Yi Yi (2000, Taiwan/Japan, Edward Yang)

Edward Yang's epic is a subtle and quietly affecting exploration of the emotional crises faced by a middle class Taipei family. The three hour running time might seem overlong, but it gives its characters time to breathe and doesn't restrict them and also allows Yang to seamlessly weave between the issues each member of the family faces. Compare this to a similar film that was made at around the same time; Sam Mendes' 'American Beauty'. This explores many of the themes that Yang's film does (dissatisfaction, adultery, emotional breakdown) but without any of the subtlety, relying on more sensationalist plot developments to try to make its point. I've always considered Mendes' film, despite its commercial and critical success, to be overrated and trying too hard to make its point. Seeing 'Yi Yi', this has only reinforced my position. There's no question which is the better and more emotionally affecting film.

NJ (Nien-Jen Wu) is a businessman whose electronics company is facing financial difficulties, seeking a deal with a Japanese games maker in a bid to save the company. At the wedding of his wife's brother, he meets an old girlfriend, Sherry (Su-Yun Ko). Having not seen her in nearly thirty years since he abandoned her, this chance meeting throws his life into chaos, forcing him to ask questions about his comfortable life as it current exists and also to wonder whether it's too late to start again and what if he'd stayed with Sherry. NJ's wife, Min Min (Elaine Jin) is experiencing an emotional breakdown and visits a mountain retreat of dubious nature. Their children, Ting Ting (Kelly Lee) is having her first lessons in love, and Yang Yang (Jonathan Chang) is constantly teased by classmates and finds himself in trouble at school. The family grandmother has a stroke which leaves her in a coma, which confuses and worries the children.

Starting with a wedding and ending with a funeral, Yang packs in every aspect of human life in between. Although it doesn't satirise the entire bourgeois lifestyle like 'American Beauty' (which was heavy-handed in any case), it does focus on dissatisfaction. At the start of her breakdown, Min Min realises "my life is a blank" and "what am I doing every day?". She feels she has little to show for her life and is desperately unhappy. We don't see that much tenderness between her and NJ. Whether this is a marriage that has been having problems for a while, we can only speculate. That might explain NJ's readiness to seek out the possibilities with Sherry. However, as the Japanese software designer whom NJ meets, explains "we never live the same day twice", and as Ting Ting's boyfriend suggests "life is a mixture of happy and sad things". 'Yi Yi' is not just a downbeat look at middle class life. It also considers the richness and possibilities of life and contains much humour - the tricks Yang Yang and his friends play, the scene caused between the wife of Min Min's brother and his ex-lover at a class reunion, etc. Yang doesn't settle for lazy resolutions and too much sentiment. 'Yi Yi' is a balanced and confident look at life at the turn of the millennium and unfortunately was to be the final film he made before succumbing to cancer. Most of Yang's films are unavailable on DVD, which hopefully might be addressed soon. 4/5

Brief Encounter (1945, UK, David Lean)

To commemorate the centenary of Lean's birth, the BFI Southbank and Film Four are running seasons showcasing his entire directorial career. His early films are amongst the best of British cinema. 'Great Expectations', the definitive Dickens adaptation would arguably be up there as a contender for the finest British film of all time. I'd argue that 'Brief Encounter' is every bit its equal. It's probably the one film of Lean's whose reputation has suffered more than any other in the last few decades (Lean's style of cinema was very much the kind that the new wave of the 1960s was supposed to discredit and overthrow). Many see it as too restrained, too polite, too middle class in its approach at adultery. On the other hand, I would see this approach as very much to the film's advantage. The fact that the adultery remains chaste and unconsummated adds greatly to the pain and suffering it causes.

'Brief Encounter', scripted by Noel Coward, Lean's chief collaborator at this time is indeed set in a typical Coward environment - the middle classes of the South Eastern suburbs. As Laura (Celia Johnson) suggests she's an ordinary woman with an ordinary life and family, though this is a facade; her marriage is nothing more than a polite arrangement. Her husband barely listens to her when she reveals she met Alec (Trevor Howard) for lunch. This partial confession goes unnoticed as if he wouldn't even react to being told the complete truth. Typically repressed and emotional sterile, the violence of falling in love with Alec comes as a shock. This doesn't happen to ordinary people. They meet after he assists her when she gets some grit in her eye at Milford Junction train station, and although nothing out of the ordinary seems likely, they meet every Thursday over the course of five or six weeks and find that they have fallen in love with each other, perhaps partially a reaction to their emotionally unfulfilling domestic circumstances.

