Review #1,463: 'Roma' (2018)

You wouldn't know it, but director Alfonso Cuaron has being paying homage to one of the women that helped raise him as a child throughout his career. This woman, Liboria Rodriguez, is clearly close to the filmmaker's heart, and he cast her in cameos in a few of his films, including 2001's Y Tu Mama Tambien. Now, Rodriguez is the topic of her very own film, Roma, Cuaron's ode to the network of women that were key to his upbringing in 1970s Mexico. Of late, Cuaron has mainly focused on big-budget movies for Hollywood, such as last year's Gravity, the riveting thriller Children of Men, and the best Harry Potter film of the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban, but he has dialled things way down for his latest. Roma is about as small-scale as you can get, focusing on a humble maid working for a middle-class family in Mexico City, but complete with the director's trademark dizzying camerawork and gorgeous cinematography.

In a debut appearance, Yalitza Aparicio plays Cleo, a maid working in an affluent household in the Colonia Roma neighbourhood in Mexico City. The four children are incredibly affectionate towards her, scrambling for a cuddle when they sit down to watch television, and parents Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) clearly rely on her as they get on with their busy lifestyles. But there are cracks starting to appear in the marriage. Antonio squeezes his bulky, show-off car into the narrow garage every night, hinting at the father's growing dismay with his surroundings, and he quickly grows frustrated when Cleo fails to clean up the dog shit littering the patio. However, as happy and content as she may appear on the surface, Cleo has to deal with her own problems when she falls pregnant to a martial-arts obsessed military type who is nowhere to be found. With her employers' marriage falling apart and a baby on the way, Cleo struggles to juggle attempting to hold the family together for the sake of the children, and the idea of starting life as a single mother.

Trying to summarise the plot of Roma is no easy task. This is a slice of life plucked from Cuaron's own memories, shot in luscious black-and-white that almost feels like remembering the past through an old photograph. Roma is about class, politics and poverty, but mainly it wishes to tell a story of an unseen hero whose stories are rarely told. It's a film of moments that leave a mark despite how inconsequential they appear, very similar to the neo-Realist films of Satyajit Ray and Robert Rossellini, somehow telling a story that feels vast and epic in scale while keeping the focus on an incredibly personal level. Cuaron is a true craftsman, and, with regular collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki unavailable, actually steps up to the role of cinematographer. This compromise actually worked out in the film's favour, as you couldn't imagine anyone else recreating a time and place from one's childhood with such detail and intimacy. Liboria Rodriguez is clearly a huge inspiration in Cuaron's life, and here the director steps aside to shine the spotlight on her and many other that disappear into the crowd. It was a surprise to learn that Roma would be distributed through Netflix, but after seeing the film, it's hard to believe that any studios would take a gamble on what is essentially a collection of memories played out on screen. But what beautiful memories they are.


Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Nancy García García
Country: Mexico/USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,398: 'Sicario 2: Soldado' (2018)

Denis Villeneuve's Sicario was one of the most memorable thrillers of 2015, but it wasn't a film that exactly cried out for a sequel. Nevertheless, talk of a follow-up has been batted around ever since its release, with Villeneuve originally attached to direct. He dropped out to follow his childhood dream of directing Blade Runner 2049 however, with Italian director Stefano Sollima eventually signing on to helm the next chapter in the story of former sicario turned vengeful assassin Alejandro, played with a trademark steeliness by Benicio Del Toro. Original writer Taylor Sheridan was back on board to further explore the moral and social decay on both sides of the border, themes he had tackled before in the likes of Hell or High Water or his directorial debut Wind River. But there seems to be something missing from Sicario 2: Soldado, particularly the way Villeneuve questioned the ethics of the manner in which the US dished out its unique brand of justice.

