BLACK SILK (THAILAND/1961/RATTANA PESTONJI, RATANAVADI RATANABHAND)

Prae is a widow who has consigned herself to wearing a funereal black silk dress since the death of her husband. Her relationship with boyfriend Thom is constantly strained by her refusal to live a life outside the house, but it takes a turn for the worse when Thom is involved in a carefully choreographed murder scheme with his boss Seni. Heavily in debt to his rival Wan, Seni assumes the identity of his recently deceased brother to start life afresh, only to learn that Wan is orchestrating the situation to his own advantage. The proceedings have serious ramifications for Prae who, avoiding the heartbreak of a second bereavement, leaves Thom in favour of religious sanctuary.

Though frequently acknowledged as Thailand’s first film noir (‘noir’ is a bit of a misnomer here as each scene is a rich tapestry of colour), Black Silk has more poignancy than the average thriller, contrasting the metropolitan with the traditional. Certain elements, such as Prae’s position as the widow fallen in with a bad lot, seem to anticipate Đặng Nhật Minh’s marvellous postwar When The Tenth Month Comes, a film that similarly entertains while retaining a sense of realism in its characters. Action in the film is subverted ironically by the inactivity of the camera – a double murder uses a maximum of three angles, with most of the event being caught in a single take. Full credit must go to Ratanavadi Ratanabhand, who brings to the role of Prae a quiet but persistant elegance.

SOLEIL Ô (MAURITANIA/1967/MED HONDO)

Shot and produced in France by Mauritanian expatriate filmmaker and actor Med Hondo, Soleil Ô has been variously described as the first African avant-garde film and the most significant film made about African émigrés. The abstract film essay, incorporating elements of melodrama and comedy, takes the form of a series of vignettes decrying the treatment of Africans in France. A character seeking employment is met with prejudice and derision from almost everyone, causing him to question the intrinsically French hendiatris of “liberty, equality, fraternity”. Another scene sees a circle of men seek divine forgiveness for speaking in their native tongues, suggesting they could only hope to be granted consideration by Christ once shed of their African identities.

From its bizarre animated opening to its darkly comic subversion of icons (crucifixes are converted into swords at one point), Soleil Ô makes no bones about its agenda and Hondo clarifies the importance of his message through subverting the gaze of the viewer. While the film designates itself as a pamphlet, the focus is more on the reconstruction of identity than the loss of it, and Hondo does not discriminate in his description of blackness. As Djibril Diop Mambéty was to later achieve with his surreal Touki Bouki, Hondo interprets film through the context of African oral storytelling, acknowledging that to recontextualise cinema for an African perspective is to reinterpret the medium. Satirical but fiercely humanistic, Soleil Ô is a film essay whose importance can never be overstated, and deserves a contemporary rediscovery.

THE SUN'S BURIAL (JAPAN/1960/NAGISA ÔSHIMA)

In the poorer quarters of Osaka exists a network of young criminals, seemingly rejected by society and forced into a life of unsavoury exploits. Shin and Ohama are leaders of warring gangs whose main concern is protecting their respective territories. Ohama’s gang appear to have the upper hand, as much of the film follows Shin balancing menace with fear. Caught up in the fracas is the naïve Takeshi, a do-gooder who finds himself in too deep after trying to sample to gangster lifestyle. Shin sees a little of himself in Takeshi and takes advantage of his innocence. Rivalling Shin’s propensity for manipulative behaviour is Hanako, a duplicitous prostitute who runs an illegal blood transfusion scheme. The two engage in a passionate affair, but Hanako’s opportunism soon pulls Takeshi into a dangerous situation.

Many of Nagisa Ôshima’s detractors have pointed out that he wallows in misery and destruction without offering a solution, but it is exactly this attitude that makes his early works so vital. Admittedly The Sun’s Burial lacks subtlety in its attempts to sketch a metaphor for Japan – the title in particular spells it out – but there is heart in Ôshima’s mission. The character of ‘the Agitator’, an embittered war veteran who observes the turf war dismissively, is the ghost of Japan past, and a brief glimpse of an optimistic banner ushers in a new Japan, one to exist in the future after the film. Gorgeously shot and scored, The Sun’s Burial is a historically important, deceptively nihilistic thriller.

PEARLS OF THE DEEP (CZECH REPUBLIC/1966/VARIOUS DIRECTORS)

Writer Bohumil Hrabal was arguably one of the driving forces behind the Czech New Wave, his novel Closely Observed Trains forming the basis of Jiří Menzel’s classic film of the same name. In the omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, five of the best-known Czech directors used Hrabal’s writings as inspiration for their own short films. First is Menzel’s Mr. Baltazar’s Death, in which a family day out at a motorcycle rally goes tragically awry. Jan Němec directs the second installment The Imposters, wherein two dying old men compete to impress the other with life experiences. Evald Schorm’s The House of Happiness features a superstitious insurance salesman who grows paranoid after an encounter with a bizarre artist. Věra Chytilová’s The Snack Bar portrays the aftermath of a woman’s suicide, while the final segment Romance, directed by Jiromil Jireš, charts the brief romance between a young man and a spirited gypsy girl.

