Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 262: Sun Sep 21

 Remorques/Stormy Waters (Gremillon, 1941): Cine Lumiere, 2pm 

Peter Mandelson’s grandfather Herbert Morrison, deputy Prime Minister in Clement Attlee’s landmark post-War Labour government, famously carried his Desert Island Discs choices in his wallet, expecting the call to appear on the programme. It was an invitation that sadly was never extended to him and I thought of that tale when I was actually asked to contribute to the most famous of all movie polls, run by Sight & Sound magazine, the latest of which was in 2022. All those years of trawling the previous decades choices with rapt fascination, reading the articles on the canon and the time keeping that running list of my ten all-time favourites that were inevitable mixed up with the greatest in my head was not wasted. Now, though, I was going to be forced to think about it and make a definitive list. Others were doing the same, prompting responses varying widely from “it’s a bit of fun” to “it’s agony”. 

The more I thought about it the more I wanted my contribution to be just that, a genuine heartfelt one, made up of the films I desperately wanted people to see but had not been considered in the previous voting, and modestly hoping for a re-evalution of the choices. I made two rules. All of the films in my list (reproduced below) would deserve to be part of the Sight & Sound Greatest poll conversation and all the choices would not have received a single vote in the previous 2012 poll.

Some in this list are simply neglected favourites but in other cases there are very good reasons some of these films have been overlooked. Jean Grémillon, for instance, faded from view after an ill-fated directorial career, and has only resurfaced in the last decade with devoted retrospectives and DVD releases. The heartbreaking Remorques is one of his masterpieces. The Alfred Hitchcock melodrama Under Capricorn, which quickly disappeared after bombing at the box office and the subsequent dissolving of the director’s production company, deserves high rank in the Master’s work but languishes in limbo, only seen at major retrospectives. The Exiles and Spring Night, Summer Night are both once lost American independent classics only just receiving their due after recent rediscovery. White Dog, after a desultory release overshadowed by misguided accusations of racism, was not in circulation for many years. Warhol's Vinly, based on Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, was shown in 2013 from (fortuitously I later discovered) 16mm in an ICA gallery and felt thrillingly authentic, the sound of the whirring projector and the artist’s singular framing combining to create a mesmeric experience. Here is the full list:

Remorques/Stormy Waters (Jean Grémillon, 1941)

Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1949)

The Exiles (Kent Mackenzie, 1961)

La Baie des anges/Bay of Angels (Jacques Demy, 1963)

Vinyl (Andy Warhol, 1965)

Spring Night, Summer Night (Jospeh L. Anderson, 1967)

Heroic Purgatory (Yosgishige Yoshida, 1970)

Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)

White Dog (Sam Fuller, 1982)

Three Times (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2005)

Six from the list have been shown in a London cinema since the poll appeared and now the Jean Grémillon film gets three screenings at Cine Lumiere on September 21st, 23rd and 26th. Full details can be found here.

Chicago Reader review:
Dave Kehr has rightly called Jean Gremillon “Jean Renoir's only serious rival in the prewar French cinema,” largely on the basis of Gueule d'amour (1937), Gremillon's first film with Jean Gabin. But the director released three comparably impressive features during the occupation, starting with this 1941 drama about a gruff, married salvage-boat captain in Brittany (Gabin) falling for the recently estranged wife (Michele Morgan) of a ruthless captain whose merchant ship he's towing to safety. Gabin and Morgan may have been the hottest couple this side of Bogart and Bacall, and despite some awkward use of miniatures in the early stretches, this benefits from stormy atmospherics, masterful characterization, and expressive use of sound. The script was adapted successively by Charles Spaak, Andre Cayatte, and Jacques Prevert from a novel by Roger Vercel. With Madeleine Renaud.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

 

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 261: Sat Sep 20

Our Mother’s House (Clayton, 1967): Close-Up Cinema, 8pm

This screening is introduced by Ranjit S. Ruprai and followed by discussion with film critic Phuong Le.

Close-Up Cinema introduction: Jack Clayton’s strange, gothic film takes place in a shadowy, old house in south London. A home in which secrets must be kept by 7 children about their dead mother as they try to continue their lives whilst avoiding the orphanage. What happens to a parental home when it suddenly becomes parentless? The children, including a pre-Oliver! Mark Lester, form a mother cult with a sacred shrine and disturbing seances. Into this bizarre situation returns the absent father, played by Dirk Bogarde, a charming and devious character. This rarely screened British film is a marvellous curio.

