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| Death Of Stalin |
The Death of Stalin, 11.15pm, Great Movies, Monday, December 11
Armando Iannucci may have cut his teeth on biting satire about British politics but he proves just as adept at rattling the absurdity of Russian state roulette as the politburo descends into farce after the demise indicated by his film's title. Like a Grand National of Russian politics, everyone is jockeying for position, including the sharp-witted Kruschev (Steve Buscemi), chief of police Beria (Simon Russell Beale) alongside Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), who is not the sharpest tool in the box, and Molotov (Michael Palin), who has really had enough of all this. The cast, which also includes Jason Isaacs, Andrea Riseborough and Paul Whitehouse, runs as wide and deep as the humour is cutting and pointed. The vantablack of satire.
Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, ITVX, streaming now
Why not team Iannucci's film with Stanley Kubrick's comedy for a searing satire double-bill? In this case it's the absurdities of nuclear war that provide the tragicomedy as Peter Sellers steps into a trio of roles - a posh RAF officer, the US president with the magnificent moniker Merkin Muffley and, of course, the ex-Nazi scientist of the film's title. This is far from just the Sellers show, however, with Sterling Hayden as an unhinged US commanding officer and the likes of Slim Pickens and George C Scott also in support. Beyond the whip smart script, this is beautifully shot, whether it's the unsettling war room or Seller's RAF man fiddling for change in a phone booth. Just as the threat of nuclear war has never truly gone away, so the power of this film continues to linger. Ianucci, incidentally, is currently working on a theatre adaptation of Strangelove, starring Steve Coogan, set to hit the stage next autumn.
Drive My Car, 1.05am, Channel 4, Tuesday, December 11
Jennie Kermode writes: Working class driver Misaki helps actor and stage director Yûsuke to navigate more than just the streets of her remote Japanese island in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car, which won Best International Feature Film at the 2022 Oscars. As he struggles with the disappearance of his equally famous wife and his resultant sense of purposelessness and loss of control, Chekov's Uncle Vanye looms large within his consciousness, and he skilfully exploits a brash young actor with a crush on his wife in order to avoid having to take on the title role himself, which could force him to confront aspect of his own personality that he's desperately trying to deny. It's a film about interiors both material and personal, and though it's sometimes a bit stagey, Hamaguchi makes good cinematic use of the island setting, which proves to be more complex than Yûsuke anticipated. The dryness of the script is alleviated by the emotional depth which Hidetoshi Nishijima brings to the leading role. it's an unabashedly literary film from a director who continues to experiment and produce some of the finest works in present day Japanese cinema.
Cold Skin, 10.45pm, Legend Xtra, Wednesday, December 13
Jennie Kermode writes: An adaptation of the novel by Albert Sánchez Piñol, Xavier Gens' chilling reflection on conflict and colonialism also owes much to the work of HP Lovecraft, with obvious comparisons to The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but it stands as a towering piece of cinema in its own right. It follows a man (David Oakes) who has fled from the world on the eve of war to take up a post as a weather station operator on a remote island. After his shelter is attacked in the night by something clearly not human, he seeks shelter with the tyrannical lighthouse keeper who is his only human neighbour and who does battle every night with the humanoid creatures that emerge from the surrounding seas, all the while keeping one of their number as his lover and abusing her to the point where the newcomer's sympathies begin to shift. In the tradition of the Gothic, it explores a dangerously fragile masculinity often defined through misogyny, yet also raises questions about our society's changing relationship with nature and, simultaneously, with the imaginary, all wrapped up in an immersive experience which is at times truly terrifying.
Playground, 1.45am, Channel 4, Thursday, December 14
The schoolyard is a warzone in Laura Wandel’s bullying drama. Nora (Maya Vanderbeque) is scared on her first day at school and Wandel ensures we go emotionally with her as she says goodbye to her dad at the gates. She, in fact, begins to forge some tentative friendships but soon discovers that her brother Abel (Günter Duret) is not being so lucky. Wandell keeps us with Nora as she faces the unenviable task of trying to work out the right thing to do in the face of pressure to keep silent. Wandel’s gripping drama shows that playground politics are anything but child’s play. Read what Wandel told us about developing the script through workshops with the children.
Mud, 11.05pm, BBC2, Friday, December 15
Jeff Nichols' 2013 film sees two teenagers try to reunite a fugitive with his long-term love. It marked something of a turning point for Matthew McConaughey, who had a serious run of good films after this, including Dallas Buyers Club, Wolf Of Wall Street and Magic Mike. Here he plays Mud, an offbeat charmer who befriends teenagers Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), who try to help the course of true love run smooth with unintended consequences. A coming-of-age tale that is less about the loss of innocence than the gaining of knowledge, this is a modern descendant of Mark Twain's Huck Finn.
The Gatekeepers, BBC iPlayer, streaming now
This powerful Oscar-nominated documentary (it lost out to Searching For Sugar Man) offers an insight into the workings of Israel's equivalent of MI5, Shin Bet, via interviews with the six surviving former heads of the service - Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon, Ami Ayalon, Avi Dichter and Yuval Diskin. Dror Moreh's resulting film offers a surprisingly candid consideration of the machinations of the organisation, taking a chronological consideration of events in the year's after the 1967 Six-Day War. As much about psychology and ideology as it is the facts of any given issue, Moreh takes us into the moral maze and asks us to see just how complex it is, while also giving a sense of how the weight of history lies heavily on the current situation.
Our short selection this week is Tashi And The Monk, a gentle documentary that explores the community of Jhamtse Gatsal, where a devoted monk cares for 85 children.
