Classe Tous Risques (1960)

Director: Claude Sautet
Country: France

A ruined criminal looking for help is trying to escape with his family and children from Milan to Paris after many years of criminal activities but a death sentence is waiting for him. Lino Ventura is Abel Davos, a cold-blooded crook, a decaying mafioso, but a tough mothefucker who once was a respected guy in the underworld, and a kind of "godfather" for some of his friends who now disrespect him, and this film is precisely about respect, loyalty, honor, friendship and betrayal and by no means idealistic gangster bullshit. 

We can see the human side of Abel Davos as a father, a husband a friend and struggling moments in his life which make him think he's a kind of King Midas in reverse. A young Jean-Paul Belmondo as Eric Stark in the pivotal role is very solid too, not to mention Sandra Milo (Eric's girlfriend) was stunning and gorgeous at the time. 

The film was adapted from a novel by Jose Giovanni (an auteur, a great writer who also wrote works like "Le Trou" and "Le Deuxiemme Souffle", which later became cinema masterpieces), Sautet made a great job, basically he just needed a car, two main characters and some pistols to make a great storyline, he also made a precise usage of the voice over, the silence, the dialogue, the editing and some shots from the car's point of view. 

These kind of films were the foundation for future crime films (like those of Jean-Pierre Melville) and we can see how iconic characters in American TV Series like The Sopranos were influenced by all those French crime-noir films as well, Classe Tous Risques is unfortunately an underrated masterpiece.

                                  

Battle of Algiers (1966)

Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Country: Italy

"Should France remain in Algeria? if you answer 'yes', you must accept all the necessary consequences."

Told from the point of view of Ali and General Mathieu (who is based upon a real life soldier named Jacques Massu) it's a great juxtaposed story based on real life events. An Algerian guerrilla movement trying to get independence from France, starts a bloody battle and is willing to die for the cause no matter what. 2015 and 2016 have been difficult years for developed democracies in Europe and the rest of the World, terrorist attacks, radicalism and insurgent militias in the Middle East have been some of the problems, and is amazing how this movie made in the 60's can explain many things happening right now, so whether if you want to know how terrorism and radicalism work or how many soldiers work, you gotta see this film.  

Pontecorvo not only shows us how radicals approach children, women, vendors, old ladies, etc and turn them into terrorists, they are heartless fanatics indeed, but also he shows us the brutal practices of the military, in particular the many forms of torture and ruthless acts such as chopping up heads of political prisoners or burning people with blowturches . 

The film portrays in a realistically way how colonialism worked in Africa for years: an apartheid system, where European whites lived apart from the native population while oppresing any form of political discomfort, just like the European conquistadores "worked" for centuries in the Americas. Pontecorvo is a genius because he's always neutral, he does not interfere with the story and let us alone to judge the situations, such a huge contrast compared with those American movies about Vietnam War or Second War World, where American troops are martyrs and heroes in contrast with the evil communist Asians and Nazis who wanted to destroy the world. 

A solid, superb piece of work with a critical and incisive argument which is remarkable because for Pontecorvo would have been easy to be biased and to portray the military as the villians (due to his communist past and marxist ideology) but he chose not to. Pontecorvo's masterful use of camera, documentary and guerrilla style shooting are superb, we can see close ups, detail shots, kinda news footage and along with Ennio Morricone's soundtrack, consisting mainly of percussive instruments and background pre-recorded music which adds tension to the images, such as in the simultaneous terrorist bomb attacks, the result is so powerful. 

This is a very complex film, shot in a minimalistic way and in my opinion it's one of the best films about social conflicts ever made . The French won the Battle of Algiers but were defeated and finally kicked out from Algeria in the real life, and then unfortunately the native people faced years of repression and dictatorship...

                            

Saltimbancos (1951)

Director: Manuel Guimaraes 
Country: Portugal

The first Manuel Guimaraes' film, who had been an apprentice of the legendary Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira, "Saltimbancos" (which is a derogative word for a street artist) it's a tragic-comic neorealist film adapted from the novel "Circo" by Leao Penedo, about a group of circus artists struggling to make a living in an impoverished Portugal, the film belongs to the Portuguese Golden Age of Cinema and was made with a very limited budget.

The film starts with a voice over narration by Toni (Artur Semedo) who is looking for a job, and whose past is never revealed except for his passion for circus, he finds O Circo Maravilhas which is managed by Miss Dolly (Maria Olguim) an old woman , her husband Felismino (José Victor) and her daughter, a beautiful blonde named Delmirinha (Helga Liné) the circus is destroyed during a rainstorm and since that moment things get hard because they have to deal with poverty, misery, hungry and debts, Delmirinha's mind shifts during the road to Lisbon, because she wants to live a decent life and to have a steady job but those goals clash with her background and traditions and her boyfriend (Toni) knows it. 

