LOS OLVIDADOS (MEXICO/1950/LUIS BUÑUEL)

Set in the unforgiving landscape of an impoverished barrio in Mexico City, Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados places focus on the lives of children forgotten by society, and the interpersonal relationships they form in order to survive. Jaibo, a teenager well respected by many of the younger local kids, escapes from a correctional facility and enlists the assistance of his friend Pedro to get revenge on those who wronged him. Feeling that his involvement has sent him in the wrong direction, he elects to repair his relationship with his mother, but his connection to Jaibo threatens to draw him permanently into the life of a downtrodden street urchin.

Though an uncharacteristic film for Buñuel, Los Olvidados manages to balance a serious portrayal of real life with warming moments of surrealism, manifest in a dream that Pedro has of the boy that he and Jaibo kill. In setting the scene, Buñuel strongly gets across the idea that these children have had to band together out of circumstance, and Pedro’s active desire to leave this life behind make him seem more mature than even the oldest of the street urchins. Buñuel’s psychological investment in his characters allows the film to serve as an ethnological document as well as a gripping twist on the crime genre without trivialising the subject matter. With its focus on the precocious development of children, Los Olvidados is a remarkably timeless feature (the relevance of which will scarcely diminish), and would make a brilliant double feature with Forbidden Games.

KISSES (JAPAN/1957/YASUZO MASUMURA)

After a bizarre encounter visiting their respective fathers in prison, teenagers Kinichi and Akiko fall into a troubled relationship that leads them deeper than they bargained for. Having won money on a bet at the races, the pair confide each other’s money woes, learning that their priorities lie on rescuing their fathers. Kinichi is determined to make bail of 100,000 yen for his father, who has been imprisoned for election fraud, and realises that he will have to call upon his estranged mother for help. Akiko decides she must pay back the 100,000 yen of public funds that her father embezzled, but her job as an artist’s model fails to fetch enough to cover her mother’s hospital bills, let alone her father’s release.

For those familiar with the work of Yasuzo Masumura, Kisses might feel a particularly tame debut film, but that’s not to say it lacks his flair. Though not exactly the twisted duo of Nagisa Ôshima’s Cruel Story of Youth, Kinichi and Akiko’s forced independence seems representative of the post-war period, but Masumura allows his characters to enjoy the freedom they are also given by their circumstances. A sequence at the beach allows the young couple to experience the simple joys of being a teenager, before the streets of town remind them of their harsh reality. There are some superb shots too, particularly as an untethered camera follows the couple as they motorcycle to the beach. The story might be forgettable, but it’s hard to finish Kisses unmoved.

SEAGULLS DIE IN THE HARBOUR (BELGIUM/1955/RIK KUYPERS, IVO MICHIELS, ROLAND VERHAVERT)

Seagulls only feature briefly in this landmark Flemish feature, which played at the 1956 Cannes Festival, but their presence provides an important metaphor. Our protagonist is a baby-faced vagrant who emerges mysteriously from the harbour in Antwerp, wandering the streets with little apparent purpose but to find sanctuary. Dressed in a dark body-length jacket, he cuts a sinister figure and many of the city’s residents distrust him based on image alone. During his travels, he manages to establish connections with a few women and a young Francophone orphan. As the city gradually warms to his presence, we learn secrets from his past, and how he ended up as he is.

Considering its aesthetic merits, it is a surprise to learn that this film was helmed by relative novices in the field. The lighting – sfumato in the daytime and chiaroscuro at night – adds great depth to the photography and mirrors the protagonist’s state of mind. Antwerp is more than just the backdrop, and the camera takes every opportunity to drink in its unique architecture – at one point the camera rises above rooftop level to present the city as a whole. Though the film is ultimately about the individual, a whole host of characters is featured to create an understanding of the protagonist’s isolation, and this makes his search for a sense of belonging so poignant. Suave but sensitive, Seagulls Die In The Harbour might not be a particularly vital film, but one would do well to file it under ‘hidden gems’.

CLOSED VISION (FRANCE/1954/MARC'O)

With the advent of cinema, many artists have used this new medium not for theatre, but to attempt to record the human thought process realistically. Surrealism and the avant-garde brought with them editing styles which seem to echo the stream of consciousness. The lettrist movement of the forties and fifties aimed to reduce literature and cinema to its formal fragments, removing any nuance of semantics or grammar. The films produced from this movement still present a heady challenge even today, and Marc’O’s Closed Vision is no exception. A narrator guides the viewer through the film’s intentions as a vibrant array of images is presented. Various photocollages evoke the contorted faces of human emotion, intercut with surreal imagery reminiscent of Buñuel and Cocteau, both of whom endorsed the film.

