Change Your Image
Adampreston
Reviews
Partie de campagne (1946)
I saw this film as a child and it made a profound impression on me.
My prep school could hardly be described as being particularly sophisticated or advanced regarding the arts but at some point I benefited from a projected showing of Renoir's Une Partie de Campagne and the beautiful, romantic, sentimental and sad imagery and story got under my skin and has remained there ever since. I probably saw it when I was nine years old and I am now thirty five. I haven't seen it since but I can still see moments and sequences clearly in my minds eye. Certainly a child is a blank canvas and liable to be more influenced by something than an adult - I am just glad that amongst all the rubbish I was exposed to, someone thought fit to show something this beautiful to me at that moment.
La cabina (1972)
Kafkaesque horror story a perfect metaphor for impersonal modern world.
Although the story of a man trapped in a telephone box might be expected to be uneventful and boring the man's different reactions at his predicament are beautifully observed and the viewer is able to identify with him on many levels. At first he is amused, then irritated, then furious, then despairing, then resigned and finally terrified - as was I when I watched this film as a child. I am writing this now at the age of 35 and I have not seen the film since, Yet I can clearly see images from this film as I sit here all these years later. One scene that sticks in my memory is when the telephone box, with the man inside, is being transported on the back of a truck. The truck stops at some lights and the man finds himself being observed by a group of three circus clowns seated on a wall. By this time the man is exhausted and resigned and he exchanges looks of infinite sadness with the rather depressed clowns. This has to be one of the most powerful TV films of all time and deserves to be shown again. Since it was made the world has become obsessed with communication technology - yet for many individuals this technology has actually removed them from human contact. The image of a man for whom a telephone box has become a prison seems to be a perfect metaphorical illustration
Tess (1979)
Why dont they make them like this anymore?
I saw Tess as a teenager and the images and emotions have lingered with me ever since. I remembered Natasia Kinski as Tess being tempted with a strawberry by her cad of a cousin, the subtlety of showing a murder by just having the tiniest spot of blood appear on the ceiling below, the powerful poetry of the final scene at Stonehenge... I have just watched the film again and it was even better than I remembered. I will go to my grave being in love with Kinski in this role! I had forgotten also what a perfect performance Peter Firth gives as Angel Clair, and the apparent authenticity of life in rural Victorian England. Perhaps what is most extraordinary is the leisurely pace at which the story is told. Shots linger on the countryside after characters have said their lines and moved off. Many sequences exist entirely to build up to a single glance or gesture. Altogether Tess is a superb lesson in story telling and one of the truly great movies of all.