Time Out review: In this matter of fact tale of the macabre, seven children, the eldest aged 13, stick together to carry on as normal after their mother's death. With the old girl safely buried in the garden, all looks to be going smoothly, until ne'er-do-well Bogarde turns up claiming he's their long-lost dad. Intriguing material (adapted from the novel by Julian Gloag)

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 260: Fri Sep 19

Ain't Nothing With You (Frankenberg, 1985): ICA Cinema, 6.30pm

This screening will be introduced by the season curator, Laura Staab and followed by an in-person Q&A with the director Pia Frankenberg.

The main feature will be shown after a 35mm screening of director Pia Frankenberg's short film The Assault. “Someone can just slap me and call it art,” bemoaned the West German interior minister in 1983, while restricting funding for cultural productions that he deemed more “provocative” than “entertaining.” Pia Frankenberg’s striking satire runs with that image – the slap as art – and plays up the riotous fun that can be had in political provocation. Chasing after a frenzied wave of face-smacking, The Assault mobilises speed and associative montage to suggest how quickly individuals can fall in line with a new reality – whether that reality is violent and repressive, or liberatory and hilariously absurd. 

ICA introduction:
In Pia Frankenberg’s self-reflective first feature, a filmmaker, Martha, reckons with her commitments to the feminist and activist politics of the ’60s and ’70s. Martha shares her Hamburg flat with Portuguese immigrants, and speaks with an interviewer about filmmaking. Questions of feminist aesthetics, along with mediocre flings and class guilt, threaten to freeze Martha in a state of doubt. When she crashes into Alfred, an architecture student, while skating home from the cinema (swooning with admiration at Wim Wenders’s latest), she finds a partner in indecision. Taking place in Hamburg one winter, Ain’t Nothin’ Without You is filmed beautifully by New German Cinema cameraman Thomas Mauch in hibernal black-and-white. Frankenberg casts herself as Martha, performing with self-deprecating charm and delightfully noisy musicality in her first lead role. A comedy of several moving parts – “like an orchestra… loud… and not necessarily in sync” – this lively film is capacious enough to poke fun not just at individual characters, but also at the wider sociopolitics of the ’80s. From the incompetence of immigration administrators to the superficial diversity of new media, little eludes Frankenberg’s wit.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 259: Thu Sep 18

Nobody's Wife (Bemberg, 1982): Cine Lumiere, 4pm

This 4K UK premiere also screens at Cine Lumiere on September 7th and 11th.

Cinema Restored introduction:
Leonor is an upper-middle-class, committed housewife whose comfortable life falls apart when she learns of her husband’s infidelity. With more fear than conviction, she sets out on a voyage of self-discovery. It is an act born of integrity, a refusal to live a lie, but as her encounters with family and economic institutions reinforce her social non-existence, it becomes a gesture of active resistance. Made under the military regime, the story of Leonor’s move from a family home and a life centred on pleasing others to a desire to create a life outside “the system” was dangerously challenging to the symbolic order in place. María Luisa Bemberg struggled for five years to get her script approved by censors, who saw her criticism extending from family to state, and Leonor as an emblem of rupture.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 258: Wed Sep 17

The Big Heat (Lang, 1953): Cinema Museum, 7.30pm

This is a 16mm screening in the Kennington Noir strand at the Cinema Museum.

Chicago Reader review:
Fritz Lang’s sizzling 1953 film noir masterpiece features Glenn Ford (in his best performance—perhaps his only performance) as an anguished cop out to smash a maddeningly effete mobster (Alexander Scourby) and break the hold he has on a corrupt city administration. With sensational support from Lee Marvin as a sadistic hood and Gloria Grahame as Marvin’s bad/good girlfriend, whose reward for hanging around is a faceful of scalding coffee. Brutal, atmospheric, and exciting—highly recommended.
Don Druker

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 257: Tue Sep 16

Summer of Fear (Craven, 1978): The Nickel Cinema, 6.30pm

This screening will be introduced by Craig Williams.

Nickel Cinema introduction:
Wes Craven steps out of the slasher spotlight into the realm of supernatural suspense with Summer of Fear, a tense story of adolescent unease and family paranoia. When an enigmatic cousin arrives in a small town, a young girl’s life unravels as mysterious accidents and dark influences mount. Craven’s keen eye for dread and atmosphere, combined with a slow-burning sense of menace, makes this more than a TV movie: it’s an intimate study of fear infiltrating the ordinary.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 256: Mon Sep 15

Waiting for Guffman (Guest, 1996): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm

This film, part of the Christopher Guest season at Prince Charles Cinema, is also a £1 for members movie. Full details here.

