White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)

White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Lambert, Nicolas Devauchelle, William Nadylam, Michel Subor, Isaach De Bankolé, Adèle Ado, Ali Barkai. Screenplay: Claire Denis, Marie N'Diaye, Lucie Borleteau. Cinematography: Yves Cape. Production design: Abiassi Saint-Père. Film editing: Guy Lecorne. Music: Stuart Staples. 

Isabelle Huppert is an almost routinely extraordinary actress, and she gives one of her most striking performances in White Material, about the French owner of a coffee plantation in Africa. This is a far cry from Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1987), the glossy Oscar winner. Huppert's Maria Vial is a woman determined to the point of madness to get out her coffee crop during a civil war, even though the authorities have insisted she and her family should leave. Her husband, André (Christopher Lambert), is ready to flee, but she persists, even after their lazy, self-indulgent son, Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle), is captured by young rebel soldiers, abused, and possibly raped. Things continue to escalate in ever more complex and chaotic ways. It's an often harrowing film, held together in large part by Huppert's magnetism. 

I Know Where I'm Going! (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1945)

Cast: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Duncan MacKechnie, Finlay Currie, Pamela Brown, Murdo Morrison, Margot Fitzsimons, Catherine Lacey, Valentine Dyall, Petula Clark. Screenplay: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. Cinematography: Erwin Hillier. Production design: Alfred Junge. Film editing: John Seabourne Sr. Music: Allan Gray.

A stubborn young Englishwoman travels to the Hebrides to marry a man who lives on a remote island, but her journey there is interrupted by bad weather. Stuck on the Isle of Mull, she finds herself falling in love with another man, a naval officer who also plans to journey to the island on shore leave. Lo and behold, she and the officer begin to fall in love, which only makes her more desperate to complete her journey. Complicating things, there's an ancient curse on the naval officer. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's film manages to overcome some dodgy psychology and hokey superstition with the aid of fine performances by Wendy Hiller as Joan, the stubborn young woman, and Roger Livesey as the officer under the weight of the curse, making their characters persuasive and credible. Erwin Hillier's cinematography is superbly atmospheric, and incidentally overcomes an unusual handicap: Although much of the film is shot on the Isle of Mull, Livesey never went there because he was performing in a play in London. His scenes were all filmed in the studio and a double was used in the location shots. 

L'Humanité (Bruno Dumont, 1999)

Cast: Emmanuel Schotté, Séverine Caneele, Philippe Tullier, Ghislain Ghesquère, Ginette Allègre. Screenplay: Bruno Dumont. Cinematography: Yves Cape. Production design: Marc-Philippe Guerig. Film editing: Guy Lecorne. Music: Richard Cuvillier.

Emmanuel Schotté's performance as an unlikely police detective in L'Humanité won the best actor award at Cannes. The film, about the detective's efforts to solve a case involving the rape and murder of a little girl,  is full of enigmatic moments and even paranormal events that test a viewer's credulity, but it winds up exerting a kind of exasperated fascination.

Dance, Girl, Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940)

Lucille Ball, Maureen O'Hara, and Virginia Field in Dance, Girl, Dance

Cast: Maureen O'Hara, Louis Hayward, Lucille Ball, Virginia Field, Ralph Bellamy, Maria Ouspenskaya, Mary Carlisle, Katharine Alexander, Edward Brophy, Walter Abel. Screenplay: Tess Slesinger, Frank Davis, based on a story by Vicki Baum. Cinematography: Russell Metty. Art direction: Van Nest Polglase, Alfred Herman. Film editing: Robert Wise. Music: Edward Ward.

Dorothy Arzner's film about chorus girls struggling to make lives for themselves in a milieu dominated by males and their gaze earned its place in the National Film Registry by being one of the few movies of the era to take the women's point of view seriously. It has its melodramatic excesses, but it steadily keeps its focus on the characters played by Lucille Ball and Maureen O'Hara instead of yielding time to its male leads, Louis Hayward and Ralph Bellamy. 