What is most immediately noticeable about Pearls of the Deep is the demystification of morbid subjects such as death, a common theme to Czech cinema and literature. Menzel, Němec and Chytilová all make a point of treating death not as an end, but as a beginning of another form of life. Though certainly an interesting concept, the project is unfortunately too unbalanced to be a great representation of the Czech New Wave, with Schorm’s installation being the weakest (his King And Women might have been a better bet). Nonetheless, it is worth a view for Chytilová and Jireš’ films.

CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH (JAPAN/1960/NAGISA ÔSHIMA)

Makoto is a coquettish student who believes that her feminine wiles are enough to get her through life. When she is threatened sexually by a driver with whom she had hitchhiked, another student named Kiyoshi comes to her rescue, throwing the man off and warning him that he could destroy his reputation. Makoto is convinced that she has finally found her prince charming and the pair spend time together, but as Kiyoshi starts to blow hot and cold, it becomes clear that he is as questionable a character as her attacker. A hard-up student, Kiyoshi makes scraps of cash by sleeping with older women and leasing his room to couples, and when Makoto’s attacker offers a bribe to prevent them heading to the police station, his money-grabbing instinct takes over.

As in a few of Nagisa Ôshima’s films, the issue at the heart of Cruel Story Of Youth is the commodification of human beings. Makoto is an incredibly naïve and vulnerable character, and because of this, it is painful to witness her story arc, but she is difficult to sympathise with given that she has essentially created her circumstances. Ôshima does a superb job of narrating the woes of adolescence, even as the story gets decidedly adult. A sequence wherein Kiyoshi refuses to save Makoto from drowning unless she does everything he says is particularly memorable and sums the film up succinctly. Raw, sexual and dangerous, Cruel Story Of Youth is a still relevant evocation of the rebellious teenage spirit.

LAW AND ORDER (USA/1969/FREDERICK WISEMAN)

Frederick Wiseman’s Law and Order opens with a slideshow of presumed criminals expressing a range of emotions, setting the precedent for the rest of the documentary. Taking place in Kansas City, Missouri, the film catches little snippets of arrests, interrogations and prosecutions performed by the local police force on various charges, as well as testimonials from victims. We see a man assuring a policeman that he could quite happily “take care of” the child molester he wanted to prosecute, and an uncooperative drunkard is dragged to the ground for insolence. A particularly startling scene shows a landlady complaining about a couple living in one of her apartments. As the argument between the three grows steadily, it is revealed that a knife had been brought into the dispute, but the policemen doggedly refuse to get involved because “ma’am, this is between them”.

Although not as shocking as Wiseman’s own Titicut Follies, Law and Order is still a powerful work, a distillation of sixties attitudes to the authorities. Policemen are greeted with disobedience, apathy and threatening behaviour, and given the violent approach taken by some officers, it’s easy to see why. Attitudes to race are also placed under the microscope, as Kansas City was fresh from the MLK riots at the time. Although the film features plenty of antagonism between white law enforcers and black criminals, Wiseman is careful not to perpetuate stereotypes on either end, best summarised by the touching sequence where a white policeman comforts a lost young black girl.

HIGH SCHOOL (USA/1968/FREDERICK WISEMAN)

Opening to the soulful voice of Otis Redding, documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s High School studies the lives of students at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. A typical day in the students’ life is shown through short vignettes of lessons and break times, the camera occasionally catching their faces in naked close-up. Wiseman frequently makes connections by juxtaposing similar clips. A Spanish teacher coaxing her pupils’ enunciation is compared to a music teacher mouthing the beat of a timpani. A gymnastics lesson, voyeuristically shot, rhymes with a later shot of girls preparing for a fashion show. The school day neither begins nor ends clearly, the activities within it in a haphazard order.

Wiseman is known for his unflinching cinema vérité manner, and High School is a brilliant example of why this works so well. The editing could almost have been pre-determined, short snippets of drama only staying moments on the screen. Occasionally, the subjects appear conscious of the camera and change their behaviour accordingly (the teachers in particular), but whether this impedes or ameliorates the role of the film is up to the viewer. What is most significant about the film is that the students are almost entirely unheard beyond chatter and laughter. It is not entirely clear as to whether or not this was deliberate, but needless to say the effect is a little sinister at times. Interestingly, the film was banned in Philadelphia for this reason, although its subjects later claimed it was an accurate depiction. An unusually gripping watch.