Lean shows their relationship in its euphoric moments. When they reveal that they're in love with each other, Laura loses her inhibitions, becomes less concerned about being discovered and doesn't feel so ashamed. But what Lean also shows, and this is what makes the film even more moving and brilliant, is the guilt and pain of such an adulterous relationship, even one with few moments of genuine intimacy. For instance, on one Thursday when meeting Alec, she returns home to discover that one of her sons was hit by a car. Though not serious, she feels such extreme sorrow as if it was the direct result of her adultery. In her typical middle class way, Laura wants to be sensible and in control of her emotions, but finds it increasingly difficult to. The fact that Alec and Laura can never miss their trains, that even despite their love, they must return to their spouses at the correct time, is even more in keeping with their commitment to their suburban mores but also more emotionally devastating for us, as we are in full sympathy with an adulterous couple.

Lean begins and ends with the scene in which Alec and Laura part, but crucially he films it front different perspectives. At first, we have no emotional attachment and no knowledge of how we arrived at this point. It's filmed purely from a neutral angle, as a friend of Laura's interrupts Laura and Alec's poignant parting. The second time we see this scene, it's much more personal as we're now aware of the relationship that existed and how a parting that is so tragic and so difficult is halted by an unwanted gossip. Such is the cruelty of fate. There are few more devastating but romantic images in cinema that the moment Alec places his hand tenderly and sympathetically on Laura's shoulder as he finally leaves. As I mentioned, 'Brief Encounter' has become a film that's easy to criticise; its detractors question why the couple can't consummate their affair and question the restrained and polite bourgeois nature of it all. Sure, it's manipulative and pulls at your heartstrings, but that doesn't matter when it's done so well and so believably. Considered a landmark of British cinema and rightly so. 4.5/5

Time and Winds (2006, Turkey, Reha Erdem)

The likes of Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Faith Akin have placed Turkish cinema on the map since the turn of the century. The likes of 'The Edge of Heaven' and 'Climates' have won prizes at major international film festivals and secured releases in the UK. 'Time and Winds' may have won two main prizes at the 2006 Istanbul Film Festival but that wouldn't normally be enough to gain a film recognition outside of its own borders. For two years, the film has received terrific word of mouth, never more so apparent than in the September issue of Sight and Sound. Where Erdem's film differs from the work of Ceylan and Akin is that it concentrates on the rural experience of Turkey as opposed to the modern Istanbul, but like the other films mentioned, 'Time and Winds' captures a Turkey torn between tradition and modernity and between religion and secularism.

Set in a poor village close to Izmir on the Western coast of Turkey, three children experience the plight of growing up - Omer (Ozkan Ozen), the son of the local Imam who harbours parricidal thoughts towards him, Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali), who has a crush on his teacher and is acutely aware of his father's humiliation by his grandfather, and Yildiz (Elit Iscan), who raises her younger sister much more than her mother ever does. These are children on the verge of becoming teenagers, thus they're experiencing the kind of emotional pressures that anyone at this age does. However this is a typical patriarchal community that exists in Muslim societies and respecting one's elders is an important feature of this community, even in adulthood (not that this is always implied to be a negative - the whole community works together to assist an elderly grandmother). Just look at how Yakup's father accepts his humiliation without complaint when his own father destroys a wall that he has built, a humiliation made worse by the fact that Yakup witnesses it and feels his own sense of pain. One theme that Erdem explores is that sons ultimately become like their fathers and despite Omer and Yakup's youthful defiance, it's easy to imagine that given the setup of the community they live in, that they might do so.

