Category: 1969

Fellini Satyricon (1969)

Federico Fellini | 2hr 9min

Through the lens of our contemporary world, the past often looks like an alien civilisation, abiding by absurd customs and exotic fashions conceptualised by some bizarre foreign entity. Though Federico Fellini acutely identifies traces of modern decadence in his distorted refraction of Ancient Rome, this is the position he maintains throughout Fellini Satyricon, while slowly revealing an even more audacious statement at the heart of its manic weirdness. It is not merely our distant ancestors who are aliens to an impartial outsider, but humanity itself, bound to the same trivial obsessions and primal impulses across history. This age of decadence we live through today is merely an echo of many others that have come before, Fellini posits, each time heralding a socioeconomic decline brought about by gluttonous appetites and egos.

This landscape of widespread moral corruption is of course not unique in his filmography, especially given that Satyricon and La Dolce Vita both trace the journey of two lone men through episodes exposing Rome’s shameless depravity. Where Catholic iconography and ethics guided the narrative of Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece though, Satyricon’s tales draw directly from ancient pagan beliefs, and specifically the eponymous novel penned by Roman writer Petronius as a satire of Greco-Roman mythology. More specifically, this text directly parodied the majestic heroism and fantastical adventures of Homer’s Odyssey, which by the 1st century AD was several hundred years old. While its lost segments somewhat hinder Fellini’s interpretation from mustering up much formal rigour, there is still an immense dedication to epic storytelling on display within the picaresque narrative chaos, reassembling the remains of a decaying world that is only barely hanging together.

Fellini’s mise-en-scène in Satyricon stands with some of his best, using his ludicrously theatrical set designs and blocking to compose off-kilter landscapes of moral debauchery and suffering. In effect, this is an ancient apocalypse – the downward slide of the once-powerful Roman Empire.

In place of the brave, charismatic hero that Odysseus typified in the Epic Cycle, Encolpius represents a far more ambiguous protagonist in Satyricon, motivated more by epicurean pleasure than love or honour. This is a man who will slaughter a temple of worshippers and kidnap a hermaphroditic demigod in hope of a obtaining a ransom, and yet who is also incompetent enough to carelessly let them die of dehydration in a scorching desert. He does not stand out from this moral cesspool, but rather blends in with its depraved surroundings, feebly falling into the off-kilter orbit of egocentric patricians, lecherous merchants, and bloodthirsty spectators who seek nothing but their own gratification. Given the self-indulgent behaviour of the Roman gods, it is fitting that their followers should celebrate them with such blatant acts of hedonism, transforming their once-glorious empire into a carnival of violence and debauchery.

Murals and graffiti become stunning backdrops to Encolpius’ journey, rendering him as another two-dimensional figure next to those painted on walls.

Now fully consumed by his love of Technicolour photography, Fellini doesn’t hold back either in his frenetic visual recreation of Satyricon’s Rome, especially with genius cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno joining his troupe. This is expressionistic world building at its most imposing, based around colossal, anachronistic sets that might almost belong in a theatre were it not for their vast expansion in all directions. The giant ziggurat of apartments where Encolpius lives with his slave and lover Gitón towers menacingly in the darkness above a grey courtyard, and of course to reach it from the other side of the city one must pass through a brothel where strange sexual acts unfold in full view of the public. Where 8 ½ and Juliet of the Spirits once blended reality and surrealism in fragmented dreams, Fellini immerses Satyricon in a feverish hallucination that has taken over the lives of the Roman people, and even infected the skies with a deep red that casts the land below as an infernal underworld.

The giant ziggurat where Encolpius lives with Gitón towers menacingly above a grey courtyard, appearing strikingly apocalyptic with its darkness and crowds.
Red skies shed a hellish glow over the infernal underworld of Ancient Rome, damning its lost souls to endless torment and suffering.
Fellini indulges in the artifice of his lighting, sets, and costuming. This is not an authentic recreation of Ancient Rome, but an anachronistic refraction of a satirical text, underlining the hypocrisies which led to its downfall.