Ambition fades away in the face of death but loyalty remains intact. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Felismino is trying to train his beloved friend named "Pombinho" (which means little pigeon), a stubborn but smart donkey, in order to perform a circus act, the donkey is the only animal acting in the film, and he did a great job. 

The narration through the film sounds beautiful and melancholic, and the movie brings Saudades of an innocent age when children enjoyed going to the circus, after all, Portuguese language is the language of the poets. Guimaraes was severely criticized at the time by the Portuguese critics, his movies were chopped up and he never received the recognizition he deserved, otherwise we would be talking about the Portuguese Fellini. This is a beautiful Portuguese gem and unfortunately a hidden and almost forgotten treasure that everybody must see.

The Wrong Man (1956)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock 
Country: United States 

We can see Hitchcock's shadow at the beginning of the film and listening to him quoting: "This is Alfred Hitchcock speaking, in the past, I have given you many kinds of suspense pictures, but this time, I would like you to see a different one. The difference lies in the fact that this is a true story". 

Henry Fonda was a deftly actor, he did not need too much dialogue, make up or whatever to express his emotions and thoughts, and he made it amazingly well in The Wrong Man, performing a jazz musician (Manny) who gets confused with a criminal when asking for a loan (to help his woman to get a teeth job) at an insurance office. Shot on location in New York City, this film is about human condition, and how a hard-working man living a normal life with his family can be ruined in less than 24 hours all over a human error. 

Also Vera Miles made a magnificent supporting role as Manny's wife, we can see her shift, from a sweet woman to a paranoid, demented one . Hitchcock is all about editing: point of view angles, close ups, soft transitions (one of the best transitions ever in the history of cinema is here, when we can see Manny's doppelganger's face matching with his) and silence in combination with atmosphere dissonant sounds made by the genius Bernard Hermann, who also made a jazzy-spicy score to highlight Manny's musical world, are equal to a powerful visual result . The film is perfect except for the ending, which is explained to the audience instead of leaving it to an open interpretation, that would have been excellent.

The cinematography by Robert Burks (The Verdict, House of Wax, The Rear Window, Dial M for Murder) who was one of the key Hitchcock's collaborators during the 50's and 60's, set up a magnificent tonality for The Wrong Man, shot it as a reenacment (but in a fastidious way) and with dramatic combinations of lights and shadows, which print a special mood in the film.

This amazing Hitchcock film was a precedent for another contemporary masterpiece, Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line, which as The Wrong Man, is about an innocent man accused of a crime he didn't commit. Definitely this film is a very solid, mature, unique and underrated work in Hitchcock's filmography.


                             

Stromboli (1950)

Director: Roberto Rossellini 
Country: Italy

A Lithuanian refugee woman named Karin (Ingrid Bergman) who had a good life before war mets Antonio, an Italian war prisoner (Mario Vitale), while waiting in a refugee camp for the approval of his Argentinian Visa, when her Visa application is denied, she decides to get married with Antonio and go with him to his home in Stromboli, a little Italian island near Sicily. During the Visa interview the film shows us how Europeans were looking for a new home in developed countries after the Second World War such as America, Australia or Argentina. 

At the moment she arrives to Stromboli, she realizes has made a big time mistake because the village is destroyed, underdeveloped and with a Volcano next to it, representing a deadly hazard, that place is paradoxically even worse than a prison or a refugee camp, with nothing much to do and uneducated close minded catholics as neighbors, Karin realizes that she gotta get outta there as soon as possible, but without money her chances are reduced. 

Also we can see other elements of this movie through the descriptions of the villagers who returned from America, and we can compare the almost uninhabited village to the industrial New York City and its people enjoying the benefits of the post-war boom such as driving new cars, working in factories, eating hot dogs, attending baseball games or wearing nice clothes. 

Composed by long shots, actual documentary footage (the volcano eruption scenes), minimalistic but powerful dialogues and non-professional actors, which was a characteristic of the Italian neorealism, Rossellini made a great work, not only because of that, but also because we can deduce and imagine many things without flashbacks, words or sequences in other place, that's why this film is a masterpiece. 

Likewise, many people in the film were real villagers like Mario Vitale (a real life fisherman) who made a great performance and later became a succesful actor but like in Stromboli he quit the industry to came back to his village, Bergman is stunning, beautiful and a great performer (married at the time with Rossellini), After having made powerful films such as "Rome, Open City", "Paisa" or "Germany Year Zero", Rosellini started with "Stromboli" another trilogy starring Bergman, the "Trilogia della Solitudine" keystone in the history of cinema.

