Delta

A film by Kornél Mundruczó

After making his fortune in the city, Mihail, a quiet and gentle young man returns after an absence of many years to his isolated Romanian village in the Danube delta. It is a labyrinth of waterways, small islands and over-grown vegetation, where the villagers are cut off from the outside world. He is greeted by a stepfather he has never met before, as well as his mother and adult sister, Fauna. Treated with suspicion by his stepfather and considered by the community to be an outsider who does not belong, his presence is unwelcome in the village. However, for Mihail this is not an issue since he has plans to create a new life alone in the marshes independent of them all. But despite his intentions, Mihail's return will in time fracture the family.

Fauna, a frail, slight and timid young woman decides to abandon her life with her mother and stepfather who run the village bar, to join Mihail in the middle of the marsh. She follows him to their deceased father's abandoned property to help him in the construction of a house on stilts with a long pier over the water. As their lives become increasingly close and intimate, they begin to experience a more deep-seated and harmonious relationship with the natural world around them and a tender love and affection for each other. But their relationship also elicits the disapproval of their family and eventually of the community too, leading to tragic consequences and to a heartbreaking conclusion.

This sensitive, insightful and intensely beautiful film looks at human nature and the dilemma of following one's heart or obeying social conventions. With its outstanding cinematography, it reflects also on man's need to re-bond with his natural habitat. Exploring the phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction, whereby siblings who live apart until they meet in adulthood can feel an overwhelming sexual attraction for one another, the story meditates on the consequences of a fraternal love that drifts into seemingly unacceptable territory.

The White Ribbon

Das weiße Band
a film by Michael Haneke

On the eve of World War I, the quiet order of a small protestant village in northern Germany is disturbed by a series of mysterious and inexplicable incidents. To the mounting concern of the villagers, the events persist, becoming increasingly sinister and assuming the characteristics of a perverse punishment ritual. But who is responsible? The story follows the children and teenagers of a choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families – the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, and the tenant farmers of the estate.

The doctor is severely injured when his horse is brought down by a wire placed at knee height. A farmer's wife dies after falling through rotten floorboards. A window is opened to expose a newborn baby to the intense cold of the winter. A field of cabbages on the baron's land are destroyed with a scythe. One of the baron's sons disappears and is later found with his feet and hands bound, having been lashed with a whip. A barn belonging to the manor is set on fire. A farmer hangs himself. A midwife's handicapped child is found tied to a tree in a forest, seriously beaten, with a threatening message on his chest speaking of divine punishment.

Since the beginning of these events, the strict and severe pastor had tied a white ribbon to the arm of his two eldest children, his daughter Klara and son Martin, to remind them of their duty to purity. As the violent and disturbing events begin to escalate, the schoolteacher observes, investigates and little by little discovers the incredible truth.

This brilliant, chilling masterpiece penetrates the surface of an outwardly peaceful and puritanical society to reveal the malevolence and violence beneath – and the terrible consequences they threaten to unleash. Exploring themes of guilt, denial and violence, this haunting and provocative feature was awarded the Palme d'Or at Festival de Cannes 2009.

Innocence

A film by Lucile Hadžihalilović

At the heart of a densely wooded forest lies a mysterious girls' boarding school. A subterranean rumbling resonates in the heart of the forest. Hidden by foliage, a metal grate reveals underground passageways, which lead to the cellars of five houses scattered throughout a great park. The park is cut off from the outside world by a huge wall with no door. Within one of the houses, a group of youngsters aged between seven and twelve gather round a small coffin, from which emerges a new pupil, six-year-old Iris. Led by the eldest girl, Bianca, Iris is introduced to this strange yet enchanting world of lamp-lit forest paths and eerie underground passageways, where there are no adults save for several elderly servants and two melancholy young teachers, Mlle Edith and Mlle Eva. But this haven is one from which the girls are forbidden to leave, and those that do are never heard from again.

A dark, yet beautiful fable that contrasts the atmosphere of dread and uncertainty with the light of youthful purity. Captivating in its mystery, the further the story progresses without giving any answers, the more the anxiety builds. It is set in a timeless present evocative of the 1960s, and is not, strictly speaking, a fantasy film, but simply a child's eye vision of real life, experienced through its three main characters – Iris, the youngest girl, who arrives at the school; Alice, who has already spent several years there and rebels; and Bianca, who is at the end of the school cycle and represents a young girl shaped by it.

This strikingly unique debut feature explores themes of metamorphosis, maturity, understanding, friendship and loss, as the young girls prepare for their ascent into womanhood. Haunting and bizarre, filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović imbues Innocence with a fairytale-like sense of menace and images of surreal beauty, creating a mesmerising and timeless evocation of childhood.

Summer Hours

L'heure d'été
a film by Olivier Assayas

The divergent paths of three adult siblings collide when their mother, heiress to her uncle's exceptional 19th century art collection, dies suddenly. Left to come to terms with themselves and their differences, Adrienne a successful New York designer, Frédéric an economist and university professor in Paris, and Jérémie a dynamic businessman in China, confront the end of childhood, their shared memories, background and unique visions of the future.

Hélène Berthier, the niece of a famous painter, has devoted her life to the preservation of her uncle's legacy. Her house contains a vast collection of his paintings and sketches, antique furniture and fine art objects including several works by Carot. Hélène's family have gathered to celebrate her seventy-fifth birthday and she has decided it is now time to discuss their inheritance after she dies. Whilst Frédéric, her eldest, expects that the family will want to preserve the house and its collection intact, Hélène is under no such illusion. For her it symbolises the most important things in her life – the love she has for her deceased uncle, her memories, her secrets – and she knows that when she dies this very personal significance cannot be preserved.