Apart from the patronising disclaimer at the start of the film which acknowledges the need for an explanation for ‘lay audiences’, Marc’O does a good job of drawing the viewer in, the curiosity of his new film language being a reason to watch rather than switch off. Unlike his lettrist colleagues, Marc’O revels in the possibilities of both image and sound, engendering a sense of discord as the mind tries to follow the two independent strands. The narration plays with the phonetic complexities of language, sounds being stressed and repeated at random, and brings to mind a Beat poetry session. Closed Vision is a little too theatrical to fully follow through with its mission statement, but merits commemoration in experimental film history.

GHOST OF HANGING IN UTSUNOMIYA (JAPAN/1956/NOBUO NAKAGAWA)

Ryutaro is a spy employed by the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, who is the target of assassination attempts that aim to hand power over to his younger brother Tadanaga. Before learning of these plots, Ryutaro discovers himself in a predicament of his own when he rushes to the defence of a local girl who is caught between her boyfriend and a greedy businessman. The situation results in many violent one-on-one skirmishes between Ryutaro and the businessman’s many samurai defendants, one of whom enigmatically refuses to reveal his face or use more than just the one hand. Before long, Ryutaro’s top priority is not protecting Iemitsu as it should be, but rather unearthing the true identity of the mystery samurai.

Director Nobuo Nakagawa is well known for mixing the supernatural with diverse genres of film, and in Ghost Of Hanging In Utsunomiya, he does a sublime job of giving the chanbara (or samurai) genre a much-needed boost. While it may not be as subversive a work as some of its contemporaries, the film has a wonderfully simple premise, and Nakagawa uses the time to reinforce Ryutaro’s story with some colourful characters. With his bizarre hood and penchant for spinning walnuts in his fingers, the unnamed samurai walks the line between clown and sinister threat, and the scene where he reveals his true face is unusually tense. It may not be for everyone, but Ghost Of Hanging In Utsunomiya is a brilliant mix of history and the ethereal, making for great evening viewing.

FORBIDDEN GAMES (FRANCE/1952/RENÉ CLÉMENT)

After an unforgiving attack by the Nazis kills her parents and pet dog, five-year-old Paulette is left without a family or a home. A local peasant family kindly takes her in, their ten-year-old son Michel becoming both brother and friend to her. The two bury Paulette’s beloved dog in a discreet spot in the woods, and soon become fascinated by dead animals. As their macabre interest grows, they collect corpses of animals to bury in a rudimentary cemetery, but when Michel steals crosses from the village’s graveyard, including that of his own deceased brother, the local adults decide to put a stop to these ‘forbidden games’. Worse still is the overhanging threat of the police, keen to take custody of the newly orphaned Paulette.

Despite its themes, Forbidden Games is careful not to overwhelm with morbidity – director René Clément remembers to celebrate life as an element of meditation on death. The protagonists, skilfully portrayed by young actors Brigitte Fossey and Georges Poujoly, behave as any bereaving child would. In a particularly provocative sequence towards the end, Michel discards all of the graveyard’s crosses, his anger justified and pure. The children’s explorations of their decaying environment are extraordinarily well shot – the camera becomes another child, free of judgment or authority. Forbidden Games is a charming, honest exploration of how the machinations of death affect children not readily equipped with the emotions to handle it, and still holds its own alongside similar features such as Ponette and The Spirit of the Beehive.

SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN (JAPAN/1954/MIKIO NARUSE)

Kikuko is a married woman who, despite being beset by problems, always puts on an upbeat façade, particularly when talking to her caring parents-in-law. The biggest issue she faces is her crumbling relationship with husband Shuichi, an officious individual who is cheating on her. Watching Shuichi’s sister interact unenthusiastically with her own children, Kikuko begins to question the virtues of raising a child from an unhappy marriage, and soon accepts that her own fate is as good as doomed. Disappointed by the negligence of his own children, father-in-law Shingo lavishes attention on Kikuko and provides her with succour. The relationship grows stronger than ever, transcending familial boundaries, but Shingo is constantly reminded that, by betraying his own son, he is no better than him.

