Assassin (Masahiro Shinoda, 1964)

Tetsuro Tanba in Assassin

Cast: Tetsuro Tanba, Shima Iwashita, Eiji Okada, Isao Kimura, Tamotsu Hayakawa, Eitaro Ozawa, Fujio Suga, Muga Takewaki, Takanobu Hozumi, Hideo Kidokoro, Tetsuji Takechi, Gen Shimizu. Screenplay: Nobuo Yamada, based on a book by Ryotaro Shiba. Cinematography: Masao Kosuji. Art direction: Junichi Osumi. Film editing: Eiichi Amano. Music: Toru Takemitsu. 

Masahiro Shinoda's Assassin (also known as Assassination and Ansastsu) is the story of Hachiro Kiyakawa (Tetsuro Tanba), an enigmatic figure who played both sides in the conflict between the Tokugawa shogunate and the imperial forces in 1860s Japan. Tanba gives a commanding performance, and the film is distinguished by Masao Kosuji's cinematography and Toru Takemitsu's score, but Shinoda's decision to tell the story in flashbacks is a challenge to anyone not well-versed in Japanese history, even though he provides several screenfuls of background text at the beginning of the film. 

Up, Down, Fragile (Jacques Rivette, 1995)

Marianne Denicourt and Bruno Todeschini in Up, Down, Fragile

Cast: Marianne Denicourt, Nathalie Richard, Laurence Côte, André Marcon, Bruno Todeschini, Wilfred Benaïche, Enzo Enzo, Anna Karina, Stéphanie Schwartzbrod, Christine Vézinet, László Szabó (voice). Screenplay: Marianne Denicourt, Nathalie Richard, Laurence Côte, Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent, Jacques Rivette. Cinematography: Christophe Pollock. Production design: Emmanuel de Chauvigny. Film editing: Nicole Lubtchansky. Music: François Bréant. 

Jacques Rivette's Up, Down, Fragile is a dawdling, self-indulgent film for cinéastes with a lot of time on their hands. It intrigued me for about an hour, but then my patience with Rivette's send-up of movie tropes and genres began to wear thin. 

The Raggedy Rawney (Bob Hoskins, 1988)

Dexter Fletcher in The Raggedy Rawney

Cast: Dexter Fletcher, Zoë Nathensen, Zoë Wanamaker, Bob Hoskins, Dave Hill, Ian McNeice, Gawn Grainger, Jim Carter, Veronica Clifford, Rosemary Martin, J.G. Devlin, Jane Wood, Ian Drury, Timmy Lang, Jenny Platt. Screenplay: Bob Hoskins, Nicole De Wilde. Cinematography: Frank Tidy. Production design: Jiri Matolin. Film editing: Alan Jones. Composer: Michael Kamen. 

The Raggedy Rawney was not well-received by critics when it was released, and it's certainly messy in tone and narrative. But I found it oddly compelling, if only because it's not quite like anything I've seen lately. It's a fable with anti-war overtones about a deserter in the middle of an unspecified war in an unspecified Eastern European country. (It was filmed in the former Czechoslovakia.) Tom (Dexter Fletcher) is a new soldier who is shocked into deserting by the carnage of an attack. Lashing out and partially blinding his commanding officer (Jim Carter), he escapes into the forest where he encounters a little girl (Jenny Platt) whose family has been killed and strung up as a warning to anyone who would hide men deserting from the army. She is playing with her dead mother's makeup, and the traumatized Tom lets her make up his face and dress him in one of her mother's dresses. Scared off by the movement of troops nearby, he runs deeper into the forest, still wearing dress and makeup, where he spots a caravan of Roma. When he comes across Darky (Bob Hoskins), the de facto leader of the caravan, Tom points him toward a spot in the river where the fish are plentiful, which motivates Darky to bring him back to the group and treat him as a "rawney," a madwoman with second sight. Tom remains mute until he strikes up a relationship with Darky's daughter, Jessie (Zoë Nathensen), who discovers that he's not a woman but keeps his secret. It's a setup with Shakespearean overtones that meanders first into comedy and then into tragedy. The Raggedy Rawney marked Hoskins's debut as a director and is the only film for which he wrote the screenplay (in collaboration with Nicole De Wilde), basing it on a tale told him by his Romani grandmother. 