After Hélène's death her three children return again to the house and following the funeral have to confront the issue of her estate. The sentimental Frédéric, the only sibling still living in France, proposes that he, with his wife Lisa, oversees the preservation of the treasured family heirlooms. Jérémie however explains that his business and family commitments are likely to keep him and his wife Angela in Asia for the foreseeable future. Whilst they would derive no benefit from keeping the house, his own financial share of the inheritance has now become vital to his future. The equally pragmatic Adrienne then announces that she and her partner James are about to marry and that with her life centred entirely in the United States, she too feels no desire to retain the family home in France.

Adrienne no longer thinks in terms of geographical borders and her brother Jérémie is now a part of the modern global economy, the very economy that Frédéric opposes and does not believe in. Frédéric's wish to protect the family's possessions is based entirely upon their symbolic and sentimental value to him, whereas for Adrienne and Jérémie the objects of the past, however beautiful, can hold no personal significance. Clearly shocked and disappointed, Frédéric has to come to terms with this inevitability, completely unforeseen by him despite Hélène's anticipation of, and preparations for, the disposition of her assets. Torn between issues of heritage and modernity, Hélène's children must now question the value of preserving their cultural roots in a world of globalisation, and abandon the remaining material links between each other and their childhood.

An insightful, heartfelt and thought-provoking drama examining the themes of generational change and cultural identity. The film is beautifully photographed and features some extraordinary works of art from the collections of Musée de Louvre and Musée d'Orsay.

A Winter's Tale

Conte d'hiver
a film by Éric Rohmer

On holiday in Bretagne, Parisian hairdresser Félicie has an idyllic romance which results in the birth of her daughter, Elise. Through a mix-up over her address just as he is leaving for the United States, she loses touch with Elise's father, Charles, and becomes obsessed with the lost love of her life. Finding it impossible to settle with another man, she holds onto the dream that Charles may one day return. Five years later we find Félicie attracted to, but not in love with, two different men each of whom she leaves for the other. She divides her time between the handsome and devoted Loïc, and the adoring and dependable Maxence. Offering her different things, she is unable to choose between them, aware that she is still in love with the father of her child.

Maxence, her boss, is moving from Paris to Nevers and wants Félicie to come with him. She loves being with him but is not madly in love with him. After first saying no, she then agrees and leaves Loïc. Once there however, Félicie has another change of heart following an epiphany about her love for Charles during a visit to a cathedral. She returns to her mother in Paris and goes to see Loïc again.

Loïc is a librarian and intellectual who loves to engage her in deeply spiritual conversation about religion, reincarnation and the nature of the soul. Whilst he is very Catholic in his belief and outlook, Félicie is far more of a free spirit. After her return to Paris, during a visit to the theatre with Loïc to see Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, she realises that she too must "awake her faith" and she experiences the purity of her lost love in contrast to the seemingly mundane choices she has been facing in her daily life. By opening herself to the possibility, the improbable might just happen, but in the most unexpected way.

A treatise on the nature of faith, intuition and love that never dies, this the second of Éric Rohmer's Tales of the Four Seasons, is a charming and superbly acted love story with the compelling quality of a fairytale.

Katalin Varga

A film by Peter Strickland

Banished by her husband and her village, Katalin Varga is left with no other choice than to set out on a quest to find the real father of her son, Orbán. Taking the boy with her, Katalin travels through the Carpathians where she decides to reopen a sinister chapter from her past and take revenge. The hunt leads her to a place, she prayed eleven years prior, she would never set foot in again.

For years, Katalin has been keeping a terrible secret. Hitchhiking with two men, she was brutally raped in the woods. Although she has kept silent about what happened, she has not forgotten, and her son Orbán serves as a living reminder. When her village discovers her secret, Katalin's husband Zsigmond rejects her. Taking Orbán with her, on the pretext of visiting his ailing grandmother, she sets out with horse-drawn wagon on a journey through the beautiful, otherworldly Carpathian mountains of Transylvania to seek revenge on the perpetrators whom she has not seen since the assault.

After their arrival in the village, Katalin encounters Gergely, one of the men involved in the crime, and luring him into a compromising situation, she explodes into a violent rage in which she murders him. Katalin next sets out to find Antal Borlan, the rapist, to mete out similar punishment, but before she can confront him Antal befriends Orbán, and Katalin is taken aback when she realises the man who violated her has not only charmed her son, but also has a wife, Etelka, and others who love him and depend on him.

In a mesmerising sequence when Katalin joins Antal and Etelka in their rowing boat on a lake, she tells them the awful story of the rape. We see Antal's nervous reactions as Katalin describes in great detail both the events and the resulting aftermath of his actions, without identifying him by name. At a certain point in her story her language unexpectedly changes into that of the folk-tale, with an eerie and unnerving effect.

Her choices have far reaching consequences for the people she meets and those she seeks out, but it is those who are innocent and unknowing who suffer the greatest impact from her terrible revenge and she is forced to consider that morality might not be as black and white as she had imagined. As hunter becomes hunted and Katalin's mission becomes ever more precarious, the atmosphere and tension gradually heighten until we realise that Katalin's journey is likely to be strictly one-way, for such is the inexorability of tragedy.

