Les amants réguliers

Regular Lovers
a film by Philippe Garrel

In the aftermath of the era-defining Paris student riots of May 1968, a group of youngsters involved in the revolt abandon themselves to a bohemian existence and the fumes of opium. At the centre of the group, romance develops between François and Lilie, but they soon find their love and idealism under threat from the harsh realities of everyday life.

François is a 20-year-old poet, dodging military service. He takes to the barricades, but refuses to throw a Molotov cocktail at the police. He smokes opium and talks about revolution with his friend, Antoine, who has an inheritance and an apartment where François can stay. François then meets Lilie, a sculptor who works at a foundry to support herself, and they fall in love. A year passes and François continues to write, talk, smoke, and be with Lilie. But then opportunities come to Lilie to move her life forward – what will she and François do?

In his award-winning feature from 2005, conceived as a response to Bertolucci's 'The Dreamers', which also starred Louis Garrel, writer/director Philippe Garrel reflects on his own experiences as a 20-year-old at the barricades in 1968 and atmospherically recalls the pioneering cinema of the nouvelle vague. An affectionate, dream-like elegy to youthful idealism, this beautifully shot and bittersweet portrait is also a haunting and mesmerising evocation of a lost age.

Sin Nombre

Nameless
a film by Cary Fukunaga

Focusing on the plight of Honduran illegal immigrants making the dangerous journey through Mexico, the story follows teenager Sayra who is risking everything to find a better life in America with her family. On this fateful first step of her journey she encounters Casper, a tough gang member placed in an impossible situation when a violent retaliation turns his gang against him. As Sayra and Casper's paths cross on a train leading out of the country, with the gang in close pursuit, they must rely on each other if either of them is to make it across the border alive.

El Casper is initiating a young boy into his notoriously brutal gang. The boy is given the name El Smiley following a violent initiation. Casper is romantically involved with a girl, Martha Marlene, but fearing for her safety, keeps their relationship a secret from the other gang members. When she follows him to a gathering of the gang, the leader, Lil' Mago, insists on escorting her away in private, despite Casper's protests. Following his failed rape attempt, Lil' Mago accidentally kills the girl, then coldly tells Casper "You'll find another".

Mago then brings Casper and Smiley to La Bombilla, a location along the train tracks where illegal immigrants stow away on passing trains for travel to the United States. Among the many making this journey is the Honduran family – Sayra, her father and her uncle, who are on their way to New Jersey to live with relatives. Mago, Casper and Smiley board the train and rob the passengers of any money they have until Mago spots Sayra and attempts to molest her. Casper, still grief-stricken and seeing parallels with Mago's treatment of his girlfriend, intervenes, killing Mago and urging Smiley off the train. Throughout the train journey, Sayra repeatedly approaches Casper with concern and curiosity, despite her father's advice. Smiley returns to the gang, telling them what happened. Furious, the new gang leader, El Sol, accuses Smiley of collusion. Smiley timidly protests, begging to be sent to kill Casper to prove his loyalty.

On the train, Casper, who has smuggled gang members in the past, knows the nuances of the journey, instructing fellow passengers when to get off the train and run around the station to avoid immigration officers. At one point Casper is with Sayra's family, but not wanting the girl to face the dangers that surround his own life, he leaves the train quietly while they are sleeping, only to discover that Sayra has followed him. The two journey north on a car transporter, Casper evading local franchises of his gang which are all helping Smiley to track him down.

At a river crossing Casper pays their fares with the digital camera containing the cherished pictures of his murdered girlfriend and insists Sayra goes first. Just as she is half way across, the gang find Casper and after a desperate chase along the riverbank, he encounters Smiley, who shoots him dead. Sayra, now across the border in Texas, calls the phone number she had committed to memory and finally makes contact with her dead father's second family in New Jersey. Smiley, the young boy initiated into the gang by Casper, is now accepted by its members and gets a tattoo commemorating his loyalty.

The recipient of numerous major awards, writer/director Cary Fukunaga's debut feature is an unflinching and controversial tale of gang warfare, loyalty and redemption, set against the harsh backdrop of modern Mexico. Part road movie, part gangster film, part love story, this bleak yet humane film paints a vivid picture of the reality of life in Central America for would-be immigrants to the United States.