Chinese Odyssey 2002 (Jeffrey Lau, 2002)

Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Wei Zhao in Chinese Odyssey 2002

Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Fay Wong, Wei Zhao, Chang Chen, Roy Cheung, Athena Chu, Rebecca Pan, Jan Lamb (voice). Screenplay: Jeffrey Lamb. Cinematography: Peter Ngor. Production design: Tony Au. Film editing: Wing-Ming Wong. Music: Frankie Chan, Roel A. García. 

You have to know Hong Kong cinema better than I do to fully appreciate the spoofery involved in Chinese Odyssey 2002, but it's still a giddy lark, with some handsome actors poking fun at their serious roles and a lot of amusing sight gags. The version I saw on the Criterion Channel seems to have been shorn of some of its musical sequences.  

Perfect Love (Catherine Breillat, 1996)

Francis Renaud and Isabelle Renauld in Perfect Love

Cast: Isabelle Renauld, Francis Renaud, Laura Saglio, Alain Soral, Michèle Rème, Alice Mitterand, Tom Rocheteau, Delphine De Malherbe, Marie Lebée. Screenplay: Catherine Breillat. Cinematography: Laurent Dailland. Production design: Françoise Dupertuis. Film editor: Agnès Guillemot. 

Catherine Breillat is a kind of anti-pornographer; her films are almost enough to turn one off from sex entirely. Or anyway, from any notion that sex is an expression of, as the title ironically suggests, Perfect Love. Breillat often seems to suggest that we are just animals trying to dress up our instincts with highfalutin labels. That occurred to me during the scene in which the naked Christophe (Francis Renaud) gets out of the bed he's sharing with Frédérique (Isabelle Renauld) and, for reasons known only to him, climbs the scaffolding outside her window. He looks like a particularly awkward monkey, and he inspires neither passion nor amusement in Frédérique, but rather deepens the contempt that's growing in her. The growth in their mutual alienation is the subject of the film, which begins in the aftermath of Christophe's unspeakable assault on and murder of Frédérique. The plot is simply a flashback that shows how their relationship developed and disintegrated so horribly. Of course, being French, they talk about it at length, narrating their own disaffection. I found it a curious misfire, a movie that's based in part on the disparity in their ages -- she is supposed to be a generation older, a twice-married woman with two children, including a daughter somewhat closer in age to Christophe than she is. Yet the actors cast as Christophe and Frédérique were born only a year apart; both were in their late 20s when the film was made, and they look it. I can respect Breillat's attempt at portraying the difficulties of a relationship and admire the commitment of her performers, but nothing in the characters seemed to justify the outcome. Nor can I deny the boredom that settled on me as the film proceeded. 

Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987)

Boguslaw Linda in Blind Chance

Cast: Boguslaw Linda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Boguslawa Pawelec, Marzena Trybala, Jacek Borkowski, Jacek Sas-Uhrynowski, Adam Ferency, Irena Byrska, Monika Gozdzik, Zygmunt Hübner. Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski. Cinematography: Krzysztof Pakulski. Production design: Andrzej Rafal Waltenberger. Film editing: Elzbieta Kurkowska. Music: Wojciech Kilar. 

A man races to catch a train that's pulling out of the station. If he catches it, his life goes in one direction. If he doesn't, it goes in another. But the binary choices of life are not as simple as that, Krzysztof Kieslowski demonstrates in Blind Chance. Witek Dlugosz (Boguslaw Linda) catches the train, and he winds up allied with the political powers-that-be. Then Kieslowski shows us what happens when Witek doesn't catch the train, and he winds up with the political opposition. But there's a third possibility: What happens if he's just a little slower in his race to catch the train, missing it by a second or two longer? In the film, he winds up choosing a non-political career in which he decides to remain neutral. But Blind Chance is not all about politics -- though that was a central obsession in life in Poland in the 1980s. It's also about sex: In each of the three versions of Witek's life, he ends up with a different woman, and that makes another important difference. Authors love to play God, and Kieslowski, a true auteur, is no exception. He's a cruel God, as the film demonstrates at both beginning and ending, and the cruelty is more shocking because of the appealing performance of Linda as the man in the hands of fate. 