This mysterious, unusual and very beautiful film combines the elements of psychological thriller with social comment on punishment and justice. Set in the present day, yet as timeless and eternal as the mountains, forests and surrounding Transylvanian landscape, Katalin Varga is a captivating story, intricately woven around very traditional themes of revenge and redemption.

The Turin Horse

A Torinói ló
a film by Béla Tarr

Inspired by the story of 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche protecting a horse from abuse, the film details the lives of the coachman, his daughter, and the horse. In Turin on 3 January 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of 6 Via Carlo Alberto. Not far from him, the driver of a hansom-cab is having trouble with a stubborn horse. Despite all his prompting, the horse refuses to move and at this the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. As Nietzsche approaches this scene, he suddenly jumps towards the cab and, bursting into tears, throws his arms around the horse's neck. Nietzsche is then taken home where he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan. He spends the remaining ten years of his life silent and demented, under the care of his mother and sisters.

Ohlsdorfer, the carter, and his daughter live out their lives on their farmstead. They subsist on hard work, their only source of income being the horse and cart. The father takes on carting jobs, his daughter takes care of the household. It's a very meagre life and infinitely monotonous. Their repeating gestures and the changes in seasons and times of day dictate the rhythm and routine which is cruelly inflicted on them. Their horse, now old and in very poor condition, is no longer able to carry out its tasks. Pulling the loaded cart becomes more and more difficult. However, it tries to obey the words of command but even the whip can't force it to achieve beyond its strength.

All that the horse wants now is peace and an untroubled death. The dying of the horse shapes the story of the film which is framed by the gale sweeping all before it, whose function is to bring true order to the world, at the same time giving the final tribute of respect to innocence and defencelessness. The film speaks about death, and the deep pain that comes with it, felt by all of us as a universal law.

Announced as Béla Tarr's last film, The Turin Horse made its world premiere in competition at Berlin Film Festival 2011 where it was awarded the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear.

It's Winter

Zemestan
a film by Rafi Pitts based on the story Safar by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi.

Mokhtar has just lost his job, the store where he works having been forced to close. His chances of finding employment elsewhere are remote, so feeling he has no other option he decides to search for work abroad. Amid a bleak and bitter Iranian winter, his wife Khatoun and their young daughter accompany him to the railway station where he boards the train, and hoping for greater opportunities and better times, he leaves his family behind in Tehran. Meanwhile Khatoun must somehow support herself, her child and her ageing mother on the meagre wage she receives for working long hours in the clothing factory. She is also forced to sell household belongings and furniture in order to survive. Months pass and Mokhtar's family hear no word from him. One day the police come to the house with news of his death.

A stranger, Marhab, arrives in town in search of work. He is a mechanic, specialising in crane repairs, and is confident that his skills will enable him to secure employment. But when he is repeatedly told there is no work for him he is forced to clean the windscreens of trucks for small change. Sleeping at a café he meets Ali Reza, also a mechanic, who gets him a job at the truck repair yard where he works. When walking along the railway track one day Marhab encounters the beautiful Khatoun as she returns home from work. He hears that she no longer has a husband and as he begins to fall in love with her, he follows her on her journeys across town and then sitting on the railway track observes her at home, awaiting his opportunity. Eventually she confronts him and asks him directly why he is following her. During a very emotional exchange Marhab, shocked and deeply embarrassed, attempts to express his feelings for the woman he loves. Time passes, Marhab wins Khatoun's trust and affection and they marry.

But Marhab is essentially a drifter, needing change in his life and is always searching for something new. He is willing to work hard for a decent wage but also wants a life for himself outside of work. He becomes indifferent to the job he has, arguing with the boss over time taken off and the fact that he has worked for several months but has yet to be paid. The boss is unwilling to accept his attitude to work and eventually fires him. Marhab, now unemployed with little hope of finding work but now shouldering the responsibility of a family, contemplates leaving Tehran to search for work abroad.

Outside on the railway track Mokhtar sits in the darkness watching the house. He has returned alive but broken, penniless and now an amputee on crutches. He sees that there is no longer a place for him with Khatoun and his daughter, life has moved on during his long absence and he does not belong here. But as Mokhtar sits watching the house, Marhab is preparing to leave his home and family and we see that their story has now turned full circle.

Marhab returns to the café once more where in conversation with the proprietor he speaks of the troubles and frustrations in his life. As he does so a man on crutches enters and Marhab is told in some detail of the misfortunes of this individual. The following day, as Marhab stands at the railway station awaiting his train amid a bitter winter blizzard, the destinies of both these men, who in many ways can be seen as the same person, are concluded.

The struggle to survive of a generation torn between wanting to leave its country yet bound by blood to home. This visually very beautiful and emotionally charged film was inspired by Dowlatabadi's book The Trip but is also influenced by the poem Winter by Mehdi Akhavan Saless. The lines of this poem, well-known in Iran, depict the governing power and the cold attitudes of winter and are used at the beginning and end to frame the film, giving form to feelings and sentiments that are otherwise oblique and intangible. Through its characters the film describes the harsh life in which we struggle under pressure, merely to survive day-to-day and it highlights the plight and fate universally, not just in Iran, of the working classes. It is their story.

