Everyday

This is the film I preferred of those that I saw in the film festival in Dinard. It was introduced by its director, Michael Winterbottom, looking alarmingly young for a man who has directed 37 films. The film was made over a period of five years and it is about a family with four children. It shows in detail the day-to-day routine of the family's life, particularly as the children are got up, given breakfast and got off to school in the morning and collected in the afternoon. There are several scenes shot in the school showing the children during their classes. There are amazingly touching scenes of the children, who are real-life siblings and are too young to 'act', but are caught by Winterbottom in authentic moments of emotion and vulnerability.

The anomaly is that the father, Ian, is in prison so, very often, the children must be rounded up by their mother, Karen, put on a bus, then on a train, then into a taxi, to take them to visit their father in prison.

This film has not had a cinema release yet in the UK, although it has been shown on television. In Googling for reviews I did not find many, and some of those that I did find expressed disappointment that the film is boring because nothing happens. This is true, nothing happens, except Life. Those who make this complaint are those who have overdosed on Hollywood entertainment taken neat.

I very much admired recently the films of Asghar Farhadi, About Elly and A Separation. One thing I admired about these films was how, from very simple beginnings, the plot thickened, and how simple situations led to unexpected sequences. Everyday is the opposite. Little situations that may have made us tense because they may have led to trouble, didn't. This is just the same as how, usually, when one maybe forgot to lock the front door, one returns home to find that a no burglar has been in. These little anxieties occur but usually they are okay, and that is how it is in this film. The film is set in rural Norfolk and when one of the children, aged about seven, takes a hunting rifle and goes off into the woods looking for rabbits, nothing goes wrong and he is finally found by by his mother, given a smack, and sent to bed. I admired this film because it does not have acting shtick and it does not have dramatic shtick, which was so refreshing after so many films I have seen err in the other direction.
 
I course the mother does not need any more drama then she already has, with four children, an absent father, just a little occasional help from her mother in law, a job in B&Q during the day and a job serving in a pub in the evening. She is played very well by Shirley Henderson and her husband is played very charmingly by John Simm. The scenes of prison visits were shot in real prisons and the scenes in the classroom was shot in a real school.

The film is intercut with occasional scenes of the rural environment - fields, rolling hils, sheep and woods. The soundtrack has lovely music by Michael Nyman.

There are some scenes of family outings - trips to the seaside - showing that another man has seeped into her life, although we see no details other than that he occasionally joins them on outings and has tea with them. When, towards the end of the film, Ian is out of prison, there is a scene where they are in bed, him asleep and her, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, and suddenly her eyes fill with tears and she says "You know, it was really hard, while you were away." He half wakes up

    "what...?"
    "I was seeing someone."
    "You were seeing someone while I was inside??"
    "Yes."
    "Who was it, who were you seeing??"
    "Eddy"
    "I don't believe it. You were seeing fuckin' Eddy??

So it goes on. There are shots of the children in their rooms hearing their parents' raised voices.The next morning Ian is at the breakfast table not looking as though he had a particularly good night but over it.

I think that with this film Michael Winterbottom has made a quiet masterpiece.

Argo

This is a very good film in many departments. It is gripping, entertaining, humorous, witty, well directed and well acted. It is a pity it has such a fatal flaw.

The film starts with a pre-credit sequence giving a decent summary of the United States' shameful diplomacy towards Iran. It recounts how, in 1953, United States destabilised and brought down a democratically elected government. Then it installed a puppet Shah and during 25 years provided him with money, arms and equipment so that he could terrorise, murder, torture and imprison its population, and humiliate them with enforced westernisation. All this was to enable American corporations to prosper and to ensure that the United States would have reliable supply of oil.

The film is based on true events centring on the siege of the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979. As the embassy was being overrun six employees escaped out of the back door, ran through the streets, and found shelter in the Official residence of the Canadian Ambassador. The CIA sought to rescue these people, and that is what this film is about.

The film is directed by, and stars, Ben Affleck. Affleck has acted in more than 50 films and this is the third feature that he has directed. The previous two films that he directed, Gone, Baby, Gone and The Town Were solid, good quality films. With Argo I am sure that he will have a place at the high table of American filmmaking. The first time I saw this film, in the London film Festival in 2012, There was a round of applause in the cinema at a pivotal point in the story. The only previous occasions when I have experienced applause in the cinema have been during festival screenings when someone involved in the making of the film was present, not as a response to some development in the narrative. This, I think, is testimony to Argo's effectiveness as a gripping drama.