Foreign Land

Terra Estrangeira
a film by Walter Salles & Daniela Thomas

The story chronicles the union between Paco, an aspiring actor living in São Paulo, Brazil, and Brazil-born Alex, who works as a waitress in Lisbon, Portugal and lives with Miguel, a musician-smuggler addicted to heroin. It is set in 1990 when Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello threw his country into economic turmoil by suddenly confiscating the savings accounts of the entire population. At this time, Paco is living with his elderly mother in a poor São Paulo neighbourhood. Tired of living in squalor, his mother's only dream is to return to her native Spain, but on learning that her savings have been seized, the old woman dies of shock. Now without his mother, Paco feels little desire to stay in Brazil and so meets with the sleazy Igor, an antiques dealer, and agrees to smuggle a violin stuffed with raw diamonds to Lisbon to pay for his travel to the homeland.

Paco is to take the violin to a certain hotel where he will be paid by a contact. When the contact does not arrive as planned, and after losing the package, Paco is led down a twisting road filled with murder, danger and intrigue that eventually ends in the arms of Alex. But now Alex and Paco must somehow avoid the murderous thugs who Igor has sent to kill them. In their attempt at escape to begin a new life together, the two lovers flee to the Spanish border, heading for San Sebastián in northern Spain, the birthplace of Paco's mother.

This beautifully shot Brazilian film noir mystery from 1996, with its high chiaroscuro grainy cinematography, is a gripping tale of innocence, love and adventure. It explores the loneliness experienced by immigrants, their feelings of alienation, desperation, and the uncertainty of whom to trust when finding themselves alone in a foreign land. The film's final scenes famously feature the beautiful song "Vapor Barato" by Gal Costa.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

Luftslottet som sprängdes
a film by Daniel Alfredson

A Swedish mystery and crime thriller adapted from the novel by Stieg Larsson, the third book in his Millennium series. Lisbeth Salander is hospitalised after the meeting with her father, and later put on trial. Mikael Blomkvist takes on the task of proving she is innocent as he continues to uncover the reasons why Lisbeth has been treated so harshly by the Swedish authorities.

Lisbeth is airlifted to a hospital in Gothenburg where surgeons remove bullets from her shoulder, hip and head, bullets fired by her father, Alexander Zalachenko. She is cared for by Dr Anders Jonasson, who prevents anyone except her lawyer from visiting. At the same time Evert Gullberg and Fredrik Clinton, old colleagues from the Section, a group within the Swedish Security Service, reconnect and decide that they must silence Zalachenko and Lisbeth to preserve Cold War secrets. Still alive, Zalachenko is in a hospital room down the corridor from Lisbeth.

Blomkvist asks his sister, Annika, to be Lisbeth's lawyer in her forthcoming murder trial. Gullberg arrives at the hospital at the same time as Annika, proceeds to Zalachenko's room, and shoots him dead. Annika saves Lisbeth by barricading the door to her hospital room, preventing Gullberg from killing her too. Gullberg then shoots himself. Clinton visits psychiatrist Dr Peter Teleborian, and explains his plan to silence Lisbeth by having her committed to St Stefan's mental hospital again. Teleborian tries to meet with Lisbeth to conduct a psychiatric assessment but is prevented by Dr Jonasson.

Blomkvist persuades Dr Jonasson to sneak an internet phone into Lisbeth's room, whereupon Lisbeth immediately contacts her information source, Plague, to see if he can find something on Teleborian, and then tells Blomkvist that Annika has permission to use a video of Bjurman – her former guardian and one of the people she is accused of murdering – raping her. Blomkvist compels a civil servant, Bertil Janeryd, to reveal that Gullberg and Hans von Rottinger had visited the Prime Minister years ago to urge a cover-up of the Zalachenko affair.

Lisbeth starts working on an autobiography to document her actions and motives from childhood to the present. She continues to have nightmares of memories about her time at St Stefan's, her father and half-brother, and of her rape by Bjurman. Blomkvist continues to pursue Teleborian, with Christer's help. They also follow a Section member to a flat that Clinton had been to four hours before. Lisbeth finishes her autobiography and sends it to Blomkvist, and Dr Jonasson informs Lisbeth she cannot remain at the hospital but must be transferred to prison in a couple of days. He is surprised that she is not worried about the trial.

