Review #1,374: 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' (2011)

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol continues the series' trend of introducing a new director with each new instalment, hoping that a pair of fresh eyes will prevent the franchise from growing stagnant. A few eyebrows were raised when it was announced that J.J. Abrams' successor would be none other than Brad Bird, director of such animated classics The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, with what would be his first live-action picture. However, it becomes clear early on that Bird is more than up for the task, with his background in colourful animated efforts (including one of cinema's all-time best superhero adventures) perhaps inspiring him to make something all the more physical. This fourth entry is the most action-packed yet, and carries a hell of a punch, with one jaw-dropping set-piece in particular blowing any stunts from the previous films completely out of the water.

IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is spending time locked away in a Moscow prison, keeping tabs on Bogdan (Miraj Grbic), a fellow inmate who may posses vital information on a man known as 'Cobalt'. With Cobalt now in possession of a file containing Russian nuclear launch codes, time is running out, so agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and the recently-promoted Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) break him out in order to infiltrate the Kremlin and gather information on their mysterious target. During the mission however, a bomb is detonated, leaving the Kremlin in ruins and Hunt and his team, who are the main suspects, disavowed by their government. Despite IMF's reputation lying in tatters, the agency Secretary (Tom Wilkinson) tasks Hunt with continuing his hunt for Cobalt, who has been revealed to be Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a nuclear strategist who feels that an extinction event is long overdue.

If there is a major flaw in Ghost Protocol, it's Nyqvist's villain. While Philip Seymour Hoffman was brought in last time to truly jangle the nerves, Hendricks isn't given enough screen-time or a clear enough motivation to make much of an impression, despite being played by a damn fine actor. This does, however, open more space for the team itself, who are eventually joined by intelligence analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Their mission takes them across the globe, and eventually to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where of course Hunt must scale the highest building in the world in the most vertigo-inducing sequence ever captured on film. With Hunt wielding only a pair of high-tech suction gloves to save him from certain death, Bird uses every camera angle and editing technique to make it a moment to dread for anybody with a fear of heights. Once again, Tom Cruise does all of his own stunts, demonstrating why he one of the most respected actors around, despite the inherent craziness of his personal life. It's basically none stop action surrounding the flimsiest of McGuffins, but when the fights and stunts are choreographed so spectacularly, it's easy to forgive the picture's flaws and simply go with it.


Directed by: Brad Bird
Starring: Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Michael Nyqvist, Léa Seydoux
Country: USA/United Arab Emirates/Czech Republic/Russia/India/Canada

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,265: 'Ghost in the Shell' (2017)

Hollywood remakes of beloved foreign-language movies are rarely a welcome idea, but Ghost in the Shell seemed particularly doomed from the get-go. Alongside the cries from fans claiming the industry has officially run out of ideas, and from those who hold the original close to their heart and fail to see any other purpose in a remake other than to allow the fat cats to count the green, the announcement of Caucasian Scarlett Johnansson's casting in a role originally voiced by an Asian actor generated all-too familiar claims of 'whitewashing'. Tempers were only inflamed when it was rumoured that Johnasson's appearance was to be digitally-tweaked to make her appear more Eastern-looking, an idea that was quickly abandoned. Predictably, Ghost in the Shell arrived in cinemas back in March to underwhelming box-office.

As a result, I approached Rupert Sanders' 2017 re-do with a sense of trepidation and caution, knowing full well that it would lack the philosophical musings of the Masaume Shirow manga the story originated from, and the big questions raised by Mamoru Oshii's landmark anime adaptation. After all, this is a blockbuster wannabe starring one of the most in-demand actresses around, so of course the makers will feel the need to dumb everything down to suit a mainstream audience (even though Christopher Nolan has proven more than once that a film can be complex and intelligent and still rake in the cash). It is perhaps thanks to my low expectations that I found much to enjoy with Ghost in the Shell. Like the 'shells' depicted in the film, it's certainly hollow and jittery, but as a piece of entertainment, I was never bored, and the visuals offer plenty of colour and detail to distract from the straightforward plot.