The first Sicario brought us into this world of shady government agencies and barbaric Mexican drug cartels through the eyes of Emily Blunt's rookie, but she is nowhere to be seen here. This leaves us with cocky, flip-flop wearing CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who is brought in by the Department of Defence to combat the drug cartels who, by definition, are now considered terrorists. Targets are easier to execute when they are distracted, so Graver suggests instigating a war between the two dominant cartels and profit from the ensuing chaos. Taking out the leaders will only breed more splintered cartels so, with the freedom to operate without rules, Graver employs black operative Alejandro Gillick to help him and his team kidnap the daughter of a cartel kingpin, Isabel Reyes (Isabela Moner). All goes to plan until the team are betrayed by the Mexican police, leaving Alejandro stranded in the desert with Isabel and Graver on the receiving end of a roasting from his incredibly pissed-off superiors.

Villeneuve and Blunt aren't the only ones who don't return: cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Johann Johannsoon (who passed away earlier this year) are also absent. Thankfully, their replacements Dariusz Wolski and Hildur Guðnadottir are able to replicate the same sweltering, doom-laden atmosphere of the first, as well as injecting some of their own sense of dread and tension into the film's ambience. Del Toro is once again a dazzling presence, managing to find the shred of humanity left in a brutal character still emotionally devastated by his family's murder and hungry for vengeance. Brolin is a highly charismatic actor, but while we get to see the occasional twinkle in his eye, Sollima's questionable stance seemingly in favour of the gung-ho tactics employed by the American forces relegates Graver to a one-note character. Soldado misses Villeneuve's concern for the consequences of such careless tactics and the limits of American intervention overseas, but the action scenes are executed unflinchingly with nerve-shredding realism. Soldado chooses to end with an invitation for at least one more chapter in this story, and while the desire to tell a complete story with time and care is admirable, Soldado feels oddly unfinished as a result.


Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan, Elijah Rodriguez, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Shea Whigham
Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,388: 'Predator' (1987)

31 years after its original release, it's hard to believe that there was once a time when John McTiernan's Predator wasn't revered as one of the best action movies of the modern era. Critics savaged the film, although now even the stuffiest of critics cannot deny its shamelessly muscly, bullet-spraying, blood-spattering charm. Predator is now held in as equally high regard as McTiernan's other action classic Die Hard - released the following year - and featured Arnold Schwarzenegger at the very top of his game. This was long before the Austrian hulk made a swerve into politics and became the self-parody he is today. The premise is almost offensively simple, but the execution makes this one of the most effortlessly enjoyable action movies of the 1980s. McTiernan knows exactly how to tear a jungle apart with gunfire, and set up his disposable supporting characters for a grisly death. 

Special Forces major Dutch Schaefer (Schwarzenegger) is "choppahed" into South America, where is he given a mission to rescue an official who has fallen into the hands of some insurgents. Schaefer and his team - played by Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves and Shane Black - are met by Schaefer's old Army buddy Dillon (Carl Weathers), and the two greet each other in the most 80s way possible by flexing their oiled and oversized muscles in a manly handshake. As the team venture further into the jungle, it becomes clear that Dillon isn't telling the whole story, and the mission becomes even more difficult when they capture a female hostage named Anna (Elpidia Carrillo). Yet this is far from their biggest problem, as on their tail is an alien with the ability to camouflage itself and see with thermal imaging, backed by an arsenal of powerful extra-terrestrial gadgets and a healthy appetite for the hunt. With the group being picked off one by one by this formidable enemy, Schaefer must get to the extraction point before he becomes another skull in the beast's growing collection of trophies.

The plot can be compared to countless B-movies throughout the years, but what worked for Alien also works for Predator. Take a simple premise, add some budget, bind it together with some good old-fashioned decent film-making, and the result is a timeless classic. Yes, the special effects have dated and most of the actors' stars have somewhat dimmed in the decades since, but Predator is even more of a blast now than it was when I stole my brother's VHS twenty-odd years ago. The sequels, spin-offs and comic-books have gone to great length to explain and develop the Predator's mythology, but McTiernan simply lets the monster do its thing. Played by the 7 ft 2 in Kevin Peter Hall, the Predator's formidable armour, weaponry, stealth and sheer repulsiveness has made it a sci-fi/horror icon. Like the Alien franchise, subsequent movies have felt the need to explain the creature's backstory, damaging their otherworldly mystery in the process, but Predator simply throws him into the mix and lets him loose on our world's finest warriors. With star Shane Black's reboot The Predator set to arrive shortly, now is the perfect time to revisit what drew audiences to the series in the first place, in spite of how your attitude may have soured after those terrible Alien cross-overs and the forgettable third entry from 2010. 