Based on the eponymous novel by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, Sound of the Mountain is a subtle but comprehensive study of a family concerned with expectations and responsibility. The films of director Mikio Naruse often feature women who quietly carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, and Kikuko is a fine example of this, balancing her own wishes and desires with those of her adopted family. Naruse’s film also reflects neatly on themes of death and memory, particularly in the character of Shingo. As he succumbs to old age, Shingo holds on to the fragments of the past that may never resurface, and his romantic feelings for Kikuko echo a former longing he had for his wife’s deceased sister. An elegant family drama.

THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (CZECH REPUBLIC/1958/KAREL ZEMAN)

Taking its cue primarily from Jules Verne’s Face au Drapeau, but also borrowing from his other novels, this energetic fantasy story follows inventor Thomas Roch as he attempts to get approval for his new invention, an intensely violent explosive called the Fulgarator. Lacking governmental support, he is suddenly kidnapped by the dastardly Artigas who helps him create a working model of the weapon. Of course, Artigas has an ulterior motive as he plans to use it in his conquest of the world, and Roch is brought into a crisis of conscience when Artigas reveals where he plans to use it next.

Karel Zeman’s multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional animation never fails to impress, and here it is absolutely enthralling, even in the absence of colour. Sets are streaked with thick black lines in mimesis of the woodcut illustrations in Verne’s original books. Though the animation of the machinery and the weapons are superb considering the time, the film is at its best during the underwater scenes – jellyfish and seahorses dance alongside the ship, deep sea divers duel for treasure, a basking shark circles the water predatorily. The story is one of Verne’s lesser works, and if you’re not with the film at the beginning, it’s likely you’ll never get into it, as many of the characters are somewhat interchangeable. Nonetheless, there’s entertainment for all ages to be had from this adventure, and few viewers will go wanting. If Méliès were still alive in the fifties, this might just have been his swan song.

THE KILLERS (RUSSIA/1958/ANDREI TARKOVSKY, MARIKA BEIKU, ALEKSANDR GORDON)

The Killers, a twenty-minute student film directed by a young Andrei Tarkovsky and his colleagues, takes its inspiration from the Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name. The film is set in an American diner, the favourite eatery of regular customer Nick Adams. In the first scene, two menacing gangsters enter and inform the owner George to keep an eye out for one Ole Anderson, whom they plan to kill for an undisclosed reason. The gangsters tie up Nick Adams and the diner’s poorly blacked-up chef, ordering George to keep up the pretence in the hope that Anderson will turn up. Adams later meets Anderson outside the diner, but fails to dissuade him from meeting his fate.

It is refreshing to see that Tarkovsky’s first work shares all the hallmarks of modern student films – the acoustics are shaky, the set is pokey, the cast members (including Tarkovsky as a whistling customer) all seem very young. But of course, one could say the same for most directors’ first works, and Tarkovsky’s legacy of outstanding international classics is testament to the axiom ‘everybody’s got to start somewhere’. It was apparently Tarkovsky’s suggestion to use Hemingway’s story as source material, as his works had only just become available in the Soviet Union. The resultant adaptation is something of an oddity, a film noir with Soviet ancestry. Credit where credit’s due, there are some lovely angles, and the pace is admirable, but this is mostly of interest to fans of Tarkovsky or Hemingway.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (MEXICO/1954/LUIS BUÑUEL)

Conceived in 1931 but filmed twenty-three years later, Luis Buñuel’s adaptation of the classic Emily Brontë novel starts with a disclaimer delineating his respect for the source material, as well as a warning that the characters’ own instincts and passions are what bring them such misfortune. Set against the tropical turbulence of a Mexican village, the story begins as the aloof outcast Heathcliff, here named Alejandro, returns to the household which had taken him in years ago. His visit is met with resent by most of his foster family, save for the adoring Catalina (the equivalent to Catherine), whose heart had been secretly holding out for his return for so long. Alejandro’s return has grave implications for both Catalina and his wife Isabel, who seems oblivious to the extent of Catalina’s obsessions.

Buñuel matches the breathy fervour of the book, but for the most part neglects its supernatural undertones. Instead, the film is painted as more of a morality tale – Alejandro is constantly referred to as displaying devilish traits, and is seen as a burden on the family. Though of course Buñuel allowed himself moments of sanity in his other works, it is a surprise to see such rigid adherence to the source material, and in a way that is what steals this film of its potential. Perhaps this was the influence of producer Óscar Dancigers, whose casting choices disappointed Buñuel greatly with their histrionics. Essentially, it’s a period-piece telenovela, presented under the pretence of universalising a well-known love story.