Ventnor Film Society
Film Programme January-April 2008

Download a pdf version of the programme by clicking here.

Tuesday 22 January  Jindabyne
Dir: Ray Lawrence  Australia 2006 123mins Cert 15
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Chris Haywood, Laura Linney

Nothing gets in the way of a men's fishing trip, even a dead body floating in the river. The fishing trip deep into isolated hill country is the catalyst for the events at the heart of the film which is based on the same Raymond Carver story that was used by Robert Altman in Short Cuts. Australian director Ray Lawrence uses the opportunity to dredge the grey areas between right and wrong, putting Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney under scrutiny as a married couple rocked by the grisly discovery. Lawrence transposes the story to the vast landscape of New South Wales and in doing so touches a raw nerve of white middle-class guilt about treatment of indigenous communities.

Tuesday 29 January  This is England
Dir: Shane Meadows  UK 2006 101mins Cert 18
Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Stephan Graham, Jo Hartley, Joseph Gilgun

Sean, a put-upon 12-year old, finds unexpected friendship with a group of local skinheads led by the sweet natured Woody. These skins are a far cry from the image of racist thuggery that the movement became known for in the 80s. It's all about the music, and of course the clothes, and although Sean is too small for Doc Marten boots, he still gets the haircut, the plaid shirt and the braces. For a while, everything is sweet in Sean's world. But soon, conflict arrives in the form of Combo, an old mate of the gang, whose time in prison has left him with a strong sympathy for the National Front. Sean's loss of innocence is at the heart of Shane Meadows' most autobiographical work to date, along with ever-relevant subjects like absent and surrogate fathers and white working-class marginalisation, particularly in the post-industrial suburbs.

Tuesday 12 February  Paris je t’aime
Dir: Various  France 2006 120mins Cert 15
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Juliette Binoche, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Gena Rowlands, Emily Mortimer, Miranda Richardson, Rufus Sewell, Willem Dafoe, Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu, Bob Hoskins, Nick Nolte

Welcome to Paris, the city of love with its multidimensional charms and enchantments. In this delightfully eclectic French film, 20 of the world's most accomplished filmmakers (Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, Isabel Coixet, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne, Olivier Assayas, Tom Tykwer, Alfonso Cuaron, Joel and Ethan Cohen, and others) use the city's various neighborhoods as a backdrop for eighteen 18 short and snappy tales of the human adventure and love.

Tuesday 26 February  Stray Dogs
Dir: Marzieh Meshkini  Iran 2004 93mins Cert 12A
Cast: Sohrab Akbari, Gol Ghoti, Agheleh Rezaie

When their mother is put in prison for remarrying after her first husband disappears, brother and sister Zahed and Gol-Ghotai are allowed to stay with her at nights, but chucked out first thing in the morning. Free to roam the streets of Kabul, they look for a way to join her permanently by trying to get in trouble with the law. Iranian director Marzieh Meshkini offers compelling insights into the plight of women in post-war Afghanistan. A simple and impassioned story, powerfully told.

Tuesday 11th March   Lady Chatterley
Dir: Pascale Ferran  France 168 mins Cert 18
Cast: Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloc'h, Hippolyte Girardot

A kinder, gentler version of the story most people know as Lady Chatterley's Lover - while endorsing Lawrence's approval of transcendent lust, the film also has a great deal of time for flowers, running water, close-ups of hands and long shots of trees (as well, of course, as for the class struggle and lusty sex). It's no surprise that the French should have made what's probably the best adaptation of Lady Chatterley so far - while England's courts banned the novel for several decades as obscene, Paris published Lawrence's "pornographic" tale of sex and four-letter words without blushing. Here, director Pascale Ferran delivers a passionate, moving take on the story as her ladyship abandons wheelchair-bound husband Clifford (Hippolyte Girardot) to frolic with Coulloc'h's tender woodsman. The sex is frank without being sensational and it's hard to imagine a British adaptation that could stage a scene in which Hands dances naked in the rain with such ease.

Tuesday 25th March  Darratt
Dir: Mahamat-Haleh Haroun   Chad 96 mins
Cast: Abderamane Abakar, Ali Barkai, Khayar Oumar Defallah

A darker, fiercer and less accessible parable of guilt and revenge than Haroun's last film, Abouna - a story of anger and violence, which marries up a personal story of rage with Africa in general and Chad in particular, where a civil war has raged for decades and whose cycle of slaughter and counter-slaughter can only be brought to a halt when its victims make the agonising decision to forgive - or at any rate to forget. Ali-Bacha Barkai plays Atim, a young guy angry at the world. His father was killed before he was born by a notoriously brutal soldier, Nassara (Yousouf Djaoro), who has been granted amnesty from any charge of war crimes, and Atim's blind grandfather (Khayar Oumar Defallah) presents Atim with a handgun and entrusts him with a sacred task: track down Nassara in the distant, dusty town of N'djamena, where he is working as a baker - and kill him.

Tuesday 8th April  The Singer
Dir: Xavier Giannoli   France 2006 Cert. 12a
Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Cécile de France, Mathieu Amalric

While crooning through his way through various classics at a club one night, provincial dance hall singer Alain meets beautiful, troubled Marion (Cecile de France). When they fall into bed that night, a tentative, uneasy relationship starts to unfold, despite Marion's initial reluctance. Karaoke is threatening to cause Alain's work to dry up, but he soldiers on, managed by his ex-wife Michele (Christine Citti), and playing to crowds of divorcees and fortysomethings who come to dance to old-school hits. Marion, a partner in an estate agency and attempting to rebuild a life with her son after a messy divorce, quickly comes to regret sleeping with Alain, but as he pursues her a strange, unspoken affection develops. A subtle, always engaging love story with two brilliant performances at its heart.

Tuesday 22nd April  True North
Dir: Steve Hudson   UK 2006 Cert 15
Cast: Peter Mullan, Martin Compston, Gary Lewis
The crew of Scottish trawler The Providence disembark at Ostend to sample the nightlife – all the crew, that is, except for the skipper (Gary Lewis) who's too busy worrying about the debts which threaten to see his ship repossessed. His son, Sean (Martin Compston) aims to restore their finances by secretly smuggling a group of Chinese immigrants below deck. As the ship heads further and further north on the return leg, the storm clouds move in, darkening the tone of the film as the unwitting Skipper goes in dogged pursuit of fish and the Chinese are left to languish. Within the close confines of the boat, tension builds between Sean and Riley - the latter unable to stifle that nagging voice of conscience – as the plot builds inexorably towards a dark and tragic finale.

Supported by the Southern Co-operatives Foundation, the Isle of Wight Charitable Trust,
Ventnor Partnership and Ventnor Town Council