Directed by: John McTiernan

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves, Shane Black, Kevin Peter Hall

Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,258: 'Heli' (2013)

Tongues quickly began flapping after the screening of Amat Escalante's Heli during the Cannes Film Festival, where it was in competition for the Palme d'Or. It's reputation as a brutal and unflinching look at the effects of the drug trade in Mexico even caught the attention of BBC News here in the UK, which is where I first heard of the film. Escalante went on to win Best Director at Cannes, and probably deservedly so. Heli is a beautifully directed film, and wonderfully shot by cinematographer Lorenzo Hagerman. Yet it's matter-of-fact approach and insistence on painting all of its characters with broad shades of grey also makes it difficult to fully engage with. Almost everybody here is flawed in one way or another, and we are locked in a place that saw society crumble long ago.

Essentially a film of two parts, the first half lends much of its focus to 12 year-old Estela (Andrea Vergara) and her relationship with the much older police cadet Beto (Juan Eduardo Palacios). When he isn't being put through brutal and frankly bizarre training routines (he is made to roll in his own sick), Beto promises Estela a better life. One stolen load of cocaine later, and the military (or the cartel - lines are deliberately blurred here) burst into Estela's family home, taking her and older brother Heli (Armando Espitia) off to God-knows-where. The destination is the home of low-ranking cartel members, who proceed to torture and mutilate Heli and Beto. The second half focuses on the aftermath, and the toll the experience takes on Heli. Widespread corruption and brutality leaves a lasting mark on everybody.

The majority of Heli's power comes from its sudden bursts of violence. Even animals and children aren't safe here, and the film sets the tone during its opening scene, a long-take journey on the back of the truck that ends with one of them hanged from a bridge. It's main talking point is the torture sequence, which is one of the grisliest scenes ever committed to film. Not only are genitals set ablaze in one long take, but children are in the room, slouching on sofas and barely batting an eyelid. It's strong and effective stuff, but there's comes a point when you start to wonder if the film has a point to make. The cartel trade has seemingly locked Mexico into a never-ending cycle of violence, but this is nothing new. Heli is best enjoyed from a purely technical point of view, with an uncomfortable, tense atmosphere throughout, even injecting certain scenes with Herzogian strangeness. Still, it's a lot to sit through only to feel the strange sense of emptiness I felt when the credits rolled.


Directed by: Amat Escalante
Starring: Armando Espitia, Andrea Vergara, Linda González, Juan Eduardo Palacios
Country: Mexico/Netherlands/Germany/France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,183: 'Silence' (2016)

At the age of 74 and with 50-odd years in the business, Martin Scorsese shows no sign of letting up, whether it be in terms of quantity or quality. His movies are still routinely up for all the big awards, and his name alone is enough to sell a picture (although the presence of Leonardo Di Caprio in recent years will surely have had a hand in that). His last feature, The Wolf of Wall Street, saw the director at his most free-spirited, spinning a tale of white-collar crime that was both incredibly funny and outrageously over-the-top. It now feels like Scorsese may have been flushing some pent-up energy out of his system before he finally tackled a passion project 25 years in the making: his long talked-about adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel Silence.

In 17th-century Japan, Christians are being forced to renounce their beliefs in the face of horrific torture, as a samurai referred to as 'the inquisitor' prowls small villages hoping to snuff out anyone hiding religious idols with the image of Christ or the cross. In Macau, Jesuit priests Sebastiao Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) learn that their former tutor Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who had travelled to Japan to spread the word of God, has apostatised and integrated himself into Japanese society. Believing the rumour to be nothing but propaganda, the two priests travel to Japan with the help of drunken sailor Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), who has witnessed first hand the brutal acts of the inquisitor. Upon arriving in Nagasaki, Rodrugues and Garupe find poor communities going to desperate lengths to worship in secret as eyes and ears lurk everywhere.