It is no coincidence that some of Fellini’s most demented imagery arrives with the novel’s most famous episode, set at a banquet held by wealthy freeman Trimalchio for the entertainment of the commonfolk. Encolpius has been invited by his new friend, the eccentric poet Eumolpus, and as they venture towards the meeting place they come across an absurdly confronting sight – a hundred nude men and women waiting outside in a giant, steamy bath, surrounded by an even greater number of candles. The erotic of nature of Fellini’s blocking here is crucial to the carnal madness of Satyricon, bringing together bare bodies in uncomfortably intimate arrangements which simultaneously satiate and disturb the senses.

Satyricon signals a shift in Fellini’s surrealism, moving away from depictions of dreams and fully bombarding us with maddening, expressionistic landscapes without narrative explanation.

Inside Trimalchio’s gaudy manor, he continues this staging as guests lounge around the edges of the room in extravagant costumes and makeup, imprinted against red walls and enveloped in thick clouds of steam. Insanity reigns when the crowd frenetic dances to dissonant live music and organs spill across the floor from a giant roast hog, yet Fellini’s focus never wavers from the codependent relationship between the narcissistic host and his guests. Supposedly based on Emperor Nero, the insecure Trimalchio holds these lavish parties for no other purpose than to be adored by the commonfolk. He is evidently little more than a talentless, egotistic fraud using his wealth to gain respect, though his patience is short when they do not play according to his rules, even having Eumolpus tortured in the furnace for calling out his plagiarised poetry.

“In my house, I’m the poet!”

Insanity reigns in Trimalchio’s gaudy manor, where Fellini stages guests lounge around the edges of the room in extravagant costumes and makeup, imprinted against red walls and enveloped in thick clouds of steam. This is the novel’s most famous episode, and is given a bold cinematic treatment.

These characters are not actively engaged with the political climate of Ancient Rome, yet at every turn Fellini is placing Encolpius’ fate in the hands of more powerful men. The few times he does take an active role in his own story, his efforts are rapidly undercut by the turmoil of a crumbling world, whether depicted literally in the earthquake that violently tears down his home or the insurgents who install a usurper as their new emperor.

That Encolpius is the closest thing to a Greek hero that Imperial Rome has to offer is pathetic indeed, making for a comparison that only cuts deeper in Fellini’s bastardised recreation of King Minos’ Labyrinth and its fearsome Minotaur, seeing our protagonist escape only by begging for his life and confessing that he is no Theseus. Through Satyricon’s retelling of the Widow of Ephesus myth, Christian doctrine does not entirely escape Fellini’s scathing satire here either, though his most direct parody is reserved for the final minutes where Eumolpus requests for his body to be devoured by the beneficiaries of his will.

Bloodthirsty crowds recreate the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur for their own cheap entertainment – Fellini draws on powerful iconography in these myths and legends.
A pair of moral fables further embed the notion of storytelling and its rich history into this tale, and even take aim at the still-nascent form of Christianity in the 1st century AD.

True to the source material which records this as the final scene, missing segments notwithstanding, Fellini abandons his narrative mid-sentence with Encolpius leaving on Eumolpus’ ship to Africa. It is difficult to label this an anticlimax when we were never promised a great catharsis to begin with, though by taking a step back to reveal Satyricon‘s characters painted in frescoes upon ancient ruins, Fellini breaks the immersion to acknowledge that plot was never paramount in this absurd dreamscape. Cinematic surrealists like David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky would later centralise this tenet in their own filmmaking too, adapting archetypes and allegories with a subversive, Felliniesque irreverence that believes greater truth lies in the fanciful stories we fashion from skewed perceptions of our past rather than history itself. Through its surreal blend of modern art and classical antiquity, Fellini Satyricon not only examines this grand paradox of truth and fiction – it becomes a direct embodiment of our most maddening psychological conflict, farcically recognising the indelibly primal self-contradictions of humanity across all ages.