Damnation

Kárhozat
a film by Béla Tarr

In a small Hungarian town lives Karrer, a listless and brooding man who has almost completely withdrawn from the world, but for an obsession with a singer in the bar he frequents. The film opens on to a view of a desolate, industrialised landscape. Overhead, giant buckets suspended from an aerial cableway journey endlessly back and forth, their cyclic movement and repetitive, mechanical sound appear to be the only signs of human activity. The camera draws slowly back revealing Karrer sitting at his window, motionless and watching. A solitary man whose life is almost completely eroded by hopelessness except for his love and desire for a beautiful, haunting singer at the Titanik Bar, a nightclub in this small, drab coal-mining town. The girl is doing her best to end their relationship, and her husband warns him to stay away from his wife. But Karrer's very existence clings to the hope that she will leave her husband for him, and yet he seems incapable of doing anything to make this, or anything else in his life, happen.

Karrer is then offered a smuggling job by Willarsky, the shady owner of a local bar, but he decides instead to offer it to Sebestyén, the girl's husband, who has built up a substantial debt and is in danger of being imprisoned for it. Sebestyén's acceptance means that Karrer and the girl can spend a few days alone together. The girl too is desperate for change in her life and wants to leave for the city to become a famous singer. Certainly she doesn't see Karrer's advances as an answer to her dreams, but eventually she agrees to sleep with him during the husband's absence. A bitter Karrer then decides he will turn in to the authorities her husband when he returns from his smuggling job, leaving her alone and thus making him now the logical option. By the end of the story, the lives of the characters will be as broken and desolate as the crumbling town in which they live. Yet, as they wander aimlessly about in a purgatory from which there is no escape, we see that their hopelessness only really comes from inside the individual.

The slowly gliding camera seems almost to have an agenda of its own, whilst the gritty, high contrast, deep-shadows noir imagery adds to the growing sensation of unease. This, the first film in which Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr fully realised his mesmerising and apocalyptic world view is an immaculately photographed and composed study of eternal conflict, the centuries-old struggle between barbarism and civilisation. It was his first collaboration with novelist and fellow countryman László Krasznahorkai and the second film on which he worked with Hungarian musician and composer Mihály Víg.

Werckmeister Harmonies

Werckmeister harmóniák
a film by Béla Tarr adapted from the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai.

The population of a desolate provincial town on the Hungarian plain await the arrival of a circus that features the stuffed carcass of a whale and a mysterious Prince. Its appearance disturbs the order of the populace, unleashing a torrent of violence and beauty.

We first meet János Valuska in a bar at closing time where he choreographs three of the inebriated patrons in a ballet of the earth's orbit of the sun and the moon's orbit of the earth. At a precise point he freezes his actors to describe a total eclipse of the sun. How the world and all its creatures pause in momentary fear of the sudden cold darkness until the warmth of the sun again floods the earth. He demonstrates a disturbing but temporary dark moment that emerges from a natural order. In this scene, surprisingly profound, amusing and beautiful all at the same time, we gain a first insight into the personality of this gentle, caring and innocent character with the childlike sense of wonder.

Next we follow János as he walks through the dark streets to the house of György Eszter, a distinguished musicologist and intellectual, now elderly and infirm, whom János helps and looks after on a daily basis. György is determined to prove that the order imposed on sound by the Werckmeister Harmonies, a disruption of the natural order to broaden the musical range, is false and that only the purer natural scale is truth – a recurrent theme throughout the story, highlighting the contrast and values between a natural order and an imposed man-made order.

After helping Uncle Gyuri into bed, János then sets off to work at the sorting office. On his way there he watches the arrival into town of a tractor pulling an enormous corrugated shed inside of which is a stuffed whale, the world's largest, and the poster advertising this attraction says that a Prince accompanies the whale. But apprehension and fear are spreading through the town and already the social order is beginning to break down. With the onset of winter there is a shortage of coal; there are growing mountains of frozen rubbish everywhere; entire families mysteriously disappear. Hundreds of strangers are said to have arrived on the train because of the whale and the Prince – a mutant whose godless speeches incite hatred, violence and disharmony. Already, looting has taken place and people are now afraid to leave their homes.

At daybreak János makes his way to the market square where the circus trailer containing the whale is parked. A large crowd of men, sinister and menacing in their silence, have already gathered there, standing around the square in small groups, waiting for the appearance of the Prince. Weary and hungry, János finally returns home when Tünde Eszter arrives, threatening to move back in with György, her estranged husband, if János does not convince him to use his influence to help her start her 'clean town movement'. As the brooding threat of public disorder increases, the gathered mob mobilise and embark on a night of rioting, arson and violence, with a savage attack on the hospital resulting in the arrival of the military with tanks to restore order. János is told that it is no longer safe for him to remain in the town and he attempts his escape from the chaos which now surrounds him.

With this surreal and quite extraordinary feature, Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr finally gained international recognition as one of the most distinctive and visionary of contemporary filmmakers. Although many have seen this film as an allegory for the failure of East European Communism, for the evolution and propagation of corrupted "pure" ideas that are based on flawed premises, the director maintains that he has never made a political film. This work is much more a commentary on human nature and society's following a false path in an attempt to achieve harmony, enlightenment and existential purpose. A hypnotic, challenging and utterly compelling masterpiece also featuring a beautiful score by composer Mihály Víg.

Times & Winds

Beş Vakit
a film by Reha Erdem

Set in a remote village in a beautiful mountainous region of north-eastern Turkey, the story follows the lives of three friends on the verge of adolescence. Struggling variously with deeply felt familial rage and responsibilities, burgeoning sexuality and guilt-ridden desire, the children find themselves detached from the customs and traditions of their community and consumed by the ennui of daily village life.