Scorsese has spoken often about his Catholicism, and has made it the subject of many of his best works. The most obvious being The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), but you can trace themes of Catholic guilt way back to Mean Streets (1973). A few of the characters in Silence struggle with the absence of God, and Rodrigues in particular struggles to comprehend a God who would sit back as thousands are tortured and murdered because of their faith. Scorsese explores this theme in a slow, considered manner, and it's clear that this may be the most personal film he's ever made. At almost 3 hours, the scope and vision of the story are a perfect fit for Scorsese's eye for classical film-making. There are plenty of beautifully framed shots, capturing both the beauty of the landscape and the brutality dwelling within. With a cast full of Japanese faces unfamiliar to Western audiences and a narrative happy to dwell on contemplative conversations, it's no wonder that this is one of the film-maker's lowest-grossing movies in years, but there is plenty to savour here from a purely cinematic perspective.

When I first heard about the film, I wondered why Scorsese hadn't opted for Driver, who is clearly the stronger screen presence of the two leading actors, in the central role. But, combined with his Oscar-nominated performance in Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge earlier this year, Garfield has cemented himself as a compelling leading man, and has finally rid himself of Sony's Amazing Spider-Man stigma. Driver has surprisingly limited screen-time, but he commands the screen whenever he's on it. The same can be said for Neeson, who leaves an impact in what adds up to only a handful of scenes. The film belongs to Garfield, whose boyish good-looks make his inner turmoil all the more gut-wrenching, as he watches folk put to death by high-tide crucifixion or burned at the stake, after they refuse to take part in a symbolic denouncement of faith by stepping on a slab with the image of Jesus. It received only a solitary Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography, but it seems Scorsese made this for himself, and the most personal visions can speak the loudest of words.


Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Issei Ogata, Ciarán Hinds, Yôsuke Kubozuka
Country: USA/Taiwan/Mexico

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #883: 'Chappie' (2015)

Ever since South African director Neill Blomkamp's breakthrough District 9 (2009), great things have been expected. Although I personally believe his debut to be somewhat overrated, paying homage to great sci-fi movies perhaps once too often, it was certainly a breath of fresh air with it's parable of apartheid South Africa and its unconventional anti-hero. His follow-up, 2013's Elysium, was underwhelming, but it was making a point somewhere amidst it's kinky cybernetics and gaping plot-holes. His latest, Chappie, is an improvement, but Blomkamp again fails to live up to wunderkind label.

Set in a near-future Johannesburg, the streets are policed by a super-efficient robot force, causing crime rates to plunge and sending criminals scampering whenever they rear their metallic faces. Created by the not-so-shady corporation Tetravaal, headed by an underused Sigourney Weaver, employee and engineering prodigy Deon (Dev Patel) manages to create artificial intelligence and steals a damaged robot headed for the scrap heap to experiment with. However, on his way home he is kidnapped by a group of local gangsters - Ninja, Yo-Landi and Yankie (The Walking Dead's Jose Pablo Cantillo) - who force Deon to programme the droid to help them with a heist that will pay-off a angry kingpin.

And so Chappie is born; a robot who must learn everything like a child, albeit at a far advanced speed, and who not only possesses the ability to think and talk, but to create. Yo-Landi plays the role of mother, encouraging Chappie to express himself with art, but Ninja wants to turn him into the ultimate gangster - pimp-roll, bling and casual nose-wipe to end sentences included. But fellow Tetravaal employee Vincent (Hugh Jackman), an ex-solider jealous of Deon's accomplishments, has other ideas, attempting to sabotage Chappie at every turn in order to get his own inferior hulking droid greenlit by the company and sent out into the streets.

Chappie received an unfair panning from the critics and underperformed at the box-office. Yet there's plenty to be enjoyed in the film's occasional eccentric streaks, namely in the casting of Ninja and Yo-Landi, members of South African rap group Die Antwoord. They can't act for shit, but are at least an interesting alternative to the usual science-fiction stock characters, helping make their ridiculous persona's somewhat likeable. Chappie himself, played by Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley in motion-capture, has been compared to Jar-Jar Binks in some reviews and comments I've read. While he is sometimes slightly grating, his childish naivety is endearing, and invites sympathy when he is routinely abused and manipulated by the few people around him.

