The Manchurian Candidate

John Frankenheimer's 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate could well be one of the most unsettling films of all times. I originally saw it as a young man, probably no more than a teenager, back in the 60s, and it did stayed in my mind all this time. Shot at the peak of the cold war, and released at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, it gets its strength from, and fed, the red paranoia of those years. Nothing in it is what it seems to be. Even the last scene, its climax, whilst on one side I could see it coming, on the other hand I was not so sure, as all the expectations were confounded throughout it.

One of most unsettling scenes of all times is at the beginning of this film, as Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), a soldier captured by a Russian squad during the Korean war, responds to a white haired woman in what seemed to be a kind of tea party political event; although it is not, the white haired woman being a Russian officer, and the audience composed of gentle women are, in fact, Russian and Korean military personnel. The camera pans and pans, hallucinating, every time, the scene is different. Raymond Shaw returns to the USA as a decorated soldier who heroically saved his platoon under the fire of superior enemy forces; yet the two men lost in that action were murdered by him under the command of the Russians, after having been psychologically programmed.

After his return to the USA, he abruptly distances himself from his mother, an extreme right wing political activist (reminiscences of McCarthy here) who, in fact, is a Russian operative. His assassin's rifle is on his intended victim, a presidential candidate: will he?

It is highly improbable that our times' paranoia can ever generate a film this intense and unsettling: this time the "enemy" are not necessarily in our midst, and, even if they are, they can be "easily" be identified as those aliens with brown skin and a funny religion.

This film shows that pretty boy Frank Sinatra could actually act, Laurence Harvey strongly conveying the unlovability of Raymond Shaw, one of the central themes in the film.

LATEST: THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE WILL BE RELEASED ON 16th APRIL

Down with the Oscars!!!!

It's about time that the cinematic supremacy of the Oscars should be challenged. After all, this is not a ceremony rewarding films, but a ceremony rewarding American films, with the odd British one thrown in sometimes. This, year I was bitterly disappointed that Carey Mulligan's powerful performance as Jenny in "An Education" led to nowhere. On the plus side, this year the Oscars made history by giving the award to a woman as Best Director, it was about time, anyway. However, masterpieces such as The White Ribbon, A Prophet were relegated to that second class category of film not in the English language. Do that mean that only those people who have English as their first language can make good films? Almost any other film festival in the world celebrates film in any language, from anywhere in the world.

It is time that the American realize that they do not longer are the only people making good films in this times. After all, film was not an American invention, although they would believe it is, as they are so adept in rewriting history.

The Oscars is no more than a cultural imperialist relic which should be confined to the pit of history.

Down with the Oscars!!!!
Down with the Hollywood crap!!!!!

A Prophet

This film is probably the best I've seen this year, Audiard shows a mastery of the medium that is hardly seen in British, and American, filmmakers. The film itself is very cerebral, it is difficult to have any emotional sympathy to the main character, Malik, or, indeed, to any of the other characters in it. A set of nastier characters like this lot  has rarely been seen in cinema, certainly not in American or British cinema, as far as I know. I do not pretent not even for one second to know what Audiard intended to do with this film (I know that he has indicated that he only makes films, not sociological treatises, or something on those lines), however, I could not stop thinking that this story could well be a metaphor for a runaway capitalist society, with dealings and counter dealing, and every body crossing everybody else, back stabbing: constant movement and tension throughout the whole of the film, the camera handling contributing to the sense of unease that permeated it.

Truly, A Prophet is a great film, a clear demonstration that French filmmakers has not lost the knack for making good stylish thrillers.

My first and only crush in a celebrity actress...

When Whistle Down the Wind came out back in the early sixties, I fell in love, desperately in love, with its young actress Hayley Mills. I was then a young boy myself, probably about the same age than Hayley, but separated by half the world and a language. I was then still living on a land that shakes... The film stayed in my mind for years, until BBC2 screened a few years ago and, presto, I got my video copy of it. I watched it again last night, my boyhood's crush on Hayley still vividly present in me, as the autographed photos she sent me over the next few years (two, actually), and a letter from her agent thanking me after I pointed out (I've been all my life a pain in the neck) that tigers do not exist in Southamerica, as shown In Search of the Castaways, just to find out that in the original English copy of the film there no reference to tigers, but to a jaguar (a case of the wrong translation in the subtitles in the Spanish language print). Still, I got the photos, which I kept for years. They were left back in Chile when I came to England... together with my childhood...

Watch the first ever "Alice in Wonderland" on line!

"Alice in Wonderland (1903), the first-ever film version of Lewis Carroll's tale, has recently been restored by the BFI National Archive and premiered at a celebration of the history of the classic story at the British Library." - BFI

Follow the link to watch it:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/nftva/work/alice.html?utm_source=20100302alice&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20100302alice