Utilising some gorgeous locations and scenery, Erdem creates a contemplative environment, where the three children spend their time pondering the community they live in and what they perceive the injustice of it. This rural beauty contrasts with the painful and difficult experiences of growing up, where there's always an impending sense of tragedy. Erdem's camera tracks and follows the children's movements to give an indication of their carefree lives outside the family home, but remains a static observer of life inside. Whilst I don't think it's the masterpiece that Sight and Sound's review and feature suggested, it is a fairly fascinating account of a part of Turkish society that doesn't feature so much in the cinema that reaches the West - the Muslim, patriarchal communities that exist outside of large cities. This to an extent reflects the contradiction modern Turkey faces. 3.5/5

Temptress Moon (1996, China/Hong Kong, Chen Kaige)

Chen Kaige's follow up to his Palme D'Or winning 'Farewell, My Concubine' has received a pretty muted critical reception in the decade since its release. Since seeing it for the first time a couple of years ago, I've always found this a little unfair. Although it's a film with certain shortcomings, I've never considered it the poor cousin to 'Farewell....' - instead I've always thought it just as enthralling but what's more has more visual and technical prowess as well as offering just as much ambivalence towards the modern China with it's allegorical narrative that examines the current era through that of the 1911-1920s period. Kaige also has a reputation for making overwrought and overdone films, but in the case of 'Temptress Moon', there's a school of thought that suggests this is a very knowing and self-referential film that dissects the very notions of melodrama. That is, by being so over the top, it comments on the genre itself. Silbergeld's "China Into Film" (http://www.amazon.com/China-into-Film-Contemporary-Envisioning/dp/1861890508) has a chapter on 'Temptress Moon' which discusses the film in this context.

Set during a period of social and political transition, 'Temptress Moon' starts in 1911 before the fall of the Qing dynasty and the resignation of Emporer Pu Yi (an event that is soon mentioned). The wealthy and important Pang family is fated for a similar decline - it's downfall to be caused by opium, the drug which all it's heads become addicted to (there's an ominous opening scene where Ruyi, as a child, smiles upon inhaling in). This corrupt family - witness Zhengda's demands of Zhongliang to kiss his own sister in an incestuous fashion, destined towards self-destruction and tragedy sows the seeds of its own fall, and has been argued to reflect the corruption of Communist China, echoing the ambiguous nature of Chen Kaige's previous films. At this point in 1911, the three children in the house, Ru Yi (the master's sister), Duanwu (her cousin) and Zhongliang (her cousin through marriage) will determine the family's fate - note the knowing scene where all three meet and look into the camera as if to declare their importance to the viewer.

At this point, when the film rushes into the 1920s and the three are now adults, the film lurches into more melodramatic terrain with tragedy never far from the horizon. Zhongliang (Leslie Cheung), now a blackmailer and gigolo working for a local crime syndicate has constructed a cool and emotionless persona after the trauma of his forced incest as a boy - he can never love again. Under the pseudonym Xiao Xie, he seduces rich women whilst his cohorts extort money through contrived kidnappings. When one woman is told Xiao Xie is dead, maybe that's a reflection on the changing identity of Zhongliang; that his identity isn't real, that he's not who he really is. Ru Yi (Gong Li) on the other hand has ascended to the leadership of the family after Zhengda was poisoned (no guesses by whom), a move which has caused internal strife within a family still bound by the traditions of a patriarchal society. Duanwu (Kevin Lin) is used by the family elders to keep an eye on her because he has no ambitions of his own, but this superficially dim-witted young man is smarter than he looks. Their fates are all destined to be entwined and because of such, the inevitable tragedy ensues after Zhongliang returns to the estate with the intention of seducing Ru Yi - the masks and personas these people wear begin to slip and the dynamics in the relationships between them begin to shift in ways you hadn't expected. As the film reaches its climax, it becomes more over-elaborate and melodramatic but you suspect (and Silbergeld agrees) that this is precisely the point - that it acts as a commentary on melodrama generally as much as it does itself.

Thanks to the photography of Christopher Doyle, 'Temptress Moon' is a visual feast with brilliant use of lighting - it seems very old fashioned but of course precisely of its own time (1920s) to focus an intense strip of light in the eyes of the actor. Chen Kaige uses a number of close ups on the faces of his actors generally, possibly to reflect the possible slip in their facades. Doyle's camera follows his protagonists wherever they go with a great amount of urgency; it's rarely still. More visual brilliance is shown in the sex scenes which are choreographed in a very dreamlike light. But 'Temptress Moon' is a film of substance too. Much like 'Raise The Red Lantern' and other films of the Fifth Generation era, it uses the past as a means of critiquing the present - the Pang family is a rigid and patriarchal society which is resistant to change but also quite vulnerable at the same time. The rise of Duanwu from nowhere to the head of the Pang dynasty has been said to echo the unexpected ascendancy of many Communist officials, Jiang Zemin specifically. Many critics remain ambivalent about the film probably because of its confusing narrative - when Miramax released the film, they added prologues to "help" the viewer. I've not seen a version distributed by Miramax and I don't think they're necessary anyway. Chen Kaige has not remotely approached these heights since, which is a shame because his opening run of films are wonderful. Now he's been co-opted into the Chinese film establishment, who knows whether he will again? 4.5/5

