Confessions

Kokuhaku
a film by Tetsuya Nakashima

Yuko Moriguchi is a middle school teacher whose four-year-old daughter is found dead. Her life shattered, she finally returns to her classroom only to become convinced that two of her students were responsible for her daughter's murder. With the police having dismissed the child's death as an accident, Yuko puts into motion an intricate plan of revenge and psychological warfare designed to utterly destroy the lives of the two killers and to force them to realise the impact of their actions.

In the classroom an unruly mob of teenage students are having their milk break. As their teacher speaks they pay little attention, focusing more on throwing the cartons around, bullying one another, gossiping, or sending text messages. She announces that she is to quit teaching at the end of the month. She then speaks of how she became pregnant by her fiancé, Dr Sakuramiya, a dedicated and respected teacher who was diagnosed with AIDS. They had then chosen not to marry as it would be better for the child to have no father, than to have to live with the stigma. While he had later died, both she and their daughter, Manami, were lucky since neither of them had contracted the disease.

As a single mother, when Manami turned one year old, Yuko returned to teaching and would bring her daughter to the school crèche. At the age of four Manami was found drowned in the school pool and although it was considered an accident, Yuko knows that two of the students in her present class had murdered the child. Without naming them, she makes their identities clear to the other pupils and tells the class that under the juvenile penal code minors are not criminally responsible and therefore cannot be punished for their crime. So she has decided to take matters into her own hands and has injected her former lover's HIV-positive blood into the milk that the guilty pair have just been drinking. The classroom erupts into chaos. One of the two boys, Shuya Watanabe, is an intelligent child but has a sociopathic reputation among the students who say that he devises experiments to cruelly torture animals. The other student, Naoki Shimomura, is a weak-willed loner who has fallen under Shuya's manipulative spell. As Yuko finishes her confession each boy responds to the news in a very different way.

Following further confessions and perspectives of students and parents which fill in events before and after Yuko's testimonial, we later see that conscience-free Shuya continues his attendance at school where he is taunted, beaten and abused by his classmates. Naoki however, believing he is lethally infected, locks himself away in isolation, refusing to speak, eat or wash, watched over by his over-protective mother who will not accept that her child could have done anything wrong. Equally in the dark is the young and naive, new class teacher Yoshiteru Terada, who believes in befriending the students and trying to be one of them, but he too is manipulated by Yuko. Also drawn into the revenge tragedy is the schoolgirl Mizuki Kitahara, who has her own obsession with death and murder, and is also bullied for taking the side of Shuya. Increasingly, the dark, obsessive nature of the children is revealed and as the hysteria mounts, Yuko's revenge plan twists and turns to bring about the ultimate destruction of the lives of her daughter's murderers. The sound of something important disappearing forever. Her plan is made all the more awful by the fact that it relies so coldly upon the latent callousness and sadism of her class to unwittingly carry it out.

This unique, brilliantly crafted and devastating film is based upon the award-winning debut novel by Kanae Minato. Director Tetsuya Nakashima draws superb and utterly convincing performances from the young cast. His masterly use of dramatic camera angles, focus shifts and slow motion, innovative cinematography and the dynamic inclusion of hypnotic soundtrack music, creates a sense of cold bleakness and emotional distance, but with a stunning visual beauty. Focusing on the different characters and their own mini-confessions, the film unflinchingly explores the arrogance and cruelty inherent in the human psyche and its propensity to prey upon the weak and defenceless.

The Hunter

Shekarchi
a film by Rafi Pitts

Ali Alavi has recently been released from prison and makes the most of his return, amidst much talk of the upcoming elections and promises of political change. Working as a night watchman in a Tehran factory now means that he is at least able to support his loving wife, Sara, and their six-year-old daughter, Saba. Ali tries to spend the most time possible with them, but needing also to escape the stress of urban living he retreats to his favourite pastime of hunting in the secluded forest to the north of the city.

One day, Ali comes home from work to discover that Sara and Saba have disappeared. Realising that there's no point in waiting for them any more, Ali decides to go to the police. But there's chaos at the police station and it takes hours for him to get any information. Finally, he is told that his wife was caught up in a shoot-out with demonstrators and was killed. His daughter Saba, however, is still missing.

Ali's search for his daughter drives him to distraction and ends in horror when her dead body is eventually discovered, pushing him over the edge. Desperate for revenge, in broad daylight overlooking the busy city's surrounding highways, Ali randomly shoots and kills two policemen with his hunting rifle. The police mount a ground and air search operation as Ali heads out of the city. After a high-speed chase in dense fog along a country road his car crashes and he flees into the northern forest where he is captured by two police officers. Ali is resigned to his fate and watches quietly as the arguing policemen lose their way in the woods. In such a remote landscape as this, situations become complicated and the line between hunter and hunted is difficult to define.

Commenting on the ambiguity of the narrative, writer and director Rafi Pitts explains: "The film concentrates on hunting down to explore the pressure of a time bomb society. The 'hunter' could obviously be seen as the leading character Ali, but there can also be other interpretations. Keeping things open to interpretation is an important element of my filmmaking. As a director, I try to give as many meanings as possible. My job is to question. I don't believe in trying to give answers."

A searing indictment of political corruption, The Hunter is a tense, compelling and beautifully shot minimalist thriller, set against the background of social unrest in Iran.

Before Sunset

A film by Richard Linklater

Nine years have passed since Jesse and Céline met on a train and spent a single night together in Vienna. Since then, Jesse has written a novel, "This Time", inspired by his encounter with Céline, and the book has become a bestseller in the United States. He has returned to Europe to promote the book and the last stop on his tour is at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. As Jesse talks with his audience, we see in flashbacks his memories of their night in Vienna which have clearly remained with him throughout the ensuing years.

Three journalists are present at the bookstore, interviewing Jesse: a romantic who is convinced the book's main characters meet again; a cynic who is convinced that they don't; and a third one who, despite wanting them to meet again, remains doubtful they actually do. As Jesse speaks with his audience his eyes wander towards the window and to his utter surprise he sees Céline standing there, smiling at him.

