I’d seen this film discussed on a late-night, fast-talking arts review on Channel 4 so had some idea of its themes. It was a loud film, the African music, the dying cows screaming and the gunshots left me exhausted. One theme was colonialism (gone wrong and repulsed) with our young Scottish doctor Garrigan a cypher for the white man’s exploitation of Africa. Another, and the theme that gripped me most, was the discussion (is that the word?) of character and corruption. From the moment that our Doc coyly revealed to Amin that he had particular feelings for a married woman, Amin knew he had a man he would be able to master. Being corrupt, he recognised that spark of corruption in the young man. And Garrigan is also drawn to the charisma and corruption of Amin. The characters with integrity all seem to end up with bullets in their brains. Is the corruption and power attractive? Well, it can be, but somehow it isn’t portrayed like that. Both Amin and Garrigan make us very uneasy. Amin has a charisma that Garrigan certainly doesn’t.

We can’t guess what comes after the film ends. Has Garrigan finally learned his lesson? Will he really give powerful testimony about Amin’s regime once back in safe London as his doctor colleague pleads?

As the reviews have been saying Amin is played masterfully by Forest Whitaker (and I’ve just realised it was he that played the amazing Ghost Dog in Jim Jarmusch’s brilliant film – I feel like seeing this again just so I can appreciate all those resonances.)

The “film festival website”:http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/ is worth looking at plus the reviews, some by me – somewhere.

Here are two suprisingly similar films, both about a ‘charming’ stranger who comes to down (I meant to type town, but comes down also seems right) and disrupts and exploits the weaknesses of a family – Baptist evangelicals in the case of “The King”:http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=147379, and a down at heel Californian family in “Down in the Valley”:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/down_in_the_valley/. This male stranger starts off attractive, charming, mysterious -almost with no background, seductive, offering something authentic in the face of a not-quite-functioning family/society. In both, the target, at least initially, is a rebellious or would-be rebellious teenage daughter, but a brother is drawn in in both films – though with very different consequences.

Guns and weapons figure large in both as property of both the father (the menace of American force behind the veneer of civilisation and/or religion) and in the hands of the outsider who uses them more appealingly but with no less, or actually, more destructive effect.

This outsider is ambiguous, offering energy and a relationship to teenage children that parents/fathers/step-fathers can’t seem to, but he ends up offering or delivering something quite unambiguous in its destructiveness – a devil in The King, and a disturbed, disowned and hurt young criminal in the Valley.

Lars von Trier made “The Five Obstructions”:http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=291402 over 2 years and it was released in 2003. Its follows him baiting former teacher Jorgen Leth into remaking his 1967 classic, The perfect Human a number of times. Having just seen it for the 3rd time, some of it is wearing a little thin.. but what I enjoyed especially, is the French woman’s beautiful poetry from the car before she winds up the window and almost disappears – talking about her beauty and her richness in love.

“Lars Von Trier’s”:http://www.geocities.com/lars_von_trier2000/ sequel to “Dogville”:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dogville/about.php . Starts right from the first second carrying on the theme. A different actress laying Grace. But somehow, maybe because we have already seen how a large sound studio with some handheld cameras can do all the business of locations and lighting teams and lavish props, the idea is not as interesting. Again, is it because we already know what von Trier is interested in, that “Manderlay”:http://www.manderlaythefilm.com/ is rather predictable. The genius of Dogville was its fairy tale nature, its ‘universal’ story. One interpretation of it was specific to the US – but its power, in my view, stemmed from its mythic character. Manderlay, on the other hand started and finished as a strong critique of American approaches to the ‘other’, domineering, not understanding, destructive and eventually hateful. Impressive, moving at times, alegorical but in my view not nearly as ground-breaking or powerful or haunting as its predecesor.

Wow. I was reluctant to see another “Michael Haneke”:http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/haneke.html film. Funny Games, was disturbing. I read that Wim Wenders walked out of the screening at Cannes in 1997). The Time of the wolf was depressing, The Piano Teacher was at least engaging, Code Unknown I didn’t get to the end but sensed it was good.

Hidden was, by contrast, fairly clear in its message and its alegory was plain. There were minor shocks and some narrative details left uncertain (who DID take those films? Was the last scene chronologically the first?) Most powerful werre scenes where Middle Eastern Western violence dominated a scene of domestic anxiety even though it was in the background – and we were always – often uneasy about whether we were watching the film or a film within the film, the rewinds reminding me of Funny Games. This is definately worth seeing.