Victim (Ringo Lam, 1999)

Lau Ching-wan in Victim

Cast: Lau Ching-wan, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Amy Kwok, Wayne Lai, Collin Chou, Hui Shiu-hung, Emily Kwan. Screenplay: Ho Man-lung, Ringo Lam, Joe Ma. Cinematography: Ross W. Clarkson. Art direction: Jason Mok. Film editing: Chan Chi-wai. Music: Raymond Wong. 

Ringo Lam's victim begins and ends like a horror movie, in a haunted hotel and a graveyard, but in between it's mostly an action film. This not entirely successful mashup of genres benefits from two high-powered performances, by Lau Ching-wan as Manson Ma, the titular victim, and Tony Leung Ka-fai as Pit Kwan, the detective in charge of the case. Ma, who is in financial trouble, is kidnapped at the film's beginning but rescued by Pit, who tracks him down to an old hotel where Ma is hanging upside down, apparently having been tortured. Under questioning, Ma is so eccentric in his responses that the police can make nothing of the case, so Pit takes over surveiling him when he's released. Car chases and gunfights ensue before we discover what Ma is really involved in, a counterfeiting scheme. The question of whether Ma has actually been possessed by the ghosts that are said to haunt the hotel lingers over the film, and Lam actually filmed two endings for Victim: In one, the question remains unanswered, while the other provides a manifestation of the spirits. Fortunately, Lam provides enough solid, even occasionally gruesome, action to satisfy any audience member who resists this rather pointless narrative gimmick.

Throw Down (Johnnie To, 2004)

Aaron Kwok in Throw Down

Cast: Louis Koo, Aaron Kwok, Cherrie Ying, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Eddie Cheun Siu-fai, Lo Hoi-pang, Calvin Choi, Jordan Chan, Jack Kao. Screenplay: Yau Nai-hoi, Yip Tin-shing, Au Kin-yee. Cinematography: Cheng Siu-keung. Art direction: Tony Yu Hing-wah. Film editing: David Richardson. Music: Peter Kam. 

The narrative and the backstories of Johnnie To's Throw Down are to say the least, oblique. It's a film that almost demands a second viewing to make you understand why some of the things in it happen. Yet largely because of the engaging performances of the three principal actors it all makes sense in the end, even on one viewing. It's a story of three people who meet in a Hong Kong dive: the club owner, Szeto Bo (Louis Koo); a would-be singer, Mona (Cherrie Ying); and a young man who wants to make it big as a judo champion, Tony (Aaron Kwok). Over the course of a few nights and a few fights and mishaps, the three become fast friends. Their friendship culminates in a lovely lyrical moment that has nothing to do with the plot, when they team up to "liberate" a balloon caught in a tree. Throw Down is an homage to Akira Kurosawa via references to his first film, Sanshiro Sugata (1943), and it may help a little to have seen that movie, but To gives us moments of humor and pathos that are very much his own. 

Wild Search (Ringo Lam, 1989)

Chow Yun-Fat and Cherie Chung in Wild Search

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Cherie Chung, Roy Cheung, Paul Chun, Chang Cheuk-yan, Ku Feng, Tommy Wong, Lau Kong, Frankie Ng, Elaine Jin, Wan Yeung-min. Screenplay: Nam Yin. Cinematography: Andrew Lau. Art direction: Luk Tze-Fung. Film editing: Chow Tung-Nei. Music: Lowell Lo. 