The strongman Niedermann, who previously tried to kill Lisbeth's best friend, has remained a fugitive, wanted for killing a police officer. Sonny, of the motorcycle gang is informed that he was searched, but found clean, and that his friend had sent Niedermann to hide out in his home. There, he finds his brother dead and his girlfriend tied, gagged, and apparently assaulted. She tells him that Niedermann was the culprit, and Sonny vows revenge. Clinton, in dialysis, is given a copy of Lisbeth's autobiography, and is told that none of it can be proven. Meanwhile, Erika, who has left her job at Millennium to take over as editor of a large daily newspaper, has been receiving anonymous, violently obscene hate mail, which causes an uproar in the office. In prison, Lisbeth is interrogated by the prosecutor but says nothing. Annika is later given Lisbeth's computer and the DVD, which she watches. Teleborian finally meets with Lisbeth, who again remains silent.

Erika's bedroom window has been smashed, and in desperation she has called Milton Security. Blomkvist learns that someone has just broken into his apartment and planted cocaine and cash there. He concludes that they are trying to frame him, since they cannot hurt the magazine. Blomkvist decides to meet Erika at a restaurant named Samir's Gryta. The police try to warn Blomkvist of an attempt to kill them there, and he fends off the assault as the police hurry towards the restaurant. The Section is dismayed to find their hired hit men have failed.

On the day of her murder trial, Lisbeth enters court with piercings, a mohawk hairstyle, black makeup, and dark clothing. Called as an expert witness for the prosecution, Teleborian characterises Lisbeth's autobiography as merely the product of her paranoid delusions. Annika gradually demolishes Teleborian's credibility, using Lisbeth's words and files from the hospital. She shows the video proving Bjurman raped Lisbeth, demonstrating that her statements were completely true. As Annika presents her case, the police arrest the people involved with the Section and seize their place of operation. Called to the stand, Blomkvist shows that Teleborian had written his psychiatric assessment before he had even been allowed to interview Lisbeth. Then Annika calls Edklinth to the stand, and he states that the opinions were formulated in cooperation with Jonas Sandberg, using his computer as proof. Teleborian is left speechless. Edklinth tells Teleborian he is to be arrested on charges of possessing over 8,000 items of child pornography, which Plague had discovered after hacking his laptop, and his computer is seized as evidence. After Teleborian is arrested, the court rules that there is no further need for Lisbeth to be detained in custody.

The Millennium workers celebrate their victory, as Erika leaves the newspaper job and returns as editor in chief. Lisbeth is encouraged by Annika to check the property she has inherited from Zalachenko and discovers the warehouse where Niedermann is in hiding. Niedermann attempts to trap her in the warehouse and kill her, but she is too fast for him. She uses a nail gun to nail Niedermann's feet to the floor. She considers nailing him in the head but instead phones Sonny and tells the bikers where to find him. Then she calls the police after the bikers arrive. Lisbeth returns home and Blomkvist visits to tell her that the motorcycle gang killed Niedermann and were arrested soon after. Lisbeth and Blomkvist have a brief, but emotionally tense conversation, in which she thanks him for everything. As he is about to leave, Lisbeth agrees to stay in touch, which may or may not be a prelude to a future relationship.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Flickan som lekte med elden
a film by Daniel Alfredson

A Swedish mystery and crime thriller adapted from the novel by Stieg Larsson, the second book in his Millennium series. The film follows Lisbeth Salander returning to Sweden after spending a year abroad. Having returned, she falls under suspicion of having committed the murder of a journalist and his girlfriend as well as her guardian Nils Bjurman. Mikael Blomkvist has to do what he can to find her before the authorities do.

With her new wealth, Lisbeth purchases an apartment in Stockholm. On returning to Sweden, she reconnects with her girlfriend, Miriam Wu and offers her free use of her previous apartment in return for forwarding her mail. Later, Lisbeth confronts her guardian, Bjurman after hacking into his email account and discovering he has an appointment booked with a tattoo removal specialist. Threatening him with his own gun, she warns him not to remove the tattoo that she etched on his stomach as revenge for sexually abusing her, marking him as a pervert, a rapist and a sadistic pig.

Millennium magazine welcomes Dag Svensson, a new journalist who is writing an exposé on prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden. Dag's girlfriend, Mia Bergman, is writing her doctoral thesis on sex trafficking. Dag is nearly finished with the story and is confronting those who will be exposed by the article. Dag and his girlfriend are about to leave on a holiday and he asks Blomkvist to come to his apartment and collect some photographs. At the same time Dag also asks Blomkvist to inquire about someone called Zala, who may have a connection to his present research. Blomkvist arrives at their apartment late at night to collect the photographs for the article but finds them shot dead. The gun used is traced to Bjurman, who is also dead. Lisbeth is the prime suspect, as her fingerprints are on the gun.

