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 EVEN THE MOST HARDENED ART-HOUSE VIEWER WILL WALK AWAY FEELING SLAPPED ROUND THE FACE AFTER THIS ONE.
At last year’s Cannes film festival the champagne-sipping banter among critics was not about Tarantino’s wham-bam-thank-you-mam B-movie pastiche Death Proof, but about Romanian journalist-turned-director Cristian Mungiu’s modest film, 4 months, 3 weeks & 2days.
The opening, lingering shot of Otilia and Gabita, in the stark room they share at the university in Romania, prepares the subtle, socially realist tone of this harrowing drama. Gabita is pregnant but abortion under communism is illegal, so Otilia rents a cheap hotel room and calls on a Mr Bebe to do the deed. Neither of these girls have ever experienced what is about to happen to them. Nor, perhaps, have we.
The moments tick with an incredible tension and drama, which director Mungiu cleverly injects onto this domestic canvass, Akin to the Dardenne brothers Le Fils—nominated for the Palme D’Or in Cannes in 2002—the film runs in real time with a reflective attention to the minutiae that both traps you in the moment and forces your imagination to work overtime.
The film is part of a larger venture entitled Tales from the Golden Age—a subjective history of communism in Romania told through urban legends. The project’s noble aim is to produce films by a series of directors, covering this period of Romanian history but with no direct reference to communism. As the first in the series this Palme D’or and FIPRESCI award-winner has certainly set the bar high.
 After chancing their hand with a couple of studio straight-shooters, Joel and Ethan Coen are back where they belong: exploring the outer limits of indie cinema.
Watching No Country for Old Men, it’s almost as if Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers were nothing but a bad dream. Here at last is everything the Coens stand for: sharp writing, biting intelligence, pitch black comedy and explosions of dark, existential violence.
Working from the original novel by Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men follows Josh Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss—a man out of time—as he discovers a briefcase full of money when a hunting trip leads him to a drug deal gone wrong. Unlucky for him, the cash belongs to stone-cold psycho Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who tracks him across the sun baked Southern states of America, armed with implacable resolve and an air-powered, cattle-killing stun gun.
Taking all the best elements of noir, western and pulp fiction, and subverting them as only they know how, the Coens have knocked this one way, way out of the park. Matt Bochenski
 If Christmas re-runs have softened your cinematic sensibilities fret not, January has some dark twisted tales to spike your mulled brain. Michel Haneke (of recent Caché fame) has remade his dark, art-house French film into a Hollywood drama. Funny Games stars the Leonard DiCaprio lookalike Michael Pitt as a teenage boy ready to ruin Tim Roth and Naomi Watt’s suburban dream life. Danish director Susanne Bier, best known for such Dogme offerings as Italian For Beginners directs Benicio del Toro and Halle Berry in Things We Lost in the Fire. Tim Burton returns, directing the weird and wonderful (Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp) this time in Sweeney Todd. Ang Lee’s impressive thirst for filmmaking never ceases. From the CGI world of Hulk to the wild terrain of Brokeback Mountain his latest film Lust takes us somewhere totally different—to Shanghai during World War II. The reward for such dark indulgences is a spot of humour and a few tears from The Savages in which Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney play a brother and sister thrown together late in life. You can catch the great Hoffman again alongside Ethan Hawkes and Albert Finney in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. If worthy viewing leaves you craving leftovers then let rip with a motley young crew hungry for trouble: Saint Trinians stars Colin Firth, Jodie Whitaker and Stephen Fry. If your sugar levels are still low dip into The Good Night, starring Penélope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow.
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