Fellini ends his narrative exactly where the text finishes – mid-sentence – before revealing the film’s characters painted in frescoes upon ancient ruins. If Satyricon is a surreal interrogation of historical legends, then we must look to their artifice and limitations to understand the true nature of the people who composed them.

Fellini Satyricon is currently available to purchase on Amazon.

The Passion of Anna (1969)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 41min

Years after Ingmar Bergman’s chamber drama The Passion of Anna was released in 1969, Liv Ullmann was quite frank in admitting that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to express through it, presumably due to the huge personal turmoil that was unfolding between both director and actress on the verge of their breakup. The messiness that resulted is no doubt evident in certain creative choices, with Ullmann’s titular character being largely absent in the first half, and Bergman bringing her back in halfway through with a jarring time jump. At the same time though, this uncertainty also instils his direction with an improvisational quality that he has often kept a distance from in his career, bringing a raw vulnerability to this study of dishonest lovers.

The influence of the French New Wave had slowly been pushing Bergman closer to deconstructions of cinema throughout the 1960s, but perhaps with the exception of the magnificently postmodern Persona, there is little as bluntly self-referential as the interviews he conducts with his actors here. These come in the form of four interludes clearly breaking away from the main narrative and positioning his cast as avatars who know these characters on a far deeper level than any friend, lover, or even themselves.

Bergman uses documentary-style interviews as formal interludes, stepping outside the narrative to gain insights from each lead actor.

Max von Sydow is the first of these, speaking of the lonely Andreas Winkelman as a recent divorcee shamefully trying to hide his identity and destroy his means of expression. He stands in sharp contrast to Ullmann’s Anna who claims to desire the absolute truth of her relationships, yet takes refuge in lies, realising too late that reality is uglier than she would like to believe. Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson respectively play troubled spouses Eva and Elis, one being “a woman who can no longer cope with the fact of her own disconnectedness,” and the other an amateur photographer who believes anyone horrified at human madness is a hypocrite. Like so many of Bergman’s films, his rural home island of Fårö plays host to this drama, as its physical isolation pushes these characters to commit cruel, heartless acts against each other.

Much like Through a Glass Darkly, this is a true chamber drama, developing layered relationships among four complicated characters.
The Passion of Anna isn’t always a great show of spectacular visual style, but Bergman’s blocking and lighting of faces remains a highlight all throughout.

As for the mystery of who is killing the animals on this island, Bergman purposefully leaves enough ambiguity to suggest that it could be anyone – perhaps with the exception of Andreas who saves a hanging puppy. The clearest suspect in the eyes of the local police and residents is the mentally ill loner Johan, though after he is driven to suicide by a violent mob, it soon becomes apparent that he is innocent. More than anything else, this thread of murders injects The Passion of Anna with menacing undertones, suggesting a desire for sadistic violence in the most ordinary people.

If we are to pin the killings down to a single character though, then perhaps we should look to Anna. Just as the identity of the animal killer is kept uncertain, so too is the truth of her past as a wife and mother, which she asserts was a perfectly happy life before her family perished in a car accident she accidentally caused. After discovering an old letter from her husband also named Andreas, von Sydow’s Andreas Winkelmann sees through the façade – their relationship was full of “complications, which in turn will trigger terrible emotional, agitation, physical and psychological violence.” Often when Anna proclaims her belief in total honesty and “striving for some form of spiritual perfection,” Bergman cuts away to these typed words that have imprinted themselves in Andreas’ sceptical brain, eroding our trust in her words.

Sharp, well-placed cutaways to Anna’s late husband’s letter, as the camera tracks along lines of writing describing their marital troubles, imprinted in Andreas’ brain.
For the first time in any Bergman film, we are able to appreciate the bright blue of Ullmann’s eyes, especially during this five-minute monologue delivered entirely in close-up.