When the presentation is over, the bookstore manager reminds him he has a plane to catch and must leave for the airport in a little more than an hour, so as with the first meeting, Céline and Jesse's reunion is constrained by time. Again they are forced to make the best of the little time they have together, and their conversations become ever more personal, beginning with the usual themes of work and politics and then, with ever increasing passion, approaching their love for each other, just as their time together is running out. Earlier in their conversation, they broach the subject of why they did not meet as promised six months after their first encounter. Jesse had returned to Vienna, as promised, but Céline did not, because her grandmother had died suddenly and the funeral took place on the date set for their meeting. Because they had never exchanged addresses, they were unable to contact each other, which resulted in their missed connection.

As they talk, each reveals what has happened in their life since first meeting. Both are now in their early thirties. Jesse, now a writer, is married and has a son. Céline works for an international environmental agency, lived in New York for a time, and has a boyfriend who is a photojournalist. It becomes clear in the course of their conversation that both are dissatisfied to varying degrees with their lives. Jesse reveals that he only stays with his wife out of love for his son. Céline says that she does not see her boyfriend very much because he is so often on assignment. Their conversation as they traverse Paris takes place in various venues, including a café, a garden, a bateau mouche, and Jesse's hired car for his stay in Paris. Their old feelings for each other are slowly rekindled, even with moments of tension and regret over the missed meeting, as they realise that nothing else in their lives has matched their one prior night together in Vienna. Jesse eventually admits that he wrote the book in the distant hope of meeting Céline again one day. She replies that the book brought back painful memories for her.

As their time together draws to a close they arrive at her apartment. Earlier Céline had told Jesse that she plays the guitar and he persuades her to play one song before he has to leave. The song Céline sings for him is about their brief encounter nine years ago and reveals through the lyrics that he is still the only one she loves. Jesse then plays a Nina Simone CD on the stereo system. Céline dances by herself to the song "Just in Time" as Jesse watches her. As Céline imitates Simone, she mutters to Jesse, "Baby ... you are gonna miss that plane". Jesse smiles whilst nervously fidgeting with his wedding ring and ambiguously responds, "I know", leaving us to decide whether or not he stays this time.

Jesse and Céline are characters of real life, effected by their decisions good or bad, making compromises, sometimes insecure, a little scarred, but still holding on to memories and dreams of perfect moments. She had a different life after the encounter than he did. While he still longs for Céline in his heart, he did move on. She longs for Jesse in her heart, and to this day cannot find anyone to replace his purity. But now there is more at stake, for they are nine years older, have made their share of mistakes, feel imprisoned by responsibilities, and must confront their shortcomings and problems. Whilst they are still on a journey they are no longer certain that their destination is the right one – they are unsure whether they can change direction, or even if they should, but afraid of what will happen if they don't. Where Sunrise captured the immediacy and urgency of perfect youthful love, Sunset reflects beautifully on the aftermath of that perfection.

Before Sunrise

A film by Richard Linklater

A young man and woman meet by chance on a train in Europe and embark on a spontaneous romantic evening together in Vienna, walking around the city and getting to know each other. In the course of their 14-hour relationship, the two share in their love for the unrehearsed and their appreciation for the unexpected as they explore in a powerful meeting of hearts and minds. But as they find themselves being drawn closer, both know that this will probably be their only night together.

Jesse, a young American, and Céline, a French student, meet on a train travelling from Budapest to Vienna. Jesse is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States, whereas Céline is returning to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother. They soon become immersed in conversation about themselves, relationships and life experiences, and sensing that they are developing a connection, Jesse asks Céline to disembark with him. He has to catch a flight early in the morning and does not have enough money to rent a room, so he suggests they roam around the city together for the night. Céline, already developing similar feelings for Jesse and wishing to continue their conversation, agrees.

After visiting a few landmarks in Vienna, they share a kiss at the top of the Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel at sunset and start to feel a romantic connection. As they continue to roam, they begin to talk more openly with each other, with conversations ranging from topics about love, life, religion, and their observations of the city. Céline tells Jesse that her last boyfriend broke up with her six months ago, claiming that she "loved him too much". When questioned, Jesse reveals he had initially come to Europe to spend time with his girlfriend who was studying in Madrid, but they had broken up when she was avoiding him while he was there. He decided to take a cheap flight home out of Vienna, but since it did not leave for two weeks he bought a Eurail pass and had been travelling on trains around Europe.

When they are walking alongside the Donaukanal they are approached by a man who, instead of begging, offers to write them a poem with a word of their choice in it. Jesse and Céline decide on the word "milkshake", and are soon presented with the beautiful and very appropriate poem, Delusion Angel. In a traditional Viennese café, Céline begins to play a game whereby they stage fake telephone conversations with each other, playing each others' friends they pretend to call. Céline reveals that she was ready to get off the train with Jesse before he convinced her. Jesse reveals that after he broke up with his girlfriend, he bought a flight that was not much cheaper, and all he really wanted was an escape from his life. Within these conversations each is free to express their feelings for the other in a more truthful and less self-conscious way than they would by making direct statements.

They admit their attraction to each other and how the night has made them feel, though they understand that they probably will not see each other again when they leave. They simply decide to make the best of what time they have left, ending the night in an implied sexual embrace. Early the following morning they make their way to the railway station for Céline to catch her train to Paris. The moment when they must part finally arrives with a sudden and very emotional goodbye, but with them agreeing to meet at the same place in six months time. Céline boards her train and Jesse walks out of the station to get his bus to the airport.

A portrait of two strangers, both in search of love, who make a romantic, intellectual, and spiritual bond with one another. Questions about fate and the transitory nature of relationships are raised, then left open for us to ponder. Full of wonderfully amusing, touching and insightful moments of bittersweet poignancy, Jesse and Céline's connection is built on a natural chemistry. Although the narrative is entirely dialogue-driven, much also relies upon their body language, subtle facial expressions, and the silences between the characters. The absolute beauty of it lies in its perfection as a simple love story – of two lives suddenly thrown together in the midst of reality, and the ensuing night of simple love that follows.

