahara, a drug-addicted transvestite. Zahara’s tragic decision to confront Manolo adds piquancy to the story and convinces Enrique to rekindle his interest in Ignacio and make The Visit the basis of his next film. In typical Almodovar fashion, nothing is entirely as it first appears. Impressions are formed and certainties challenged with each fresh piece of evidence. Gael Garcia Bernal gives a carefully shaded performance that is sexy, appealing and always credible. By contrast, Enrique remains an aloof figure as he knowingly plunges into the whirlpool of Ignacio’s deception. Viewed in some quarters as a vehicle for Almodovar to attack the corruption and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, Bad Education is surprisingly measured in this respect. Almodovar’s gift has always been to communicate the complex workings of the human heart in a way that can be universally understood. At its core, Bad Education is a bittersweet reflection on those who are enslaved by love and how it has the power to both inspire and destroy.”
(Allan Hunter, Screen International)

• Friday 11 June for 1 week

UZAK (Distant) (15)

(Turkey 2002) dir.Nuri Bilge Ceylan 110m. Subtitles.
Muzafer Ozdemir, Mehmet Emin Toprak, Zuhal Gencer Erkaya, Nazan Kirilmis.

“Ceylan’s third feature (after the acclaimed THE SMALL TOWN and CLOUDS OF MAY, neither, sadly, released here) is a marvellous account of a friendship disintegrating under pressure from time, place and social difference. It thoroughly deserved the Best Director and Best Actor prizes it won in Cannes last year. The simple story is familiar from everyday life. Mahmut (Muzaffer Ozdemir), a photographer once full of lofty artistic ambitions but now resigned to cynical pragmatism, lives in Istanbul. Barely concealing his reluctance, he agrees to put up Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak who tragically died shortly after the film was completed), a cousin from the Anatolian village he used to call home, while he looks for work on the ships that might enable him to live abroad. Unfortunately for both, Yusuf, unsuccessful in his rather half-hearted search, begins to outstay his welcome. With its laconic, faintly elliptical narrative, strikingly eloquent compositions (shot by Ceylan himself), and superb performances, UZAK speaks volumes both about masculinity and the wintry realities of modern life in the Western(-ised) world. Not that it’s all doom and gloom; a droll wit ensures the none-too-rosey look at friendship, fulfillment and frustration never feels forced or oppressive. A delicious sightgag involving Tarkovsky’s STALKER typifies the blend of warm affection and wry scepticism that distinguishes the film. The gentle pace and sense of how individual lives relate to larger forces echoes Edward Yang; the precise evocation of time and place and discreet formal confidence, Kiarostami; and the deadpan visual comedy, Keaton or Jarmusch. Finally, however, Ceylan’s quiet intelligence and rich imagination mean he’s his own man, and one of the most promising film-makers in the world today.”
(Geoff Andrew, Time Out)