Within their small, poor mountain village overlooking the sea, the people endure the harshness of nature on a day-to-day survival basis. They diligently earn their living out of the earth and from the few animals they keep. Just like the animals and trees around them, they have the knowledge of a temporary existence, and are resigned to their fate. Their lives, like those of their ancestors, follow the rhythms of the earth, air and water, of day and night and the seasons, with days divided into five parts by the call to prayer. Every day, human existence is experienced through these five time periods.

Rigidly adhering to time-honoured methods, children are raised by a practice their parents have experienced from their own upbringing. They express their love awkwardly and consider beating to be a favourable method of showing love and dispensing guidance. Childhood is difficult and a father typically has a preference for one son over the other, whilst mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. The children study in the village school consisting of only one classroom, and families express their gratitude to the teacher by giving her gifts – the bread they bake themselves, the milk of their own sheep.

Ömer, Yakup and Yıldız are three children of 12 or 13 years of age, just between childhood and adolescence. As membership of the adult world becomes imminent, an awful truth dawns for them about their status. All three earn the displeasure and disappointment of their elders and in turn become disillusioned and resentful.

Ömer is the son of the imam, who ceaselessly humiliates him by praising his younger brother and making no secret that he loves him more. Ömer conceives a passionate hatred of his father and wishes for his death. But when his wish is not granted he begins to look for ways to kill his father as a twelve-year-old boy might, sharing his guilty thoughts with his friend Yakup. Yakup is a sensitive boy who nurtures a hopeless crush on the young schoolteacher but he hides his guilty feelings even from his best friend Ömer. When one day he sees his father spying on the teacher, he dreams, like Ömer, of killing his father. Yıldız is a bright, studious girl who also does her best to manage the household responsibilities imposed on her by her mother. She attempts to be a mother for her baby brother but learns with trepidation about the secrets of the relationship between men and women, and what the general duties of womanhood are going to be.

The sensitivity of the children's reflections of their parents' maladaptive behaviour creates a bond that sustains their daily trials. Five times elapse – as the three children grow up they oscillate between rage and guilt, love and enmity.

Beş Vakit (Five Times) is a hypnotic and beautifully observed portrait of a rural society, disaffected youth and the loss of innocence. A contemplative coming-of-age story with an enigmatic, dream-like quality, poignantly reflecting on the way life's mistakes are forever repeated through the generations. Florent Herry's cinematography is exquisite and the director's use of the haunting music of Arvo Pärt perfectly expresses the underlying emotional theme of the film.

Sátántangó

A film by Béla Tarr

The epic rendering of László Krasznahorkai's novel about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe. Set in a struggling Hungarian agricultural collective in the 1980s, a group of lost souls reeling from the collapse of their Communist utopia face an uncertain future, until the arrival of a charismatic stranger in whom they believe lies their salvation. Within their small dilapidated village the collective's individual experiences and fates are gradually revealed to us and we follow the events in their lives over the course of one day. Their stories are told separately and from the perspective of each individual but with some of the events overlapping, which are seen again in the context of the particular perspective.

Life for the inhabitants of this rural community has come to a virtual standstill. The autumn rains have begun and the villagers are waiting, expecting to receive a large cash payment that evening, after which they plan to leave. But some want to abscond earlier with more than their fair share of the money. However, they hear that the smooth-talking Irimiás, whom they thought had died, is coming back and they are apprehensive that he will take all their money in one of his grandiose schemes to keep the community going.

First we meet Futaki, who whilst having an affair with Mrs Schmidt discovers that her husband is planning to make off with the money that eight villagers have come into through one of Irimiás's schemes. Then we see Irimiás and Petrina who are trying to evade trouble with the law. Next we follow the overweight and frail Doctor who observes and documents the actions of the villagers, recording everything he experiences in his journals. The fourth story involves Estike, a young girl who, ignored by her mother and cheated by her brother, tortures and kills a cat and then commits suicide – a tragedy which will later be exploited by Irimiás. The fifth gathers all the pertinent villagers together in the village bar, drinking and dancing Satan's Tango until they fall into a drunken stupor.

We then follow the villagers as they make their exodus, journeying on foot through the night to the abandoned manor house where Irimiás has told them they will begin a new and successful life. Having left everything behind they could not carry and having given him all their money, they place their implicit trust in him with little real idea of what his plans for them are. But soon they find themselves unable to ignore the doubts they have about Irimiás's great scheme and we begin to see what lies behind his clever deception – and understand the fate that awaits them all.

A dark portrayal of human nature, forlorn desolation and false hope. The film's compelling images of bleakness and despair are a unique, visionary and entirely captivating experience, perfectly accompanied by composer Mihály Víg's haunting and hypnotic musical score.

The Man From London

A Londoni férfi
a film by Béla Tarr based on the novel L'homme de Londres by Georges Simenon.

Maloin leads a simple, humdrum life with no prospects, working as a night signalman at a railway station situated by a ferry harbour. He barely notices the outside world, accepting the slow and inevitable deterioration of life around him and his all but complete loneliness. His life takes a sudden turn, however, when he becomes a witness to a murder and is forced to confront issues of morality, sin, punishment and the line between innocence and complicity in a crime. This state of scepsis leads him to the ontological question of the meaning and worth of existence.