The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Spain, Victor Erice)

Erice's breathtaking film was set during the initial years of the Franco regime, but was made during its final years. Needless to say, it's unlikely that it could have been made when the regime was at its strongest. Despite it not being overtly too critical of the regime, its sufficiently subtle in its approach - is the theme of loss of childhood innocence a reflection on the loss of innocence after a bloody civil war that had deposed a legitimate government?

Set in a village in Castile, a Francoist stronghold, a screening of James Whale's 1931 horror classic 'Frankenstein' becomes a community event. Whilst other children are frightened by the film, Ana (Ana Torrent), a young girl, is touched by the more poignant moments in the film, such as when Frankenstein's monster meets a young girl by a pond and plays with her. When her sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria) explains that the spirit of the monster lives in an abandoned outhouse in the village as a joke, Ana wants to befriend this spirit. A Republican soldier is now hiding there, and Ana tends to his injuries and brings him food, believing him to be the monster's spirit and their relationship to be similar to that between the monster and the young girl Ana identified with. However, is Ana helping the soldier or making his discovery more likely?

Ana's retreat into fantasy and identification with the film is possibly the consequence of a disintegrating family unit. Her father, a scientist is obsessed with bee-keeping and related experiments and there's barely any kind of relationship with his younger wife, who writes letters to her loved ones. In fact, you notice that there are no scenes at all with all family members in the frame at the same time. The only instance they're all together, at the dinner table, no two family members are in the same frame. Ana herself abandons her family temporarily - having given the soldier her father's watch, we know that the soldier is then discovered and murdered by the gunfire in the night. Ana doesn't know this, and only discovers then when her father deliberately and cruelly pulls out the watch at the dinner table. This completely shocks her since in the film, she could not understand why the community turned on and killed the monster - to her, this murder of the soldier just echoes that. This society is still divided and will turn on its "enemies". This is a disjointed family, perhaps reflective of Spain as a whole during Franco or at least certainly in its initial years when the entire nation was polarised by war. Is the imagery of the community of bees and windows in beehive shapes reflective of community under Fascism - ordered, organised, but devoid of individuality or imagination? Is Ana the only hope, the only individual in a homogeneous society?

Driven by the superb performance of Ana Torrent (who would later appear in Alejandro Amenabar's debut film 'Tesis') - which is surely one of the finest ever delivered by a child actor; believe me, she'll break your heart, 'The Spirit of the Beehive' is one of the most poignant films ever about childhood and the loss of innocence. This scenario acts as an allegory if you like for the wider society under Franco; a society that is still divided but has hope in Ana. The constant reference to bees and beehives might reflect an increasingly organised society under Fascism; one that is ordered and controlled, where individuality is suppressed in the name of homogeneity. Featuring breathtaking cinematography from a near blind Luis Cuadrado, where the yellows dominate each shot, and a correct lack of dialogue - Erice never allows his characters to speak more than they need to, and a sense of isolation and lack of communication is precisely what is needed, 'The Spirit of the Beehive' is a moving and heartfelt account of life under Fascism. 4.5/5

Summer Palace (2006, China, Lou Ye)

Showing as part of the 21st Century Chinese Cinema season at the BFI Southbank (London), 'Summer Palace' is an ambitious but ultimately flawed account of the turbulent love lives of a group of Beijing students, which mirror the social, economic and political changes in China between 1987-2001. Certain elements of the film, including full frontal nudity and footage of the student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square led to the film being banned in China and also a five year ban from film making for director Lou Ye, though the official word was that the film was banned for "technical reasons". It wasn't the first time he fell foul of the Chinese authorities - his 2000 film 'Suzhou River' remains banned in China, and Lou Ye was banned from film making for two years. Fellow Sixth Generation directors, Jia Zhang Ke and Wang Xiaoshuai have managed to escape formal disapproval of their films as of yet whilst remaining equally ambivalent as Lou Ye of China's modernisation in recent decades - perhaps their approach is a bit more subtle than Lou Ye's.