Yet Blomkamp seems to struggle with coming up with an original narrative. His films always seem to end up with the hero facing off against some one-note and extremely angry bad guy, pumped up by machinery or a big-ass weapon, and its no different here. It feels like Jackman's character was thrown into the mix for no other reason than to give Chappie a nemesis. Jackman himself, demonstrating one of cinema's all-time horrendous mullets, doesn't convince either. The privatisation of the police and the positive and negatives of tampering with A.I., as well as the struggles of parenthood, are crammed in and rushed over without really answering any of the many questions it poses. As a piece of entertainment, it provides all the thrills and spills required, but any deeper meditations tend to fall flat.


Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver
Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #780: 'The Holy Mountain' (1973)

A man dressed like Christ wakes up drenched in his own urine and with a face full of flies. He is awoken and nursed by a group of naked children and an amputee dwarf, the latter of whom accompanies the man into town where people are getting executed and raped while rich tourists take photographs and clap. The Spanish invasion of Mexico is played out with toads and lizards as a crowd watches. Fat men dressed like Romans sell religious paraphernalia, and, after noticing the man's resemblance to Jesus, get him drunk and use his body to make moulds of Jesus on the cross. The man awakens, surrounded by images of himself on the cross. He screams and begins to smash the figures with his bare hands. After this, things begin to get really weird.

Hot off the success of his Midnight Movie, the psychedelic, ultra-violent El Topo (1970), Alejandro Jodorowsky was given a decent budget for his follow-up. Experimenting with sleep deprivation, spiritualist meditation and, of course, LSD, the result would be one of the most visually arresting films ever made, and also one of the strangest. The target is religion, but more of man's interpretation of religion to suit his own needs. The Holy Mountain of the title is the key to immortality, but the collection of capitalists, exploiters and thugs who embark on the journey seek all the answers in order to escape the horrors of the world they're directly responsible for.

Jodorowsky has a real gift for the image. Whether it's the sublime, kitsch interiors of the Alchemist's (Jodorowsky himself) room, located at the top of a huge tower which the man dressed like Jesus, billed as the Thief (Horacio Salinas), has to ascend perched on a giant hook, or the truly grotesque sight of flayed goats paraded around a town on poles, he knows how to grab your attention. The film switches gleefully between horror, satire, farce and sometimes camp, like the machine that needs to be penetrated sexually with a huge electric phallus before it will open and allow you to operate it. This scene is part of a collection of vignettes that makes up the central section, as we meet the seven chosen to journey to The Holy Mountain.

Unseen for around 30 years, The Holy Mountain found itself in distribution purgatory, until it was recently re-released and given the sort of remastering it deserved. It is a kaleidoscope of acid-trip imagery, and Jodorowsky throws politics, sociology and history into the mix to make one enlightening experience. Embracing the free-form storytelling of Federico Fellini and, especially, Luis Bunuel, it may frustrate with it's lack of narrative structure, but artists like Jodorowsky shouldn't be shackled with such formalities. Scandalous, beautiful, horrifying and often baffling, The Holy Mountain is an experience that will no doubt remain with you for days, possibly longer, but whatever your view, it's like nothing you've seen before.


Directed by: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Horacio Salinas, Zamira Saunders, Juan Ferrara
Country: Mexico/USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #737: 'Nightmare City' (1980)

Of the countless Italian-produced zombie movies that came out in the late 1970's and 1980's, many of them can easily be labelled the worst of the lot. Nightmare City, a silly, gun-and-knife-wielding zombie attack movie directed by hack Umberto Lenzi, is certainly up (or down) there. With it's bland, beardy lead, nonsensical story, lazy plot devices and extremely dodgy make-up, Nightmare City is very bad indeed. But it just manages to squeeze a toe hair over the so-bad-it's-still-bad-but-bearable line and raises a few titters with it's ludicrous execution, and can also boast that it's not quite as bad as Zombie Creeping Flesh (1980).

