MY OCTOPUS TEACHER ***

 If "My Octopus Teacher" does win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature as predicted, (it's already won the BAFTA), I don't think I'll be complaining even if I think "Collective" the better film and the more worthy winner but that's only because "Collective" tells the more important story and is the more radical film. "My Octopus Teacher" is fairly radical, too, and as documentary filmmaking goes it's a beautiful job of work with some of the finest 'natural' cinematography I've ever seen, ("Blue Planet" eat your heart out).

It even has a plot of sorts and two leading players. One is Craig Foster, an explorer and cinematographer whose daily dives to a kelp forest in the seas off South Africa leads him to the films second character, a female octopus that Foster becomes very attached to and who, it would appear, becomes very attached to him, literally at times. Octopuses, it turns out, are highly intelligent creatures and Foster's octopus seems more intelligent than most, an 'alien' creature that can recognize an individual human being and want to be with that human, albeit in her own natural environment.

Of course, the octopus is also a wild animal in a wild, natural environment and much as he might want to Foster knows he can do nothing to change that; as we say, he has to let nature take its course while at the same time allowing himself to be 'taught' by the octopus, taught not just to care about the octopus itself but creatures in general and, strange as it may seem, interacting with this creature brought Foster closer to his own son. Superbly photographed and edited, its only fault lies in Foster's rather deadpan narration. He may be a nice guy but is somewhat dull in his delivery; luckily his camera speaks volumes.

NIJINSKY no stars

 Before becoming a film director with the musical remake of "Goodbye, Mr Chips", Herbert Ross had been both a dancer and a choreographer so if anyone was going to make a big screen biopic of ' the greatest ballet dancer who ever lived', aka Vaslav Nijinsky, who better then than Ross who already had his biggest screen success with "The Turning Point", a movie about two ageing, bitching ballet queens but while "The Turning Point" had proved popular with both critics and the public was that not down to leading ladies Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine? "Nijinsky", however, was a different kettle of fish entirely. The bitching ballet queens here were of the male variety and would audiences really buy a picture about a long dead male ballet dancer that many people might not have even heard of? But then, who can say what movies succeed and what fail. "Nijinsky" could potentially be an 'Amadeus' or a 'Heaven's Gate'.

In the end it was neither but a pretty, decorous scroll through Nijinsky's greatest hits with enough of his private life thrown in to keep the punters happy, (nothing like a little bit of scandal, be it gay or straight, to liven up an otherwise dull ballet picture). As Nijinsky, dancer George de la Pena is easy on the eye and certainly light on his feet, whenever Ross permits us to see his feet, but he wasn't much of an actor. As Diaghilev, Alan Bates is unusually stuffy while a supporting cast of mostly British thespians, (Alan Badel, Colin Blakely, Ronald Pickup, Jeremy Irons and Janet Suzman) do exactly what's expected of them while the talented Leslie Brown is utterly wasted as the dancer's missus. The film itself trundles along like the war horse it is and while it's never dull neither is it in any way memorable.

THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL **

 This contemporaneous Gothic thriller is courtesy of Robert Wise who knew a thing or two about this kind of yarn, (he did make "Curse of the Cat People" and "The Body Snatcher", not to mention "The Haunting"). This also has a nice Hitchcockian flair with a touch of the 'Rebecca's' about it as well as "Suspicion". Valentina Cortese is the concentration camp survivor who steals a dead friend's identity so she can come to America only to find when she gets there that her friend's young son has inherited a fortune. Of course, she is only posing as his mother and in no time at all is married to the boy's guardian, (Richard Basehart). There's also a sexy Mrs. Danvers character, played by Fay Baker, who's being looking after the boy, so you know things aren't going to end well for somebody.

Overtaken in many people's affections by several of Wise's later films this is still an excellent and underrated suspense movie. Of course, you don't have to be Agatha Christie to figure out which way the plot's heading, particularly when a handsome former soldier from Valentina's past enters the picture so originality isn't the film's strong suit but Wise keeps it ticking along very nicely while the titular "House on Telegraph Hill" is both attractive and sinister in equal measure.