Time Out review:
First in a trio of fond satires on small-time strivers (Best in Show and A Mighty Wind being the others), Christopher Guest's spoof documentary tracks the earnest enthusiasm and goofy dedication of a ragtag troupe of amateur thesps putting on a musical - 'Red, White and Blaine' - in celebration of the anniversary of their hick town in Minnesota. Guest's effete Corky St Clair is the prissy master of ceremonies - a resident genius, if you believe his collaborators, who include Eugene Levy's vaudevillian dentist, Parker Posey's toothy ex-Dairy Queen waitress, and another superlative turn from Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara as a Mr and Mrs team of travel agents. There are some raucous moments (Corky's hip-swivelling domestic dance moves are a sight to behold), but more often the comedy has the slow burn of a richly nuanced and non-judgmental character study.
Nicholas Barber 

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 255: Sun Sep 14

I Flunked, But ... (Ozu, 1930): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.55pm

This film, also screening on October 7th, is part of the Big Screen Classics strand. Details here.

BFI introduction:
Takahashi and his friends decide to cheat in their end-of-year exams by writing a series of the answers on the shirts they plan to wear. But their plan doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped. With more than a passing nod to Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman, Ozu’s comedy is a tightly directed classic with global appeal, and features expert comic choreography and strong visual humour.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 254: Sat Sep 13

Hai-Tang/The Flame of Love (Eichberg/Summers, 1930): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.15pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the Anna May Wong season at BFI Southbank. The screening of Hai-Tang on Tuesday 23rd September will be introduced by season curator Xin Peng. 

BFI introduction:
Wong navigated the transition from silent to sound cinema with intensive linguistic and vocal training, and thrived in the short-lived era of multiple-language co-productions. In her first talkie, which tells the story of a love affair between a dancing girl and a Russian lieutenant, Wong speaks English, French and German in three different versions. She so impressed with her German that some local audiences thought she had been dubbed. This is the British version of the film.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 253: Fri Sep 12

Black Rain (Scott, 1989): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.35pm

This film, also screening on September 19th, is part of the Ridley Scott season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.

BFI introduction:
After witnessing a Yakuza hit in a Manhattan restaurant, hardboiled New York detective Nick Conklin is charged with escorting the offending gang member back to Japan. Duped into handing him over to Yakuza posing as cops, Conklin teams up with a local detective to track the suspect down, only to be caught in the crossfire of a turf war. Osaka receives the full Scott treatment – resembling a neon-drenched future-world, it’s the perfect backdrop to this high-wire action thriller.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 252: Thu Sep 11

Eraserhead (Lynch, 1976): Rio Cinema, 8.30pm

This film takes me back to an era before video, DVD and social media when print and word-of-mouth were the main forms of communication where a film was concerned. Lynch's debut was a must-see back in the late 1970s and it was fitting that the movie had its premiere at a midnight screening at the Cinema Village in New York as the midnight-movie circuit was responsible for popularising this indefinable work. Eraserhead is a seminal work in the history of independent film and is as much a must-see now for anyone interested in what film can achieve.

The screening will be preceded by an illustrated introduction from author Tom Huddleston to celebrate the publication of his new book from Frances Lincoln Publishing entitled David Lynch: His Work, His World, exploring Lynch's early life and work, and the remarkable journey that led to the creation of Eraserhead. There'll also be a short Q&A.

Chicago Reader review:
David Lynch describes his first feature (1977) as “a dream of dark and troubling things,” and that's about as close as anyone could get to the essence of this obdurate blend of nightmare imagery, Grand Guignol, and camp humor. Some of it is disturbing, some of it is embarrassingly flat, but all of it shows a degree of technical accomplishment far beyond anything else on the midnight-show circuit. With Jack Nance and Charlotte Stewart.'
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the original trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 251: Wed Sep 10

Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Rohmer, 1987): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm

This is part of the Eric Rohmer season at the Prince Charles Cinema. Details here.

Time Out review:
In Eric Rohmer's slight but delightful low-key account of the up-and-down friendship between two teenage girls, the naturalistic performances are, as ever, supremely credible, with unknowns Miquel and Forde stealing the honours as the eponymous heroines. Reinette is a charming if changeable country girl longing to become a successful painter, Mirabelle the Parisian student who offers to share her flat in town. The four largely un-dramatic adventures, first in the remote countryside, then in Paris, concentrate on their different reactions to the world: nature, social injustice, money, and in the wonderful final sequence, the familiar Rohmeresque problem of too much talk. It's all inescapably French (in the best sense) and concerned with the joys not only of good conversation but of seeing. Finally, for all its deliciously light humour and anecdotal quality, the film is essentially about people. Which other film-maker loves us, warts and all, so perceptively or so generously? Therein lies Rohmer's abiding genius.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 250: Tue Sep 9

La Cage Aux Folles (Molinaro, 1973): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm

This film is part of the Funeral Parade Presents strand. Full details here.