Taking inspiration from everything from Shirow's manga, Oshii's 1995 movie and its 2004 sequel, and the hugely popular spin-off series, certain scenes will certainly feel familiar while the story of a shady corporation turning human beings into weapons against their will feels like it could be lifted from most Blade Runner-inspired science-fiction movies of the past couple of decades. Major (Johansson) is the first cyborg to employ a fully mechanised body with the mind, or 'ghost', of a human. Her employer, Hanka CEO Cutter (Peter Ferdinando), decides to use her in the fight against cyber-terrorism, which has become a real problem since the majority of the population have now been cybernetically enhanced. She works at Section 9 with her gruff partner Batou (a bleach-blonde Pilou Asbaek) and boss Aramaki ('Beat' Takeshi Kitano), and they are forced into action when Hanka finds itself under attack from a mysterious hacker named Kuze (Michael Pitt).

Oshii's 1995 incarnation tackled big themes such as humanity and identity, offering explosive moments of action to allow some relief from the head-scratching central plot. The result was one of the best animes of all time. Sanders' Ghost in the Shell has much smaller ambitions, and feels very much like a product of the post-Matrix world we now live in, even though the Wachowskis were mainly inspired by Oshii's film. It works only as spectacle, and this world of spider-legged geisha robots and giant animated advertisements really does catch the eye. The action, while hardly breaking down barriers, has a physicality behind it, and the punches and bullets land with a force that really pushes its 12A certificate to the very limits. As the lead, Johansson has proved time and time again that she is accomplished with the physical demands of such a role, and she gives Major a hunched, stompy awkwardness, despite the blandness of the character. It will never justify its existence to the die-hard fans of the original, but Ghost in the Shell 2017 offers enough visual panache and energy to engage those curious enough to check it out.


Directed by: Rupert Sanders
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt
Country: UK/China/India/Hong Kong/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,152: 'The BFG' (2016)

It's been a whopping 25 years since Steve Spielberg's last real children's film, when he disappointed children and adults alike with his Peter Pan re-imagining Hook. After a long period of going back and forth between monochromatic, Oscar-wary history lessons and crowd-pleasing blockbuster fare, Hollywood's most famous director is back trying to win the hearts of both children and parents as he did with one of his most celebrated movies, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), with a passion project he's been considering for some time. He also reunites with E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison (who sadly died last year) to bring the notoriously tricky world of Roald Dahl to the big screen.

Insomniac orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) spends her nights either beneath her blanket pouring over books or roaming the halls of the orphanage looking for anything that may spark her interest. While up late one night, she shushes some drunks staggering home from the pub, only to glimpse the shadow of what looks like a giant hooded man. The figure gets closer and closer, until a giant hand reaches in through her window and whisks her and blanket both across the country. The mysterious monstrosity turns out to be a giant indeed, but a big, friendly one, played in motion capture by a wonderful Mark Rylance. The BFG is the runt of his litter in Giant Country, and is routinely bullied by the much bigger fellow giants that lurk on the land outside of his cave. The two outcasts will form a bond that will see their two worlds unite.

Brian Cosgrove's beloved animated film from 1989 was incredibly close to the book, and was said to be a personal favourite of Dahl's. Yet a faithful page-to-screen adaptation of a terrific piece of literature doesn't necessarily result in a good movie, and having watched the cartoon relatively recently, I didn't find it very entertaining. Spielberg's update also stays quite close to Dahl's text, and it suffers from the same saggy narrative as the much shorter movie that came before did. Anyone hoping to keep their children entertained for a couple of hours may find them getting restless, as Spielberg is happy to take his time exploring this strange land. It's a decision I applaud, but it doesn't excuse an incredibly slow middle-section, as the BFG introduces the world of dream-catching, snozzcumbers and the joys of farting to the precocious Sophie, complete with rambling monologues and existential pondering.

