This film by Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour, came to a cinema near me last night. I loved it, especially for the beautiful wide screen black and white and the sound track, curated by the director (who according to Mark Kermode is an ex-DJ). (You can find posts of the music on Youtube). This film breaks genre categories: its very darkly lit and nocturnal noir, its horror and romance, all set in a dystopian supposedly Iranian town called Bad City, though filmed in California.

This is a masterful scene that reminds me of the bar scene in Wings of Desire where Bruno Ganz and Solveig Dommartin (who died of a heart attack at age 45) meet face to face. See here for an interview with SD about that amazing scene. In fact there are very many movie references, direct (the scene from the moving car near the end reminded me of Lost Highway for example) and indirect, with the mood of Nosferatu in places or the industrial background of Eraserhead. The lead is played by cute Sheila Vand. Though a little predictable/corny/romantic in places, it is wonderful and worth seeing.

‘Stylish, sensual and smart’, that’s how Rotten Tomatoes summarises this interesting film from Peter Strickland. The review goes on to say that this film ‘proves that erotic cinema can have genuine substance’. Other reviewers have presented it as a thinking person’s alternative to Fifty Shades of Grey. So that’s a lot to live up to. It is certainly beautifully filmed with many dreamlike visual nods to late 1960s, psychedelia even. It is also very funny in places, the pan across the concentrating and engaged audience at the entomological association which features at least two slightly out of focus, but nicely dressed, mannequins in the back row, for example. I also enjoyed the strange nostalgic world created in some unspecified time and (European) place where the only people are beautiful and slightly stiffly dressed women.

The subject matter is the dilemma of the relationship between the beautiful and submissive Evelyn (‘this is all I have ever dreamed about’) and the more-comfortable-in-cosy-pygamas-Cynthia who becomes less patient and accommodating to Evelyn’s requests as time goes by. Its nicely played mostly with lots of lingering (in both senses) eroticism. The film avoids the most crass S/M cliches (whips etc.) to its credit and the allure of the practices is nicely balanced with a focus on Evelyn and Cynthia and their gorgeous environment – as well as the butterflies and moths that remained enigmatic for me throughout the film.

But I found it slightly disappointing. I hoped for something far more taut. There was too much sentiment and far too much dialogue. Everything was said out loud. I imagined this film with only a quarter of the dialogue. I asked In what way are these women like butterflies? Are they pinned? I concluded that the entomology was an atmospheric addition rather than a central structure or metaphor for the whole film, albeit a beautifully achieved one.

The trailer is here.

This acclaimed film adaptation of an already acclaimed book of the same name is billed as a tense plot-twisting success. We watch a marriage go stale and the wife fake her own disappearance in a meticulously planned attempt to frame her husband (whom she has grown to hate) for her murder. In the book the story is told by unreliable witnesses and the film takes this approach but with rather a jolting split about two thirds in when we see the story from Amy Dunne’s devastating angle. Amy is the product, literally, of her parents’ media manipulations and works of fiction based on her girlhood so it it plausible that she is revealed as a psychopath who blurs reality and play-acting, or rather knows only too well the difference. The film is a nice, but rather obvious, critique of the effect of American media fantasy about marriage, motherhood, etc. But for me the central scene of Amy’s blood soaked murder of a creepy male lover in mid-orgasm seemed to refer to a deeply misogynistic fantasy about women. It made me try to think of all the other plots in which women kill their lovers in the act of making love. The only one that comes to mind is the very different in mood, Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. But there must be others. A review of Gone Girl is here.

I’ve just seen ‘Oh boy’, apparently originally called ‘Coffee in Berlin’. Of the films I’ve seen so far at the 2014 Festival, I have enjoyed this the most. Both director and lead actor are new arrivals. Visually the film’s grainy black and white reminded me of Wings of Desire (of course). There are some beautiful moments of absurd comedy and, for the most part, a lightness of touch. It soon emerges that everyone the protagonist Niko comes across is in a mess of some kind, some realising it and some not. His non-committal stance turns out to be the most prized attribute of the film. There is a scene near the end of the film where Niko walks in to a late night bar and encounters an old man with an Ancient Mariner feel, compelled to tell his painful and poetic story. Its a strong part of the film but, for me it never quite became the key to the film in the way that I was expecting it might and when, later that night the man dies in hospital, I felt a touch of a rather unnecessary and perhaps sentimental narrative. There’s little about either the film or the director on IMDB but I have found this summary and not much else save that it won awards when shown at the German Film Academy Awards.

I’ve just seen Trance at the Picturehouse, director Danny Boyle’s latest film. Its a gangster thriller about a stolen and then lost painting but the twists and turns of the plot and characterisation are breathtaking and have had H and I trying to work them out the day after seeing it. Casting is perfect with the young corrupt and charming doctor from Last King of Scotland, James McAvoy, playing the charming and corrupt auctioneer’s assistant, Simon. This is a very clever and very thrilling film. You will go away wondering what was ‘real’ and what was hypnotically induced trance. Highly recommended.