THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS no stars

 Anyone who's seen "Amer" will know what to expect...or maybe not, since Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani's "The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears" takes giallo-homage weirdness to new heights. We're in visual and audio overdrive here; this is like Argento on acid. It may not make much sense, if any, but then dreams and nightmares very seldom do and this is a fever-dream of a movie.

There's no point in even attempting to describe what passes for a plot; best to just let it all pass over you like the body's tears of the title. Giallo may be the most obvious influence but this horror movie isn't aimed at a mass audience and it will have a very limited appeal. It may look like brilliant cinema from a couple who clearly know their stuff but I found it very difficult to sit through and, worst of all, it seems endless.

AMER **

 Ten minutes in and you can see that "Amer" has all the makings of a genre classic, not that much of what you're watching makes any kind of literal sense. A little girl, Ana, is experiencing the terrors of the adult world around her in a series of superbly edited, fragmented shots. There is very little dialogue; we see things through the eyes of this child. The genre in question is the horror movie, or perhaps more specifically the 'giallo'. "Amer" hails from Belgium and marks the debut of its co-directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani but it could just as easily have been made by Argento.

Here is a film about sex and death and the monsters that lurk in our imagination and in our nightmares and it covers three stages in Ana's life; childhood, adolescence and maturity. Of course, it won't appeal to everyone and you will never see it down in your local multiplex but it's a bold and often brilliant piece of cinema, stunningly shot in widescreen by Manuel Dacosse, (each chapter in Ana's life has its own distinctive look). Catch it if you can.

OF MICE AND MEN ***

 

American poetry and one of the best of all screen adaptations from literature. Lewis Milestone made "Of Mice and Men" in 1939 and it's a beautiful piece of work, a classic. This version sticks closely to the theatrical adaptation and it's a great actor's piece. Burgess Meredith is George and Lon Chaney Jr. Is the slow-witted, gentle giant Lenny and they are both superb but then they are only part of a great ensemble that includes Roman Bohnen, magnificent as Candy, Charles Bickford as Slim, Leigh Whipper as Crooks, Bob Steele as Curly and Betty Field as Curly's wife. It was also that rare thing for the time, an intelligent, adult entertainment that eschewed melodrama; it's a genuine American tragedy and it can take its place beside John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" as the perfect screen version of a Steinbeck novel. The original score, which is wonderful, is by Aaron Copland.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM *

 Quite honestly, this is a pretty terrible film; more high camp Hollywood than the Bard of Stratford-On Avon and yet this production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", co-directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, has its moments, at least when the players are on screen, (the simpering Athenian lovers are something of a comedown even if Olivia De Havilland does make for a lovely Hermia while the fairies are just strange and not in a good way).

Reinhardt did it originally on stage and this is that version with added special effects and some very good Oscar-winning cinematography by Hal Mohr. It's got an all-star cast though most of them are clearly unsuited to Shakespeare, (Dick Powell claimed he didn't actually understand what he was saying), yet the two best performances are perhaps the most unlikely. James Cagney gets to display his magnificent Bottom and a fifteen year old Mickey Rooney makes for a delightfully demented Puck. Hardly ever shown now, it's a genuine curiosity but that doesn't mean it's worth seeing.