There's also a noticeable reluctance to explore the darker areas of the book, with the giants (played like Cockney bouncers by the likes of Jemaine Clement and Bill Hader) failing to live up their names (Fleslumpeater, Bloodbottler, Bonecruncher). They instead come across as bullying buffoons and not the child-munching monsters they are meant to be. If there is one thing the film gets totally right, it is with the casting of Rylance, fresh off his Oscar win for Bridge of Spies (2015). The wonderful effects by Weta perfectly capture the warmth and innocence of his performance, and his line delivery is pitch-perfect. Spielberg also goes all-out with Dahl's bizarre finale, which sees Sophie recruit the Queen herself (Penelope Wilton) and her trusted butler Mr. Tibbs (Rafe Spall) in her fight against the evil giants of Giant Country. It's a truly weird climax, but it's the only consistently funny part of the movie. Not a total failure by any stretch of the imagination, but a somewhat rambling, timid effort to bring a difficult book to the screen.


Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall, Bill Hader
Country: USA/India

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #973: 'Bridge of Spies' (2015)

Steven Spielberg's latest exercise in good ol' fashioned American wholesomeness, integrity and diplomacy transports us back to 1957, where undercover KGB agent Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is about to be busted by the FBI under suspicion of passing secrets onto the Soviets. The idealistic man at the centre of the story is James B. Donovan, an insurance lawyer working in Brooklyn who joins the likes of John Quincy Adams, Oskar Schindler and Abraham Lincoln on the list of great, conflicted men caught up in a difficult period of upheaval and portrayed by Spielberg in an admiring light. And who better to play a man of such a clear sense of morality than Hollywood's favourite nice-guy Tom Hanks?

Working with frequent collaborator Janusz Kaminski, Bridge of Spies is about a good-looking as a film gets. Infused with the same eye for detail and greyed-down solemnity of Lincoln (2012), the backdrops on show provide the perfect location for serious men talking serious business. The main crux of the film rests in the blossoming friendship between Donovan and Abel, who are captured on an equal par in a bleak interrogation room as the sun blazes through the blinds. These are two men from opposing sides, but share the share the same determination, stubbornness, and loyalty to the ideals of their country. Abel accepts his increasingly-likely execution as one of the requirements of his job, but Donovan wants to exercise his rights as a PoW, making himself public enemy number one in the process as his face splashes across the newspapers.

Donovan also hopes to keep him as a tool should the need for a prisoner exchange rear its head in the future, which was incredible foresight for anyone who knows the true-life story. As Donovan fights for Abel in the courtroom, the United States are prepping their own mission - to send a spy plane over the Soviet Union to take photographs. Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and, after failing to swallow the cyanide given to him by his commanding officer in case he finds himself in such a perilous position, is taken prisoner by the Soviets and routinely tortured for information. The U.S. government again turn to Donovan in the hope of setting up an exchange just as American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is also arrested.

For a story so littered with intrigue and espionage, Bridge of Spies is oddly lacking in thrills and tension. When Donovan arrives for the exchange in Berlin as the Wall is being put in place, the city is hostile and seemingly lawless in areas, but instead the film focuses on the various bizarre characters, including a Petter Lorre-alike KGB man, who flock around Donovan, a man they simply do not know. Perhaps the unevenness in tone is down to a script-polishing by Joel and Ethan Coen, who never shy away from taking a genre and stamping their own particular brand of humour on it. Spielberg also cannot resist resorting to sentiment at the film's climax on the eponymous 'bridge of spies' (Glienicke Bridge). Still, this is Spielberg at his most professional, harking back to classic Hollywood while maintaining the relevance of the films themes.


Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Scott Shepherd
Country: USA/Germany/India

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #868: 'Gandhi' (1982)

The late Richard Attenborough acknowledges the troubles with the biography genre from the get-go with his finest film as director, Gandhi. "No man's life can be encompassed in one telling," the opening credits state, "what can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try to find one's way to the heart of the man." Yet Gandhi manages to achieve more than most biography's by not only portraying the famous historical events that the man lived through, of which no doubt helped form his own ideals, but by showing us the real man behind the speeches and the fasting, who enjoyed spending time at peace with his loving wife or operating his spinning wheel.