One night, from inside his control tower, Maloin is watching the arrival of the last ferry. On the bow of the ship before him two passengers are in conversation and a suitcase is passed between them. Joining the line of disembarking passengers, one of the two men, after passing through the customs check, walks around the dock and stands at the edge of the quay. The other passenger who has been waiting on the deck of the ship then throws a suitcase towards the man on the shore. The man on the shore picks up the suitcase and retreats into the shadows. Some minutes later Maloin hears raised voices and looking out from his window sees the man with the suitcase has now been confronted by the other man. The quarrel develops into a fight in which one of them is struck, and falling from the quay into the water still clutching the suitcase, his body sinks. The other man, unable to retrieve the lost suitcase then walks away from the scene and enters a nearby hotel.

Astonished at what he has just witnessed, Maloin then climbs down from his tower with a boat-hook, and realising there is little he can do for the victim, retrieves the suitcase from the water. Taking the case back to his control room, he opens it to find it is packed full with bank notes. Incredulous, he slowly he takes the notes out of the suitcase, placing them on the top of his stove to dry. At the end of his shift, Maloin returns home to his wife, Camélia, saying nothing to anyone about the events of the night, or the money. But his innocent, if opportunist actions will begin a course of events in his life bringing guilt and fear from which he is unable to extricate himself.

Exploring themes of desire, greed and man's indestructible longing for freedom and happiness, the film is an examination of illusions never to be realised – the things that give us the energy to continue living and to question our own existence. Its austere minimalism and the symbolism used allows us to contemplate and empathise with the motivations and emotions of the characters more deeply. Its major strength is its visuals – the stunning noir imagery, with chiaroscuro deep-shadows lighting and oblique angles, evoking an intense sense of dread. The camera work is slow, fluid and dynamic, with long takes following the characters wherever they go, creating a mood of ever-growing suspense and menace. With the sparse dialogue throughout, we instead experience a heightened awareness of the environmental sounds which accompany the monochromatic imagery, many with sharply intrusive staccato rhythms which build on our sense of unease. A compelling, hypnotic and visually intensive film with a hauntingly beautiful score by Mihály Víg.

The Wind Will Carry Us

Bad ma ra khahad bord
a film by Abbas Kiarostami

Three men journey from Tehran to a tiny, remote village in Iranian Kurdistan. Assumed by the locals, with whom they form an ambivalent relationship, to be archaeologists or telecom engineers, the visitors' behaviour and keen interest in the health of an ailing old woman appear strange and their true motives are shrouded in mystery. They have journeyed there for the funeral of the ancient matriarch who then confounds their expectations by not dying.

The film narrowly revolves around the Engineer, the leader of the three men, relating everything to his solitary universe at the same time as encompassing the full scope of a world independent of him. Out of time and place, he is forced to wait, idle and deprived of most of his customary modern distractions, while his anxiety, emptiness, and his unease constantly surface. But gradually as his resistance lessens, he is tugged by and eventually succumbs to the slow, natural rhythms of life around him.

Haunting and visually stunning, minimalist and panoramic, it is an absorbing, abstract meditation on life and death and the divisions between tradition and modernity. Unhurried, and yet perfectly paced, the film captures one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

The Banishment

Izgnanie
a film by Andrey Zvyagintsev

The story takes place in an unspecified time and country, set partly in an old, neglected and isolated rural house, and partly in an austere, heavily industrialised city. Alex and Mark are two brothers sharing a mutual respect and understanding, even if there seems no outward expression of affection between them. They appear also to share a background with a sense of criminality. When Mark arrives at Alex's house in the middle of the night after being shot, and refusing to see a doctor, Alex agrees to remove the bullet from his arm, asking no questions.

Alex and his wife Vera then leave the city with their children to spend a few weeks in the remote but seemingly idyllic country house belonging to his late father, where he and Mark spent their childhood. But the tranquillity is broken one day when Vera makes the shocking confession that she is pregnant and that the child is not his. Alex is completely stunned and withdraws into himself. Unable to communicate with Vera, despite her attempts at an explanation, he refuses to listen. He insists that they keep up appearances for the sake of the children, but when their friends visit one day with their family, it becomes clear to them that something is deeply wrong.

Alex's son Kir reveals that his father's friend Robert was at their house one day while he was away for two months working, and Alex concludes that Robert is the baby's father. At a complete loss as to what he should do, Alex turns to his brother Mark for help. Mark's own marriage ended years before and he has since overcome the loss of his children by simply pretending they do not exist. Mark tells Alex that whatever his decision is, it will be right, and Alex finally decides that Vera's pregnancy must be terminated. Mark gives Alex some money and also tells him about a gun he left behind in a drawer of the dresser in the house.

When Alex eventually begins to speak to Vera, it is to inform her of his decision, offering her no choice or possibility of further discussion. He tells her that once it is done their lives can return to normal. While Vera is shocked by his callous and selfish approach, she accepts his decision. Alex believes that the moral responsibility rests with him, giving him the authority to make such a decision alone. But having done so, he then withdraws into an even greater isolation from the immediate situation, leaving all the practical arrangements to Mark.

The children are invited to stay overnight with the family friends. Mark finds two abortionists who come to the house where they perform the operation and leave Vera resting in bed. But beginning to have serious doubts about what he has done, Alex then becomes worried about Vera. Mark at first tries to reassure him that she will be fine, until he realises that she has fallen into a coma, when he calls a doctor friend for assistance. After examining her the doctor tells Mark that Vera is dead. When Alex realises what has happened he is filled with remorse, seeing the tragic outcome of his action over the pregnancy, which already seems insignificant compared with the loss he now faces.