THE FLICKER (USA/1965/TONY CONRAD)

A handwritten statement at the beginning of The Flicker warns that the filmmakers accept no responsibility for any “physical or mental injury” caused by the film, namely epileptic seizures. A white screen is interrupted by the occasional black ‘flash’ before returning back to white, resulting in a flicker. The switch between the two becomes quicker and more frequent, to the point that it is difficult to judge what is on screen at any given time. The flicker’s hypnotic effect, if one is constantly watching it, can result in colourful speckles known as phosphenes appearing on the eye, leading to potential hallucinations. Shortly after the flicker reaches its peak speed, the film decelerates to a white frame, an abrupt conclusion to a bumpy ride. The unusual synth soundtrack, resembling an electronic scraping sound and a pneumatic drill, accelerates in time with the flicker, enhancing its bewildering effect.

Though its comical warning wouldn’t look out of place at the beginning of a fifties B-movie, The Flicker’s ideology and form align it with some of the best structural films of the period. Artist Tony Conrad’s deceptively simple half-hour short essentially narrates the structure of any film, and as the black and white screens alternate increasingly quickly, they appear to fuse into a steady image, a deception led by the varying speed of the flicker. It may have been repeated countless times since, but The Flicker stands out as a fascinating experiment in consciousness and perception, alongside artist Brion Gysin’s hallucinogenic device, the Dreamachine.

(An interactive flicker-effect experiment can be found here - not recommended for those with epilepsy)

WAVELENGTH (CANADA/1967/MICHAEL SNOW)

Comprising one long zoom (in reality, a series of shots stitched together), experimental filmmaker Michael Snow’s best-known work Wavelength centres on a large, mostly empty room. The camera is pointed at four windows on one of the walls, the rest of the space barely relevant. During the zoom, the image undergoes various changes – colour, film speed, focus. The room is occasionally inhabited by people, forming a narrative which is deliberately sidelined, even in light of dramatic events. As the zoom approaches the windows, it settles on a section of wall in the middle covered in photographs. Moving closer still, the camera frames itself on a photo of the sea, so that waves fill the screen. Throughout the film, a sine wave is heard, running the gamut from 50 to 12,000 cycles per second. The sound ultimately synchronises with a police siren, heralding the end of the film.

Wavelength requires a little patience, particularly bearing in mind the alienating sound of the sine wave, but it is undoubtedly a worthwhile experiment. Snow, who is known for playing at length with camera movement, returns film to quasi-purity – the camera is no longer selective, but is reduced to one constant motion, as is the sound. At times, the camera’s transformations render the room unrecognisable – as the image flips from negative to positive, the negative space of the windows almost leaves an imprint on the eye. By pushing the boundaries of the medium, Wavelength gives us an insight of a world between the lines.

YAWAR MALLKU (BOLIVIA/1969/JORGE SANJINÉS)

Based on real events in 1960s Bolivia, Yawar Mallku tells the story of a population control program implemented by the local government, and executed by American Peace Corps volunteers. The program targets the indigenous Quechua people by setting up a clinic in an unnamed village and promising them first-class health care. In reality, the unit is sterilising the local women in the hope of removing the tribe completely. When the truth is discovered, the Quechua wage war on the Americans, but it becomes clear that the corps’ militant demeanour is too overwhelming for them. Nonetheless, the natives refuse to give up, using a wounded man who is refused treatment at the clinic as a martyr for their cause.

The film was understandably a significant contributor to anti-U.S. feelings at the time, and actually led to the dismissal of the Peace Corps in Bolivia. That this reflection of the injustices perpetrated on a minority could inspire such swift action is testament to the immediacy of cinema. But while the cause at heart is tragic, and the film’s existence de rigueur, Yawar Mallku is little more than a historical artefact. Director Jorge Sanjinés is known for his continual support of working-class Bolivians, particularly those ethnic minorities which enrich the fabric of Bolivian culture, but this film doesn’t seem to exhibit much in the way of cultural identity or pride. Perhaps this is just Westernised snobbery, as the film is still a remarkable work given the political and financial constraints at the time.

PITFALL (JAPAN/1962/HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA)

Set in an impoverished mining complex, Pitfall tells the story of a close-knit community torn apart by the activities of a mysterious serial killer dressed in white. The murderer’s first victim is an unemployed miner, whom he chases out to a marsh before stabbing him to death. To cover his tracks, he pays the only witness to run to the village and claim that the deed was carried out by the trade union leader of the mine’s newer pit. Naturally, the union leader is distraught and enlists the help of his counterpart from the old pit to investigate. Before long, both are also dead, along with the witness of the first murder. Throughout the film, the deceased return as ghosts, in the state they were in when they died. These ghosts roam the community in pursuit of their killer, but are naturally incapable of alerting the locals or calling for help.

Social realism sits abreast with surrealism in director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s chilling debut. Meditations on mortality quickly outgrow the murder mystery premise as the ghosts of the past literally hang over the present. Hiroshi Segawa’s inventive cinematography rhymes vividly with acclaimed composer Toru Takemitsu’s penetrative soundtrack. The film shares a lot of its themes (death, absence, identity) and atmosphere with Teshigahara’s monumental second film Woman of the Dunes, and the two work splendidly as parallel stories. Less forgiving viewers may complain about the lack of conclusion, but it is otherwise impossible to fault Pitfall, yet another Japanese New Wave classic.