Time Out review: Barefoot black butler can't decide whether he's a Pearl Bailey or Paul Robeson. Father of the family has a teenage son by a heterosexual fling, and 'mother' is a drag star. Between them they make John Inman look like Richard Harris. But the son wants to marry the daughter of a morality campaigner, and the in-laws must meet... High camp and farce are acquired tastes, but even those who usually resist should find amusement in the last act's mounting hysteria. Although theatrical, it remains very funny, and uses the overt stereotyping with great sympathy. SM

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 249: Mon Sep 8

Shanghai Express (Von Sternberg, 1932): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm

This is part of the Anna May Wong season at BFI Southbank and also screens on September 28th. Tonight’s presentation features an introduction  by Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll.

Chicago Reader review: More action oriented than the other Dietrich-Sternberg films, this 1932 production is nevertheless one of the most elegantly styled. The setting, a broken-down train commandeered by revolutionaries on its way to Shanghai, becomes a maze of soft shadows and shifting textures, through which the characters wander in a philosophical quest for something—anything—solid. The screenplay, by Jules Furthman and an uncredited Howard Hawks, has a quality of wisecracking wit unusual in Sternberg's films: when someone asks Dietrich why she's going to Shanghai, she retorts, "To buy a new hat." Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 248: Sun Sep 7

Van Gogh (Pialat, 1991): ICA Cinema, 5pm

This film is part of the excellent Serge Daney season at the ICA Cinema. Details here.

Chicago Reader review: This revisionist look at the last 67 days of Vincent van Gogh’s life by the highly talented writer-director Maurice Pialat (La gueule ouverte, A nos amours, Under the Sun of Satan) shows the painter’s existence–including his sex life–to be a lot happier than is generally depicted. For starters, singer-songwriter-actor Jacques Dutronc–the “Bob Dylan of Paris” and the lead in Godard’s Every Man for Himself–plays the title part. But while it’s ironic that this 155-minute French art movie should be much sunnier than Vincente Minnelli’s or Robert Altman’s films on the same subject, it certainly qualifies as a personal work. (The period re-creations of Jean Renoir and John Ford remain the key reference points.) While the results shed little light on van Gogh’s painting, the mise en scene and the period flavor are both well worth attending to. With Alexandra London, Gerard Sety, Bernard le Coq, Corinne Bourdon, and Elsa Zylberstein. Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 247: Sat Sep 6

Good Morning, Boys! (Varnel, 1937): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.40pm

This is a 35mm presentation.

BFI introduction:

School Master Dr Twist is a self-serving fraud who teaches the boys in his care about the joys of cheating and gambling. His bad behaviour results in an invitation for the form to visit France, and soon Twist and his charges find themselves involved with the Parisian underworld. Hay’s character had previously been a big hit on stage and screen, and he delivers once again in this comedy classic.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 246: Fri Sep 5

Solaris (Tarkovsky, 1972): Prince Charles Cinema, 12pm

This 35mm presentation is also screened at the Prince Charles on August 28th.

Chicago Reader review:
Although Andrei Tarkovsky regarded this 1972 SF spectacle in 'Scope as the weakest of his films, it holds up remarkably well as a soulful Soviet “response” to 2001: A Space Odyssey, concentrating on the limits of man's imagination in relation to memory and conscience. Sent to a remote space station poised over the mysterious planet Solaris in order to investigate the puzzling data sent back by an earlier mission, a psychologist (Donatas Banionis) discovers that the planet materializes human forms based on the troubled memories of the space explorers—including the psychologist's own wife (Natalya Bondarchuk), who'd killed herself many years before but is repeatedly resurrected before his eyes. More an exploration of inner than of outer space, Tarkovsky's eerie mystic parable is given substance by the filmmaker's boldly original grasp of film language and the remarkable performances by all the principals. In Russian with subtitles. 165 min. 
Jonathan Rosenabum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 245: Thu Sep 4

The Duellists (Scott, 1977): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.35pm

This 35mm presentation, also screening with Ridley Scott Q&A on October 4th, is part of the director's season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