A Fish in the Bathtub (Joan Micklin Silver, 1998)

Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller in A Fish in the Bathtub

Cast: Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Adams, Missy Yager, Paul Benedict, Doris Roberts, Louis Zorich, Phyllis Newman, Val Avery, Bob Dishy, Pamela Gray. Screenplay: John Silverstein, David Chudnovsky, Raphael D. Silver. Cinematography: Daniel Shulman. Production designer: Deana Sidney. Film editor: Meg Reticker. Music: John Hill. 

Joan Micklin Silver's A Fish in the Bathtub has some funny lines, but an overall shrillness makes it not as much fun as it wants to be. The scene in which Sam (Jerry Stiller) yells "Shut up!" repeatedly at Molly (Anne Meara), his wife of 40 years, at a card party where their closest friends are gathered is a touch too painful. The rest of the film is a slow and sometimes awkward process of reconciliation after Molly decides she's put up with too much -- including the large carp that Sam has inexplicably brought home and keeps in the spare bath -- and moves in with their son, Joel (Mark Ruffalo), and his wife, Sharon (Missy Yager). Joel and Sharon have  been having their problems, too: She wants another child and he's not so sure, plus he's indulging in a flirtation with one of his real estate clients -- an unnecessary subplot. The actors are all pros, and they do what they can with the material, but the movie feels like an overextended TV sitcom episode. 

The Beast Must Die (Román Viñoly Barreto, 1952)

 

Cast: Narciso Ibáñez Menta, Lara Hidalgo, Guillermo Battaglia, Milagros de la Vega, Nathán Pinzón, Beba Bidart, Ernesto Blanco, Gloria Ferrandiz, Humberto Balado, Josefa Goldar. Screenplay: Román Viñoly Barreto, Narciso Ibáñez Menta, based on a novel by Cecil Day-Lewis. Cinematography: Alberto Etchebehere. Art direction: Mario Vanarelli. Film editing: José Serra. Music: Silvio Vernazza. 

The Beast Must Die is a well put-together version of a murder mystery written by Cecil Day-Lewis under his pseudonym Nicholas Blake, a fact that gets an ironic resonance in the story because the protagonist's name, Felix Lane, is also a pseudonym, used to conceal his identity as he plots to murder the man who killed his son. Narciso Ibáñez Menta gives a suave, cool performance as Lane, who has recorded his lethal intent in a diary. The victim, Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia), is a real nasty who terrorizes his family, any one of whom has a motive as compelling as Lane's for doing away with him. The film starts with the murder, then flashes back to reveal the motive. Some of the subtlety of the ethical dilemma Lane faces when the murder is pinned on the wrong person gets lost in the film, and there's some scenery-chewing acting along the way, but on the whole it's suspenseful and atmospheric -- though the atmosphere is more that of Argentina, where it was made, than of the England that the names of some of the characters, like Nigel and Rhoda, evoke. 

I Like It Like That (Darnell Martin, 1994)

Desiree Casares, Luna Lauren Velez, Jon Seda, and Tomas Melly in I Like It Like That

Cast: Luna Lauren Velez, Jon Seda, Tomas Melly, Desiree Casares, Isaiah Garcia, Jesse Borrego, Lisa Vidal, Griffin Dunne, Rita Moreno, Vincent Laresca, Elvis Nolasco, Sammy Melendez, Jose Soto. Screenplay: Darnell Martin. Cinematography: Alexander Gruszinski. Production design: Scott Chambliss. Film editing: Peter C. Frank. Music: Sergio George.  

I Like It Like That is a lively, noisy dramatic comedy about a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. It has just enough grit and nuance to keep it from looking as stereotyped and formulaic as it really is. 

The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)

Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday

Cast: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, Eddie Constantine, Paul Freeman, P.H. Moriarty, Stephen Davies, Brian Hall, Alan Hall, Paul Barber, Pauline Melville. Screenplay: Barrie Keeffe. Cinematography: Phil Meheux. Art direction: Vic Symonds. Film editing: Mike Taylor. Music: Francis Monkman. 