Bublanski, the police officer leading the investigation, advises Blomkvist that he should stay out of it. Lisbeth tells Blomkvist she did not kill Dag and Mia and that he needs to find the mysterious Zala. In an effort to find Lisbeth, Blomkvist contacts her boxing trainer and friend, Paolo Roberto. While he is unaware of Lisbeth's whereabouts, he does know Miriam, who also trained with them, and promises to pay her a visit. Near her apartment, Paolo witnesses Miriam being kidnapped by strongman Niedermann. Paolo follows his car to a deserted barn, where he hears him beat Miriam for information about Lisbeth. Paolo comes in to rescue her but Niedermann incapacitates him. Niedermann sets the barn aflame, believing he has killed Paolo and Miriam, but they have actually escaped.

News breaks of the attack and Paolo gives his account to the police. After Blomkvist leaves information he has discovered about the case on his computer for Lisbeth to hack into and read, she leaves a message to him saying, "Thank you for being my friend". He realises that she intends to set out alone to find the man who framed her and that she may not survive. A disguised Lisbeth visits Miriam in hospital to apologise for getting her involved. Without giving anything away, Lisbeth confirms the police sketch of Niedermann with Miriam and then disappears. Knowing now that he is Lisbeth's friend, Miriam calls Blomkvist to the hospital to give him keys that Lisbeth dropped accidentally during her visit. Noticing they are for a post office box, Blomkvist is able to access and read Lisbeth's mail and track down her apartment. Meanwhile, Lisbeth continues her efforts to find Niedermann by watching his post office box. She sees someone check the post box and follows him to a small house near Gosseberga. Searching through the material in her apartment Blomkvist finds the video of Bjurman raping Lisbeth.

In the offices of Millennium magazine, Paolo explains he tracked down Niedermann and learned that he has congenital analgesia, he is unable to feel pain. They trace Niedermann to a company owned by Karl Axel Bodin. Blomkvist has Erika Berger make copies of the documents including the 1993 police report, forwards the originals to Bublanski, and sets out to find Lisbeth.

Lisbeth crosses the grounds and enters the Gosseberga house, but Niedermann has been alerted by motion detectors and knocks her out. She awakens to see her father, Zalachenko, an old man who walks with a stick and is heavily scarred by the burns she inflicted as a child. He dismisses her mother as a whore and belittles her rape at the hands of Bjurman. He reveals that Niedermann is her half-brother. Niedermann killed Bjurman to prevent him from revealing any of Zalachenko's secrets. Zalachenko is confident he will not be caught, since being an invalid means the idea of his involvement in the murders lacks plausibility.

They lead Lisbeth to a shallow grave in the woods. She tells him the police will find him soon and all that he has said has been published online through her hidden cellphone. Seeing through her bluff, he shoots her as she attempts to escape and buries her alive. Left for dead, Lisbeth digs her way out using her cigarette case. Hidden in the woodshed, she surprises Zalachenko with an axe to the head. Lisbeth scares Niedermann off with the help of Zalachenko's gun, just as Blomkvist finds them. Ambulances and police arrive to take away Lisbeth and a still living Zalachenko.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Män som hatar kvinnor
a film by Niels Arden Oplev

A Swedish mystery and crime thriller adapted from the novel by Stieg Larsson, the first book in his Millennium series.

Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist with the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case against industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström, and is sentenced to three months in prison. Blomkvist is under covert surveillance by Lisbeth Salander, a troubled but brilliant 24-year-old hacker from a security firm. She delivers her report on him to Dirch Frode, a lawyer for the powerful Vanger Group. Blomkvist is then invited to a meeting with industrialist Henrik Vanger, who hires him to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet, who vanished on Children's Day in 1966. Henrik not only believes that Harriet was murdered, but that a member of the Vanger family is responsible. He shows him a collection of framed single dried flowers that he had received from Harriet on his birthdays. Strangely, he has continued to receive them every birthday since and he suspects that the sender is Harriet's murderer.

Meanwhile, Lisbeth's probationary guardian is incapacitated by a stroke, and she is introduced to his replacement, a lawyer named Nils Bjurman, who takes control over her finances. One night, she asks for money to replace her broken laptop. Bjurman, a sexual sadist, forces Lisbeth to perform oral sex on him in exchange for a fraction of the money she needs. Bjurman eventually rapes Lisbeth, who secretly videotapes the attack, and later returns to his apartment. After torturing Bjurman, she takes control, allowing her to regain access to her own finances and to terminate his guardianship over her in a year's time. Failure to respect her demands will result in her releasing the evidence of the rape to the media. While he is secured she tattoos Bjurman's abdomen with the words "I am a sadist pig and a rapist". Later, she hacks into Blomkvist's computer to continue monitoring him.

