This month it’s all greed, corruption and cruelty as we focus on the blacker than black vision of Henri-Georges Clouzot, the misanthropic genius of French cinema, with reviews of the atmospheric crime thriller Quai des orfèvres, the brilliantly pessimistic poison-pen noir Le Corbeau and the teeth-grindingly suspenseful The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur), which follows four desperate men driving a nitro-glycerine truck down a dangerous South American road.
The Wages of Fear is one of the movies listed in the latest BFI screen guide 100 Road Movies and to guide us around the other 99, we talked to author Jason Wood, a man whose knowledge of cinema is as phenomenal as his enthusiasm and rapid-fire delivery.
Also in the spotlight is Hungarian director György Pálfi whose grotesque shocker Taxidermia is released this month. It is the occasion to take another look at his 2002 debut Hukkle, an original low-key murder mystery of sorts.
In the cinema releases we have controversial Cannes-winner French drama Flanders, hard-hitting Haiti documentary Ghosts of Cité Soleil, twisted home-movie Running Stumbled and Daratt, a revenge tale from Chad. As the BFI hosts a season dedicated to the work of little-known Japanese master Mikio Naruse we review his sophisticated female-centred sixties opus When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.
As the John Travolta-led Hairspray remake is about to invade our screens we have a feature celebrating John Waters’ 1987 original, which more than qualifies as our Rock’n’Roll Movie of the month. And we also review Mongolian charmer The Cave of the Yellow Dog.
If you missed our Alejandro Jodorowsky programme on Resonance FM last month, you can now listen to the podcast. More programmes on Resonance to be announced soon – go to our Events page for more details.
Every month we’ll give you the chance to get your cinephile hands on a film prize – all you have to do to win is spin the Film Roulette! We’re pleased to announce that our June winner is Verena Stackelberg. Well done Verena, you’ve won a DVD of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, courtesy of the BFI. This month we have a Clouzot box set, including The Wages of Fear, Quai des orfèvres and Le Corbeau, courtesy of Optimum Releasing. So get spinning!
The Electric Sheep Magazine team