Cinema update

Dear Charlie,
There are lots of great films on everywhere at the moment, so I thought it would be a good idea to bring you up to date. First of all, and as promised a few days ago, here's the programme for the Ken Loach season currently on at the Institut de l'Image in Aix. http://www.institut-image.org/programme/le-cycle 
 Ken Loach is one of the greatest British film directors, showing working-class life in Britain, Ireland, and sometimes elsewhere, with a mix of social criticism, humour and tragedy which usually makes for great films. My personal favourite in this season is "Kes", about a boy from a mining village (if memory serves) who escapes his sad everyday life by raising a kestrel (a bird of prey). A lot of it's relatively sad, but in the middle you get scenes like this where the football teacher is determined to show his pupils he's better than them at the sport.

 Other great films include "Poor Cow" (known in French as "Pas de larmes pour Joy") and "Family Life", both relatively bleak social portraits of life in England in the 60s and 70s, although "Poor Cow" also has a performance from the great folk artist Donovan, which is well worth seeing; and his '90s revival films "Riff Raff" and "Raining Stones" featuring workers and unemployed men trying to cope in Conservative Britain (a regular target of Loach's). They're both really funny, especially "Raining Stones", but touching and moving at the same time.

"Land and Freedom" shows how members of the working-class from many different countries fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War (sometimes it looks like an early version of the International Section) (the French actor is Fréderic Pierrot from "Les Revenants"), and "The Navigators" is a critique of the privatisation of the railways in Great Britain (again very funny). There are also three Scottish films: "Sweet Sixteen" (featuring an amazing performance from a teenager Martin Compston); "Ae Fond Kiss" (the title, too complicated for French audiences, comes from a Robert Burns poem), about a Romeo & Juliet-style love story between a Scottish Muslim of Pakistani origin and a Scottish Catholic; and the relatively recent "The Angel's Share", which Salomé wrote an article on the blog on last year. I join her in recommending it. oibstcharles.blogspot.fr/search/label/cinema

The final two films I can recommend (yes, I'm a fan) are the 2006 Palme d'Or winner "The Wind That Shakes the Barley", which grippingly dramatises the Irish Civil War in the 1920s, laying most of the blame on the British occupying army; and "Looking For Eric", where King Eric Cantona stars as himself in a sort of fairytale where he acts as a personal trainer for the protagonist, helping him out of his difficulties. Very entertaining.
"The Flickering Flame" is no doubt a very interesting documentary about the striking dockers of Liverpool, but I can't recommend it as I haven't seen it yet. The one film I really didn't like in the selection is "Carla's Song", but it may give some of you an insight into the situation in Nicaragua in the '80s.
In Marseille, now I'll recommend you a couple of films which are on at the Gyptis (for only 2 euros 50, of course). "The Ballad of Joe Hill" is a film by the Swedish director Bo Widerberg in the same vein as Ken Loach. Hill was a Swedish-born trade unionist who tried to establish representation for the workers in the land of the free. His struggles inspired many famous folk songs. It's on Sunday the 14th and 21st (5 o'clock and 6.30 respectively, and Tuesday 16th at 7.30. I would LOVE to be able to go!

You can also see the latest "Star Wars" in English on Wednesday 24th (7.30pm), and Saturday 27th (8pm) and Sunday 28th (7pm) and "The Pink Panther" (starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau) FREE on Sunday 6th March (7.45pm), to say nothing for the next Cinema Club films:

"The Thing" (John Carpenter): sci-fi masterpiece from 1982 starring Kurt Russell (Tuesday March 1st at 7pm)
"The Hateful 8" (Quentin Tarantino): Wednesday March 9th at 7.30pm (also available on Thursday 10th at the same time, and the Sunday in a double bill with "Django Unchained")
A double bill of "Blow Up" (Michelangelo Antonioni) and "Blow-Out" (Brian DePalma) from 7pm on Tuesday 15th.
Maybe a double bill of the two versions of "Cape Fear" (by J. Lee Thompson and Martin Scorsese) the next Tuesday.
Finally, I'd like to warmly recommend "Spotlight" (about journalists uncovering a scandal in the Catholic church) and "45 Years" about a couple who've been together that long discovering secrets they've been keeping from each other, but I hope someone else will write an article about those, the films we've recently seen ("The Purple Rose of Cairo" or "The Celluloid Closet", anyone?), or other films.
Meanwhile, enjoy your holidays, and watch a few films!
Mr Leah