Wisely avoiding Mahatma Gandhi's early life, we are first properly introduced to the man as he rides a first-class carriage in South Africa. He is thrown off for being a non-white, even though he possesses a first-class ticket and is a practising lawyer, and this event provokes him to form a non-violent civil rights movement. Through sheer will and stubbornness, the government eventually relents and passes laws benefiting the residing Indians, allowing Gandhi to return to India in the process. When he arrives in his native country as a hero, he witnesses the same prejudicial brutality at the hands of the occupying British Empire. Through more non-violent protests, Gandhi manages to unite millions against the British, causing a divide between the Hindus and Muslims in the process.

Gandhi was a labour of love for Attenborough, who fought for over a decade to get to the film made. Alec Guinness was rumoured to be set for the role of Gandhi when the movie was still in the hands of David Lean, and after seeing Ben Kingsley's portrayal of the great man, such an idea now seems utterly preposterous. Kinglsey's performance is without a doubt one of the finest embodiments of a public figure in history, not only settling for a good impression and an uncanny resemblance, but convincing to the point that you believe Gandhi himself is on screen. It's a quiet, dignified performance, often channelling Gandhi's gentle charisma, shrewd wit and fierce intelligence without saying anything at all.

For all it's technical impressiveness - the film is undeniably beautiful, shot with a grandiose David Lean-esque epic feel with extra's numbered in the thousands - it occasionally plods. Although the events in South Africa no doubt shaped Gandhi's attitudes and spirit, we spend far too much time there, and this doesn't allow the complex events in India to unravel with the time and care that they warrant. The aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the growing political and social unease between the Hindus and Muslims, and the events that led to Gandhi's assassination are all rushed over the finish line. Without these flaws, Gandhi may have been a masterpiece. However it is still an enlightening experience, and the praise lavished upon Kingsley (as well as his Oscar) is wholly justified.


Directed by: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Martin Sheen, Ian Charleson
Country: UK/India

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #700: 'Devi' (1960)

In 1860's Bengal, wealthy, powerful, yet mentally fragile landowner Kalikinkar (Chhabi Biswas) dreams that his daughter-in-law Doyamoyee (Sharmila Tagore) is the avatar of the Goddess of destruction, Kali. He falls to his knees in front of her, claiming that she embodies the living spirit of the much-feared deity. When his son Umaprasad (Soumitra Chatterjee) returns from Calcutta after his school exams, he is horrified to see that his wife is being worshipped by floods of people that have travelled to pray. He is unable to convince his father of his folly, and Kalikinkar's influence eventually manages to convince Doya herself.

Bengali director Satyajit Ray's sterling film shows the danger of idol worship, and how easy this influence can spread to people in need of escapism. When a dying child is brought to her, the small boy miraculously awakens apparently healed, convincing everyone apart from her husband and the women of the household of Doya's power. The women remain unconvinced, but as Kalikinkar is head of the household, they have no choice but to worship, exposing Indian's heavily matriarchal society, and women's role as the 'Mother'. Kalikinkar refers to Doya as 'mother' before his dream, and a beautiful song is heard from outside, singing of adoration for the mother.

The standout scene of Devi (meaning 'The Goddess') captures Umaprasad's utter horror at the sight of Doya, fitted out like a deity and confused at the new role flung upon her. There is little to no dialogue in the scene, but Ray understands the power of silence in film. As Doya, Tagore is so beautiful that you could almost mistake her for a goddess, and she carries her performance (at aged just 14 at time of filming) with remarkable maturity. As Umaprasad enters the room and sees her for the first time, they converse with their eyes, and Doya gives a simple and subtle shake of the head. With fundamentalism so commonplace amongst most religions these days, Devi is perhaps more relevant than ever, and with that heartbreaking and memorable final shot, still as powerful as it ever was.