The film has good, juicy parts for John Goodman and Alan Arkin. Arkin is best known for his part Catch-22 and has acted in over 100 films. He was also a singer and has written several books. Goodman made his name in the television series Roseanne and subsequently established his reputation in films such as The Big Lebowski. Argo has a witty script, written by first-time writer Chris Terrio. Set in 1979, the film does a good job of reflecting the fashions and manners of that time without fetishising them.

Argo's problem arises from its internal contradiction. Its pre-credit sequence shows America's dreadful history colluding in the oppression of Iran for its own venal advantage; a history demanding justice. The bulk of the film, however, shows the United States cocking yet another snook at this unfortunate country, and emerging with the smirk on its face. Justice will not be done and might is right.

La Piscine

La Piscine was made in 1968 and it was directed by Jacques Deray. There are four glorious European stars in their prime: Alain Delon in a dark and complex role, Maurice Ronet delivering the superficial charm he does so well, Romy Schneider looking impossibly beautiful and Jane Birkin just out of nappies.

I have read several online reviews of this film and none of them understood it, most commenting that it is a bit too long and a bit too slow, and it takes too long for anything to happen. Thank God there was someone at the BFI who knew better!

I am a person who instinctively looks below the surface of things and for me this film is a feast.

It is set in a borrowed holiday villa in the south of France, where Jean-Paul (Delon) and Marianne (Schneider) are on holiday together and spend their days fooling around by the swimming pool. Suddenly a mutual friend, Harry (Ronet) telephones and invites himself with his daughter, Penelope (Birkin), and they arrive in an expensive and throaty sports car. They join in the fun by the swimming pool, prepare meals together and do a bit of shopping. Harry is a playboy type and an old friend of Jean-Paul, also a possible ex-lover of Marianne - it's for us and Jean-Paul to find out. As they play together there is a storm of undercurrents and one of the main pleasures of the film is enjoying the difference between their polite exchanges and what they are thinking. It has very often been commented that the cinema must accept the limitation that it can work with only surface appearances. This film is proof of the contrary.

Rendering the film more evocative is one's knowledge of Romy Schneider's tragic life (she had a son who died in an awful accident when he was fourteen years old, and subsequently Romy Schneider killed herself with alcohol and pills). Delon and Schneider had been lovers and after her death Delon arranged for her son's remains to be put in the same grave as her. Ronet, who as a painter exhibited alongside Dubuffet and played piano and organ, died of cancer a month before his 56th birthday; Alain Delon, now in his mid-seventies, is still a kingpin of the jet set life in Geneva, his adopted home, and we all know how Jane Birkin is!

This film reminds me of the work of Claude Chabrol and if this were a Chabrol film it would be one of his best. The restauration is marvellous and the image, the place, the Sun and the stars look wonderful up on the screen.

Skyfall

This is a hugely enjoyable film that should give the Bond franchise a new lease of life. It starts with a pre-credit chase sequence in which one has no idea what is going on, other than that Bond is being chased, if one recognises Daniel Craig. The film continues with this knowingness, riffing frequently and often humorously on previous bond films.

After the chase there is the most glorious credit sequence I can remember seeing for a long time, accompanied by the excellent theme song written and performed by Adele (known to her mother as Adele Laurie Blue Adkins).

Bond's adversary, Silva, is played by Javier Bardem and his boss, M, by the ever-present Judy Dench. In this film M is not just a remote presence, but she plays an active role in the proceedings. As I watched the film I was tempted by the idea that this, along with Live Flesh,  could be one of Bardem's best films. He has a lot to do and he throws himself imaginatively into his nicely characterised role.

I have much respect for Daniel Craig since I saw him in Our Friends In The North. I recently managed to see him in Layer Cake which, I have heard, got him the Bond role. Here, I thought, he was quite interestingly on the cusp of being too old for the part, although we see that his body is in magnificent condition.

One of the qualities of the film is its humorous riffing on other other films. There is a scene reminding us of Apocalypse Now, with a helicopter approaching blaring music from Tannoys. An old Aston Martin car from the previous bond film is dusted off and used here in tongue-in-cheek way. Although the film has plenty of scenes abroad, particularly in Turkey and Macao, it is not a rootless international mess, but is firmly rooted in a plausible London that would not offend Londoners. There is an excellent British cast, including Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw excellent as a computer geek, Rory Kinnear as a bureaucratic flunky and Albert Finney humiliating hidden behind a huge beard. Female interest is provided by Naomie Harris and Berenice Marlohe. My only slight disappointment with the film was the lack of wit and spark in the exchanges between Bond and these desirable females. These occasionally fell flat for me. I was recently reminded of what wit can do for a script while watching Argo.

This is Sam Mendes' eighth film as director and he has entered very well into the spirit of how a Bond film should be.