That said, it is also perfectly evident that Anna has convinced herself of the lies she has constructed, and so in a strange way there is still a profound honesty in Ullmann’s performance. In one five-minute close-up, she speaks with sincerity about the cliché of two people becoming one through marriage, and then as her monologue turns to the car crash, her head slightly tilts and she turns her glassy gaze just beyond the camera. This is the second of Bergman’s films to be shot in colour, but the first featuring Ullmann, and through this vibrant photography the vivacity of her bright blue eyes can finally be fully appreciated in all their expressive beauty.

Warm, pastoral landscapes set the scene of this island’s rural isolation.
Bergman’s artificial magic hour lighting sheds a blazing red glow over Andreas and Eva’s brief affair, filling it with lust and guilt.
Summer eventually turns to winter on the island, and Bergman’s colour palette shifts with it, leading to some magnificent exterior photography of frigid, icy tones.

Further revealing the depths of Anna’s lingering trauma are her night terrors. The first time they appear we distantly hear her screams from Andreas’ bedroom, though later we see them for ourselves as Bergman’s camera enters her mind. Up to this point he has crafted a rich palette that has shifted from warm summer tones and artificial magic hour photography into the cold dead of winter, though here he reverts to the austere black-and-white imagery of his previous films. Shame draws the closest comparisons of all to the bleak, war-ravaged scenes of Anna sailing across the ocean on a refugee boat, meeting a woman whose son is being executed, and fruitlessly begging her for forgiveness, though Bergman is more cryptic with such surreal symbolism as this. The guilt that haunts her is deeply layered, and only stokes further questions regarding the role she played in her husband and child’s deaths.

The surreal black-and-white interlude of Anna’s dream looks far more like Bergman’s previous work, offering insight into her traumatised, guilty mind.

With tensions as thick and unresolved as these, it is only inevitable that they will spill over into her relationship with Andreas, and a full-blown expose of each other’s lies violently erupts. If we didn’t have any suspicions by this point that Anna had purposeful intent in killing her family, then they are certainly piqued now as she runs the car containing her and Andreas off the road, with only his quick reflexes saving them both. Both sides frustrated and ruined by the impasse they have reached, Anna leaves Andreas by the side of the road, and Bergman slowly zooms from a long shot into his nervous pacing. “This time he was called Andreas Winkelman,” the running voiceover enigmatically concludes, linking him back to Anna’s deceased husband and suggesting a universal plight that plays out in variations of the same story.

It is far from Bergman’s strongest ending, and The Passion of Anna does not exactly possess the formal strength of his most avant-garde works, yet there remains something compelling about his wrestling with these complex characters dynamics, straining against the violent assault of outside forces. With both Hour of the Wolf and Shame sharing these concerns, a loose thematic trilogy forms around these films, collectively testing the psychological stability of Ullmann and von Sydow’s cynical lovers. Although this is the weakest of the three, watching Bergman deconstruct his own interpersonal vulnerabilities with imperfect honesty offers absorbing insight into the limits of our humanity all the same.

An enigmatic long shot to end the film, slowly zooming in on Andreas’ nervous pacing – formally questionable, but not awful.

The Passion of Anna is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

Sergei Parajanov | 1hr 19min

Besides its extreme avant-garde stylings and near non-existence of any visible narrative, it is tricky for foreigners to pick out what exactly made The Color of Pomegranates so controversial in 1969 that Soviet authorities sought to censor its depiction of 18th-century Armenian poet and troubadour, Sayat-Nova. One of the primary accusations made against it takes a very limited perspective of art’s purpose and potential – for political purposes, this mystifying film simply was not educational enough. This understatement would be somewhat amusing if the propagandistic principle driving it did not have such a destructive impact on Soviet artists of the era.

