Incendies (CA, 2010)

Twin brother and sister travel to their mother's homeland (presumably Lebanon) to fulfill her last wishes, in the process discovering a great deal about her and the fabric of their origins. Despite the one-sided depiction of atrocities, it's a serious, sincere film which illustrates how war can tear a family apart and re-unite them in unimaginable ways.

À Nos Amours (FR, 1983)

Sandrine Bonnaire as the promiscuous teenager from an unhappy-if-comfortable family. The story flits from a Summer school to her home town, to apparent weekend returns from boarding school, to a marriage of whose only inkling we receive is a dress-fitting, to an eventual elopement with one of her admirers. Along the way there is much screwing and constant arguments at home, all of it unengagingly matter-of-fact rather than dramatic or shocking.

It's a slightly bleak, non-plussing kind of movie.

The Way (US, 2010)

Tom (Martin Sheen), after cremating the remains of his son who perished accidentally on the Camino de Santiago, decides to undertake the hike to Campostella and beyond himself. Cue 3 other pilgrims - a jovial, overweight pot-smoking Dutchman, the mad Irish writer and a sultry, cynical, chain-smoking single Canadian woman. Other caricatures abound: honest gitanos dancing in the firelight; flighty, independent-minded Basques; the arrogant French, exuberant Iberians etc. A kinship of sorts develops between the four principal protagonists.

Vaguely diverting, with agreeable mountain scenery and architecture encountered en route.

Following (UK, 1998)

Loner writer Bill fills his time 'shadowing', that is, following interesting-looking people around London, in order to find out more about them. Enter the elegant, well-spoken, manipulative conman Cobb, who, realising he's being tailed, confronts him; they get talking, and thus begins a sequence of events our hapless main character freely chooses but ultimately has no control over.

Christopher Nolan's short-ish pre-fame feature is pretty impressive - shoestring first effort or not. As expected, the time structure is played around with, events pieced together retrospectively and not necessarily in sequence. It's compelling, original viewing which still looks good 13 years on.

Julia's Eyes/Los Ojos de Julia (ES, 2010)

This convoluted, overly-long would-be psycho-drama/horror just doesn't cut it..
It maintains some level of interest, but is unconvincing and in places clichéd.

Heartbeats/Les Amours Imaginaires(CA, 2010)

'Heartbeats' revolves around a vague love-triangle of existing friends - shorty twink Francis, and the vampishly beautiful, slightly older Marie; both become acquainted with the classically-curled, ambiguous blonde Nico(las).

The main story is interspersed with 'after the event' cutovers/asides from some of the protagonists/extras; it succeeds admirably on its own terms without these, so why bother?

Very good soundtracking (Vive La Fete, Fever Ray) plus excellent, intuitive use of colour and costume which belie the extreme youth of the director (he's still in his twenties - early twenties, that is..).

A Blonde in Love/Lásky jedné plavovlásky (CZ, 1965)

Having long been a fan of Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970) and more recently having marvelled at the beautiful Morgiana (1973), it's just wonderful to have some of the heretofore relatively unseen Czech New Wave classics to delve into. This thanks in no small part to Second Run DVD.

'A Blonde in Love' concerns the doe-eyed beauty of the title who meets a charming pianist from Prague at the local bandhall, and then a week later pursues him to his home town...

As with most films of the era, it has a timeless feel to it and still looks fantastic, there just seems to have been 'something about' the optics, celluloid and treatment processes of the time.

Interesting snippets of the regime at work here, from the documentary-like factory scenes, to the government planners deciding to locate an army barracks in this small town which has a surfeit of young unmarried females, to the lecture on chastity in the worker's hostel.