'American' news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) travels to the airport to await the arrival of a scientist, whom he is to interview following a recent nuclear accident. When the plane arrives, it is surrounded by the military when no-one responds or opens the door. After a brief stand-off, the plane opens it's doors and dozens of bloodthirsty zombies pile out and attack the soldiers with guns, knives, bats and teeth. Eager to report the outbreak, Miller is halted by General Murchison (Mel Ferrer), who wants to hush the incident to save face. When his television station is attacked during the filming of some disco aerobics programme, Miller must find his wife and escape to the countryside.

Looking between a mixture of an out-of-date potato and a used teabag, the zombies here are much more human than your traditional Romero zombies, using weapons, moving at pace, and even clearly taking some sadistic pleasure when slitting a throat and carving a woman's breast off. As the film plods on, at a breakneck pace that somehow still manages to be boring, the make-up department seem to lose interest in the 'new' zombies and simply smear their faces with some dirt. But if Lenzi deserves credit for something, it's in keeping the violence inventive. There's eye gouging, stabbings, exploding heads and blood-drinking, and the fact that the gore looks absolutely crap makes it all the more fun.

The other familiar Lenzi traits are there, recognisable from his large collection of bizarre giallo such as Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972), Spasmo (1974), Eyeball (1975), and Cannibal Ferox (1981). This means lots of boobs. Every female attacked by the zombies seem to have their tops torn off. Didn't nurses wear bra's back then? We also the obligatory wrinkly has-been actor (Francisco Rabal - who made three films with Luis Bunuel) fondling a beautiful European model scene. It's quite despicable film-making if taking seriously, which you simply can't, you can only try and enjoy this for what it is, a film designed to make money by spilling some blood and showing some skin. But even that is hard, as when the film finishes with a 'twist', you feel like you've had 90 minutes of your life snatched away from you in some cruel joke. Pure dread, but it's earned an extra star through sheer audacity.


Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Starring: Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Francisco Rabal
Country: Italy/Mexico/Spain

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #470: 'Los Olvidados' (1950)

After his exile from his native Spain, director Luis Bunuel moved to Mexico in 1946, gaining citizenship in 1949. It was here where he would make his more generic films (by his standards), as he honed his own directorial skill while never straying too far from his surrealistic background. After the success of his comedy The Great Madcap (1949), he was commissioned by producer Oscar Dancigers to make a serious film about child poverty in Mexico City, and out of it came Los Olvidados, or The Young and the Innocent, to give it it's American title. Bunuel apparently spent months disguised as a homeless amongst the poverty-stricken children of the slums in order to research, and if that tale is true, it certainly came off, as Los Olvidados is one of the best and most realistic depictions of the innocent turning to crime in a fit of desperation.

The film follows three children in the same slum. Pedro (Alfonso Mejia) is a young tearaway who wants to change his ways and work, in order to help out his mother who neglects him due to her constant work. 'Little Eyes' (Mario Ramirez) has been abandoned by his father, and is adopted by the blind beggar Don Carmelo (Miguel Inclan), a bitter man who frequently voices his opinions on the young criminals of the city. El Jaibo (Robert Cobo) has just been released from prison and immediately sets about gaining revenge of the boy he thinks ratted him out. Jaibo and Pedro corner the boy, only for Jaibo to bludgeon him to death, and the two boys flee. Pedro struggles to keep himself out of trouble and leaves home after being accused of stealing a knife, only to find his and Jaibo's paths repeatedly crossing.

At its heart, this is pure neo-realism, sharing its tone most obviously with Vittorio de Sica's masterpiece The Bicycle Thieves (1948) in exposing poverty and class divide as the main cause of criminality, due to the ill education and the hopelessness of the young. Although, out of nowhere, comes a surrealistic dream sequence so beautiful, and so haunting, that you know you're watching Bunuel, and his artistic creativity seems to bulge from the screen. Best known for his mocking of the upper-classes (the bourgeois were clearly as fascinating to Bunuel as they were repugnant), here he stays in the slums, promoting as much sympathy for its filthy lead characters as hatred.