The chemistry of the romantic pairing of Chow Yun-Fat and Cherie Chung gives Ringo Lam's Wild Search enough heart to lift it above the routine Hong Kong action movie. Not that Lam is ever routine in his staging of action, but the likability of the actors and their characters make the film feel like it's more than just gunplay and cars and bodies in motion. Chow plays a cop named Lau but nicknamed Mew-Mew (we never find out why), who gets involved with Chung's character, Cher, when her sister, Elaine, is killed by gangsters muscling in on the gun-smuggling business Elaine's antique shopt is fronting for. A witness survives the gunfire, Elaine's small daughter known as Ka-ka (Chan Cheuk-yan).  Mew-Mew meets Cher while interviewing Ka-ka, and things escalate from there in both attraction and action. There's a vicious hit man called Bullet (Roy Cheung) to contend with, along with Ka-ka's grumpy old grandfather (Ku Feng) and a rival suitor for Cher's hand, her ex-husband (Lau Kong). Mew-Mew is more vulnerable than many of Chow's characters: He winds up in the hospital after one encounter, but he's very much on hand for the final blazing shootout. Much has been made of Wild Search's resemblance to Peter Weir's 1985 hit Witness, but the movie is more homage than plagiarism. 

This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, 2019)

Mary Twala Mhlongo in This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection

Cast: Mary Twala Mhlongo, Jerry Mofokeng Wa, Makhaola Ndebele, Tseko Monaheng, Siphiwe Nzima-Ntskhe, Thabiso Makoto, Thab Letsie, Silas Monyatse, Aleandro Florio, Sarah Weber. Screenplay: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese. Cinematography: Pierre de Villiers. Art direction: Leila Walter. Film editing: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese. Music: Yu Miyashita. 

Deeply touching and sometimes astonishingly beautiful. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese's This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection is a fable about the tensions of the modern world, most centrally about tradition and change. Mantoa (the compelling Mary Twala Mhlongo) is a woman who has suffered the loss of her family, and now patiently -- perhaps a little impatiently -- awaits her death. Her main hope is to be buried with her family in the valley where they lived. But that hope is thwarted when surveyors and engineers arrive in the valley bringing news that it's to be flooded by the construction of a new dam. Soon she is confronting not only the government of Lesotho but also some powerful local authorities. Her resistance gains support from other villagers, but not enough to stem the tide of what some call progress. (The village chief says, "Every time I say the word progress, my tongue rolls backward.") It's a simple story of people imbued with faith, maintained by the village priest, but also tinged with skepticism. Part of the film is narrated by a man (Jerry Mofokeng Wa) who plays a lesiba, a musical instrument native to Lesotho and South Africa. At one point Mantoa recounts the history of the valley, which was settled by people fleeing a plague, and with the arrival of Christianity the village was named Nazaretha. A new god had arrived, and as the lesiba player comments, "the new god prays to the old god." Now perhaps another new god is appearing. The cinematography of Pierre de Villiers provides a rich color palette for Mosese's thoughtful story.

High Art (Lisa Cholodenko, 1998)

Radha Mitchell and Ally Sheedy in High Art

Cast: Radha Mitchell, Ally Sheedy, Gabriel Mann, Patricia Clarkson, Tammy Grimes, Charis Michelson, David Thornton, Anh Duong. Bill Sage, Helen Mendes, Cindra Feuer, Anthony Ruivivar. Screenplay: Lisa Cholodenko. Cinematography: Tami Reiker. Production design: Bernhard Blythe. Film editing: Amy E. Duddleston. Music: Stuart Hill, Nathan Larson, Craig Wedren. 

Lisa Cholodenko's High Art is a keen-edged portrait of life on the fringes of the art and publishing worlds of New York in the waning years of the 20th century. Syd (Radha Mitchell) is a 24-year-old working for a magazine that specializes in art photography. She has just received a promotion to assistant editor, though it still includes gofer work like picking up the lunch order for her boss. One day the ceiling in the bathroom of the run-down apartment she shares with her boyfriend begins to leak, so she goes upstairs to complain to the tenant, who turns out to be a once-famous photographer, Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy). In the course of trying to fix the leak, Syd gets acquainted with Lucy and her lover, Greta (Patricia Clarkson), and their assortment of heroin-using friends. The walls of their apartment are hung with Lucy's photographs, and Syd soon gets a chance not only to mount a comeback for the reclusive Lucy but also to prove herself as an editor. Working with Lucy on the feature draws them closer, precipitating a breakup of Syd and her boyfriend as well as a crisis in Lucy's relationship with Greta. Mitchell and Sheedy give fine performances, but they're overshadowed by Clarkson as the fragile, addicted, and self-deluded Greta, a once-famous German actress who was part of the circle around Rainer Werner Fassbinder. There are also some fascinating scenes with Lucy and her mother (Tammy Grimes), a wealthy woman who escaped Germany just before the Nazis came to power. The backstories of High Art are almost more interesting than the central one, and the painful ending feels contrived, but it's a sensitive and provocative film.

Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956)

Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, and Eli Wallach in Baby Doll

Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock, Lonny Chapman, Eades Hogue, Noah Williamson, Madeleine Sherwood, Rip Torn. Screenplay: Tennessee Williams, based on his play. Cinematography: Boris Kaufman. Art direction: Richard Sylbert. Film editing: Gene Milford. Music: Kenyon Hopkins. 

Elia Kazan's famous "dirty movie" Baby Doll raises no eyebrows today, except possibly in its opening scene, when Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), in his pajamas, pokes a hole in the wall to spy on his wife, known as Baby Doll (Carroll Baker), as she lies in a crib sucking her thumb. Millions spied on her too, in a famous poster image that fueled the ire of New York's Cardinal Francis Spellman. The image is perhaps perverse, but so was the reaction to it. The film is less about sex than it is about greed and ambition. Archie Lee's ambition, to possess not only Baby Doll but also the cotton ginning business, has been thwarted: The marriage has not been consummated because of an arrangement that they wouldn't sleep together until she was ready, and she promised that she would be ready on her 20th birthday, which happens to be the next day. As for the business, Archie Lee has been thwarted by a rival, the ambitious Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach), who has managed to contract with the majority of the cotton growers in the Mississippi Delta county where they live. A desperate Archie Lee resorts to desperate measures, but he has met his match in the cunning Sicilian. The result is a raucous dark comedy, one of Kazan's best films, set mostly in the decaying plantation house Archie Lee acquired in his ambitious plans. The atmosphere of the film, created in large part by Boris Kaufman's Oscar-nominated black-and-white cinematography and Richard Sylbert's art direction, is superb, and the three lead actors never gave better performances. The screenplay is credited to Tennessee Williams, although Kazan claimed that he wrote the script and Williams polished the dialogue. 

The Guitar Mongoloid (Ruben Östlund, 2004)

Erik Rutström in The Guitar Mongoloid

Cast: Erik Rutström, Ola Sandstig, Britt-Marie Andersson, Julia Persdotter, P.A. Emanuelsson, Anna Johansson, Mikael Allu, Bjarne Gunnarsson, Pär Berg, David Olandersson. Screenplay: Ruben Östlund. Cinematography: Tibor Gent. Film editing: Ebbe Rutström. Music: Bjön Olsson. 

Ruben Östlund's first feature, The Guitar Mongoloid, is a plotless collage of life on the societal fringes of a Swedish city very much like Göthenberg. The key figure is a 12-year-old boy (Erik Ruström) who has aspirations to be a punk rock guitarist and plays his guitar on the streets. The scenes in which he features intersect with those of a variety of other characters, all played by non-actors, involved in things like smashing bicycles or dropping them off bridges, playing with a gun, getting into fights, and rigging a car to drive backward in circles. As a portrait of urban absurdity, it's sometimes amusing, sometimes disturbing, and often unsettlingly familiar. Made with the visual distancing that became key to Östlund's style, it's a useful introduction to his more involving work. 

Two Friends (Jane Campion, 1986)

Kris Bidenko and Emma Coles in Two Friends

Cast: Kris Bidenko, Emma Coles, Kris McQuade, Peter Hehir, Kerry Dwyer, Stephen Leeder, Debra May, John Sheerin, Sean Travers, Emily Stocker. Screenplay: Helen Garner. Cinematography: Julian Penney. Production design: Janet Patterson. Film editing: Bill Russo. Music: Martin Armiger. 