BFI introduction:
Strasbourg, 1800. Two French officers engage in a duel following a minor disagreement. What both cannot see is that this seemingly trivial incident will have a marked effect on both their lives, as well as those around them. Ridley Scott’s visually ravishing debut feature is adapted from a Joseph Conrad story and features an early score by Howard Blake, which conveys the intensity of the two officer’s obsessive and destructive quest.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 244: Wed Sep 3

Metropolis (Lang, 1927): Wilton's Hall, 7.30pm

Wilton's Music Hall introduction:
Experience Metropolis like never before in a spellbinding live performance by acclaimed pianist and composer Dmytro Morykit. Morykit’s piano concert sits beautifully alongside Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film masterpiece with a powerful original piano score performed entirely from memory. A seamless fusion of cinema and music, this two-hour concert brings Metropolis to a modern audience, offering a rich emotional and sonic journey that amplifies the film’s dramatic impact. Featuring compositions written over three decades, alongside new pieces tailored to the film, Morykit’s score creates a dynamic and moving atmosphere that resonates deeply with today’s viewers. Critics have hailed the performance as “a new duet between Fritz and Dmytro,” praising its emotional intensity and technical brilliance. Having toured extensively over the last 12 years to sell-out audiences, Morykit always looks forward to returning to Wilton’s Music Hall, a unique venue, adding another aesthetic to this memorable cinematic and musical experience. Introduction by Hazel Cameron (Producer)

Chicago Reader review:
Fritz Lang's 1927 silent epic about class struggle in a city of the 21st century still has a lot of popular currency, but it's never been a critics' favorite. This 124-minute version is the longest since the German premiere, and the unobtrusive use of intertitles to fill in the blanks makes it more coherent. The restoration clarifies the relationships among the hero (Gustav Fröhlich); his late mother, who died giving birth to him; his father, the ruler of Metropolis (Alfred Abel); and the father's bitter romantic rival (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), an inventor who creates a robot in the mother's image. Later the robot is upgraded to impersonate the hero's heartthrob (Brigitte Helm), a radical preacher who helps organize the city's exploited workers. The film looks fabulous, and Gottfried Huppertz's original score is another worthy addition.
Jonathan Rosenbaum 

Here (and) above is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 243: Tue Sep 2

Un Flic (Melville, 1972): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.30pm

This film also screens on September 11th and is part of the Jean-Pierre Melville season at the Prince Charles Cinema. Full details here.

Time Out review:
There is un flic (a cop), but we begin with les voleurs: four thieves, to be exact—led by suave nightclub owner Simon (Richard Crenna)—who take down an isolated seaside bank in the chillingly spare opening sequence of Jean-Pierre Melville’s final feature. It’s a Zen-suspenseful set piece, all rock-steady compositions and hypnotically primordial atmosphere, as much a philosophical state of mind as a ticking-clock tension generator. (You'd expect nothing less from the great French director behind moodily elemental thriller like 1956's Bob le Flambeur and 1967's Le Samouraï.) Plus, it’s a terrific prelude to the film’s stripped-down battle of wits between Simon and the jaded Parisian police commissioner, Edouard (Alain Delon), who’s slowly catching on to the clandestine robber’s criminal dealings. There’s a woman involved, of course—Catherine Deneuve’s luminously vacant Cathy—as well as the City of Light crushing all the characters with rampant venality (call it an unfortunate product of the time when homosexuality and transvestism were used as quick-pick signifiers of corruption). But it’s the quasi-mythical, ultimately tragic bond between Simon and Edouard that gives the movie its emotional heat. With barely a word spoken between them—mostly a series of virile glances—Delon and Crenna paint an idealized portrait of masculine camaraderie, one that’s exposed at the end of Melville’s bracing last testament as a soul-shattering illusion.
Keith Uhlich 

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 242: Mon Sep 1

Downhill Racer (Ritchie, 1969): Prince Charles Cinema, 3pm

This film (£1 for Prince Charles members) is part of the American New Wave season at the cinema. You can find full details here.

Time Out review:
Fine first feature from the once wonderful Michael Ritchie, concentrating - as in so much of his work (The Candidate, Smile, Semi-Tough) - on the cost and rewards of winning. Robert Redford is the ambitious skier, out to break all records, and contemptuous of the teamwork advocated by the coach (Gene Hackman) when he goes to Europe for the Olympics. The understated performances and reluctance to emphasise plot result in convincing characterisations, to such an extent that the often narcissistic Redford actually allows himself to come across as a dislikeably selfish, arrogant and icy man. And the location skiing sequences, revealing Ritchie's background and interest in documentary styles, are simply astounding, even for those with little interest in the sport.
Geoff Andrew 

Here (and above) is the trailer.