THE EGYPTIAN *

 A look at the talent involved both in front of as well as behind the camera might lead you to think "The Egyptian" has the makings of 'The Greatest Epic Ever Made' but while most of the epic tropes are here in abundance this early Cinemascope movie flopped both commercially and critically. Edmund Purdom, (never an actor to begin with), is the Egyptian of the title, a physician in ancient Egypt and while Purdom isn't up to the task he's surrounded by those who are; Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Gene Tierney not to mention old Samson himself, Victor Mature as well as Michael Wilding and newcomer Bella Darvi who steals the film and won a Golden Globe doing so.

On the plus side Leon Shamroy's cinematography ensures it looks the part while Philip Dunne and Casey Robinson's screenplay veers between being overly literate and totally banal. The director was Michael Curtiz and if he doesn't bring an auteur's hand to bear on the material at least he takes it seriously. Perhaps, too seriously? After a couple of hours of not much happening palace intrigue gets the better of everyone and it races to a not very satisfactory climax but while it's certainly not 'the greatest epic ever made' maybe it's not quite the turkey many people claim it to be either.

LOS CONDUCTOS *

 "Los Conductos" is not an easy watch and for the first fifteen minutes or so of this reasonably short film, (seventy minutes in total), you may be as much in the dark as the apparent protagonist literally is, particularly as he is the only character on screen, events, such as they are, happen in almost total darkness and there's no dialogue. A gun has been fired and he appears to be handling drugs so is this going to be a thriller? That doesn't seem likely, even after our protagonist begins his 'noirish' narration.

Shot in the Academy ratio on Kodak 16mm film, Camilo Restrepo's film begins like a political thriller but without the politics or the thrills, not quite avant-garde and not quite experimental but certainly not designed for mass consumption and bold enough to at least hold your attention as you try to figure out exactly what's happening. Restrepo's first feature is certainly original and it will be interesting to see where he goes from here. As it has already garnered prizes at the Berlin and Mar Del Plata festivals I don't think he has anything to worry about.

ON CHESIL BEACH *

 There's talent on display in abundance, (director Dominic Cooke, Ian McEwan adapting his own novel and a cast headed by the superb Saoirse Ronan, the excellent and up-and-coming Billy Howle, Emily Watson, Anne--Marie Duff, Samuel West etc.), so why is "On Chesil Beach" so dull? Could it be the source material itself was dull, (I haven't read the novel), but certainly this tale, set over the course of a young couple's wedding night with flashbacks to how they met, their courtship and so on, never really comes to life.

The time is 1962, before 'the sexual revolution', but McEwan's young couple, (Ronan and Howle), behave as if the birds and the bees were simply that and sex was an unutterable four-letter word, or perhaps just a three letter word that other people used but never them, despite Howle's brain-damaged mother, (Duff, excellent), taking her clothes off at every opportunity. There's no denying that this is a civilised and intelligent picture that builds up to one very beautifully written, directed and acted scene on the beach of the title, but otherwise I just couldn't really see the point of it. A major disappointment.

COLLECTIVE ****

 This magnificent documentary, (a nominee for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature at this year's Oscars), is about as devastating as documentary films can get. In 2015 a fire destroyed the Bucharest club Colectiv; 27 people died at the scene and a further 37 died later in hospital, not from their burns but from infections picked up in the hospital. The reason? The disinfectants used in the hospital were diluted, sometimes up to ten times. Alexander Nanau's film sets out to explore the corruption endemic in the Romanian health system, (and the Government as a whole), by following the story, firstly as taken up by a team of journalists, and latterly by the newly appointed Health Minister who tried to reform the system, the existing Social Democratic Party having been forced to resign after a public outcry.

