World cinema

Hitler may have been a genocidal maniac, but he was also a ridiculous little man. So a boy with a tendency for tantrums is probably a very appropriate hero for a film that traces the ravages of Nazism on German history. The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) is an adaptation of Gunter Grass's highly acclaimed...

Troll Hunter. Those two words effectively tell you everything you need to know about the plot and the protagonist of this particular monster flick. But it's more than that. Every once in a while, a film will arrive on the scene that strikes you as something a little different from the endless supply of comic...

Obsessive passion, death by strangulation and two lovers facing an indifferent or hostile world - Nagisa Ôshima's Empire of Passion (Ai No Borei) has certain similarities with  his In the Realm of the Senses (Ai No Corrida). The films are said to be companion pieces, but Ai No Borei made in 1978, two years...

Ai No Corrida (In the Realm of the Senses) is well known as one of the most sexually explicit art films ever made, but don't confuse it for an arty porn film. Yes, there is a lot of (real) shagging, but it's not exactly chasing thrills. After all, the male lead has his penis chopped off by the...

Bitter-sweet can't have come near to describing the experience of living through VE Day.  Nazism had finally been vanquished, but much of the continent lay in ruins. This bewildering day makes an ideal backdrop for Ashes and Diamonds, a complex film about the aftermath of the Second World War. While in...

It may be set on the Greek coast, but Attenberg is not set in the sort of place that many visitors to the country are familiar with. For starters the sky hardly seems to be blue, there's not a classical ruin or beach in sight, and there aren't even any rioters. The film starts with out herione, Marina...

Sans Soleil (or Sunless, although no one seems to use its English title) might leave you with feeling that there's quite a bit you didn't understand, or at least, there is still more to be understood. The film is reckoned to be a key 'film essay', and it is jammed full with an enormous number of ideas and...

The Salt of Life was released in Italy as Gianni e le Donne, which translates as 'Gianni and Women'. The less allusive Italian title gives a clearer idea of the film: middle aged Gianni and his women troubles, which aren't of the usual 'ladies man' variety. This gentle-but-with-a-bite comedy is set in the...

A crowd of young people in tennis whites and bright hopeful smiles cycle up the long drive towards a tennis court in the shadow of a large Italian mansion. The sun shines, the garden and its occupants are beautiful, every one is in a good mood. The situation cannot last. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)...

The Nazis called their policy of ‘disappearing' political opponents during the Second World War ‘Night and Fog’. These men and women were not given a trial, but simply vanished into 'the night and the fog'. The term is also an apt title for a film about the holocaust. When trying to understand these...