Directed by: Satyajit Ray
Starring: Sharmila Tagore, Soumitra Chatterjee, Chhabi Biswas
Country: India

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #558: 'Dredd' (2012)

In future America, life is grim. The metropolis Mega-City One is a blur of skyscrapers and slums, overrun completely by violent crime. The only thing that stands in the way are the Judges, a force of justice where the gun-wielding officers play the role of judge, jury and executioner. The most fearsome, Judge Dredd (Karl Urban), is given the task of breaking in a young rookie, Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), a mutant psychic who failed the aptitude test to become a Judge, but still holds promise. Their first investigation, a triple homicide in which the victims were drugged and thrown from a tower block, leads them to Peach Trees, a notorious slum that is run by powerful drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey).

After the complete disaster of Sylvester Stallone's 1995 depiction of Dredd, it would require bold steps when coming to produce a re-imagining and hopefully diminish any memories of the previous film. Thankfully, director Pete Travis and actor Karl Urban have managed to create something close to the comic-book source - violent, dirty and over-the-top. The fact that Judge Dredd never removes his helmet requires an actor unconcerned about ego, and Urban, a seemingly humble and talented actor who has been mainly reduced to supporting roles (but proved himself to be a highly credible leading man in the excellent, little-seen thriller Out of the Blue (2006)) is perfect as the Judge - a stoic, bad-ass hero with questionable values and who is the embodiment of a future without hope.

The pessimistic, dystopian future the film creates is ripe for social and political observation, but the film sadly neglects this possibility in favour of something more simplistic and action-heavy. Sure, we want to see Dredd pumping bullets into generic baddies, but without any deeper characterisation or satire, it's difficult to get too involved amongst all the gore and drug abuse. It resorts to a basic idea of Dredd and Anderson being trapped in a closed tower-block, facing an onslaught from Ma-Ma and her cohorts, and if anything, pursues a video-game aesthetic rather than anything comic-book-like. Playing out very much like a futuristic Die Hard (1988), it certainly offers many opportunities for Dredd to use his Lawgiver gun, designed to recognise his palm only, and can be changed to fire in various ways, yet this approach does get slightly repetitive, and offers nothing original or particularly inventive in terms of action cinema.

Given it's low budget, the film certainly looks great. The special effects are suitably washed-out, and without that big-budget CGI sheen, give the film are earthier, grimy feel, similar in many ways to the great work done on District 9 (2009). The new drug on Mega-City One's streets that has Dredd and his fellow Judges on alert is known as Slo-Mo, named for the way it slows down the recipient's perception of time. This leads to some visually striking scenes and when watched in high definition, looks wonderful, especially the scene in which we meet Ma-Ma slumped in the bath, casually sucking in Slo-Mo as the smoke swirls around her. Sadly, Dredd's poor box-office will probably mean that there will be no sequel, but it is certainly enough to banish the memory of the 1995 version, and perhaps if DVD and Blu-Ray sales go well, we may yet see Urban don the famous helmet once again. And at least there's no Rob fucking Schneider.


Directed by: Pete Travis
Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey
Country: UK/USA/India

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #362: 'The Happening' (2008)

After the massive success of the hugely over-rated debut feature, The Sixth Sense (1999), M. Night Shyamalan could only really go one way. The series of films that he produced over the years have always been absolutely reliant on a twist, or put simply, one single idea, that the film's entire narrative is hinged upon. In his first the lead character was dead, in Unbreakable (2000), the lead was an unwitting superhero, in The Village (2004), it was the media signifiers of the war on terror. In essence the films were quite interesting. However, as films they were largely dull, pretentious drivel. I never actually saw Lady in the Water (2006), so I am unable to comment on the film he directed before this atrociously titled, The Happening.

The film begins with a series of vignettes showing various New Yorker's stopping their movements, and randomly committing suicide. One scene has workmen jumping from the room of a tall building - the director sorely missing out on the opportunity to have The Weather Girls' It's Raining Men playing on a radio, or even with non-diegesis. So, what about that old Shyamalan twist that has become so ubiquitous to 21st cinema thus far? The plants did it! The plants are attacking the entire eastern seaboard of North America, and a struggling couple, Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) have been given a friends child Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) to take to safety after her father, John Leguizamo, - who willingly manages to slit his wrists, successfully ejecting himself from this awful film - goes off in search of the mother.