April Story

Shigatsu monogatari
a film by Shunji Iwai

Uzuki Nireno is a young Japanese girl who is leaving her home in the northern countryside of Hokkaido to go to the college of her choice at Musashino University in western Tokyo. She has just boarded the train that will take her away from everything familiar to her. Her family stand on the platform waving goodbye, the doors close and the train pulls out of the station. Uzuki now enters a new world full of possibility, with great expectation and some trepidation.

On arrival in Tokyo she makes her way to the empty apartment that will be her home. As she explores its rooms and lies down on the floor, its internal bleakness emphasises her isolation in a new environment which she must now make her own. At this moment it is contrasted with the beauty outdoors of the bustling tree-lined streets that surround the apartment building, where Spring sakura blossoms now fall like the snowflakes she left behind in Hokkaido. It is April, the start of the academic year and of new beginnings. Soon the removals team arrive and fill her rooms with packing cases and pieces of furniture, bringing a sudden but necessary chaos into her new living space. Uzuki begins the task of unpacking and then goes out to explore her neighbourhood.

Being very shy and a little introverted, at first Uzuki is very insecure and nervous about her new situation. Everything appears so unfamiliar and she finds herself making all the wrong choices when trying to both adapt and to be herself. At college, her self-introduction in class goes badly and she is disappointed at her lack of social skills. Whilst it is really of little importance to her classmates, Uzuki is crushed.

In the refectory she is approached by an austere and rather pushy girl, Saeko, who wants to enrol her in the fly-fishing club. Desperately wanting to make new friends and not wishing to refuse the first offer of friendship, she agrees to try it, despite having no real interest in the sport. Just as things appear to be going well, her lack of pop-culture knowledge makes it difficult for her to communicate with the other members, and she later discovers that Saeko's enthusiasm to enrol her was simply due to the new reels being awarded to members for recruiting friends. Uzuki also endures several unwanted approaches from men, first at a cinema when watching a samurai classic, and later from a senior student at the fishing club when he attaches a hook to the front of her cardigan.

But in between her attempts to socialise with her fellow students, she makes several visits to a bookshop and gradually her singular hope and purpose, the very reason she has chosen to study at Musashino, is revealed to us. When she was in high school she fell in love with a boy named Yamazaki, a year above her. Too shy ever to approach him, Uzuki had kept secret her feelings for him, but when she discovered he was studying at the university and working in a bookshop, she knew at once what she must do. On each visit to the bookshop she makes disguised enquiries about opening and closing times in order to establish when Yamazaki will next be working in the shop. Finally her chance comes and she orchestrates an opportunity to get his attention but he responds to her only as a customer. Just as she is beginning to despair, he recognises her from high school and begins asking her all the questions about herself that she has been longing to answer.

As she leaves the shop, a downpour begins and Yamazaki offers her an umbrella from several that have been left behind by customers. At first she refuses and leaves, but having had time to think about it while on the steps of the art gallery, she returns to the bookshop to accept his offer. Uzuki and Yamazaki stand outside in the rain each sheltering under an umbrella and her moment arrives when she asks him if he is still in a band, adding that he was famous. While Yamazaki dismisses it by asking "I was?", Uzuki replies with such sincerity, "With me". As the emotional tension rises during their exchange in the torrential rainstorm, Uzuki at last makes her declaration of love, and seeing that it has been understood and accepted, the magic of first love begins to unfold.

Capturing a few moments in the life of a girl who is not only changing her outward surroundings but also following her inward desires, this gentle, engaging and very beautiful story touches us with its portrayal of the fragile, transitory moments we have all known.

Chocolat

A film by Claire Denis

In a remote town in Cameroon lives a sole white family during the last days of France's African colonies. Marc Dalens, the often-travelling regional administrator; his wife Aimée, who does her best to stave off frustration and boredom with household activities; and their young daughter France, who cultivates a special and loving friendship with the native servant boy Protée. But as France and her mother attempt to move past the established boundaries between themselves and the native Africans, the family's ordered world is threatened with chaos when a plane full of strangers makes a forced landing nearby, its arrival unleashing a torrent of simmering resentments, racism and repressed passions.

The disastrous effects of French colonialism are examined through the paradigm of a young girl's coming of age in French West Africa. As France, a woman travelling alone in Cameroon, slips into a dreamy and distant flashback to her childhood days, scenes of a transient existence come into focus. France's father, a district governor, and her fragile mother are living a relatively peaceful if somewhat strained existence when a small plane carrying a gaggle of French imperialists and their entourage makes an emergency landing near their house. An ex-seminary drifter, a white plantation owner and his African concubine, and a newly-wed couple are forced to stay with the family, causing tensions and troubles that were bubbling barely below the surface to silently erupt. Sexual tensions, as well as social and class struggles, explode, with expansive vistas of Cameroon as an astonishing yet innocent backdrop. The heat, the landscape, and the underlying and eroticised tension converge as the noble and austere houseboy, Protée, becomes the focus of France's memories and regrets.

Claire Denis's beautifully photographed first feature from 1988, a loosely autobiographical story adapted from her childhood memories, observes closely yet non-judgmentally through gestures and glances, the intricate nature of relationships in a decaying colonial society.

La niña santa

The Holy Girl
a film by Lucrecia Martel

Set in La Salta in north-western Argentina, sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Amalia lives with her mother, the manager of a shabby hotel which is hosting a medical conference. When a stranger makes a crude pass at her in a crowded street, Amalia later discovers that the man is in fact one of the distinguished conference attendees, Dr Jano, who is staying at her family's hotel. She is upset but takes his inappropriate action as a sign that her faith has given her a mission.

Inés, a young Catholic teacher, is leading a group of girls in choir practice. After rehearsals the girls get together to discuss faith and vocation. The subject of discussion is the student's "mission" and how they can recognise the signs that point to God's calling. Amalia and her best friend, Josefina, whisper secretly about kissing, constantly making references to the teacher's alleged love affairs. Josefina is from a conservative family who live not far from the now run-down Hotel Termas where Amalia lives with her mother Helena, a divorcée, and the rest of her family.