"Collective" is a film about investigative journalism that itself becomes a great piece of investigative journalism and it's a truly frightening expose of institutional corruption. As Nanau's camera moves between the journalists and the young Minister, he takes time to focus on one of the victims who, without bitterness, attempts to salvage her life in ways that might seem unimaginable. Otherwise he simply records events as they unfold. The heroes of the film clearly are Catalin Tolontan, the journalist who initiates the investigation, (and he was a sports writer) and Vlad Voiculescu, the Health Minister who goes up against the system from within. These are men who not only put their careers at risk but their lives; at one point it is suggested a leading figure may have been murdered to ensure his silence.

During the course of the film we learn that Romania had the worst record for hospital deaths in Europe and that almost certainly was down to the corrupt system in operation but watching this deeply disturbing film you might ask yourself could this happen elsewhere in supposedly civilised Europe. As one doctor in the film says, 'we are no longer human beings. We only think about money' and as the old saying goes, you couldn't make this up. "Collective" is the one essential film of the last twelve months.

INFLATABLE SEX DOLL OF THE WASTELANDS no stars

 Genres come in all shapes and sizes apparently. I recently opened a can of worms on Facebook trying to define film-noir, a genre that, according to some, has lasted from the early forties, perhaps earlier, to the present day. In Japan, however, we had 'film-pink' or rather pinku-eiga, a series of sexploitation pictures totally unlike the sexploitation pictures popular in Europe or America. Some of these films could indeed be described as 'inscrutable'.

"Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands" is one of the best known of the 'pinku-eiga' pictures. Shot in widescreen, black and white it is a kind of esoteric Yakuza film with gangsters and snuff movies very much to the fore. It's certainly sexually explicit for a movie made in 1967 though perhaps no more so than a European sex film of the period but what passes for a plot marks it out as very much an art-house affair, (I doubt if the Soho 'dirty-mac' brigade would sit through it to the end). Visually it's often extraordinary and it wears its American influences well, down to a somewhat jarring jazz score and it has cult movie written all over it. I'm sure there's an audience out there somewhere for it but personally I thought it a load of pretentious rubbish and its disappearance over the years is perfectly understandable. Of course, if you haven't heard of it it's possibly because in the West it was called "Dutch Wife in the Desert" for reasons perhaps even more obscure than the film's plot.

THE RAZOR'S EDGE **

 Tosh of a very high-minded kind and magnificently entertaining. W Somerset Maugham's novel was a po-faced tale of unmitigated seriousness filled to the brim with 'grand themes' and a better director than Edmund Goulding might have made an equally serious and po-faced film. Goulding's pedigree was trashy women's pictures and he had the knack of making silk purses out of sow's ears. He may have dumbed down Maugham's novel but at least it's lively and at times wonderfully over-the-top as well as being beautifully photographed and designed. It may be deeply silly but it's never dull.

Unfortunately that handsome clothes-horse Tyrone Power is there in the central, crucial role of Larry Darrell, the existentialist hero traveling the world in search of 'enlightenment'. Power lacks the natural gravitas the part demands. Luckily he's surrounded by players who are so much better than he. The under-rated Gene Tierney is wonderfully wilful as the rich girl who marries someone else, Anne Baxter, who won the Oscar for her part, is the dipsomaniac Sophie and best of all there is Clifton Webb, robbed of an Oscar, as the arch snob Elliot Templeton who, naturally, has all the best lines. Herbert Marshall also keeps popping up as Maugham, narrating the story as if it's all real.

I think we were meant to find it all profound and uplifting and I'm sure some people took it all very seriously. But we can no more take this seriously than if the original novel had been written by Harold Robbins or Jacqueline Susann. It's trash and so long as you accept it as such you might just love it. The remake, with Bill Murray, did take itself seriously and failed miserably.

THE MOLE AGENT ****

 Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at this year's Oscars, Maite Alberdi's "The Mole Agent" may have a preposterous scenario for a documentary, (it would be preposterous even in a fiction film), and yet it works and works beautifully. The filmmaker's explain everything that's to follow in the first ten or so minutes and after that it's basically plain sailing. "The Mole Agent" of the title is Sergio, a man in his eighties planted as a 'spy' inside a nursing home  in Chile to record anything that might be happening to an elderly female inmate whose daughter fears is being abused. The crew making the film we are watching have been given permission to film inside the nursing home but only they know Sergio's purpose in being there.