Blomkvist moves on to the Vanger estate and learns that Henrik's three brothers were all members of the Swedish Nazi Party. Harriet's father, Gottfried, was an abusive alcoholic who drowned the year before his daughter's disappearance. Inside Harriet's bible, Blomkvist finds a list of five names alongside what appear to be phone numbers. Police Inspector Morell informs him that his original investigation was unable to decipher them. He had tried reaching all possible combinations of the numbers, in vain. Using photographs taken during the Children's Day parade, Blomkvist learns that Harriet saw someone that day who may have been her killer. After hacking into his computer, Lisbeth finds and decodes the numeric clues, discovering that the numbers relate to verses from the Book of Leviticus concerning divine retribution.

Lisbeth discloses the results of her research in an e-mail to Blomkvist, thus revealing, intentionally, that she has hacked his computer and has been monitoring him. Upon discovering this, Blomkvist is directed by Dirch Frode to Lisbeth's apartment. He convinces her to help him with the case, and they embark on the trail of a serial killer whose crimes stretch back to 1949 in towns all over Sweden. Lisbeth finds herself attracted to Blomkvist, the first man whom she can trust and who treats her as an equal, and they become lovers while they are working together.

At a meeting with the Vanger family, during which he is urged to abandon the case, Blomkvist notices Harriet's cousin Cecilia wearing Harriet's necklace. Cecilia asserts that she inherited it from her sister, Anita. Blomkvist then realises that the indistinct photo Henrik had given him of Harriet is actually that of Anita. Sometime later, while jogging in the woods, he is shot at by an unknown gunman but escapes serious injuries.

The following day, Inspector Morell reveals that a set of initials from Harriet's diary match the name of a woman who had worked for Gottfried Vanger. As the women all had Jewish names, Blomkvist and Lisbeth believe their murders were motivated by anti-Semitism. They suspect the reclusive Harald Vanger to be the culprit, as the two other Vanger brothers had already died by the time she disappeared. Lisbeth searches through Vanger's business records to trace Harald to the crime scenes, while Blomkvist breaks into his house. There, Harald confronts Blomkvist, but Harriet's brother, Martin, shows up and instead escorts Blomkvist to his home. When Blomkvist reveals what he has uncovered, Martin drugs him. In the meantime, Lisbeth discovers that Martin and his father were responsible for the murders, finding a picture of the two together. In it, Martin's blue sweater matches the one on the man who scared Harriet in the Children's Day parade photo. Lisbeth returns to the cottage to find Blomkvist missing.

Blomkvist wakes to find himself bound in Martin's cellar. Martin boasts of decades of rape and murder, but denies killing Harriet. While he is garroting Blomkvist, Lisbeth appears and attacks the killer with a golf club. She frees Blomkvist, but Martin flees in his car and Lisbeth gives chase on her motorcycle. Martin clips a truck and his car rolls down an embankment. When Lisbeth arrives at the wreck, he pleads for help, but she leaves him to die when the car catches fire. The incident reminds Lisbeth of a moment in her youth when she splashed petrol in the face of a man sitting in a car, then igniting it and watching him burn.

Blomkvist later meets with Henrik and Morell to inform them that Martin did not kill Harriet. Returning to his cottage, he finds a note from Lisbeth, revealing Harriet's whereabouts. Blomkvist flies to Australia and discovers Harriet living under her dead cousin Anita's name. He returns her to Sweden to be reunited with Henrik. In his office, she reveals that she killed her father, who, along with Martin, had been sexually abusing her. Fearing for her life when she saw Martin at the Children's Day parade, she fled the estate with Anita's help.

Blomkvist then serves his prison term. Lisbeth visits him and furnishes him with secret financial records that reveal Wennerström's complicity in drug trafficking and black market arms dealing, which is more incriminating than his previous evidence against him. Blomkvist publishes a new story on Wennerström, who subsequently kills himself, and launches Blomkvist and Millennium to national prominence. Lisbeth hacks into Wennerström's off-shore bank account, steals millions of Swedish kronor, and travels to the Cayman Islands.