While Amalia is standing in a crowd watching a musician in the street, Dr Jano makes a lewd advance. Initially shocked, Amalia proceeds to stalk him, and consumed by the heady combination of her fervent religious education and burgeoning sexuality, she resolves to save the respected doctor's soul but finds herself caught in a confusing web of frustration, desire and anticipation. Never sure whether she is erring on the side of sin or vocational service, she embarks on a mission that brings both their worlds to the brink of collapse.

Amalia's story is partly about an adolescent girl's discovery of her sexual vulnerability and the sexual power she possesses. Lucrecia Martel describes her film as one which explores good and evil – not the battle between them, but the difficulty distinguishing one from the other. She also comments on comparisons between medicine and holiness – both can lead to good, both can corrupt. The director's remarkable second feature, in which the story unfolds in glimpses and whispered conversations as an intimate series of minimalist vignettes, is an enigmatic and absorbing study of the temptation of good, and the evil that it causes.

Glorious 39

A film by Stephen Poliakoff

Set between present-day London and the idyllic Norfolk countryside during the glorious summer of 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

At a time of great uncertainty and high tension, the story revolves around the formidable Keyes family, minor English gentry who are keen to uphold and preserve their very traditional way of life. The eldest sibling, Anne, is a budding young actress who is in love with Foreign Office official Lawrence, but her seemingly perfect life begins to dramatically unravel when she stumbles across secret recordings of a sinister plot by the pro-appeasement movement.

While trying to discover the origin of these recordings, connections are revealed which lead to the deaths of close friends and Anne finds herself swept into a web of dark secrets and in increasing danger from a powerful and menacing enemy. As war breaks out Anne discovers the truth and flees to London to try to confirm her suspicions, but she is caught and interned in the family's London house. With her most precious certainties destroyed and unable to trust even those closest to her, she comes to realise the full extent of her own betrayal and vulnerability.

A tense psychological thriller set against the political turmoil in Britain leading up to WWII, exploring the duplicity and ruthlessness of the section of upper-class English society that was desperate to appease Hitler in order to preserve its own way of life.

Read My Lips

Sur mes lèvres
a film by Jacques Audiard

Carla Behm is an overworked secretary in the busy office of a Paris-based property development company. Loyal and hardworking, she is unable to bear the limitations of her job and is hoping for a career promotion. Although confident of her own abilities, she is consistantly bullied and under-appreciated by her male colleagues. She is also deaf and can only hear people speak with the help of hearing aids. Partly due to the isolating nature of her disability, she has no social life beyond babysitting for her friend Annie who thrills Carla with tales of her sexual exploits. Carla has developed the ability to lip-read and much of her private life is filled with solitary time as she eavesdrops on conversations from a distance, while longing for a relationship with a man for herself.

When work at the office begins to overwhelm her, Carla's boss suggests she contacts a temp agency to supply an assistant. The agency sends Paul Angeli for Carla to interview and it becomes immediately clear that Paul has none of the required skills for office work as he is a recently released criminal currently on parole, but he is desperate for the job. Carla is immediately attracted by his scruffy and feral appearance, and hires him. She trains him in routine office duties and also covers for his lack of experience. One morning she arrives to find Paul has been sleeping each night in an office closet so she finds him a flat in an unfinished apartment block belonging to the company. When he tries to express his gratitude by making a clumsy pass at her Carla rebuffs him, preferring to introduce him at a party to show her friends how she too can have a boyfriend.

At the office, a senior salesman allows Carla to do all the work on a new contract and then manages to snatch it away from her just as she is ready to make the presentation and gain some credit to work up into a better position. Carla responds by blackmailing Paul into stealing the file and protecting her so she can close the contract herself. Paul is then tracked down by Marchand, a crime boss who demands under physical threat that Paul work for him in his nightclub to repay a loan, and when Paul is forced to agree he finds solidarity from Carla who falsifies the work records so that it will appear that he is working at the office. But then Paul discovers that Marchand is planning a bank robbery and he gets Carla involved by using her lip-reading skills to gain information and ultimately find a large cache of stolen money.

Carla's impaired hearing and the sense of her spatial and psychological isolation in a world without sound is portrayed with a subtle realism. The evolving relationship between Carla and Paul is the real subject of the film, as the labyrinthine plot develops into an engaging and suspenseful crime thriller. The story is an unstinting examination of a collaboration between two damaged people who manipulate and deceive each other, while skirting around their obvious and deep mutual attraction.

La vallée

The Valley (Obscured by Clouds)
a film by Barbet Schroeder

When Viviane, a chic diplomat's wife, meets an intriguing adventurer and his hippie friends in the wilds of Papua New Guinea different worlds collide. The group, led by enigmatic visionary Gaetan, convince Viviane to join their expedition in search of a mysterious uncharted valley which they believe to be Paradise. Their journey becomes a quest for origins.

Viviane is an uncomplicated young woman married to the French Consul in Melbourne. Her interest in native artefacts leads her to Papua New Guinea in search of the near-extinct Bird of Paradise feathers, which she plans to send back for sale in Paris boutiques. At the coastal town of Lae she meets Olivier, a young adventurer who is about to leave with some friends on an expedition into bush country. Gaetan, the head of the expedition, reveals his secret goal is to discover an unknown valley in the phantom regions of the island, which even on recent maps is just a blank spot annotated "Obscured by cloud". Only the natives suspect its existence but do not dare to explore it, for it is there that the gods live.

Despite her initial misgivings, Viviane joins the expedition to find her feathers. She wavers between doubt and fascination, hesitates about continuing and gradually discovers other visions of life outside her own. Her exposure to the lush environment, Papuan rites and instinctual love, pushes her further than her companions. As the search continues into the unexplored regions, the horses are abandoned and the expedition is stripped to the essentials. At the point of exhaustion, with return impossible, the mists clear and they see a valley, but not in this world.

Barbet Schroeder's striking second feature, a cult classic from 1972, famously features the wondrous soundtrack by Pink Floyd.

