Despite a sensational action finale that rivals some of the best in the series, this 23rd instalment seems to have been made from a script that is one or two revisions away from being ready.
The picture that destroyed Powell’s career, this disturbing work about a serial killer who perversely films his victims as they die is now regarded as a major influence on the modern slasher movie, and a provocative exploration of the ills of scopophilia.
Kirk Douglas is sensational as an amoral journalist with an acerbic wit, who exploits the news of a man trapped in a cave, as Wilder gives us one of his most cynical films.
Wajda’s first feature is a modest story of sorrow and youth resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, promising great things to come for one of Poland’s greatest filmmakers.
Wong’s expanded version of his short for the ‘Eros’ anthology is more erotic and fatalistic than usual, and also an aesthetic and thematic extension of the world he created with ‘In the Mood for Love’.
An explosives expert must fight a personal battle with alcoholism in this minor WWII effort from Powell and Pressburger, which features one of the most suspenseful bomb disarmament scenes in early black-and-white cinema.
As far as European crime mysteries about disappearances are concerned, this is one of the most unforgettable flicks of the ‘80s—a psychological thriller with an exacting disposition and a denouement that will haunt you for weeks.
A drama exploring the pent-up angst between a mother and daughter with emotionally intense performances by Bergman and Ullmann.
This acidic, darkly comic French neo-western adapted from Jim Thompson’s Texas-set novel, but brilliantly transposed to West Africa, is one of Tavernier’s greatest accomplishments.
Bergman in fine experimental form—still a radical work that explores the theme of personal identity through the performative and illusory medium of cinema.
Eternality Tan 