Jaibo is a true monster, raised without parents, he bullies his way through life, grasping any opportunity that presents itself (he even manages to seduce Pedro's lonely and overworked mother, and rob a legless man). It is Pedro who is the beating heart of the film, especially when he leaves home and we witness the state of the lower-classes from his eyes and how they are viewed (in one powerful sequence, an upper class man obviously propositions him for sex, but we only see their exchange, as we watch them through a window). Bunuel then manages to deliver not one, but two sensational endings, that manage to move and shock as much as the famous and upsetting climax to Bicycle Thieves. Bunuel would go to France to create his greatest works, but Los Olvidados displays many of the attributes that made Bunuel one of the most important directors in the history of film, as well as being a great film in its own right.


Directed by: Luis Buñuel
Starring: Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Mário Ramírez, Miguel Inclán
Country: Mexico

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #381: 'The Exterminating Angel' (1962)

'L'enfer c'est les autres' (Hell is other people), wrote the French existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, in his play, 'No Exit' (sometimes referred to - and has been performed - as 'In Camera'), that surmised the narrative of three deceased individuals locked in a room, one that they eventually realise they will be spending eternity together in. Luis Bunuel used this simple meta-narrative concept of people trapped, to create one of his finest satires, and his first explicitly surrealist film since L'Age D'Or (1930). After Bunuel's previous film, Viridiana (1961), was condemned by the Vatican and banned in his native country of Spain (and where it was made), he moved back to Mexico where he had been making films throughout the 1940's and 50's, and produced a scabrous attack on General Francisco Franco's Spanish fascist dictatorship, and the institutions, and bourgeois facets of the country that were founded on the destruction of the poor and the proletariat, during the civil war that ended in 1939.

Whilst the film works as political allegory, on a base narrative level, it functions as an irrational comedy; or farce. The guests arrive for a lavish dinner, but as they arrive, the maids leave, and progressively all the hired help leave them. Once dinner is complete, the guests congregate in the living room, but they all begin to realise that they are unable to leave the room at all. When this is discovered we observe that they attempt to go, but are either distracted or simply stop or break down at the boundary of the room. This continues through days, possibly months - the characters concept of time completely obliterated. The group falls into decay, primitive urges overwhelm them, and as this representation of Western Civilisation breaks down, the group become brutally savage, turning on the host of the dinner, demanding sacrifice. The group slaughter the lambs that were originally to be used in a dinner prank.

At first the guests seem to simply ignore what is happening to them, and continue with inane chat. Exterior to the "party", the grounds are surrounded, but not even the police are able to enter, given the same mysterious barrier that prevents entry. It's almost a perfect parable, illustrating the ignorance of the Spanish bourgeoisie, as they strip the rights and dignity of the proletariat (here the maids leave on their arrival), whilst divorcing their minds from the violence and corruption of a dictatorship. But with this, it also shows how even the "civilised" sections of society, once they are stripped of their social status, their inherited manners of "education", and their ability to use wealth, the fall into absolute decay, probably falling apart greater than the lower classes, with their lessened moral outlook, and an almost infantile inability to deal with regular obstacles.

Winner of the 1962 Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, this was to begin what become (rather belatedly for the 62 year old) his most productive, celebrated and interesting period of his career, based in Paris, beginning with Belle de Jour (1967) and ending with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). This is the period that he developed and expanded his own style, and his unique vision on film. The Exterminating Angel has also given inspiration for others. It is a clear influence on Jean-Luc Godard's wonderfully bleak and satiric depiction of the bourgeoisie and the end of Western Civilisation, Week End (1967). The idea was also utilised in one sketch from Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983), that saw the guests leaving as ghosts. This is by far, one of his greatest achievements, beautifully realised, with comic touches, and moments of surrealism that both bemuse and amuse.


Directed by: Luis Buñuel
Starring: Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Claudio Brook, José Baviera
Country: Mexico

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy

Review #307: 'Viridiana' (1961)

After 25 years away from Franco-dictated Spain, Luis Bunuel went back to make Viridiana. The film focuses on a nun called Viridiana, who is informed by her mother superior that her uncle, Don Jaime (Bunuel regular Fernando Rey), is dying and wishes for her to visit him. Whilst he has supported her for many years, she is suspicious of him, and had not seen him for many years. Don Jaime occupies a huge mansion with tracts of land, but has been lonely since his wife died on their wedding night. His only companion is his servant, Romona (Moargerita Lozano) and her daughter Rita (Teresa Rabal). On arrival, Don Jaime sees that Viridiana looks remarkably similar to his dead wife, and proclaims his love for her. When she refuses and leaves, Don Jaime commits suicide. Viridiana is left grief-stricken, and guilty emotions weigh her down. She decides to use the grounds to help 13 beggars.