El secreto de sus ojos

The Secret in Their Eyes
a film by Juan José Campanella

When a retired criminal prosecutor decides to try writing a novel he finds himself inextricably drawn into the harrowing events of an unsolved crime from twenty-five years before. Benjamín Esposito has spent his entire working life as a criminal court employee. He can draw on his own past as a civil servant for a true, moving and tragic story in which he was once very directly involved. Re-investigating the brutal rape and murder of a beautiful woman, he discovers devastated lives, corrupt government officials and a lost love. But as he delves deeper he finds himself at the dark heart of society, where mysteries lurk in the shadows and danger waits around every corner.

In 1974, Esposito's court was assigned an investigation into the death of a beautiful young woman, Liliana Coloto, raped and murdered inside her house in a district of Buenos Aires. He meets Ricardo Morales, who had married the girl a short time before and worshipped her, body and soul. Moved by Ricardo's grief, Esposito vows to find the killer and bring him to justice despite having to contend with the apathy and ineptitude of the police and legal system. He knows that for help he can count on Pablo Sandoval, an underling at the office yet a close friend, who occasionally seeks release from the routine of his existence by drinking himself unconscious. He can also turn to the upper-class, Cornell-educated Irene Menéndez Hastings, his immediate superior and secretary of the court, with whom he is secretly deeply in love, although there is no hope that she will ever love him.

Argentina in the 1970s is a backdrop for the violence, hate, revenge and death that rule people's lives and fates, and Esposito's investigation takes him deep into a world of terrible violence. No longer an observer, he becomes an unwilling central character in a drama in which he is exposed to ever-greater danger. Although he is aware that historical accuracy is not paramount for his novel, the process of revisiting the case is more an issue of closure for him. As Esposito writes, he relives a past that rises up before his eyes and awakens all his demons. As he moves forward, he begins to see that it is now too late to stop. Telling a story from the past is no longer just a diversion to fill his empty hours. It becomes a narrow, winding path he must take if he is to understand and find justification for his own life, if he is to give any meaning to the years remaining to him, and if once and for all he is to confront the feelings he has for the woman who, twenty-five years on, he is still in love with.

Strewn with ingenious twists and turns, this award-winning crime thriller and love story is a stunning and suspenseful cinematic tour de force exploring themes of memory, corruption, punishment and justice, and how the past is always with us, ever-present in our lives.

The Sacrifice

Offret
a film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Events unfold in the hours before a nuclear holocaust. Alexander is a retired actor who is celebrating his birthday with family and friends when a crackly TV announcement warns of an imminent nuclear catastrophe. Alexander makes a promise to God that he will sacrifice all he holds dear, if the disaster can be averted. The next day dawns and, as if in a dream, everything is restored to normality. But Alexander must keep his vow.

Set in Sweden, the story follows the travails of wealthy patriarch Alexander, a former actor and critic who lives in a remote house on the shores of the Baltic Sea. One year on his birthday, a sudden television announcement interrupts the celebration with news of a nuclear holocaust. His family and guests suffer through violent fits of hysteria and emotional turmoil in the ensuing hours, but the previously troubled Alexander finds a clarity of mind when he makes a pact with God, whom he had long ceased to recognise, offering himself as a sacrifice in order to redeem the fallen earth for his cherished son. "Every gift involves a sacrifice. If not, what kind of gift would it be?".

As Alexander goes from self-contented ease to crippling animal fear and existential anguish and finally to spiritual abandon, the troubled journey is illustrated with a haunting succession of images, tableaux, objects, dreams, and gestures, all sewn together in a seamlessly elliptical vision. The tormented characters are forced to come to terms with their own physical and spiritual existence, with redemption coming through faith, in this case, Alexander's faith in his love for his young son.

Supremely poetic, The Sacrifice is filled with astonishingly beautiful images, expertly shot by Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Tarkovsky's vision is a light that illuminates the simplest movements of life such as the offering of a gift, a walk along the bay, the reflection of a naked body in a mirror, and the film's underlying aesthetic and philosophical issues provide a feast for the senses and the mind. This, Tarkovsky's final film, is a visionary masterpiece which won the Grand Prix at Festival de Cannes 1986, the same year that Tarkovsky died of cancer in Paris at the age of fifty-four.

El niño pez

The Fish Child
a film by Lucía Puenzo

Lala, a teenager from the most exclusive suburban neighbourhood in Buenos Aires is in love with Ailín, known as "la Guayi", the 20-year-old Paraguayan maid working at her home. The girls dream of living together in Paraguay, on the shores of Lake Ypoá. Methodically planning their escape, they steal money, valuables and even a painting from Lala's family in order to fulfil their dream. But the murder of Lala's father, a rich and influential judge who has begun to abuse Ailín, rushes their plans to leave together. This is the starting point that spurs the escape through the highway that connects the north of Buenos Aires with Paraguay. While Lala waits to be reunited with her lover in Ypoá by reconstructing her past (the mystery surrounding her pregnancy and the legend of a fish child who guides the drowned to the bottom of the lake), Ailín is detained in an institution for young offenders on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. She turns out to be hiding a crime from long ago. Desperate to be with her girlfriend, Lala devises a dangerous rescue plan to get her back.

The legend of Mítã'í Pírã. The Ypoá lake can be found in the heart of Paraguay, in an area called Esteros del Ypoá. In seasons of rain, the floods cover the entire region, devastating huge portions of the land. It is a land of legends and mysteries, with islands that appear and disappear in different places, and wanderers who never returned from the esteros, and buried jewels and gold that were hidden in times of the war of the Triple Alianza. So they say. Years ago, the people from a small village near the shores of the Ypoá lake turned a dead tree which is buried in the water into a shrine. They say that with their offerings, toys and photos of sick babies and children, they ask miracles of the fish child who lives in the depths of the lake. They say some children, playing close to the tree, saw him swimming between the roots with the speed and the grace of the creatures that live underwater. That he has membranes between his fingers, jelly eyes and waist-long hair, dark and green as seaweeds. They say he guides the drowned to the bottom of the lake.