The Long Good Friday ends with mobster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) being held at gunpoint by a character listed in the credits only as "1st Irishman." It provides a tour de force moment for Hoskins, as he registers a series of emotions -- fear, disgust, resignation, defiance, hope, and whatever the viewer can find there -- using only his face. Only the fact that the Irishman is played by Pierce Brosnan, making his film debut in a tiny role, distracts today from the moment, the still conclusion to an often explosive performance by Hoskins. He's beautifully supported by Helen Mirren as his mistress, Victoria, and a well-chosen cast. Only the rather too heavily laid on score by Francis Monkman feels like a flaw in this solid and entertaining British noir. 

Belle Époque (Fernando Trueba, 1992)

Miriam Díaz Aroca, Maribel Verdú, Penélope Cruz, and Ariadna Gil in Belle Époque

Cast: Jorge Sanz, Fernando Fernán-Gómez, Maribel Verdú, Ariadna Gil, Penélope Cruz, Miriam Díaz Aroca, Gabino Diego, Agustín González, Chus Lampreave, Mary Carmen Ramírez, Michel Galabru. Screenplay: Rafael Azcona, José Luis García Sánchez, Fernando Trueba. Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine. Film editing: Carmen Frías. Music: Antoine Duhamel. 

A sexy romp with a body count, Belle Époque is perhaps most remembered today for the speech director Fernando Trueba gave when he accepted the Oscar for best foreign language film. "I would like to believe in God so I can thank him, but I just believe in Billy Wilder. So thank you, Billy Wilder."  What Trueba's film has in common with Wilder's oeuvre is a certain cynical edge. Even Wilder's funniest movies, such as Some Like It Hot (1959), get their edge from a recognition of the violence underlying comedy -- that film's cross-dressing protagonists, after all, are fleeing for their lives after the St. Valentine's Day massacre. And so the sensuous idyll that takes place in the Spanish countryside starts with the deaths of two policemen arresting the protagonist, Fernando (Jorge Sanz), during a period of comparative peace before the full outbreak of the Civil War. It continues with Fernando making love to Clara (Miriam Díaz Aroca) on the riverbank at the very spot where her husband drowned. And it reaches its conclusion just after the suicide of a disillusioned priest. Sex and death have rarely been more closely linked in what is intended as a romantic comedy. Trueba is not as skilled as Wilder was at maintaining the lightness of tone necessary to fend off the darkness, but he's pretty good at it. 

Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968)

Susan Clark and Clint Eastwood in Coogan's Bluff

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Susan Clark, Tisha Sterling, Don Stroud, Betty Field, Tom Tully, Melodie Johnson, James Edwards, Rudy Diaz, David Doyle. Screenplay: Herman Miller, Dean Riesner, Howard Rodman. Cinematography: Bud Thackery. Art direction: Alexander Golitzen, Robert MacKichan. Film editing: Sam E. Waxman. Music: Lalo Schifrin. 

If it weren't that it has the hard, garish, overlighted look of most movies in the 1960s, Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff could almost be called a neo-noir. It has the genre's requisite unlikable but determined tough guy protagonist, willing to use sex and violence and flouting the law to achieve his goal, even if it means getting beat up several times. There's something masochistic about Clint Eastwood's Coogan, a deputy sheriff sent from Arizona to Manhattan to recover a fugitive. The screenplay gives him no backstory to explain his headlong relentlessness, but then there's nothing much to the screenplay beyond setups for action. It's an almost cynically mindless movie. 

The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)

Kitty Winn and Al Pacino in The Panic in Needle Park

Cast: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright, Kiel Martin, Michael McClanathan, Warren Finnerty, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Raul Julia. Screenplay: Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, based on a book by James Mills. Cinematography: Adam Holender. Art direction: Murray P. Stern. Film editing: Evan A. Lottman. 

The Panic in Needle Park doesn't have much in the way of character arc: Bobby (Al Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn) end up pretty much the way they began, in search of a fix. What it does have going for it is immersiveness, a determined effort to plunge the viewer into the midst of some lost lives. That this perhaps isn't enough to make for an effective movie is, I think, signaled by some of the tricks screenwriters Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne pull, to heighten the viewer's emotional connection to the characters, which at one point involves the sacrifice of a cute puppy. But the movie is effective, largely because it's so well acted. It gave us one of our first looks at Pacino at his most hyperactive, as well as one of our rare looks at Winn, whose performance deservedly won the best actress award at Cannes. They're surrounded by a superb ensemble. 

Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)

Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls

Cast: Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, Gina Ravera, Lin Tucci, Greg Travis, Al Ruscio, Patrick Bristow, William Shockley. Screenplay: Joe Eszterhas. Cinematography: Jost Vacano. Production design: Allan Cameron. Film editing: Mark Goldblatt, Mark Helfrich. Music: David A. Stewart. 

Since the near-universal critical reaction that made Showgirls a byword for bad movies, attempts have been made to reevaluate it as a satire on Vegas or the entertainment business or the marketing of sex or something. Perhaps it was the double-edged cleverness of director Paul Verhoeven's next film, Starship Troopers (1997), that inspired some critics to find the same in Showgirls. So I conscientiously tried to watch it with that in mind. But no, it's just tawdry and tedious, with none of the wit or ironic distancing that would signal satiric intent. For example, just watch Kyle MacLachlan try to hide his embarrassment at some of the things he's supposed to do or say. 

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (John Farrow, 1948)

John Lund, Gail Russell, and Edward G. Robinson in Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell, John Lund, Virginia Bruce, William Demarest, Richard Webb, Jerome Cowan, Onslow Stevens, Roman Bonhen, Luis Van Rooten, Henry Guttman, Mary Adams. Screenplay: Barré Lyndon, Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich. Cinematography: John F. Seitz. Art direction: Franz Bachelin, Hans Dreier. Film editing: Eda Warren. Music: Victor Young. 

Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a supernatural whodunit that almost comes apart at several points, especially when the killer goes undetected in a houseful of cops by hiding behind a curtain. But it's held together by Edward G. Robinson's performance as a former vaudeville mind reader who discovered that he really did have the ability to see the future. Many plot turns later, he finds himself under suspicion by the police for trying to con an heiress by predicting her death, which he's really trying to prevent. Director John Farrow manages to maintain a noir atmosphere through a nonsensical story, though he's not helped much by the blandness of Gail Russell as the woman in jeopardy and John Lund as her rather thick boyfriend. William Demarest is better cast as the grouchy detective in charge of the case. It's the kind of movie that works best if you relax and don't try to make sense out of it. 
 

Little Murders (Alan Arkin, 1971)

Marcia Rodd and Elliott Gould in Little Murders

Cast: Elliott Gould, Marcia Rodd, Vincent Gardenia, Elizabeth Wilson, Jon Korkes, John Randolph, Doris Roberts, Lou Jacobi, Donald Sutherland. Alan Arkin. Screenplay: Jules Feiffer, based on his play. Cinematography: Gordon Willis. Production design: Gene Rudolf. Film editing: Howard Kuperman. Music: Fred Kaz. 

The most remarkable (and depressing) thing about the shrill, scattershot, and frequently hilarious Little Murders is how relevant its satire of urban violence remains after 50-something years. It can be faulted for some unchecked sexism and homophobia and for some caricature intellectuals that evoke screenwriter Jules Feiffer's cartoons from the era but have lost their edge today, but if anything the angst and fear it depicts has only grown more acute in the era of Trump redux. 

Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, 2002)

Sul Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri in Oasis

Cast: Sul Kyung-gu, Moon So-ri, Ahn Nae-sang, Ryoo Seung-wan, Choo Kwi-jung, Jin-gu Kim, Son Byung-ho, Ga-hyun Yun, Park Myung-shin, Park Gyeong-gyun. Screenplay: Lee Chang-dong. Cinematography: Yeong-taek Choi. Art direction: Jum-hee Shin, Kil Won Yu. Film editing: Hyun Kim. Music: Jaejin Lee. 

