At least it gets better

Batch of films to get through, starts off appalling and gets better one by one so a gradually more positive entry here. First film is Au hasard Balthazar, dear me what an incredibly poor film. I've since read something assering that the donkey gives the best performance in this movie and they weren't kidding, the acting is simply atrocious. I'm all for casting non-professional actors, but you have to be the type of director who can keep that naturalism they have and channel it to make the performances believable. Robert Bresson fails spectacularly here, over-rehearsing his actors to the point of exhaustion taking every bit of natural light out of them and leaving them wooden and unnatural - he completely defeats the purpose. The characterisation is non-existent and the actors are so bad they can't add anything that isn't there, the story is interminably dull and the film is a complete waste of everyone's time. Avoid at all costs, completely unrecommendable.

Slightly better, but still poor was another French film I rented, Rendez-vous. I got this because it stars Juliette Binoche, was directed by André Téchiné and co-written by Olivier Assayas. Sadly all of this cannot raise this film even up to being average. It's a very exploitative film (we see Binoche's naked body from every conceivable angle and close-up at every opportunity), the story is limp, the characterisation light and the acting doesn't infuse enough energy to sustain the film. It gets mildly interesting at the very end but by that point so little has gone on of interest it's far too little far too late.

In here I must insert the fact that I have started to watch Elizabeth R - I'd heard that Glenda Jackson was supposed to give the definitive performance but that didn't prepare me for quite how remarkable she was. She makes Cate Blanchett in particular look a/ amateurish and b/ a complete thief at times in comparison. Nothing compares to the original article though. I've seen the first two 90 minute episodes and Jackson is sublime, perfectly balancing the requirements of the role and never looking for a second as if she is acting. Acting's loss is politics' gain.

Anyway, back on with the films and I got dragged round to watch a dvd of The Bank Job - it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be and is actually quite a decent watch. Nobody does anything particularly special acting wise (except maybe David Suchet in a deliciously against-type performance as the "porn king of Soho") but it's a solidly made film by Roger Donaldson (who after Thirteen Days and The World's Fastest Indian I have a fair bit of time for as a filmmaker). It's based on a true story much more than one would think, it's just been covered up and that is the point of the film. The odd contrivance, it's not unpredictable, but an entertaining enough heist movie that does exactly what it says on the tin.

So finally we get round to the good, namely Emir Kusturica's Black Cat, White Cat. It takes a while to acclimatise yourself to Kusturica's quirky, crazy world, but once you do it's so endlessly entertaining. I have no hope of attempting to describe this film's plot, but it's a consistently hilarious film about dodgy deals and forced marriage. Some of the acting is out of this world (Srdjan Todorovic as the coke-sniffing war-profiteer is absolutely hysterical) and the whole ensemble do nice jobs (especially Branka Katic as the object of our young protagonist's desire). Extremely entertaining, completely bonkers, mad as hell but I thoroughly enjoyed it once I got tuned back in to Kustutica's weird but wonderful world.