Whilst not as intrinsically "surreal" as many of Bunuel's more well known films (Belle de Jour (1967) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)), but his black sense of humour is in tack, along with his own brand of irony. After Jaime's death, his son Jorge (Francisco Rabal) arrives at the house. In one scene, Jorge sees a peasant dragging a dog that is tied to his cart. Jorge offers to buy the dog in an effort to save it. Bunuel then appears to mock the entire process of selflessness. Once the transaction is complete (and unseen by Jorge), another dog is seen tied to a cart travelling in the opposite direction.

Whilst Bunuel was permitted to make a film in his native Spain, no sooner had it been released, than the Spanish government banned it on the grounds of blasphemy and obscenity. The Vatican also denounced the film and called for its suppression. It's difficult to see exactly why this was, although there are some themes and representations that may have been contentious. Towards the end of the film, the vagrants that Viridiana has put up, decide to infiltrate the main house whilst the owners are away. In this debauched scene, the 13 beggars, sit around the dinner table, recreating the famous Last Supper painting by Leonardo da Vinci - a blind beggar is in the place of Jesus.

With stunning black and white cinematography by Jose F. Aguayo, each shot is entrenched with beauty and meaning. Whilst not his best film, Bunuel creates a strange drama of basic human desires, and the difficulty in controlling the baser ones. This could also be another possible reason for it's condemnation by the church. For, even with faith, these characters have trouble in controlling themselves, and even Viridiana is implicitly brought into this "life of sin".


Directed by: Luis Buñuel
Starring: Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey
Country: Spain/Mexico

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy

Review #132: 'Night of the Bloody Apes' (1969)

Part of the short film wave in Mexico that combined extreme gore with wrestling (or 'lucha'), this low-budget horror was part of the 'video nasty' list in the UK. It tells the story of a brilliant surgeon, who when finding out his son will die from leukaemia, has the brilliant idea of giving him the heart of an ape. He thinks that by replacing his heart, his body will be able to sustain the chimp blood being pumped around his body. As a result, his son grows a big hairy face, terrorises the city and murders lots of people in particularly brutal fashion. Hot on the doctor's tale is Lt. Martinez (Armando Silvestre) and his wrestler girlfriend. Will they be able to stop the manic ape-man? Will the doctor be able to save his son from his affliction? Will the Mexican to English language translation ever manage to string an actual sentence together?

As you would expect, this film is bad. First of all, the title is a lie. There are no apes involved, it involves a beast with a wrestler's body and a big hairy face. And there's only one of it. But I don't think that director Rene Cordona was striving for the next Citizen Kane (1941) (which is clear from the film's wildly imaginative alternative title, Horror And Sex). The film has plenty of enjoyable gore, and I mean plenty. But Tom Savini did not work on this film - instead I think a blind film student did. The bad effects are most evident when the beast is tearing open the throat of an one unfortunate, only for the close-up to reveal that he's clearly peeling of a large plaster, with the gore beneath.

It is all rather enjoyable though, so I must give the film credit for that. The film's slender running time breezes by, and there's plenty of laughs to had in the stodgy dialogue, bullshit scientific discussions, and watching the beast butcher a seemingly endless amount of people. The main reason for the film's UK ban must be for the scenes of real open-heart surgery, which was spliced into the film upon it's US release by director Jerald Intrator (responsible for such classics as Satan In High Heels (1962) and The Curious Case Of Dr. Humpp (1969)). I refuse to believe that it's because of the extremely unrealistic and silly gore scenes. Not really a guilty pleasure, but certainly something to watch while refilling the glass of brandy and thinking of what film to put on next (in my case).


Directed by: René Cordona
Starring: José Elías Moreno, Carlos López Moctezuma, Armando Silvestre
Country: Mexico

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie