Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

final-act plot swerves ever. Oh, and it introduces Kevin Spacey as 90s cinema's favourite
secret weapon.
Uzak
(Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002)
A beautiful and sad movie that attains a clarity and simplicity that lesser film-makers could
strain every sinew trying to achieve without ever getting anywhere. Uzak is about loneliness
and depression, and particularly the kind of depression suffered by men of a certain age, yet
the film itself is, gloriously, the opposite of depressing. It is gentle and deeply humane, and
even ventures into an arena of delicate visual comedy with a shy adroitness that Woody Allen
might admire. Uzak means "distant": an idea whose metaphorical significance matches the
more obvious sense of physical distance and estrangement. Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir) has
made a success of his life as a photographer living in Istanbul; professionally bored and
disillusioned, he is conducting a deeply unsatisfactory affair with a married woman. His life is
upended by the deeply unwelcome arrival of Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), a dopey country
cousin from the village that he has left behind. It isn't long before Yusuf is getting on his
nerves in a very big way, but the realisation that Yusuf is the nearest thing Mahmut will now
ever get to human companionship in the evening of his life is appallingly sad and funny. This
odd-couple tragicomedy is so well acted by both men, so utterly involving, and so real. Uzak
is about the distances that open up inexorably as we enter middle age: between the past and
the present, between the present and an unattainable future, and between lonely men who
shut themselves in their own carapaces of pride. Uzak is a film that I admire more than I can
say - the work of a brilliant film-maker.
Peter Bradshaw
Les Valseuses
(Bertrand Blier, 1974)
Gérard Dépardieu and Patrick Dewaere play two criminals and drifters who spend their time
robbing, harassing, bothering women and somehow getting away with it - just. Jeanne
Moreau is the sensuous older woman who briefly hooks up with them. Blier's view of devilmay-care
male sexual adventurism is a little self-congratulatory and leaves a strange taste in
the mouth now, but it's a movie with gusto.
The Vanishing
(George Sluizer, 1988)
Sluizer plays most of the typical thriller cards early, yet it's all so skilful that the tension refuses
to diminish. A man searches for his missing wife for years. Not knowing what has become of
her keeps him in a hell only her abductor can release him from. The film presents evil as
disturbingly, credibly mundane, with a final scene that won't budge from your memory.
Vengeance Is Mine
(Shohei Imamura, 1979)
A brilliantly compelling killer-on-the-run thriller, that delves deep into the roots of its subject's
psyche without passing judgment - except on society as a whole. It was based on a real-life
case but it goes far beyond the gruesome facts, even to the murderer's childhood. The result
is a chillingly credible portrait of criminal psychosis.
Vera Drake
(Mike Leigh, 2004)
Set in dreary postwar Britain, this impeccably-acted drama has Imelda Staunton giving the
performance of her career as the respectable, middle-aged cleaning lady whose world
unravels when her second, secret career as a backstreet abortionist is revealed. Atmospheric,
morally nuanced and completely gripping.
Vertigo
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)