Author Lee Hill

It is tempting to view Daddy Nostalgie (Bertrand Tavernier, 1990), Dirk Bogarde’s last film, as an actor’s swan song or as a great director’s meditation on aging. When the film was released, it  was marketed an...

While I would disagree with Mark Kermode, as he argues in his BFI book on the horror classic, that The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) is the greatest film ever made, a strong case can be made that To Live an...

In the late Harry Mathews’ provocative mix of memoir and fiction, My Life in CIA (2005), a proverbial American in Paris in the 70s, amused by friends’ suspicions that he is a spy, decides to indulge them by pre...

Catherine Breillat’s Une Veille Maitresse (2007) opens with the title card, “au siècle de Cholderlos de Laclos” (in the period of Cholderlos de Laclos) placing the next 104 minutes or so firmly in the decadent ...

Paris, Texas (1984) is a story about the prodigal son and his uneasy homecoming. It is also, among other things, a road movie, a modern Western, a near textbook perfect example of what an “art film” can be rath...

Jean-Luc Godard’s Prénom Carmen (First Name: Carmen, 1983) is the third film, after Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself/Slow Motion, 1980) and Passion (1982), in a busy period in the 1980s that boldl...

Patricio Guzmán’s Le Cas Pinochet (The Pinochet Case, 2001) is more than just a coda to his epic La batalla de Chile (The Battle of Chile, 1975-79), it is a sober, dispassionate reminder that justice pursued is...

Set in a Franco-era Spain that has made only the barest of concessions to modernism (there are telephones and cars), but remains fully locked down under Catholicism at its most patriarchal and reactionary, Luis...

The State of Things/Der Stand der Dinge (1982 Germany/Portugal/US 121 mins) Prod Co: Road Movies Film Production/Wenders Berlin Prod: Chris Sievernich, Wim Wenders Dir: Wim Wenders Scr: Robert Kramer, Wi...

Thief (1981 US 122 mins) Prod Co: Mann/Cann Productions Prod: Jerry Bruckheimer, Ronnie Caan Dir: Michael Mann Scr: Michael Mann, based on the novel The Home Invaders by Frank Hohimer Phot: Donald Thorin...

Bleu/Blue/Trois couleurs: bleu/Three Colours: Blue (1993 France/Switzerland/ Poland 100 mins) Prod Co: MK2 Productions SA/ CEO Productions/France 3 Cinema/CAB Productions/ “Tor” Productions Prod: Marin K...

36 Fillette (1988 France 88 mins) Source: NFSA Prod Co: CB Films/French Productions Prod: Emmanuel Schlumberger, Valérie Seydoux Dir: Catherine Breillat Scr: Catherine Breillat, Roger Salloch, based on B...