The Virgin Suicides (1999) | Dir. Sofia Coppola | USA

I’m Not There (2007)

Vincent Gallo

photographer   © Anton Corbijn

Only God Forgives (2013) | dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

Cinematography by Larry Smith

Amélie | dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet | 2001

DoP: Bruno Delbonnel

Of Freaks and Men (1998) | dir. Alexei Balabanov

When evil triumphs, humour turns black. Glimpses of turn-of-the-century porn has an uncomfortable, humiliating look to it. Balabanov massages human nature's ugly heart. The film is so original and startling, it appears playful, when really it concerns an abuse of power that feeds off trust and decency, perverting both.

The film is shot as a pastiche of silent cinema, without Chaplin's famous fast motion. In old St Petersburg the bourgeoisie live innocent and privileged lives, while in the basement of an abandoned building tight-lipped Johan (Sergei Makovetsky), with his smirking, sinister sidekick (Victor Sukhorukov), organises nude spanking sessions

which are photographed and sold to sado-masochistic postcard collectors, when not purloined by their naughty maids.

There are moments in this deliciously subversive film when you suspect Alexei Balabanov is being satirical and those scenes of pornographers taking over the grand houses, only to corrupt them with their nasty habits, refer to organised crime's stranglehold on the Russian economy, not to mention the state of the nation.

Amélie | dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet | 2001

DoP: Bruno Delbonnel

Robert De Niro during the filming of Mean Streets, 1973.

“What is that American promise? It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect,” Barack Obama said at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. And that section of the speech opens Andrew Dominik‘s seething “Killing Them Softly,” as he cuts the audio between white noise and the silent black title screen, signifying the blind emptiness of Obama’s statement and the thematic current he’ll be taking for the film. We are not a changed nation. We are not a nation of equals...

Hansel and Gretel (2007) | dir. Pil-sung Yim | South Korea

Cinematography by Ji-yong Kim

Hansel and Gretel (2007) | dir. Pil-sung Yim | South Korea

Cinematography by Ji-yong Kim