Jane Campion's debut feature Two Friends, made for television, is a simple story about Louise (Emma Coles) and Kelly (Kris Bidenko), teenagers who have found themselves going separate ways. Louise continues on the "normal" course of adolescence, attending a somewhat exclusive girls' school, while Kelly has dropped out, crashing with friends at the beach and adopting punk style and mannerisms. The film begins, strikingly, at a wake for another girl their age, suggesting the pervasive vulnerability of the young. After introducing us to the estranged Kelly and Louise, the story of how they drifted apart is told backward by increments of a year or two. The parents of both girls are divorced, but Kelly's mother has remarried and Kelly is very much at odds with her stepfather. She tries to live with her father, but his fecklessness makes it difficult. Louise remains attached to her mother, though with the usual tensions of the mother-daughter relationship. Two Friends is a psychologically acute film, with fine performances, made with a keen-eyed documentary style, though its inverted storytelling deprives it of momentum.  

Songs From the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, 2000)

Lars Nordh in Songs From the Second Floor

Cast: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Torbjörn Fahlström, Sten Andersson, Rolando Núñez, Lucio Vucina, Per Jörnelius, Peter Roth, Klas-Gösta Olsson, Nils-Åke Eriksson, Hanna Eriksson. Screenplay: Roy Andersson. Cinematography: István Borbás, Jasper Klevenås. Film editing: Roy Andersson. Music: Benny Andersson.

As the date of its release suggests, Roy Andersson's Songs From the Second Floor is a millennial movie. It ends with crucifixes being heaped on a trash pile, and scene after scene suggests that capitalism is on its last legs. A conference room filled with executive types panics when one of them notices that a building across the street is moving, and the streets are filled with self-flagellating stockbrokers. Traffic is gridlocked, and ghosts from the past are stalking people. At one point, even human sacrifice seems to be attempted to free the world from its malaise. All of this angst is presented to us with straight-faced detachment as a series of incidents viewed through a murky atmosphere. It's a darkly comic apocalypse for a world in which everything, even a magician's attempt to saw a man in half, is going wrong. Songs From the Second Floor can leave you puzzled or depressed or even angry that the real world is too much like what it fantastically depicts, but it's not likely to leave you easily. 

Play (Ruben Östlund, 2011)

Anas Abdirahman and Sebastian Blyckert in Play

Cast: Anas Abdirahman, Sebastian Blyckert, Yannick Diakité, Sebastian Hegmar, Abdiaziz Hilowle, Nana Manu, John Ortiz, Kevin Vaz. Screenplay: Ruben Östlund, Erik Hemmendorff. Cinematography: Marius Dybwad Brandrud. Production design: Pia Aleborg. Film editing: Ruben Östlund, Jacob Secher Schulsinger. Music: Danny Bensi, Saunder Juriaans. 

So much of contemporary life is touched on in Ruben Östlund's Play that it's difficult to isolate a single dominant theme. It's about racism, of course, but it's also about bullying and vigilantism, about cultural appropriation, immigration, and alienation, about adolescence and parenting and the sterility of the urban environment and law enforcement and bureaucracy. The film stirred controversy in Sweden perhaps because no one could agree that it's about any one of these things and that it was making a specific point about them. It begins with a group of Black kids in a shopping mall, trying to con some white kids out of a cell phone by claiming it was stolen, and develops from there, interrupted occasionally by seemingly unrelated scenes set on a train, where a baby's cradle has been left in a passageway, to the consternation of the conductors. Everything is viewed with detachment, the camera in a fixed position, so it's almost like looking through a window at what's happening. Play takes two hours to tell a story without a resolution, but because of its skillfully maintained distancing it ironically involves the viewer more than a more dramatic or didactic account of the same incident might have.