Sergei Parajanov had no desire to be a font of factual knowledge in making this film, and so while the forced removal of Sayat-Nova’s name technically detaches it from the actual historical figure, it also ironically digs it even deeper into its abstract emphasis of impressionism over exposition. It is not the details of the poet’s existence he seeks to render in moving pictures, but rather his inner life that gave birth to such delicate written and musical expressions. Dialogue is scarce here, though Parajanov is clearly following in the tradition of silent film with his use of intertitles, many of which are drawn directly from Sayat-Nova’s verses and are lined up with key points in his life. Lyres hypnotically spin in the air as if enchanted by some melodic allure when the young musician uncovers his deeply rooted passion, and his written words unite with it in lyrical harmony.

“From the colours and aromas of this world, my childhood made a poet’s lyre and offered it to me.”

Parajanov endeavours to look inside Sayat-Nova’s creative mind with this image of lyres spin in the air, as if enchanted by some musical spell.
Layers upon layers of opaque storytelling, especially with the use of Sofiko Chiaureli playing multiple roles of women in Sayat-Nova’s life.

Though it does follow a vaguely linear structure that progresses from childhood to death, The Color of Pomegranates is more vividly defined by its dazzling visual poetry, flowing between loosely connected images that are unlike anything other filmmakers had attempted before. The coarse textures and rigid staging directed towards the camera at times even make this feel as if it were born in its own isolated bubble divorced of cinematic influences, coming from a century that predates the invention of the artform. Instead, it is often paintings which feel more comparable to Parajanov’s style here, most distinctly that of Salvador Dali whose surreal artistry invites similarly symbolic interpretations through incongruous representations of reality.

Full-throttle commitment to surreal imagery to create tableaux inspired by painters like Dali.

In the film’s opening shot, three pomegranates weep their juices onto a white fabric, staining it with a red mark in the shape of Armenia as it existed in the 18th century. Even in the emblematic image of this fruit though, Parajanov is drawing on its status as a symbol of good fortune in the nation’s religious culture, patriotically asserting its sovereign identity. Such detailed understanding of these anthropological intricacies are not so essential to understanding The Color of Pomegranates on a purely emotive level though, as each tableaux of Sayat-Nova’s life and artistry is rich with reverent adoration for art on its most instinctive level. At one point in his childhood when a thunderstorm drenches the books of his family’s manor, the adults gather and press them under their feet, draining them of their liquid much like the bleeding pomegranates of the opening. As they are laid open on large roofs to dry out, Parajanov composes an evocative composition of great veneration, surrounding the young poet with open pages lightly flapping in the breeze like living creatures.

Striking compositions set back in static wide shots, watching the pages of these books flutter in the breeze atop a roof, inspiring a love of poetry in the young musician’s mind.

Sayat-Nova’s growth into adulthood is marked by all the usual milestones of a full life, understanding artistic beauty, falling in love, and encountering death, and yet this is about as closely as Parajanov identifies his story with any sense of logical order. Instead, The Color of Pomegranates sinks us into a deep reverie caught up in ceremonial rhythms driven more by the slow, deliberate gesturing of his actors, primitive pieces of folk music, and choral chanting than any editing or camera movement. Perhaps the only exception may be the prominent use of jump cuts to subtract and alter parts of specific compositions, jarringly bridging gaps in time. Unlike his previous film though, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, static shots are the dominant choice here, set back in wides to meditate in sacred rituals tightly bound to Sayat-Nova’s artistry. The death of Holy Father Lazarus marks a period of grief for the poet, who digs a grave for the Catholicos in a strange, stone church full of sheep, while Orthodox priests carry out liturgies accepting their anguish as a blessing from God.

“Brothers of mine in soul and blood, grief, inconsolable grief has been sent to us from heaven.”

The death of Holy Father Lazarus marks a period of mourning for Sayat-Nova, filling this strange stone church with sheep around the dead body.

Darkness seeps into Parajanov’s imagery as Sayat-Nova adopts the black garb worn by the holy men around him, some of whom are seen biting into pomegranates. Tapestries bearing religious icons similarly dominate this section of the film as the artist grows even more in touch with his spiritual beliefs. Eventually we emerge out the other side, and the dark robes are shed to reveal white garments underneath, like new identities being born from cocoons of sorrow.

Shedding the grief in the removal of the black robes to reveal white garments underneath.

The end of Sayat-Nova’s own life comes about in a similarly mystical manner, as the symbolic pomegranates are cut open for their juices to drench his white robes like blood. “Sing,” commands a man standing high up above him. “Sing,” he commands again, dictating the direction of his life. “Die,” he finally orders, and from a low angle we view Sayat-Nova’s younger self floating in the air, looking down at us holding a pair of cherub wings. As the man is escorted away by two small angels in one world, he lies down for the final time amid candles and flapping chickens in another, landing on a final note not of mourning, but of peaceful, spiritual acceptance.

Drenched in the juice of pomegranates, turning these symbols of good fortune into blood.
A young Sayat-Nova hangs in the air holding angel wings as he passes on into the afterlife – masterfully composed imagery with the low angle and golden colours.

Anyone unaware of Sayat-Nova before watching The Color of Pomegranates may not come out of it fully grasping his place in Armenian history, and yet there is still a new understanding of his delicate, romantic artistry born in its outlandish stylistic experiments. For all the censorship battles Parajanov fought throughout its production and distribution, it was far from the end of his troubles with Soviet authorities. Four years after the film’s release in 1969, he was arrested and imprisoned in a gulag under false charges that targeted his bisexuality. His friend and artistic inspiration, Andrei Tarkovsky, was anything but silent in his protests, leading an array of prominent figures in Hollywood and world cinema to oppose this great injustice. Although he would be released within a few years, it would take him almost two decades to re-join the industry, and as such The Color of Pomegranates looked to be the last feature film to emerge from this peculiar director for a long time. Even beyond its original context though, this wildly elusive piece of cinema still stands as an innovative, surreal tribute to Armenia’s rich history and culture, vibrantly independent of any modern political influence or narrative convention.

Escorted away by angels from one life into the next – heavily symbolic imagery from start to finish.
An imprint of black and white robes on the ground as Sayat-Nova passes away, bringing this brilliantly mystifying piece of surrealist cinema to a close.

The Color of Pomegranates is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

My Night at Maud’s (1969)

Eric Rohmer | 1hr 51min

Jean-Louis’ night at Maud’s is a test of faith brought about by chance. Where his newest love interest, Françoise, is a blonde Christian who lives traditionally, Maud is a dark-haired, secular, modern woman, playfully pushing his rigid boundaries. It is important to Eric Rohmer’s philosophical drama that she is not some antagonistic seductress though, looking to ruin or corrupt his perfect moral standard. After all, his sympathies with his God-fearing protagonist aren’t so clear-cut either, with Jean-Louis being a man struggling to reconcile his conscious actions with his faith. It is rather Maud’s transgressive incitement which motivates him to seriously consider his own life as it pertains to his values, as well as the erratic universe which pushes his fate in whatever fickle directions it may choose.

Mirrors in Rohmer’s mise-en-scène as several paths collide by pure chance.

With the character of Vidal, a Marxist university lecturer more aligned with Maud’s worldly sensibilities than those of his theological friend, Rohmer rounds out this four-person chamber drama. It is a dense script of mathematical, social, and ethical quandaries which drives My Night at Maud’s, and not one that affords its audience any time to lag behind. Lengthy conversations take place inside apartments and cafes, as Rohmer stages different combinations of character interactions without ever bringing them all together in one location. Many of these discussions are not planned, but rather emerge organically from crossings of unlikely paths, thus immediately setting the stage for an in-depth debate over the mechanics of probability.

“Our ordinary paths never cross. Therefore, the point of intersection must be outside those ordinary paths. I’ve dabbling in mathematics in my spare time. It would be fun to calculate our chances of meeting in a two-month period.”

