eXistenZ (David Cronenberg, 1999)
I remember watching Videodrome a number of years ago now, and there was something about the atmosphere that Cronenberg created in that film that left me with a really uneasy visceral feeling all the way through. It had me hooked from start to finished, engulfed in its fantasy world on the edge of my seat. This was a similar experience, with an engrossing suspenseful plot (very much a precursor to Inception in many ways) that never lets you feel comfortable with what you’re seeing. The film succeeds in its overabundance of style, its disgusting to look at and makes you feel uncomfortable as Cronenberg explores his fascination with human flesh and penetration. I was particularly impressed with the performances of Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the former who I am not a huge fan of and the latter who I haven’t seen in enough films. Through the imagery, editing and design of the world Cronenberg creates a relationship that has great chemistry and sexual tension. Every touch, every bite, every shot fired, you experience as if you are part of the video game too.
Sisters (Brian De Palma, 1972)
This Hitchcock homage begins with aplomb combining content and style perfectly with a murder witnessed by a journalist neighbour who seeks to find out the truth about what she has seen. De Palma plays around with lots of tropes we’ve seen before, put in ways that work to heighten the suspense and intrigue of the story, for example with some the split camera sequences. Unfortunately I feel the story spirals too much off its original track, giving us too much William Finley and not enough Margot Kidder.
Un Flic (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972)
Jean-Pierre Melville’s swan-song is just as stylish and impressive as his other crime films for me, oozing with a certain coolness and filled with awesome suspenseful set pieces. There’s the opening bank robbery that really epitomises everything the director does so well with his blue colour palette capturing the crashing wavs and pouring waves as a band of criminals pull of a heist. I know the helicopter sequence apparently comes in for some criticism from certain people, but that was another scene that I found fun and suspenseful. Alain Delon once again captures the imperfect human character so well, as Melville explores and contrasts the codes of cops and criminals. My only complaint was that this could have been more ambitious. More Alain Delon and more Catherine Deneuve, with a great exploration of their lives and relationship.
Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)
Incredibly impressive considering the budget it was made on, but it's a film that attempts to deliberately obfuscate the plot, mainly through dialogue, in an attempt to make it look more complex and “ambitious” than it is. That’s not a criticism, because it clearly succeeds and the plot is interesting enough but as someone who has now watched hundreds of great movies I have got to be honest with my assessment and say that as a film this did not interest me much. Every stylistic shot, dialogue choice, edit, seemed to be to add disorientating layers to “dress up” the film rather than tell a story using cinematic language. I’m glad I finally watched this though.