The relationship between Lala and Ailín is complex. Ailín is a survivor through necessity. As a young teenager in Paraguay, she gave birth, alone, to the child of her own father who "fell in love" with her, but who abandoned her during the pregnancy. Following the death of the baby, Ailín fled to Argentina, finding work as a domestic servant to Lala's parents. She is a good and dependable worker who understands her place in society and embraces the few opportunities to better herself when these come her way. Her physical attractiveness and sweet nature make her desirable to men, and she responds to their advances when it is likely to bring her some security and stability. She is fun-loving, thoughtful, caring and kind to others, but knows that ultimately she alone is responsible for her own well-being. Life for her will always be a trade-off, that is her destiny.

Lala, by contrast, has grown up in a secure, bourgeois family environment, although one in which she now feels isolated, possibly due as much to herself as to her parents, who, whilst caring about her, remain distant in her life and are too absorbed in their own interests to really take notice of her. Her privileged upbringing is taken for granted because she knows no other, so it is of little importance to her. She longs to escape from it and to have Ailín to herself, unaware of the hardships she is likely to face in the real world. She is a child, adorable but naive, desperate to be loved but with no real understanding of life or herself.

When Ailín began working as a maid in the household, Lala as a 13-year-old girl fell in love with her, to the exclusion of all others, and over the years that love has grown but has not developed in a mature way. Her desire for their future together is more an escapist fantasy than a real plan for their happiness, and her emotional need for Ailín is child-like, dependent and possessive. This is highlighted by Lala's dream of eloping with Ailín to Ypoá, knowing little of the devastating significance that the memory of the place holds for her girlfriend. Whilst Ailín clearly loves Lala and wants a relationship with her, she is much more hesitant about throwing away what she has made of her life, even though Lala is the only person who has ever shown her true affection and love. In many ways, each sees within the other something that is missing in their life, and their love fulfils a fundamental need to regain something that has been lost.

In the final scene on the bus to Paraguay, Ailín conceals from Lala the fact that her dog is dying, whilst trying to reassure her, and convince herself, that they are on the point of achieving their dream. Life is still a trade-off and always will be for Ailín, and she clings to the hope, as we do, that she can now make Lala's dream come true, and that they will have a future together.

With stunning performances, beautiful cinematography and delicate editing, Lucía Puenzo's second feature takes us on an unforgettable journey. Based on her novel of the same name, written when she was 23 years old and published in 2004, it is a gripping and emotional tale of undying love and trust, with a poignant commentary on social inequality, exploitation, and the deep-seated corruption amongst the rich and powerful.

The Headless Woman

La mujer sin cabeza
a film by Lucrecia Martel

A woman is driving on the highway. She becomes distracted and runs over something. On the days following this incident, she fails to recognise the feelings that bond her to things and people. She just lets herself be taken by the events of her social life. One night she tells her husband that she killed someone on the highway. They go back to the road only to find a dead dog. Friends close to the police confirm that there were no accident reports. Everything returns to normal and the bad moment seems to be over until the news of a gruesome discovery again worries everyone.

The film opens on a rural highway in north-west Argentina. A group of young boys with a dog are playing on the road and in the dry canal which runs alongside. Meanwhile, not far away, a group of friends, parents and children, prepare to leave a gathering. One middle-aged woman, Verónica, who runs a dental clinic with her brother, gets in her car and drives away by herself. On the road she is momentarily distracted when her cellphone rings and whilst reaching across for her handbag, she hears a loud thud from under the car. The impact throws her head back and then forward, hitting the dashboard. She stops the car, but disturbed and in shock, is unwilling to get out to investigate. Instead she drives off, and glancing in her rear view mirror, glimpses what appears to be the body of a dog on the road behind. Farther down the road she stops the car and gets out to walk around while the first drops of rain of an approaching storm begin to spatter the windscreen.

At the local hospital where Veró is x-rayed she appears confused and disorientated. She becomes disconnected from her daily life, barely registering what people are saying and what is happening around her. She is also unable to explain with any clarity anything about the accident but eventually tells her husband, Marcos, that she killed someone. That night he drives her back to the spot where it happened but they find only the body of the dog. Juan Manuel, her husband's cousin and her occasional lover, contacts a friend in the police who confirms that there were no reports of an accident that day. But one week later a missing boy's body is retrieved from the canal, washed down after the heavy rains and blocking the flow of the water. Veró's family and friends then join together to erase all traces of the accident ever having occurred.

Verónica's privileged life, her unwillingness to take responsibility for her actions, her feelings of guilt and remoteness from reality, all serve as a metaphor for the attitude of the bourgeois middle classes towards the suffering that surrounds them but which they refuse to acknowledge. The film, in linking the 1970s period of Argentina's dictatorship with the current time, calls attention to the fact that the blindness of the past continues to the present day in the growing disparity between rich and poor.

Cambridge Spies

A TV mini-series written by Peter Moffat and directed by Tim Fywell.

The story of Blunt, Burgess, Philby and Maclean, the most notorious double-agents in British history. In 1934, four brilliant, but seemingly conventional young men at University of Cambridge are recruited to spy for the Soviet Union. Fuelled by youthful idealism, passionately committed to social justice and to fighting fascism, they begin a 20-year career of deceit and treachery, becoming embroiled in obtaining and passing on vital information. Their careers take them from Vienna to Guernica, New York and Washington, with a final, desperate flight to Moscow.

Anthony Blunt is cool, viciously funny and terrifyingly clever, and is entrusted with the closest secrets of the Royal Family. Guy Burgess is wickedly gifted, full of nerve and verve. His jobs at The Times, BBC and MI5 give him access to national security secrets. Kim Philby is the perfect spy. He becomes head of counter-intelligence at MI6, "stopping people like us becoming people like us". Donald Maclean is the Foreign Office double-agent with a split personality; warm and funny, then wild and confessional.