Lee Chang-dong's Oasis seems to me a kind of great film, a phrase I don't use lightly, especially about one with scenes so painful that they tempted me to stop watching. At the same time, however, it also has scenes to which my response was a kind of astonished, even reluctant laughter. Lee's control of tone and mood is what tempts me to invoke greatness. When we first meet the protagonist, Jong-du (Sul Kyng-hu), he has just been released from prison after serving time for a hit-and-run that killed a man. (The truth about that incident of vehicular manslaughter is one that Lee keeps from us until a moment of low-key ironic surprise late in the film.) Penniless, wearing only a short-sleeved shirt on a frigid day, the slow-witted Jong-du tries to find his family, only to discover that they've moved away without telling him. The only way he can reconnect with them is by getting arrested. After they reluctantly take in the feckless, undisciplined, unemployable Jong-du, he then decides that he should do something to make amends with the family of the man who died in the hit-and-run. But they're not much better than his own family: They're in the process of moving, leaving behind Han Gong-joo (the amazing Moon So-ri), who suffers from severe cerebral palsy, under the care of her neighbors in a subsidized apartment house for disabled people. They regard Gong-joo as a source of supplemental income. And so the two outcasts, Jong-du and Gong-joo, are thrown together by the indifference and venality of their families. What develops between them could have been a mere sentimental fable about survival of the least fit, but Lee makes it much more with the help of two marvelous actors and a deft use of unexpected details, including touches of fantasy. It's a movie that should come with a multitude of trigger warnings, but for those who can take it, it's a memorable achievement. 

Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie, 2016)

Damien Bonnard and India Hair in Staying Vertical

Cast: Damien Bonnard, India Hair, Raphaël Thiéry, Christian Bouillette, Basile Meilleurat, Laure Calamy, Sébastien Novac. Screenplay: Alain Guiraudie. Cinematography: Claire Mathon. Production design: Toma Baqueni. Film editing: Jean-Cristophe Hym. 

Like his film Sunshine for the Poor (2001), Alain Guiraudie's Staying Vertical seems to be about (among other things) the dangers of getting involved with people who herd sheep. Which makes both movies entries into the anti-pastoral genre, one that hasn't been much explored since, oh, the sixteenth century. (The classics would include Shakespeare's As You Like It and The Winter's Tale.) The setup is this: Léo (Damien Bonnard), a filmmaker, is traveling through the south of France in search of inspiration for his next film. On the road, he spots a handsome young man named Yoan (Basile Meilleurat), whom he tries and fails to pick up with a variation of the old "would you like to be in the movies" line. Rebuffed, he continues until he meets Marie (India Hair), a shepherdess living with her two young sons and her father, Jean-Louis (Raphaël Thiéry). Léo gets Marie pregnant, but after she gives birth she leaves Léo to take care of the baby as well as assist Jean-Louis with the flock, which is being decimated by wolves. Meanwhile, Léo's producer is bugging him to finish a screenplay. And, oh yes, Léo reconnects with Yoan and the old man he looks after, Marcel (Christian Bouillette). As if he didn't have enough distracting him from finishing the screenplay, everyone except Yoan wants to go to bed with Léo. It can't end well, and it doesn't, but with a film like Staying Vertical the journey is everything.    

Mother Hummingbird (Julien Duvivier, 1929)

Maria Jacobini in Mother Hummingbird

Cast: Maria Jacobini, Francis Lederer, Hélène Hallier, Jean Dax, Jean Gérard, Jean-Paul de Baere, Lya Lys, Madame Baume. Screenplay: Julien Duvivier, Noël Renard, based on a play by Henry Bataille. Cinematography: Gaston Haon, Armand Thirard, René Guichard. Art direction: Christian-Jacque, Fernand Delattre. 

A sumptuous production and adroit camerawork distinguish this rather too-familiar domestic melodrama about a Parisian woman (Maria Jacobini) who leaves her icy husband (Jean Dax) and her two sons (Jean Gérard, Jean-Paul de Baere) to run off to Algeria with a handsome but ultimately fickle legionnaire (Francis Lederer). Jacobini's performance is solid, but she's undermined by the silent film's slowness, with too many long closeups as she agonizes over her choices in life. 

Julien Donkey-Boy (Harmony Korine, 1999)

Ewen Bremner in Julien Donkey-Boy

Cast: Ewen Bremner, Chloë Sevigny, Werner Herzog, Evan Neumann, Joyce Korine. Screenplay: Harmony Korine. Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle. Film editing: Valdis Óskarsdóttir. 

Between a grim start and a bleak ending, Julien Donkey-Boy is an eye-straining and soul-bruising excursion into the lives of Julien (Ewen Bremner), a schizophrenic teenager, and his not very supportive family: an abusive father (Werner Herzog), a pregnant sister (Chloë Sevigny), a confused brother (Evan Neumann), and a remote grandmother (Joyce Korine). It's a kind of masterpiece of cringe.