Shyamanlan proudly highlights his involvement in his films, with his credits for writing, producing and directing, and his career path would seem to indicate that he combats outside forces in their making. If this is the case, I would state that for his careers sake, he should absolutely make other peoples scripts. For me, I don't really care, having never really liked any of his films. It would appear that the gravitas of the attention he received after The Sixth Sense, (being hailed as the new Spielberg; the wunderkind status in the media) clearly have hindered his films. And as I watched Wahlberg and Deschanel, zombie-like in their delivery of some very poor "relationship" dialogue, and the pathetic narrative of plant spores evolving to drive humans to suicide as a defence, I wondered to myself: Why on earth is this man still making movies? We should relegate him to television reality shows: When Botany Goes Mad!


Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo
Country: USA/India/France

Rating: *

Marc Ivamy

Review #30: 'Pather Panchali' (1955)

Part one of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy which concludes with Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959), Pather Panchali (literally translated as 'Song Of The Little Road') is a Bengali masterpiece and the film that introduced the master filmmaker to the world. Made on a shoestring budget, it focuses on the struggles of a poverty-stricken Bengali family seen through the eyes of their smallest child Apu (played by Subir Bannerjee). The film came about when Ray was illustrating a new edition of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's novel, and the idea of writing a film script occurred to him as he admired the lyrical writing and honest depiction of a struggling family. Ray assisted Jean Renoir as he shot his film The River (1951) and suggested the idea to him, to which Renoir reacted with enthusiastic encouragement.

The film follows the Ray family as they go about their day-to-day lives in a small, rural village in Bengal. The mother Sarbujaya (Karuna Bannerjee) carries the weight of the burden, seemingly forever cleaning and working and living off the land. The father Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee) helps out doing odd jobs and mostly working away, chasing back payments he has not received from his landlord boss. Durga (Uma Das Gupta) is the teenage daughter who seems to have a weakness for petty theft and has something of a reputation in the village. The grandmother Indir (Chunibala Devi) spends her time stealing food from her daughter and wandering the village. Watching over everything is the most recent arrival Apu, who sees everything with a wide-eyed innocence and remains generally silent throughout the film. By the way, the mother, father and Apu are all played by actors with the surname Bannerjee, although they are not related.

One of Ray's key influences to filmmaking are the great films of Italian neo-realism, such as Vittorio De Sica's masterpiece The Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945). It is evident here, as the film has the same visual poetry and social realism, as well as the ability to transport the viewer into a world that they most likely have never, and will never, experience first hand. It is a fascinating insight into how some people of Bengal had to live during this period, and their social attitudes. When Durga is accused of stealing a necklace from one the village children, the women of the village form a kind of posse to confront her mother, accusing her of being unable to raise her children correctly. The family have conflicting attitudes to the rogue-ish grandmother who spends her time almost begging for clothing to keep her warm; the mother looks down on her as a leech, yet the children, especially Durga, look upon her as a loveable character, and someone they can always seek comfort in.

It's a film dominated by outstanding performances. Devi was discovered by Ray living in a brothel, having previously starred in two films in her heydey. She is loveable and tragic, and her performance here would become her swansong, at the age of 80. Tragically she died of influenza before the film was released but she will be immortalised for her portrayal here. Karuna Bannerjee is also a standout, switching from sadness to joy to tragedy with effortless conviction, especially during the third act of the film where the family struggles to hold out during monsoon season, where her home risks being ripped apart by the torrential rain and wind. The biggest star of the show, however, is Ray himself, creating a multi-layered film of visual poetry and gorgeous cinematography, with very little funding for his project. He would go on to be one of world cinema's most creatively successful and critically acclaimed directors, making over 30 features in a 35-year career. At the start of filming, Ray had never directed anything in his life, the camera had never shot a film, and the majority of the actors has never acted in front of the camera. Absolutely outstanding stuff, and deserves it's place amongst the world's greatest films.


Directed by: Satyajit Ray
Starring: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Bannerjee
Country: India

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie