Though Lynne Ramsay’s vision of working-class 1970s Scotland in ‘Ratcatcher’ is an infested cesspool of garbage bags, nits, and rodents, her hypnotic editing offers a tint of whimsical delicacy to these otherwise harsh environments.
Without a voice to bridge the gap between her mind and the exterior world, it is instead Ada’s music which becomes her purest form of communication in The Piano, carrying a rich, full-bodied expression of the Scotswoman’s restless soul through the beaches, forests, and colonies of 19th century New Zealand.
Taking rich inspiration from the Italian neorealists who preceded him by roughly fifty years, Jia Zhangke turns his camera to the streets of a provincial Chinese town during a particularly harsh crackdown on crime, tracking pickpocket Xiao Wu through a shifting culture that he no longer recognises.
With its tremendous narrative form in repetition as the basis for a rich character arc, Groundhog Day just keeps allowing for more surprising revelations on each rewatch, giving it, quite ironically, a “timeless” quality.
