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| The Ipcress File |
Ipcress File, BBC2, 2.05pm, Sunday, October 2
Michael Caine was busy cementing himself as a household name on the big screen when he took on the role of Harry Palmer in Sidney J Furie's spy thriller, which came out the year after his breakout turn in 1964's Zulu and the year before Alfie. He brings a dash of East End grit to Len Deighton's secret-agent-with-attitude, who is embroiled in a kidnapping and brainwashing plot. Shot with off-kilter angles by cinematographer Otto Heller, we are invited to step into Palmer's disorientation, but Furie always ensures the movie stays grounded in a reality that's a world away from the glitz of James Bond.
Welcome To Chechnya: The Gay Purge, 10.30pm BBC4, Tuesday, September 27
David France's deep dive into the underground network trying to help LGBT+ people whose lives are threatened by the extreme Chechen government is a bleak but urgent watch. Using cutting-edge face-doubling technology to protect the participants - and which, in one case, melts away to reveal how good it is part way through the film - the documentarian captures the extreme measures activists in Russia have to take in a bid to help others escape from the southern Russian republic. France's film, which it should be noted features harrowing snippets of violence against lesbian, gay and transgender people - sometimes from their own families - shows the network on the inside, complete with all its pressures and risks. A well made film showing the fight for equal rights is, sadly, far from over.
Capernaum, 1.30am, Film4, Wednesday, September 28
The plight of children on the poverty line in Lebanon is put front and centre by Nadine Labaki's neorealist drama about youngster Zain (Zain Al Rafeea, in a performance that doesn't just show him as a victim but as a kid who is railing furiously against the injustices he faces), who runs away from home after his parents sell his sister. The story unfolds in two strands - one showing him scraping by on the street and the other in the confines of a courtroom where he is suing his parents for neglect. Although Labaki leans into the melodrama a little heavily in places, this is nevertheless a deeply affecting film that grips at a visceral level. Al Rafeea is now resettled in Norway, something Labaki told us about.
Drive, 10.55pm, Great Movies, Wednesday, September 28
Nicholas Winding Refn puts looks and mood in the driver's seat for this slick thriller about a film stuntman by day who turns getaway driver by night (Ryan Gosling) and who finds himself with a target on his back after falling for his neighbour (Carey Mulligan). Marrying the sort of Sergio Leone man-with-no-name archetypes to Michael Mann's style palette, Refn also wears his B-movie influences proudly on his sleeve as he speeds into violence with stylish aplomb.
Rosemary's Baby, 11.05pm, Film4, Saturday October 1
Roman Polanski's taut adaptation of Ira Levin's tale of witchcraft in Manhattan has gone on to influence a lot of other filmmaker's 'babies' and continues to retain its power with the passing of the years. Mia Farrow stars as Rosemary, who moves into a massive Gothic-style apartment with her newly wed husband (John Cassavetes). The film lulls us into a false sense of security with its soapy trappings initially before it takes a turn for the sinister as her nosey neighbour Minnie (Ruth Gordon on sparkling Oscar-winning form) and her husband Roman (Sidney Blackmer) start to pay her more and more attention - especially when, after eating one of Minnie's mousses, she falls pregnant. Many of the small fears and doubts experienced by pregnant women are pushed to the max as Rosemary begins a descent into madness, with Polanski's grip of tension never letting up.
I Am Not Your Negro, 11.30pm, BBC4, Saturday, October 1
Anne-Katrin Titze writes: Raoul Peck uses stills, archival footage and movie clips less to illustrate than to illuminate and set on visual fire James Baldwin's spoken and written words. The full use of what film can do is eye-opening - the juxtapositions jolt awareness of what is important and remains necessary. Baldwin makes the distinction between a witness and an actor, rage versus terror along the colour line, and explains how the American affinity for simplicity and sincerity results in the fact that "immaturity is taken to be a virtue too." On being a witness: "I was to discover that the line that separates a witness from an actor is a very thin line indeed. Nevertheless the line is real." From very recent images of brutality to photographs of the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee, from frolicking white picnickers in Stanley Donen and George Abbott's The Pajama Game to an interracial couple dancing in Horace Ové's Pressure - old and new, heavy and light, the tapestry of I Am Not Your Negro is tightly woven. "I am terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves so long that they really don't think I'm human. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral monsters," Baldwin feared to the end. Read what Gay Talese told us about the importance of the film and James Baldwin, plus what Peck said about it and our full review.
A Field In England, 1.50am, Film4, Sunday, October 2
This trippy little number from Ben Wheatley, takes a minimalist - and monochrome - approach to the English Civil War (more recently tackled in stripped-back fashion in Fanny Lye Deliver'd). A group of deserters find themselves helping a sinister and brutal alchemist (Michael Smiley) in a treasure quest. Rebellion stews as a once-fixed world order of allegiance to God and king begins to unhinge. World upside down horror mixes with arthouse stylings as Wheatley's film considers what it means to be "your own man" and radicalism mixes with the, often brutal, realities of the men's existence.
This week's short, Junk, is a slice of animation from Kirk Hendry about a junk food obsession that goes too far. You can read more about Hendry's work on his website.
