In watching the gorgeous print of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives it felt as though I was in a dream. With beautiful images and a strange blend of lightness and dark it’s a unique cinematic experience. Much like a dream it is difficult to explain as the film moves outside of narrative filmmaking and operates more as a poem or a meditative reflection on life and death. We’re challenged to watch and listen to people and nature.

On the surface the film is about a man who is dying of cancer so he returns to where he grew up to face his death. Uncle Boonmee and his family form a narrative thread at the centre of the film which moves episodically through stories and past lives that he has experienced. Lacking explanation most of the time, we watch and wait with occasional flashes of humour and frequent glimpses of beauty. While it can be a bit frustrating at times, it has stuck with me for days, having worked itself into my subconscious. I will hopefully be able to see it again in a theatre.

The best films are like dreams you’re never sure you really had.

Jim Jarmusch creates a dreamy, beautiful and understated character study in The Limits of Control. While it is thin on plot, it’s heavy on beautiful and meditative imagery. Images and dialogue are repeated and modified in a musical way. The core of the film is Isaach de Bankolé who barely says anything and quite wonderful to watch. I really enjoyed the film for the look and the casual attitude and the clever film allusions which were almost done in a Godardian style. If you’re in the right mood it will be delightful to coast along on the journey.

The historical romance is a genre that is well-worn and I have to admit that I wasn’t sure about a love story about John Keats, but I was very pleasantly surprised by Jane Campion’s Bright Star. She has created a film that is subtle and poetic that follows the rhythms of the time while being stunningly beautiful to look at. The film focuses mainly on the relationship that John Keats has with Fanny Brawne and Charles Armitage Brown, and doesn’t spend too much time on the writing and poetry. There are lovely spaces and ellipses in the film with great performances all around. The story is constructed from the letters exchanged between Brawne and Keats and has a a refreshing intimacy that exists within a context when people rarely spent much time alone. Visually the film is very painterly with the characters set in lovely tableaux. Bright Star is a rare film that is poetic, thoughtful and engaging even if you know the entire history.

In Duncan Jone’s Moon we follow the journey of self-discovery of Sam Bell, the only inhabitant of the moon in the 70s sci-fi influenced story that is constructed around a great performance from Sam Rockwell. The film is deliberately paced and filled with references to many of the great, intellectual science fiction films that have preceded it. In the claustrophobic atmosphere, Jones creates a story about identity in an uneasy way that allows the audience to figure things out slightly ahead of the characters, but doesn’t hold back things too long.

The effects are a beautiful hybrid of model work and CGI that adds a level of authenticity in a very human way. Instead of distancing us with the effects, it somehow fits perfectly within the story in a subtle, but effective way.

It’s really an existential drama that is set on the moon that uses the conventions of science fiction to explore ideas about who we are and what it means to be human and to relate to other people.

Kioshi Kurosawa’s films are fascinating as he moves through different genres and creates interesting stories all that have an uneasy and ambiguous quality to them. In Doppelganger he starts off in the creepy / horror mode and then moves into a more comedic tone all while keeping things uneasy. The idea of Doppelganger is “what would happen if you met your double”. Kurosawa cleverly plays with the convention of having an evil version of yourself and does some innovative things in terms of the shooting. The challenge in shooting a film with a double is that you need to use the same actor to play both parts. Kurosawa divides the screen into 2 or 3 frames and uses the split screen to seamlessly create the illusion that there are two versions of the same person in the same space. There also are some amazing shots combining the same actor together, so technically it’s a lot of fun to watch as well. While not as involving as his other films, it’s still worth seeing as Kurosawa explores ambiguity and character in interesting ways.

Jean-Pierre Melville brings his understated and very cinematic touch to the crime drama “Le Deuxième Souffle”. With a taught and nearly wordless opening sequence of a jailbreak he raises the stakes and establishes the character of Gu (played by Lino Ventura) who wants to get away from his life of crime, but of course it isn’t quite as simple as it seems as one last caper becomes possible. As with every film that I’ve seen by Jean-Pierre Melville, he depicts the processes and operations of the criminal and police world in a fine level of detail that always fascinate me. At times it may seem confusing, but in his patient and detailed way, Melville connects all of the pieces in a complex and human story about an aging criminal and the people around him.

Steve Martin is a funny man, but he takes his comedy quite seriously. In his thoughtful and intellectual autobiography, Born Standing Up he tells his story in the context of being a stand up comedian. Stripping out all but the relevant details, it’s a fascinating look at the formation of a performer who carefully honed an act and persona that seems silly, but is actually a clever deconstruction of the traditional world of stand up comedy. It’s personal and discreet as well as being entertaining and ultimately it’s touching as we get a bit of a glimpse of the man in the white suit with a arrow through his head.

With a powerful (but subtle) performance by Kristin Scott Thomas at the core of the French film, I’ve Loved You So Long we watch a woman who tries to restart her life after 15 years in prison. The details are revealed slowly and carefully in Philippe Claudel’s directorial debut. Most of the film is built around the relationship between the sister who was estranged from the family (Thomas) and her sister who was then raised as an only child. The film moves through situations that don’t seem related and introduce characters in a natural way that paints a complex picture of family, choices that we make and forgiveness.

Laurence Lessig has a keen legal mind and while he’s firmly in favour of sensible copyright and sharing, in Remix he presents that case in a comprehensive and fair way while clearly taking into account all the participants in the creative ecosystem. It’s not “everything should be free” or “everything should be locked down”, but somewhere in the middle. In a reasonable and entertaining way, he sets out a compromise position that should enable everyone to build on the past and be fairly compensated for creative works that they create.

Dustin Hoffman is great as a grad student caught up in a world of intrigue that he hadn’t suspected. John Schlesinger’s taut, paranoid thriller Marathon Man, is filled with twists and great acting as the film adds more information and draws the hero into the story. Taking time to establish the characters before filling in plot details creates a more compelling world that draws you in. It’s great to see an intelligent thriller that balances action, character and plot perfectly.