Mark quickly makes the arrangements for Vera's funeral so that the abortion can be covered up to avoid any incriminations or local gossip. But after their return to the house he suffers a heart attack and is forbidden by the doctor to leave his bed. The doctor then tells Mark that Vera had died not as a result of the abortion but from a massive dose of opiates she had taken intentionally to kill herself and he gives Mark a letter she had written on the back of a pregnancy test result. Mark reads the letter but decides to keep this revelation from Alex.

Despite the doctor's warning, Mark attends Vera's funeral but as a result, dies on the journey home from the church. Alex returns alone to the city, taking with him the gun from the dresser. He drives to Robert's house intending to kill him, but finding no one at home, falls asleep in the car until Robert returns when he invites Alex indoors. As Alex retrieves the gun from the glove box of the car, he discovers the envelope, placed there by Mark, containing the results of Vera's pregnancy test with her letter written on the back.

The film then cuts seamlessly to a flashback of the time Robert came to Alex's home while he was away working. It is revealed that the day before, Vera had attempted to commit suicide by overdosing but had been saved by Robert. The following day, Vera received the letter confirming her pregnancy and had confided this to Robert, also revealing that she had not had an affair with him and that the baby was in fact Alex's. Vera had tried to explain to Robert how Alex only loved her and the children for himself, like possessions. She was scared that if it were to continue that way, everything would die, and she did not want to give birth to the dying. Alex is left with this knowledge and that Vera had chosen instead to take her own life.

Exploring the isolation of individuals and the tragic consequences of their failure to make emotional contact, the tale is a stark, grave allegory of masculine pride, morality and betrayal. Biblical references abound, but with a greater significance and poignancy than we are perhaps aware of initially – as with the child's bedtime reading from I Corinthians 13, whilst Vera is dying alone, unable to endure a life in which love and hope are entirely absent. The cinematography is outstanding, with a stunning use of colour and texture, every shot lit and framed to breathtaking perfection. The almost predatory camera continually moves and pans, following the characters' every thought, exposing their deepest secrets. The hauntingly powerful soundtrack, which includes the music of Andrey Dergatchev and Arvo Pärt, accentuates the film's sense of impending tragedy, drawing us ever deeper in our entrancement.

The Return

Vozvrashcheniye
a film by Andrey Zvyagintsev

The story of two young brothers, Andrey and Vanya, who live with their mother and grandmother in a small coastal town in northern Russia. The pair have an especially close bond, compensating in their own way for a childhood spent growing up without a father. One day, running home after a fight with neighbourhood kids, the boys are shocked to discover their father has returned after a twelve year absence. The following day, with their mother's uneasy blessing, Andrey and Vanya set out on what they believe will be a fishing holiday with this enigmatic stranger.

Andrey, the elder brother, is desperate for a father figure in his life, openly seeking his father's approval at all times and accepting of his unpredictable, dominating and often dangerous tendencies. Vanya however is rebellious, seething with barely disguised rage at the man who now presumes to enter their lives and assert his authority, the younger son resists and defies his father at every opportunity.

Throughout their week spent together, the mood is ominous and the father's motives remain unclear. The mystery surrounding his history and the underlying purpose of their journey to a remote island is never explained to Andrey and Vanya. Their father has some nefarious business to conclude involving the retrieval of a buried strong box from a ruined building within the island's interior, although this is of no significance to the children. But as their suppressed emotions begin to rise to the surface, the story reaches a shocking and unexpected conclusion leaving the two brothers in a situation which, to some extent, their journey has prepared them for.

In his outstanding and beautifully captured first feature, Andrey Zvyagintsev explores the complex bonds between a father and his two sons under intense pressures and in unusual circumstances. A multi-layered tale of love and trust, estrangement and betrayal, on the uncharted and often painful journey into adulthood.

Beautiful Kate

A film by Rachel Ward

Set in a forbidding landscape on a homestead in the majestic Flinders Ranges in remote South Australia, it is the story of writer Ned Kendall, his relationship as a teenager with his twin sister Kate, and the emotional aftermath of a series of tragic events which unfold when he is sixteen.

Told in parallel narratives of past and present, the story follows the adult Ned's return to the family home after an absence of twenty years at the request of his dying father, Bruce. He hasn't seen his estranged father since he left home following Kate's tragic death in a car accident and the subsequent suicide of his brother, Cliff. Ned starts to recall memories of his beautiful twin sister and himself when they were children which awaken long-buried secrets from the family's past.

Ned is accompanied by his young fiancée Toni, who knows nothing about his family and is surprised to learn of the existence of his twin. When Toni stumbles on Ned's teen diary, which recounts the three siblings' struggles growing up in isolation, she is astonished by the revelations and flees back to the city, leaving father and son alone together. Under the watchful eye of the vast, imposing mountains past events become clearer to Ned and he realises, almost too late, that he has wrongly held his father responsible for what happened all those years ago. With the help of younger sister Sally, Ned sees the truth for the first time and is finally able to let go of his beloved twin sister and begin the emotional journey of reconciliation with his estranged father.

Rachel Ward's directorial debut is an evocative, haunting and confrontational gothic drama of family conflict, taboo relationships and unresolved guilt.

Les biches

A film by Claude Chabrol

Frédérique is a rich and glamourous woman who, on a whim picks up Why, a young and impoverished Parisian girl who makes a living as a pavement artist drawing pictures of does. She promptly seduces Why and whisks her away to a new life of luxuriant bohemia in Saint-Tropez. At first a little hesitant, Why then quickly assumes the role of Frédérique's protegée and lover, despite being really little more than an object for the older woman's frivolous amusement.

