Shanghai Dreams [Xiaoshuai Wang, 2005]

In one of the funniest scenes, the local teenage main man, with a look clearly inspired by Elvis, impresses the girls at the local dance with his attempt at cool dancing. This so-called ‘underground’ dance plays ‘Rivers of Babylon’. Western influence is felt even here in this south-western hinterland of 1980s China.

The talk amongst the local men is of the money to be made in Shanhai – where many of them originate, and where many wish to return. The tension between change and tradition is manifest everywhere. Wu Zemin is an authoritarian father who also wants to escape back to the more modern homeland. His daughter Quinghong just wants to be to be a teenager, and is happy in the town she has always known as home.

The film opens with a slow tracking shot down a hallway towards a window at the end. A red flag outside can just be seen occasionally fluttering into view at the edge of the window frame. This is a film of the small scale made epic.

Impressive.

[IMDB link: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0456658/ ]

Gambler [Phie Ambo, 2006]

Kurt is known affectionately to his friends as C***. Refn explains to him that the character he is to play is a psychopath with charm. ‘I can do that’ says Kurt. He’s had so much dope over the years that he finds it hard to remember the lines. Kurt is an actor in Pusher II, the film which Refn is relying on to get him out of his unbelievable debt.

Publicity before Pusher II makes much of the fact that some of the cast have a criminal past – and so are acting themselves. Kurt says he is not playing himself. He has never hit anyone with a baseball bat. Well, only once - and it was a broom handle.

Refn is obviously a gambler.

He spends a lot of time dosing up on indigestion remedies.

You watch this film and can only conclude that you need to be a little mad to be a film director. As well as being that, Refn is also a pretty decent guy. This film paints an affectionate but revealing film about Refn’s tribulations: his journey from crippling money problems, to solvency and artistic success.

I remember Refn sitting regularly in the Arts Picturehouse bar last year, when he was over for the screening of Pusher II and a number of other films. Having seen this documentary, you wish he was still around – just to go over, shake his hand, and say “Well done, mate”. And then ask him why the hell he hired Kurt…

Tideland [Terry Gilliam, 2005]

Tideland is like stepping into a Hopper painting, and finding a world of beautiful fantasies and gruesome nightmares.

This dark film is seen through the innocent eyes of a nine year old girl, played brilliantly by Jodelle Ferland. It’s a film which implants disturbing images into your head. Yet, as well as its sinister and provocative scenes, it also has a strange beauty – a lost world of wonder and limitless possibilities.

[IMDB link: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0410764/ ]