THE GRIM REAPER

 One of the most assured debuts in all of cinema, Bertolucci was only twenty-one when he made "The Grim Reaper" from a story by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It's definitely a young man's film, a police procedural in which the police remain off-screen. A prostitute has been murdered and we see the events leading up to her death through the eyes of the various suspects, all of whom have reason to lie, but what interests Bertolucci and Pasolini isn't so much the crime itself but the lives of these young men and the conditions in which they live.

Using a mix of professional and non-professional actors Bertolucci aims for a new kind of realism but one that is closer to early Rosselleni than the more polished films Fellini was turning out at the time. The Grim Reaper of the title isn't so much the one that robs the prostitute of her life as the one who steals away the will to live from everyone else. Each 'chapter' is filmed in a distinctive style that signalled Bertolucci as a director of considerable originality and made us aware a new wunderkind had arrived.

AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS

 One of the great films about childhood and certainly one of Louis Malle's very finest films, "Au revoir les enfants" is set in a boy's boarding school in German-occupied France during World War Two and tells of the friendship that develops between two boys, one a well-to-do French boy and the other a Jew, hiding out in the Catholic run school and whose identity is a secret from all but the teaching staff.

It's deeply moving as you can imagine while also working as a wartime thriller, (it's one of a handful of French films to deal with those who were collaborators), but it's in the minutiae of everyday life within the school and in the interaction between the boys, all superb and all superbly directed by Malle, that the film really scores. The adults are mostly in the background; the children are the stars here and both Gaspard Manesse and Raphael Fejto as the two boys at the centre are outstanding. A classic of French cinema that demands to be seen.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

 I guess it was inevitable that the Coen Brothers would do a portmanteau picture, little pieces resembling short stories or comic strips brought to life. Wasn't that what "Raising Arizona" was, a Roadrunner cartoon with actors? Of course, anyone can do a portmanteau picture and add nothing to the segments other than a fundamental blandness. The Coens, however, have distinguished themselves from the beginning with a style unlike that of any of their contemporaries. You can recognise a Coen Brother's film from a distance. In the end, they may all look and sound the same but that's their signature just as we know a Fellini or a Bunuel or a Hitchcock.

"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is six tales of the Old West; part pastiche, part homage, part realism, very funny certainly but philosophical and deeply moving, too. The link lies in the Coen Brothers' style and the depth of feeling they bring to the individual pieces. The title comes from the first story, a surreal comedy-western inspired in part, perhaps, by Mel Brooks as a vehicle for the great Tim Blake Nelson as a singing cowboy who isn't quite what he seems. It's very funny and is closest in style to "Raising Arizona".

The second story is a gorgeous black joke about an incompetent bank robber played by James Franco in dead-pan style. The third segment, "Meal Ticket" is virtually a two-hander and is a small masterpiece of visual storytelling with wonderful performances from both Liam Neeson and a remarkable Harry Melling and it shows the Coens can do 'serious' impeccably and the same can be said for the fifth and longest segment, "The Girl Who Got Rattled", a tale of the Oregon Trail that again never goes where we expect it to and taken on its own is one of the very best things the brothers have ever done.

If the other two stories don't quite measure up they are still remarkable in their intelligence and are beautifully played. The first is really a one-man show for Tom Waits while the closing segment is like something Guy De Maupassant might have written and the whole thing is stunningly photographed by the great Bruno Delbonnel. Made by Netflix it was rumoured that the film was originally to be a television series but now it seems it was never intended to be anything other than what it is and surely these combined stories must rank with some of the brother's very best work. I look forward to revisiting them frequently.

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS

 Like so many '50's movies that came out of Hollywood "All That Heaven Allows" was dismissed by the critics as just another 'women's picture' and so much romantic mush before being discovered by the Cahiers crowd. It's now rightly regarded as a masterpiece and one of the most biting critiques of American manners ever put on film. Fassbender paid tribute to it in "Fear Eats the Soul" and Todd Haynes virtually remade it as "Far From Heaven".

In this version, a widow in early middle-age, (Jane Wyman, superb), falls in love with her younger gardener, (a surprisingly good Rock Hudson), causing no end of scandal in the narrow-minded small town in which they live. It's a film about class and prejudice and the passing of time and, of course, it's also a great love story. For producer Ross Hunter, it probably was just 'romantic mush' but director Douglas Sirk turned into something genuinely subversive, finding the worm in the apple, (an what an apple, photographed by the great Russell Metty in colours that seem at times positively psychedelic).

Haynes, of course, took it a step further. The gardener was black and the woman at the centre had a husband who was homosexual, (was this a direct reference on Haynes' part to Hudson's homosexuality or was it simply that by the time "Far From Heaven" came out such things were no longer taboo?). Of course, it's also easy to take it at face value but read between the lines, paying attention to Sirk's 'mirror' shots, (is what we're seeing simply a reflection of a way of life?), and you will have found one of the great American films of its time.

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

 "Embrace of the Serpent" is one of the most astonishing films you will ever see. It could be a documentary, though it clearly isn't. It's scripted and based, we are told, on the diaries of Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes and it's acted, magnificently in the case of Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar playing the same character at different stages of his life, (neither is a professional actor and this is the first time they have appeared in a film). It is also breathtakingly well photographed in black and white in the Amazon region where it is set. It's an adventure story, an ethnographic study, a film about friendship, an account of a journey and an attack on organised religion and it's a masterpiece.

It begins in the past and then moves to 'the future' as we meet its four central characters, one of whom, Karamakate, is as I've said, played by two different men and throughout its two hour running time it moves back and forth over an unspecified period of years. A seriously ill explorer, Theo, is brought upriver by his Indian friend, Manduca, to a lone shaman, Karamakate, to be healed. At first the shaman is reluctant to help him until he learns from Theo that members of his tribe are still living in the jungle and together the three embark on a river journey in search of both a healing plant and Karamakate's people. Years later another explorer, Evan, seeks out the same shaman and the journey is, in some ways, repeated.

With its jungle-river setting, its strange river-dwelling communes and its constant threat of violence it's like a pared down version of "Apocalypse Now" but without Coppola's bombastic flourishes. The director is Ciro Guerra but it never feels like it is being directed; every incident, every moment of this great film, feels like it's happening naturally as if we've slipped into the lives of these characters without having any right to be there. A phenomenal achievement, both technically and artistically, under no circumstances should this film be missed.

JINDABYNE

 Ray Lawrence has only made three films in a career that began in 1985 with "Bliss" which was enough to get him noticed but he didn't direct again until 2001 when he made "Lantana" and five years later he made "Jindabyne". He's done nothing since but on the strength of "Lantana" and "Jindabyne" alone he should be considered among the best directors to have emerged in the last forty years. "Jindabyne" is based on a Raymond Carver story, the same one Robert Altman used in "Short Cuts", but Lawrence has expanded it so that it now deals with issues beyond those in the original story.

The central premise is the same; four men on a fishing trip find the naked body of a young woman in the river but instead of reporting it straight away, they go on fishing, having tied the body to a tree and naturally their actions have devastating consequences both for the men and their families. But Lawrence has set his film in Australia and the girl, who has been raped and murdered, is Aboriginal and that fact alone has consequences.

Superbly written, directed and acted, (in particular by Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne), this is a genuinely disturbing film and, while anchored very specifically in a certain place, its themes are universal. It was a critical success at the time but didn't prove popular with the public and is now thought of largely as a cult movie. Seek it out; I think you will astonished.