The four do whatever is necessary to further the cause, with their own promising careers discarded and every aspect of their lives becoming a bluff. Marriages and passions are destroyed, Enigma codes, atomic details and other top secrets are passed on to Russian contacts, and Cold War spies are murdered. By the end of their careers they have become different men. Philby becomes the major agent, with Blunt retreating to the shadows, Maclean experiencing a family and career crisis, Burgess further misbehaving and almost always drunk. But during almost 20 years of counter-intelligence, and despite their personal journeys, the four are bound by their beliefs and their secrets.

A spy drama of the highest quality production, Cambridge Spies concentrates on the personal dynamics of the four men. It begins with a profound closeness based on a passion for a cause, and then moves on to shared sacrifices, stress, strain, and eventually breakdown and betrayal, closely observing the impact that events have on each individual's life.

Hedgehog in the Fog

Yozhik v tumane
a film by Yuriy Norshteyn

The story of a little hedgehog and his friend the bear cub. The two meet every evening to drink tea from the bear cub's samovar, which is heated on a fire of juniper twigs. As they drink their tea, they converse and count the stars together. On his way to meet the bear to count the stars, he passes through the woods and encounters a beautiful, white horse standing in a fog so thick that the hedgehog can't even see his own paw. He is curious as to whether the horse would choke if it lay down to sleep in the fog. The hedgehog decides to explore the fog for himself.

He finds himself in a surreal world inhabited by frightening shapes and creatures, such as an eagle-owl, moths and a bat. But also helpful, benevolent ones, like the snail, the dog and the mysterious 'Somebody' in the river. He discovers a world of silence and rustles, of darkness, tall grass and enchanting stars. He is frightened, but his curiosity keeps him exploring the unknown, and slowly he learns there is nothing to fear. The owl, which has been following the hedgehog, appears near him suddenly and hoots, only to disappear again. He explores a large hollow tree, then panics as he realises he has dropped the raspberry jam he was carrying. A large dog, which is initially frightening to the hedgehog, retrieves the jam for him. Later he falls into a river and believes he is going to drown as he floats downstream on his back until he is rescued by a mysterious Somebody, a catfish, in the river that 'speaks' to him silently.

We hear the voice of the bear cub anxiously calling to the hedgehog. When he finally appears, the bear is so relieved to know his friend has arrived safely but also because it means his life of routine and order is restored. He needs the hedgehog to sit with him and count the stars because that's how it has always been. Without the hedgehog his world would fall apart. He is safe within his comfort zone, happy to live his life without change, without challenge, without fear. He's happy to count the stars but would never once think about reaching for them. But the hedgehog is different. We see the hedgehog's expression, almost of regret, as he listens to the bear. He has now experienced the world in a different way, he has seen the magical world inside the fog, another dimension. He has felt the excitement of exploring new worlds, the fear of being lost, new emotions, new friends. As he sits on the log with the bear cub, he thinks how wonderful it is that they are together again. But he also thinks about the white horse in the fog and wonders, "How is she?". Although he is happy to continue the life he has always known, the hedgehog's world will never be the same again.

A beautiful, lyrical and deceptively simple film with the innocence and wonder of a child's view of the world. The inquisitiveness of a child exploring an unfamiliar and slightly frightening world for the first time. Its dream-like images, symbolism, haunting music and beautifully intoned narration, all combine to make this award-winning stop motion animation from 1975 such a delightful and unique experience.

Hedgehog in the Fog (YouTube)

Three Times

Zui hao de shi guang
a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Three stories of women and men, played by the same actors but set in different eras. The central theme is love and emotion, and the film comments on our different expressions of love in different periods of modern history. In the first story, based on the director's own experiences, a young man enlisted for military service falls for a beautiful girl in a 1960s pool hall. The second is set in 1911 when a courtesan falls in love with one of her clients, a political activist on the brink of joining the Chinese revolution. The third story, set in present-day Taipei, dramatises a love-triangle in which hidden passions arise when a beautiful bisexual singer becomes involved in a tangled affair with a photographer.

A Time For Love 1966, Kaohsiung
Chen meets May, who works at his favourite pool hall. They play pool together. Soon after he enlists for national service. On a day-release from the army, Chen comes to visit her, but he finds out that she has quit her job and no-one knows where she has gone. An atmosphere of tension is created as the lovers, perhaps like Taiwan itself at this time, must choose between remaining comfortable in their status quo or taking risks to engender more intriguing possibilities.

A Time For Freedom 1911, Dadaocheng
The owner of a tea plantation discusses buying out a young courtesan's contract when his son gets her pregnant. Mr Chang, despite his disapproval of the keeping of concubines, steps in to hasten negotiations, allowing the young couple to marry. Mr Chang then leaves for Japan to join a Chinese revolutionary who fled to escape persecution during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. However, he does not address the issue that his own courtesan is most concerned about – her personal freedom, and he remains indifferent as she expresses her longings. An historical moment which illustrates the gap between the desires of the man and the desires of the woman. He longs for revolution, and for the recovery of Taiwan from Japanese rule, whereas she longs for emotional security.

A Time For Youth 2005, Taipei
Epileptic and losing sight in her right eye, Jing is a singer in present-day Taipei. She lives with her mother and grandmother and also has a woman lover, Micky. Zhen, a photographer, works in a digital photo lab and lives with his girlfriend, Blue. When Blue finds out that Zhen has fallen for Jing, she hits the roof. When the insecure Micky realises her relationship with Jing is in danger, she threatens suicide. Where can the four of them go from here? None of them will find happiness. In the world of modern technology, cellphones and text messaging foster a lack of communication between today's apathetic and disaffected youth.

Hou Hsiao-hsien on the making of the film: "It seems to me that by contrasting love stories from three different times, we can feel how people's behaviour is circumscribed by the times and places they live in. For me, the film's Chinese title has a very specific resonance. If we speak of 'the best of our times', as invoked in the Chinese title, it's not that we have wonderful memories as such. What makes times 'best' is that they're lost and gone: we'll never have them again."

With beautiful cinematography and deeply moving performances, this trilogy of memory, romance and desire is a testament to the enduring power of love. Three times, three emotions, three affairs. A tender, bittersweet portrait of snatched moments of happiness and transient love.

