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Polytechnique (2009)
In Denis Villeneuve’s tragic reconstruction of the 1989 Polytechnique Montreal massacre, he traps us inside a labyrinth of narrow corridors and bleak modernist architecture, following the immediate perspectives of two students whose fates will be forever intermingled with one violent, hateful man and his brief reign of terror.
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Rushmore (1998)
There may not be a single Wes Anderson character more suited to his highly-curated affect than Max Fischer, as the slightly autobiographical characterisation of this ambitious school student imprints a comically organised style and structure upon Rushmore that matches the young filmmaker’s own idiosyncratic precision.
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The Double Life of Veronique (1991)
The mystical coincidences that bind French music teacher Véronique and Polish choir soprano Weronika together in a causal relationship are elusive in their formal complexities, as Krzysztof Kieslowski edges us towards an emotional understanding of humanity’s interconnectedness in The Double Life of Veronique without ever fully letting us in on its magnificently abstract secrets.
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Johnny Guitar (1954)
Even rarer than seeing a woman take the lead in a classical Western is the choice to set her against another woman as the equally compelling villain, as Nicholas Ray projects a feminine sensitivity upon the male-dominated genre in Johnny Guitar with magnificently complex characters and vibrant colourful expressions.
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Escape From New York (1981)
Escape From New York is a dystopian sci-fi, an action, but most of all it runs by the Western playbook, as John Carpenter sets up ex-soldier Snake Plissken as a swaggering hero tasked with rescuing the president from the giant prison that was once Manhattan Island, and setting its monstrous steel and concrete structures up…