From there, conversations regarding Pascal’s wager open up, considering the risk that human’s take with their lives in deciding whether or not to believe that God exists. It is a gamble that both Jean-Louis and Vidal play safely, though within different contexts. The latter, being an academic, chooses to believe that history holds inherent meaning, as it is only then that his life’s work can hold value. For Jean-Louis though, moral choice is an imperative he wishes to keep putting off, and it is that “half-heartedness” which Maud skewers him for.

Excellent blocking in Maud’s small apartment – she remains confidently rooted in one position while the others move around her.

Such heavy philosophical dialogue rarely hampers Rohmer’s cinematic staging of this drama, particularly in Jean-Louis’ pivotal conversation with Maud that sees him uncomfortably move around her apartment, while she lies still in bed. As he oscillates back and forth in this scene, the temptation becomes real, eventually leading to his decision to sleep next to Maud – though categorically not sleep with her. Later, Rohmer blocks Françoise in a similar position and sets up a counterpoint between both characters, though one that strikes a different note when she offers him a different room.

Symmetry in Rohmer’s compositions, expressing the order and neatness of his characters’ mathematical and philosophical fascinations.
A stunner of a frame in the very first scene, and Rohmer returns to similar compositions a few times in isolating Jean-Louis behind glass windows and doors.

The clean order of Rohmer’s symmetrical compositions is consistent with the mathematical precision of the screenplay, but in his framing of characters behind glass windows and doors he also creates a cold distancing effect. In this environment where roads are slippery with ice and sidewalks are dusted with snow, such camerawork makes for a fitting choice, as if silently encouraging these characters to break down barriers and find warmth with each other amid the winter weather. This frigidity is also somewhat offset by the festive lights and decorations that smatter scenes with religious undertones, grounding these philosophical discussions in the Christmas season where Christians congregate in churches and meditate on their faith. With this in mind, Rohmer sets in motion the first tangential crossing of paths between Jean-Louis and Françoise at a mass, as he eyes her profile from across the congregation.

Snowy landscapes and festive decorations. Rohmer very purposefully timed this shoot to align with Christmas, and it is important for both the cold atmosphere and spiritual meditations.

It isn’t long after this that he becomes convinced he will one day marry her. When Maud comes in, she is not simply drawn up as a seductive obstacle to this goal manifesting, but Rohmer rather uses her openness to expose Jean-Louis’ hypocrisy. He is a man concerned with his own respectability, and is willing to forget about his own history that carries contradictions with his faith. So too does Françoise come to a similar conclusion, asking that neither of them speak of their pasts again when their shameful misbehaviours surface.

Confessions atop a mountain, overlooking this tremendous view of the city in the midst of winter.

Perhaps though it is this course of action which grants the greatest happiness, as we see Jean-Louis and his now-wife, Françoise, run into Maud five years later – by chance of course, the same way almost every other meeting in the film has taken place. At the moment that Jean-Louis realises that Françoise was in fact the woman who slept with Maud’s husband and thus set in motion their divorce, he once again chooses to bury the past in favour of a blissful marriage.

It is telling that Rohmer chooses to stage this scene against a sunny beach rather than the snowy urban landscapes that have dominated the rest of the film, revealing a fresh warmth in Jean-Louis’ life that has failed to manifest up until now. In true philosophical fashion, My Night at Maud’s isn’t ready to deliver firm answers to its academic quandaries, and yet in this narrative built on a series of formal happenstances Rohmer also crafts an absorbing examination of fate, free will, and history as they fall under theological and secular perspectives.

An extreme shift in setting for the last scene, moving from the dead of winter to a summery beach.