The result is both deeply moving and often very funny as Sergio goes about his business like an octogenarian  James Bond, taking notes, writing in his journal  and filming people with his 'spy' pen and 'spy' glasses and despite making himself fairly obvious on occasions is the least likely and most charming agent imaginable. Alberdi's terrific film is like a non-fiction version of "Carry on Spying" with a cast of geriatrics.

It's also undeniably sad since we know that none of these people are acting and that their lives are far from perfect; there is genuine loneliness and real heartbreak here though if anyone can alleviate it it's Sergio who seems to move from secret agent to guardian angel in no time at all and as he sweet-talks the little old ladies, prompting at least one of them to contemplate marriage, it's impossible not to be charmed by him. This is his movie and I, for one, would certainly like to know what happened to him since filming was completed.

ONE DEADLY SUMMER ***

 Newcomer to the village, Eilane, (Isabelle Adjani), is certainly a stunner and soon she's driving all the boys wild but it's mechanic and fireman 'Pin-Pon', (Alain Souchon), who woos her and wins her even though on their first date he sees a side to her that would have most men fleeing to the hills. Eilane may indeed be gorgeous but she's also clearly psychotic or worse. Jean Becker's "One Deadly Summer" is just yet another in a long line of superb French thrillers in which bad things take place in bright sunlight and people seem to have an ulterior motive for everything while Adjani joins a long list of very fatal femmes. She's terrific as usual but then so is everyone else in a movie that sets out its stall early on and then proceeds to give to the cold creeps for the next two hours. If you wished you could call it Chabrolian but I think this is a darker film than even Chabrol might have given us. Well worth seeking out.

BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM **

 Borat's back and unless he can get his act together, hopefully for the last time. You would think, given the potential targets, (Trump, Covid), this could be the best Borat film yet and yet a lot of gags fall flat. Yes, i laughed and loudly every now and then but nowhere near as often as I thought I would. Still, "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm", to give it its short title, (and that title in itself reeks of desperation), is still worth seeing thanks to a brilliant, star-making turn from Maria Bakalova as Borat's daughter, Tutar.

The very thin excuse for a plot has Borat revisiting America with said daughter in tow and a plan to offer her as a gift to VP Mike Pence, (yes, that's about as original as it gets). Needless to say, Pence isn't interested though his appearance does mark one of the film's few inspired moments so the sights are set on Rudy Giuliani who is either even dumber than we thought or a rather good sport for going along with it. The candid-camera style sequences still work but much of this looks rehearsed and the wonderful Miss Bakalova deserves better. Will she deserve the Oscar should she win? Probably not but I can certainly see a long future ahead of her.

TO OLIVIA no stars

 In roles previously played by Dirk Bogarde and Glenda Jackson, Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes are now the writer Roald Dahl and his actress wife Patricia Neal. Both Bonneville and Hawes are very fine actors in their own right, if perhaps more famous on television than in the cinema and anyone who, in recent years, has seen "Bodyguard", "Line of Duty" or "It's a Sin" will know just what a chameleon Hawes can be and you think that even an Oscar-winning American actress might not be a stretch and that Dahl would be a walk in the park for Bonneville.

As befits a film about the author of children's books, John Hay's film "To Olivia" is as much about the children in the Dahl/Neal marriage as it is about the adults but despite decent work all round this never rises above a conventional Sunday night BBC or ITV drama, (and good as Hawes is, she's certainly not Neal). Quite frankly, this could be a movie about any middle-class couple living in any English village and finding they don't get along and you certainly won't learn anything about either of its central celebrities. Both Neal and Dahl had their fair share of tragedy, treated here as soap opera. As Geoffrey Fisher, one-time Archbishop of Canterbury, the wonderful Geoffrey Palmer has no trouble stealing the film but ultimately this is a film that is not worth stealing or indeed seeing.