It is December and Saint-Tropez is empty. When the young architect, Paul Thomas, comes to a party at Frédérique's lavish villa he has eyes only for Why. She in turn is enticed by his attention and the two wander out for a walk, eventually spending the night together at Paul's house. Frédérique however, has dispatched Robèque and Riais, an eccentric gay couple staying at her home, to follow the pair and report back to her. When Frédérique learns of the events of their night together, she appears amused by the development but is already plotting a counter-attack in the callous game she plays.

Frédérique goes to meet Paul where he is working and confronts him about Why. He is dismissive of the affair, attempting to demonstrate that he has no wish to take Why from her. Frédérique however, seduces Paul and when they return to her house it is clear to Why what Frédérique has done, and that the game has moved on. Knowing that her very existence in Frédérique's world now hangs by a thread, Why has to accept her new status as she quietly awaits the chance to regain Paul's affection. As a rather awkward and volatile ménage-à-trois results, Frédérique, malicious and all-conquering, ensures that Why's hopes of sharing Paul as a lover are dashed at every opportunity.

As Why spends more time alone, she begins to adopt the persona of Frédérique, dressing in her clothes and jewellery, using make-up to take on her appearance, and by impersonating her voice. But when Paul encounters Why, dressed and made up to look, extremely convincingly, like a younger version of Frédérique, Paul is shocked and fails to respond in the intended way.

Frédérique and Paul then leave for Paris and although she is told she can stay at the villa alone, Why knows that her relationship with both of them has come to an end. There is only one course of action left to her, and the voices in her head tell her exactly what she must do.

A tense, suspenseful and hypnotic character study exploring a theme of jealousy and obsession.

One Deadly Summer

L'été meurtrier
a film by Jean Becker

Eliane Wieck, an attractive and extremely provocative nineteen-year-old, returns to her Provençal village home with her crippled father, Gabriel Devigne, and German mother, Paula. The normally sleepy village is jolted by her arrival, especially the menfolk who are mesmerised by her looks, and Elle is not shy of all the attention. But gradually her true personality and purpose emerges.

As a nine-year-old child Elle had learned by accident that her beloved father, for whom she had a very deep and close affection, was not her real father. She also discovered that her mother had been the victim of a brutal rape by three men, which subsequently led to her birth. The secret, severely traumatising her and making her suspicious about the nature of the love of her adopted father, led her to attack him when she was fourteen, beating him repeatedly about the head and leaving him paraplegic. Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful and even more affected, but since that time her entire existence has become an obsession with vengeance, with the belief that once accomplished, she will recover the love and affection from and for her father, and everything in her life will be put right.

Fiorimonto Montecciari, known as Pin Pon, is a decent and simple man, his family are proud of their Italian descent. In their barn stands the barrel organ which played "Roses de Picardie" during the rape, and this Italian organ-grinder's instrument becomes, for Elle, the symbol of her sense of injustice. She schemes to entrap Pin Pon into marrying her, in order to get close to the heart of his family. But it quickly becomes clear that Elle is mentally unstable. Her behaviour in a restaurant embarrasses Pin Pon, with her outbursts and tears, and her relationship with her mother is difficult and quasi-sexual. At times she regresses into a child-like vulnerability, and at others she is wantonly malicious and unruly. A master manipulator, Elle manages to turn friend against friend and brother against brother, until her dark secret is discovered. But finally, when the truth of what subsequently happened is revealed to her by her father, it results in the most unexpected and violent conclusion.

At first appearing to be a light romantic comedy, this very unusual film develops into a disturbing and compelling, complex psychological thriller.

Katyń

A film by Andrzej Wajda

The Katyń massacre was a mass murder of thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war by the Soviet NKVD during World War II.

On 17 September 1939, on the strength of the agreements included in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army crossed the Polish eastern border. By the end of the month all Polish eastern provinces had been occupied and nearly 18,000 officers, 230,000 soldiers, and about 12,000 police officers had been taken prisoner. Among the POWs were officers of all ranks and a dozen generals. A majority of the POWs were officers of the reserve, most of whom came from the Polish intelligentsia, and also military chaplains of different denominations. By the end of October the detained officers had been imprisoned in the camps of Kosielsk, Starobielsk, and Ostashkovo. An official document, based on Beria's proposal to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps, was approved by the entire Politburo on 5 March 1940. An estimated 22,000 Polish prisoners were murdered in the spring of 1940 in the NKVD centres in the Katyń Forest, Tver, and Kharkov.

The German army moving east discovered the Katyń graves in April 1943. The USSR authorities denied the German charges about committing the crime on Polish POWs, declaring that the murder had been committed in 1941 by the Germans. The Western Allies had an implicit, if unwilling, hand in the ensuing cover-up in their endeavour not to antagonise a then ally, the Soviet Union. Throughout the existence of the People's Republic of Poland, the truth about the Katyń crime was decisively and unscrupulously falsified. The subject of Katyń was off limits and the advocates of the truth were persecuted and severely punished. Families of the murdered could not even light candles on the symbolic graves of their kinsmen. Only as recently as 1989 has the truth of Katyń emerged, with the USSR authorities admitting for the first time in 1990 that the crime was committed by the Soviet NKVD.

The film takes the perspective of women caught up in the atrocity and its aftermath, who, unaware of the crime, were still waiting for their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers to return. It is a film about the continuing struggle over history and memory, and an uncompromising exploration of the cover-up of the massacre that prevented the Polish people from commemorating those who had been killed.