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| The Captive Heart |
The Captive Heart, 4pm, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 82), Tuesday, February 1
This drama set against the backdrop of a PoW camp was one of the first of its type, arriving less than a year after VE Day and speaking to those who were fully aware of the real thing. Like Das Boot, which is also in our selection this week, there's a real sense of the tedium of camp life as well as the trouble. It features nuanced performances by Jack Warner and Mervyn Jons as friends before the war facing this together. The standout, however, is Michael Redgrave, as a man who claims to be a British officer - having stolen the dead man's identity - and who soon falls under suspicion leading him to write to the dead man's wife (played by Redgrave's real life wife Rachel Kempson) with unexpected consequences. Although Basil Dearden occasionally lays on the melodrama a bit thick, this is largely a well-composed and emotionally hefty consideration of love and comradeship against the backdrop of war.
Lady Macbeth, 11.15pm, BBC2, Tuesday, February 1
Florence Pugh justifiably caught the eye of critics with this early performance in William Oldroyd's period drama about Katherine, a woman who is sold into a loveless marriage and begins to think of a drastic way out after becoming obsessed with estate-hand Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis). The film has a spartan austerity that emphasises both the house's negative spaces and the emotional mental state of Katherine as she drifts through them. With its strong central performance, Oldroyd generates tension in every scene as Katherine's bleak plan plays out. The director told us: "Because so many films of that period are interested in the Victoriana – the heavy drapes, the dark wood, lots of ornaments – stuffy, really – I was interested in trying to portray a different sort of austerity."
Elle, 1.05am, Film4, Tuesday, February 1
Anne-Katrin Titze writes: Although Isabelle Huppert's character in Paul Verhoeven's Elle could almost swap clothes with the one she plays in Mia Hansen-Løve's Things To Come, there is no mistaking one for the other. Huppert masters two vastly different approaches to storytelling. The deeply felt portrait of a woman in crisis on the one hand and a mysterious, nonetheless perfectly plausible thriller heroine on the other. Verhoeven moves smoothly from one curious interaction to the next. Step by step we meet her friends, family, neighbors and the employees at the video game production company she owns. The first image we see is that of a cat while we hear sounds of a violent rape. Michèle Leblanc (Huppert) is assaulted by a man in a black body stocking and ski mask in her home. Elle is not a study of victimhood, nor a manual for overcoming trauma, nor a user-friendly revenge fantasy. As all good fairy-tale heroes do, instead of sitting around and explaining, they act. Read our interview with Huppert.
Misha And The Wolves, 10pm, BBC4, Wednesday, February 2
When I was writing our spotlight on wolves on film a couple of weeks ago, I was really sorry not to be able to include this fascinating documentary, so I'm pleased you can finally catch it this week. Even in a capsule review, it's hard to completely avoid spoilers as this tale of Misha Defonseca - who told her tale of being a "hidden child" during the Second World War, who went hunting for her parents only to be helped by a wolf pack. It sounds unbelievable, and yet everyone believed her. This film relates what happened next, turning into a gripping detective story that not only reveals the remarkable truth behind the tale but also pays tribute to "hidden children" and those who helped them.
The Searchers, 10.15pm, BBC4, Thursday, February 3
Jennie Kermode writes: John Wayne may have enjoyed huge star status but he wasn't known for the subtlety of his acting work. This film is the exception, and it draws on his established all-American tough guy persona to tackle darker aspects of the country's history. Here he's set up like a hero, setting out on a long ride to find his niece (possibly his daughter) after she is abducted by Comanche raiders, but it soon becomes apparent that something is wrong with him as he engages in petty, vicious racist acts whenever the opportunity presents itself. In due course, it becomes apparent that he might not plan to bring the missing girl home at all, but rather to kill her because he sees her as contaminated. Although it's problematic in its portrayal of the Comanches, the film presents them as intelligent and dignified, with reasons for what they do, and it led to a revolution in the way that western narratives were framed. The white hero was never again someone who could be taken at face value. Any notion that women were treated chivalrously on the frontier was gone forever. In John Ford's unforgettable, vast landscapes, the West was truly wild.
Das Boot, 9pm, Great Movies Classic (Freeview channel 52)
Pressure is everywhere in Wolfgang Petersen's intense and claustrophobic film set aboard a German U-boat. Life in all its tedium is here, but also the terror of being stuck in a tin can below the waves as they are targeted by depth-charges. By keeping us with the men over a long period of time, we see how they evolve amid the rigours of war and the petty conflicts that emerge when you live at close quarters with others in difficult conditions. Shot with hand-held immediacy by Jost Vacano, the creaks and groans of the boat will make you shudder to your soul.
Moonlight, 1.15am, Film4, Friday, February 4
Watching Nanny at Sundance this week, brought Barry Jenkins' Oscar winner to mind as it was the last film I could remember that did such lighting justice to black and brown skin on camera. Jenkins' film considers the shifting nature of identity as it dips into the life of gay African American Chiron at three points in his life. Mahershala Ali picked up an Academy Award for Best Supporting Role for his turn as an unlikely father figure, although any of its three faces of Chiron - Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes - are equally deserving of plaudits. The world of cinema is full of cliches about African-American life but Jenkins lifts the cloak to show the multi-faceted reality, in a film that also has a poetic grace in the way that it is shot. Listen out for Nicholas Britell's evocative scoring, which is as full of burgeoning imagery as Jenkins' visuals.
It's back to Sundance for this week's short selection, The Panola Project, which celebrates the tireless work of Dorothy Oliver to get her community vaccinated against Covid at the same time as scotching myths around the process.
