Smultrönstallet / Wild Strawberries (1957 Ingmar Bergman)

As engaging as the last time I saw it, and definitely one of the director's most accessible films, shot with hard light (particularly in that over-exposed opening dream) by Gunnar Fischer (singled out in 'Making Pictures: A Decade of European Cinematography').

Is there a twinkle in the housekeeper's eye when she asks "if there's anything you need..."

Silent legend Victor Sjöström, an influence on Bergman, is excellent as the aging doctor who feels he is already dead (and accordingly, so does his son).

I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth (2005 Vincenta Ferraz)

And a documentary about Soy Cuba ('a Siberian mammoth found in the Caribbean sand') reveals the dominance of Urusevsky, who sounds like the driving force from many stories ("move this waterfall ... we'll wait three days until there are clouds in the sky") though as the film ultimately bombed* and disappeared, he and Kalatozov never recovered (Urusevsky shot only two more films and died at 66). Scorsese and Coppola rescued it in the nineties.

*The Cubans thought the tempo of the film was not Cuban; there was too much American decadence for the Soviets.

There's also a nice understatement about "we had to shoot some of the scenes more than once..." Indeed.

P.S. Infra red film used to get those incredible skies!

Bande a Part (1964 Jean-Luc Godard)

Godard's Jules et Jim is as light and funny as a souffle. For example, Odile's kiss "with tongue" (a diffident Anna Karina), and the mucking about of Arthur Clause Brasseur, diving through the back window of his car - later on we hear the roof doesn't work any longer) and Franz (Sami Frey, in gangster hat and raincoat). All three still going strong.

It's also innovative, the editing going on to the opening titles is amazing. There are experiments with sound, such as the minute's silence, and trademark moments where the music (Michel Legrand - why "For the last time"?) doesn't fit the scene properly.

And those throwaway touches of intrigue at the end (the aunt isb't dead; the money's in the kennel) and 'Franz and Odete's next adventure will be in Technicolor and CinemaScope'... delightful.

Doctor in Clover (1967 Ralph Thomas)

Leslie Phillips ('Ding dong!'), James Robertson Justice, Shirley Anne Field, Joan Sims, Arthur Haynes (funny as difficult patient), Elizabeth Ercy, usual people who turn up in films of this era.

Clever title you see, contains 'Love' or 'Lover', very clever?!? Poor even by Pinewood standards: they could have been doing something more interesting than fire extinguisher gags in 1967. Eric Steward's photography if anything is getting worse.