                                

The Killing (1956)

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Country: United States

Maybe this was the first heist movie I saw, and since then I became fascinated with this sub-genre; full of great dialogues, a first class acting by Sterling Hayden, a superb cinematography work by Lucien Ballard (who also worked in Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch), and a powerful score by Gerald Fried which enriches the story.

"The Killing" is super entertaining, Kubrick orchestrated every frame, dialogue and scene perfectly, he already was a master of filmmaking at the time without a doubt and unlike many other American films of the same genre which haven't aged so well, "The Killing" stills looking fresh to some extent after 60 years! 

The lighting is beautiful and scenes such as the one taking action in the Chess Club, when "Johnny" meets "Maurice" (the bald guy in the chess club with a thick accent), played by Kola Kwariani, Georgian and a real life former wrestler and professional chess player at the time or the racetrack robbery whole sequence, which is very suspensful, are really unique.

The last time I saw this film was in a public library, I'd already seen it when I was a teenager, but the images weren't fresh in my mind, so I decided to go to the projection and it was a great experience and completely different from the typical cinema screenings, people sitting around watching the film respectfully and quietly, I loved it , The Killing is my favorite Kubrick's black and white.

                             

Shock Corridor (1963)

Director : Samuel Fuller 
Country : United States 

Shot by the great cinematographer Stanley Cortez (The Night of The Hunter, The Magnificent Ambersons) and directed by the legendary Samuel Fuller, Shock Corridor is about a journalist obssesed with winning the Pullitzer, who decides to get himself into a mental institution to investigate a murder committed inside. 

The film begins with a prologue and with Johnny Benett's (the main character) narrating the story in voice off, which adds a noir-style to the film, the editing and set up of the film is unique since the first scene, especially in the color footage combined during the dreams and hallucinations sequences, which add a sense of madness. 

It's curious how the patients hallucinate with sensitive chapters in the American history such as the K.K.K, The Civil War, and the Cold War, maybe Fuller was trying to tell us his perspective about those events, were they crazy and nonsense?, also Pagliacci is a very interesting and disturbed character because Pagliacci is an opera about a murder. 

This movie is never predictable and could have been easily a Twilight Zone special episode, which Rod Serling would have been very proud of without a doubt, due to its twisted and suspensful dramatic plot, excellent camera work, storyline, acting and substance, plus its dark humor and shocking ending. So the question is: Johnny Benett was already insane before entering the hospital? or he turned into one of those freaks hallucinating with the Civil War?. Special mention to Constance Towers (Cathy in the film) who looks gorgeous. A disturbed film and a must-see in the Fuller's filmography.

                                   

Repulsion (1965)

Director: Roman Polanski
Country: United kingdom

A cracking, scary film with many implications: sexual trauma, paranoid-schizoid personality disorder and supernatural forces. Roman Polanski is one of the greatest artists in the history of filmmaking and visual arts along with Buñuel, Hitchcock, Fellini, Chaplin, etc, and as an old-school filmmaker, Polanski does not explain anything to the audience, you gotta decide and judge by yourself, that's why those filmmakers were transcendental, because their works got substance (something lacking nowadays) and fortunately and wisely Polanski did not made a big Hitchcockian-Pyscho mistake here and nor did it later when completing  The Apartment Trilogy (with Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant) 

Polanski's deftly use of narrative, camera angles, lighting, music and silence, and theatrical images perfectly adapted for the screen, resulted in a first class supense-horror-psychological-thriller that engages the viewer from the beginning 'til the end. 

The legendary cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (Dr. Strange Love, A Hard Day's Night) set up a wonderful staging, full of dramatic shadows and detailed and jump shots (like the one when Deneuve's character sees a man in the mirror) not to mention the iconic image of the film, when Carol (Deneuve) sees the hands coming out from the wall, is disturbing and beautiful at the same time. 

Catherine Deneuve made an amazing job too, performing a character with little dialogue, which is not always easy, but she did it in a masterful way (in part because of Polanski's directing perfectionism) with the right gesticulation, pantomime and expresiveness, succesfully projecting the isolation and phobias suffered by Carol. Without a doubt Polanski is a real master both in the writing and the direction departments, he has been able to craft powerful claustrophobic movies like this one, with only one character (and the other being the flat itself), and that accomplishment is brutal. 

The new DVD version is simply beautiful, forget about the "old-school" bullshit about the grain, if you haven't seen this one, you gotta do it whether on Blu Ray or in the latest DVD release right now!