Café Lumière

Kôhî jikô
a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Hou's centenary tribute to Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu, echoing many of Ozu's recurring themes – the breakdown of communication between parents and children, the rhythmic patterning of everyday life. The film paints a compelling and insightful portrait of contemporary Japan, focusing on the travails of Yoko Inoue, an independent young woman researching a project on the composer Jiang Wen-Ye. Born in Taiwan with Japanese nationality, Jiang was the talk of the 1930s and 1940s music world in Japan.

Yoko, a freelance writer becomes friends with Hajime, the proprietor of a secondhand bookshop, and the two spend a great deal of time together in coffee shops. Yoko was raised in the rural town of Yubari by her sight-impaired uncle, but has since created a good relationship with her father and step-mother. One day Yoko tells her parents that she is pregnant. The father of the child is a former boyfriend from Taiwan. Her parents worry for Yoko's future and her choice to become an unmarried mother. Yoko is a young woman who makes her way through life almost casually, not letting anything get her too upset or too excited. But now she must deal with both the concerns of her parents and the pressures and contradictions of her modern life.

As the original title Kôhî jikô suggests a feeling of "settling the spirit and facing the realities of one's life", so the film portrays the moments where Yoko and Hajime are about to restart their own lives. Although he cannot articulate his feelings, Hajime is filled with love for Yoko. In her daily life Yoko comes to re-evaluate her view of her family, Hajime, and the new life growing inside her.

Deftly drawing on the recurring Ozu theme of the relationship between ageing parents and their growing, increasingly independent child, the story plays out slowly, portraying real life with little artifice whilst evincing other things the eye cannot see. Hou reveals so much of the human heart through his quiet, unhurried style and his acute attention to the minutiae of life. Beautifully performed, with long, well-framed shots featuring natural sound and lighting, and incorporating one of Jiang's piano scores, Café Lumière is a gently compelling tale about everyday characters doing everyday things, expressed as pure cinematic poetry.

Adelheid

A film by František Vláčil

In the aftermath of World War II in the Sudetenland in Northern Moravia, a young Czech airman recently returned from service in the Royal Air Force, is given the management of a former German estate. There he meets the beautiful Adelheid, the former owner's daughter who once lived in the estate but is now reduced to servitude. The Czech airman falls in love with Adelheid, but lingering resentment and bitter political strife stand in the way of their happiness.

Though Czech-born and possessing the rank of lieutenant, Viktor Chotovický has spent much of the war in Aberdeen, Scotland, working in an RAF desk job. After a series of misunderstandings concerning his arrival that underline the dominant atmosphere of uncertainty and paranoia, Viktor makes himself known to Inspector Hejna, and is charged with the task of looking after the Heidenmann's large country house and drawing up an inventory of its contents. It's a job that suits him perfectly, as he doesn't have to talk to many people.

Adelheid Heidenmann is initially assumed to be an innocent victim of widespread anti-German prejudice, but it transpires that she's the daughter of a notorious local Nazi war criminal currently on trial, whose inevitable execution is imminent. Each day she leaves the camp to clean the now unoccupied mansion house that was once her home.

In a near wordless exchange, Viktor finds himself enamoured by Adelheid, even though she is really his servant and has little choice under the circumstances. He allows her to stay in the house and tries to build her trust and affection, but with no common language he has to piece together Adelheid's life from visual clues, old photographs and letters. Soon Viktor discovers that it is impossible to exist in such a vacuum, especially at a time of national turbulence. Whatever his private feelings for Adelheid, it's politically and socially impossible to express them in public, even in a supposedly liberated country. Eventually he will discover that she's much more morally ambiguous than he first imagined, and has to confront his own conscience when he finds that she is sheltering her German-soldier brother.

A tragic, compelling and beautifully filmed love story that transcends the absence of verbal communication. It was, in 1969, the first film to controversially address the Czech treatment of Germans during the expulsions of the mid-1940s.

Flight of the Red Balloon

Le voyage du ballon rouge
a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien

A young boy, Simon, must deal with the increasing fragility of his mother, the loving yet preoccupied puppeteer Suzanne. Overwhelmed by the demands of her chaotic existence, Suzanne hires Song Fang, a Taiwanese film student, to help care for Simon. With Song, a unique extended family is formed, utterly interdependent yet lost in their separate thoughts and dreams. All this is mirrored by a delicate, shiny red balloon that hovers above the streets of Paris.

Suzanne, a single mother, is doing her best to raise her seven-year-old son Simon, whilst preparing her latest marionette production, based on the Yuan Dynasty story of Zhang Yu and his beloved, Qiong Lian. Song, a Taiwanese film student who has come to study in Paris and is making her own digital version of Le ballon rouge, is hired by Suzanne as a daytime nanny to take care of Simon. Song goes everywhere with her camera, filming everything she sees. Meanwhile, Simon is being followed by a red balloon that has grown attached to the boy.

The balloon, which seems to have its own personality, hovers over Simon and his family as Suzanne struggles with her daily life. Her entire working day is spent in rehearsal at the marionette theatre. She argues with her absent husband who has relocated to Montréal to write a novel and shows no sign of returning. She has to confront their tenant, Marc, who owes one year's rent and Suzanne must now set about obtaining an eviction order. She needs the flat for her daughter, Louise, who has been studying in Brussels but will soon be returning to Paris. The piano has now to be moved upstairs from Marc's flat in order to make things easier for Simon's piano teacher. As Suzanne's world becomes increasingly hectic and chaotic, Song Fang becomes ever more important in her life. In the end, it is Song's calming presence and Asian perspective that helps Suzanne regain control of her life.

In 1956, Albert Lamorisse made Le ballon rouge, a short in which a young boy, played by his son, Pascal, makes friends with a red balloon. Fifty years later, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien's first French-language film is a beautifully shot meditation on the transience of life and the continuing impact of the past on the present. The film was commissioned by Musée d'Orsay and is inspired by Lamorisse's children's classic. Hou Hsiao-hsien's feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard selection at Festival de Cannes 2007.