La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001)

Cast: Mercedes Morán, Graciela Borges, Martín Adjemián, Leonora Balcarce, Silvia Baylé, Sofia Bertolotto, Juan Cruz Bordeu, Noelia Bravo Herrera, Andrea López, Sebastián Montagna, Daniel Valenzuela, Franco Veneranda, Fabio Villafane, Diego Baenas. Screenplay: Lucrecia Martel. Cinematography: Hugo Colace. Production design: Graciela Oderigo. Film editing: Santiago Ricci. 

The members of an upper-middle-class Argentine family torment one another during the course of a sweltering summer spent at their country house. Lucrecia Martel established herself as one of the premier Latin American filmmakers with this, her first feature. 

Nobody Lives Forever (Jean Negulesco, 1946)

Cast: John Garfield, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, Faye Emerson, George Coulouris, George Tobias, Robert Shayne, Richard Gaines, Richard Erdman. Screenplay: W.R. Burnett, based on his novel. Cinematography: Arthur Edeson. Art direction: Hugh Reticker, Max Parker. Film editing: Rudi Fehr. Music: Adolph Deutsch.

Changes of heart are always risky, especially in film noir, so when Nick Blake (John Garfield) falls in love with the rich widow Gladys Halvorsen (Geraldine Fitzgerald), who has been chosen as the mark in a con game, things get a little screwed up. Originally planned as a vehicle for Humphrey Bogart, Nobody Lives Forever benefits from Garfield's good looks, making the romantic twist a little more interesting. Jean Negulesco, better known for glossy romance than for noir, handles the material well, especially the climactic shootout.

Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981)

Craig Warnock and Sean Connery in Time Bandits

Cast: John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Ralph Richardson, Peter Vaughan, David Warner, Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, Malcolm Dixon, Mike Edmonds, Jack Purvis, Tiny Ross, Jim Broadbent, David Daker, Sheila Fearn. Screenplay: Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam. Cinematography: Peter Biziou. Production design: Milly Burns. Film editing: Julian Doyle. Music: Mike Moran. 

A film with many admirers, but I find it too much a kids' movie -- noisy and sometimes silly -- with not enough genuine wit to please grownups. What works best for me in it are the star performers -- Sean Connery, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm -- letting themselves go. 

Crazy Rich Asians (Jon M. Chu, 2018)

Constance Wu and Awkwafina in Crazy Rich Asians

Cast: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Lisa Lu, Awkwafina, Ken Jeong, Sonoya Mizuno, Chris Pang, Jimmy O. Yang. Screenplay: Peter Chiarelli, Adele Lim, based on a novel by Kevin Kwan. Cinematography: Vanja Cernjul. Production design: Nelson Coates. Film editing: Myron Kerstein. Music: Brian Tyler.

Bright performances and a sumptuous production enhance Crazy Rich Asians, but it's really the novelty of an almost all-Asian cast that brought this otherwise likable but conventionally plotted romantic comedy to widespread notice.

Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968)

Sergio Corrieri in Memories of Underdevelopment

Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Eslinda Núñez, Omar Valdés, René de la Cruz. Screenplay: Esmundo Desnoes, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, based on a novel by Esmundo Desnoes. Cinematography: Ramón F. Suárez. Production design: Julio Matilla. Film editing: Nelson Rodríguez. Music: Leo Brouwer.

Sergio (Sergio Corrieri), whose family has fled Cuba for Miami after the revolution, remains in Havana. A disaffected, well-to-do intellectual, he knows his days are numbered, but he remains, having an affair with the working-class Elena (Daisy Granados) as he watches history unfold. A provocative film that was somewhat better received in the United States than in Cuba.

Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973)

Meiko Kaji in Lady Snowblood

Cast: Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Ko Nishimura, Masaaki Daimon, Miyoko Akaza, Eiji Okada,  Sanae Nakahara, Noboru Nakaya. Screenplay: Norio Osada, Kazuo Kamimura, Kazuo Koike. Cinematography: Masaki Tamura. Production design: Kazuo Satsuya. Film editing: Osamu Inoue. Music: Masaaki Hirao.

An often fascinating, often grisly tale, based on a popular manga, of a woman not only born but conceived to take revenge for her mother's rape and her family's murder. Among other things, it's an acknowledged source for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003).