My Night at Maud’s is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Kes (1969)

Ken Loach | 1hr 52min

There is a quiet, simple dichotomy at the heart of Kes to which the complexities of life in its 1960s Yorkshire working-class community are boiled down. Ken Loach approaches this not with the intent to distort reality, but rather to filter it through a singular perspective – for fifteen-year-old Billy Casper, every force in his life is on one side of a tug-o-war between subjugation and freedom. Sometimes people surprise him and reveal nuances he doesn’t expect, but those instances aren’t so common as to majorly impact his worldview. For the most part, his teachers, employment officers, and family are boxing him into rigid structures he doesn’t quite fit. In his young falcon, Kes, he doesn’t just find a genuine passion. He finds a set of values he can aspire to.

“Hawks can’t be tamed. They’re manned. It’s wild and it’s fierce and it’s not bothered about anybody.”

Using children as tragic representations of innocence in unjust societies has been at the core of neorealism since the Italians took to it in the 40s, but with the additional symbol of Kes as a being of pure, fearless independence, Loach sets up magnificent stakes to Billy’s emotional arc. As he stands on the precipice of adulthood, being forced to consider manual labour and office jobs he has no interest in, we recognise the immense fragility of his innocence, and the significance of Kes in preserving that.

Wide open fields play host to this bonding between a boy and his animal companion, a very different look to the dirtied school yards and buildings.

The time we spend in open fields with the only sign of civilisation being the town shoved far in the background are the most freeing in the film. The image of Kes flying through the sky without confines makes for a striking contrast to the constant suggestions that Billy go into coal mining after school, submerging himself beneath the ground in confined spaces, though these offerings of escapism are only ever fleeting. Loach is at his strongest when depicting the gritty detail of this blue-collar South Yorkshire town, letting its smokestacks and industrial structures tower over Billy in some of the film’s strongest compositions, while he lingers in the foreground trying to find peace among secluded bushes and trees. The impoverished but narrow-minded community that fill in this harsh, rundown setting are just as vivid in their authenticity, the thick brogue of these mostly non-professional actors rendering some lines almost incomprehensible.

The industrial mining structures looming in backgrounds – a raw sense of setting in superb compositions.

Within the rigorous education system of 1960s England, Loach surrounds Billy with a staff of teachers as regressively strict as they are sadistic, furiously wondering why their disciplinary tactics are not motivating the students to succeed. Child actor David Bradley is a consistently strong force all through Kes, but it is especially in these interactions where we see the struggle of a boy disillusioned by the path they are trying to set him on. When adults lecture and reprimand him, there is a visible emotional detachment on his face, and when he is forced to speak, he can’t bring himself to make eye contact. He is not looking to cause trouble, but he is ready to defend himself against accusations of laziness, and like any other teenage boy he is easily distracted, climbing goal posts during P.E. and daydreaming in the middle of class.

The students around him also assert their independence in small, rebellious acts, selling cigarettes between themselves even as the headmaster rails against their misbehaviour and complains about their generation. For the P.E. teacher, disobedience is simply an excuse to enact brutal and degrading punishments on kids who make easy targets, turning on the cold water while Billy is in the shower after class and refusing to let him out.

Loach’s visual style doesn’t often hit you with jaw-dropping compositions, but it is minimalistic and practical – authenticity in the streaks and poor maintenance of worn-down buildings.

In the school’s English teacher though, there seems to be a rare glimpse of hope that Billy might just be understood by someone else the way he understands Kes. Mr Farthing is not a character we expect such genuine compassion from, and yet as he makes an effort outside of school hours to visit his student and learn about his interests, we also begin to see a brighter future for Billy. But such optimism is not destined to last long in this stifling environment. Loach is dedicated to cinematic realism, but he also recognises the power that his symbols hold, and in bringing the two together, the cruel unpredictability of life ultimately destroys any faith we place in the latter. In watching this boy’s youthful idealism seep away with each harsh blow, Kes becomes a heartbreakingly bitter drama, raw with the pain of realising that there is no great liberty in becoming an adult – just another few decades of soul-sucking, arbitrary social structures.

Kes is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel, and to rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video.