'Summer Palace' begins in Tumen, a border city between China and North Korea, where Yu Hong (Lei Hao), a young student receives notification of her acceptance to study at university in Beijing. Life in Beijing offers more choices, opportunities and freedom than she has been used to - she falls in love with Zhou Wei (Xiaodong Guo), who begins to get involved in the student demonstrations which are developing at the time (1988-89). Somewhat immature and impatient, and perhaps unable to cope with these feelings, their relationship is turbulent and remains on-off. It's a relationship which exists beyond university and its difficulties reflect those China faced in the path it took to reach where it is today.

Lou Ye shows the student demonstrations with a combination of dramatic action and TV footage of the time. By using this footage, Lou Ye is arguably increasing the power and impact of the events - we know we are witnessing the truth rather than a recreation of what happened. What he doesn't show (and maybe we shouldn't be too surprised) is the aftermath of these events. We see the army trying to maintain order, but the massacres that followed the demonstrations are never shown, nor inferred. Even by the most understated of figures, there was a harsh crackdown on dissenters after these demonstrations, but the film doesn't even remotely reflect what took place. A shame, since Lou Ye was clearly brave enough to make a film about these events - maybe he should have gone further, though one could hardly blame him I guess given what the consequences might be for him.

After Tiananmen Square, Lou Ye shows us the rapid changes in both China and internationally - the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union for instance - Lou Ye offers documentary footage of each of these events, which also includes the return of Hong Kong to China, further evidence of the growing success of China and its emergence as a global superpower. At each global event, we dip into the personal circumstances of Yu Hong, Zhou Wei and the assorted other main characters, all of whom seem to have messy and chaotic romantic lives every time. As a group of people, they're difficult to care about or sympathise with, and that's partly where the film suffers because you start to tire of them failing to maintain relationships with each other, notably Yu Hong's self-destructive approach to romance. There's certainly things to admire here - the cinematography for instance, where a jerky camera and rapid cutting reflects the turbulence of both events and personal circumstances and Lou Ye's ambition is to be praised. However, there's enough flaws - the uneasy balance between being critical of Chinese modernisation and the need to appease the censors, as well as difficulty to engage with any of the characters to make it a bit of a mess overall, though it's certainly a brave and interesting one. 3/5

The Colour of Pomegranates (1968, Soviet Union, Sergei Parajanov)

A loose biopic of the Armenian ashug (troubadour) and poet Sayat Nova, Parajanov's film is a beguiling, if sometimes frustrating film. It's defiantly unique in its scope and vision, which accounts for the difficulties Parajanov faced from the Soviet authorities, who not only banned the film in its original incarnation but also heavily re-edited it - no doubt for its supposed nationalist content and also the fact that Soviet audiences just wouldn't understand it. Parajanov himself was persecuted by the authorities, and was later imprisoned in a labour camp for four years on charges of rape and homosexuality.

'The Colour of Pomegranates' certainly requires the viewer's patience. Dispensing with formal cinematic narrative, Parajanov recreates the life of Sayat Nova by displaying his inner world. It's essentially visual poetry; the narrative driven by the scenes of abstract imagery and the native Armenian music. There is no dialogue, just voiceover (this and any titles are usually lines from Nova's poetry) and Parajanov uses a still camera which never moves. Parajanov makes no attempt at realism, but uses Armenian folklore to revive a national culture which was undermined and suppressed by the authorities.

Parajanov seems to portray Nova as an androgynous and mystical figure, using Sofia Chiaureli, a Georgian actress who was Parajanov's muse, plays Sayat Nova across five stages of his adult life, in contrast to using a boy and man to play Nova as a child and older man. Parajanov also obliquely accounts Nova's rise from humble carpet weaver to diplomat and King of Songs, and then his fall from favour at court, becoming a monk - it's only really reading up on Nova's biography that this all becomes apparent though. Parajanov has no interest in recreating Nova's world in a conventional fashion - by using elaborate music and dance, costumes and choreography, as well as a series of beautiful and enthralling images, 'The Colour of Pomegranates' is a justly acclaimed film, albeit one that really tests one's tolerance for art of the avante-garde kind. 4/5