Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

Political drama doesn't come any more emotionally resonant than this dramatisation of the
plight of the Guildford Four, convicted after a murderous pub bombing in 1974. Though based
on actual facts in the still controversial case, Sheridan tilts at the IRA and the British police
alike, focusing on the unlikely bonds that result between the arrested men.
In the Realm of the Senses
(Nagisa Oshima, 1976)
Eros and Thanatos in pre-war Japan: a groundbreaking, controversial shocker, based on a
true incident, detailing the dangerous sexual obsession between a servant and her employer
that culminates with the ultimate orgasmic act of love. Oshima's stylised lighting and
composition bring borderline porn to the status of high art.
In This World
(Michael Winterbottom, 2002)
Michael Winterbottom's tough, impassive docu-drama about asylum seekers couldn't have
been more timely on its release in 2002, as the Iraq debacle gathered pace. Using small
digital video cameras, improvisation, guerrilla filming and available light, Winterbottom follows
the overland refugee route from Pakistan through Iran, Turkey and Italy up to Sangatte, Dover
and beyond. This is a route littered with stolen cash, broken dreams and dead bodies: a
sickening reverse of the hippy trail where the poor and unhoused of Asia head for the
prosperity and welfare payouts of western Europe. Winterbottom uses two Afghan nonprofessionals,
Jamal Udin Torabi and Enayatullah, more or less playing themselves as a 16year-old
and his older cousin, and tracks them, as it were in real time, after they bet their
borrowings and life savings on a terrifying one-way ticket to Kilburn High Road in London. We
are left with the two men's journey itself, during which we must largely intuit exactly what is
going on in their heads, because there is little or no dialogue between the two. This World
unfolds just as I imagine such a journey mostly would in reality: in grim silence, with
occasional frantic arguments with people who can't understand what you're saying. This is a
reticent film, both emotionally and intellectually, and for some it may be frustrating. But the
harrowingly real picture it paints is a daring and ambitious work. How many other
commercially successful directors, at 40-plus, would head off to the Afghan border to rough it
with a DV camera?
Peter Bradshaw
Independence Day
(Roland Emmerich, 1996)
Giant mile-wide flying saucers have been a mainstay of sci-fi literature for years, but this was
the first time we could properly see them in the movies. The rampant jingoism is as silly now
as it was then, but this remains textbook blockbuster entertainment where pets are less
expendable than people.
Infernal Affairs
(Andrew Lau, Mak Siu Fai, 2002)
The Hong Kong original for Martin Scorsese's The Departed: a tight, morally subversive
premise - cop infiltrates mob, mobster infiltrates the cops is marshalled here with nearmathematical
precision; Andy Lau and Tony Leung originate the deep cover mole roles that
later went to Damon and DiCaprio.
The Innocents
(Jack Clayton, 1961)
An incredibly creepy adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw that effectively
rewrote the ghost story genre - there may not even be a supernatural element at play here
and most of the spookiest scenes happen in broad daylight. Deborah Kerr's repressed nanny
is certainly haunted by something; not knowing exactly what it is has kept this movie from
ageing or diminishing in power.
The Insider
(Michael Mann, 1999)