Looking back I can’t quite believe that I went to a cinema in the west end of London to see Doctor Zhivago, six times…!!!
I must have been about 24 years old then…something to do with the sound effects, the music, and I don’t know what else…!
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So agree - must have seen it about 6 times over the years - these days on TV. I still remember so many scenes from it. Especially the one where he comes into the library and Julie Christie is there and the sunlight is on her hair - glorious.
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It was the opening graveyard scene of the film, in the second half of the video, that struck home – the sound of the hammers hammering on the coffin, the sound of the soil being thrown onto the coffin and the sound of feet trudging. Then the theme tune. Then the film.
From a cinema’s big loudspeakers, these sounds, and the theme tune were so magnified at the beginning….felt like I was being knocked on the head…! So visceral…
Doesn’t have the same effect unfortunately on the video…
Just watched the dvd A Good Year… with a glass or two of red wine… such fun.
We can identify almost each character… as someone who lives in our commune… 
and we know the script word for word… as I say, such fun… 
Last year when international travel was limited we went to a couple of the locations from the film.
We had dinner in the square where they watched a film in the rain (we stated just outside this village), it is here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/fbLx13q5gKqT3SLv5
We had hot chocolate in the restaurant that she worked, which is here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/FMsGzLbdkmAZakxn9
And we went to the chateau which he inherited, which is here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/VYVyKznrFS3Wygmh9
They sell the magic wine from the film Coin Perdu, which is pretty good but their other wines are excellent.
The whole area is beautiful and well worth exploring.
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I went to see that, a late night showing, with a pal. When we got back to the flat, in a state of shock, the two of us just sat, speechless. It being about 01:30, our flat mate had been in bed, asleep, for a good couple of hours.
The door opened and there he stood. “What’s going on? What’s happened?” he asked. "There’s a terrible atmosphere … "
There was nothing we could say. We just looked at him. He ‘got the vibe’ and the three of us sat there, into the night …
Her brother - they don’t get along at all well - said “All she had to do was wear a push-up bra”
For those who like US road movies/cars “Two Lane Black Top” is a very good ‘small’ film.
"Performance". Waiting at the cinema with a bunch of freinds, we swapped numbers of times we had seen it, One of my friends was in the high twenties! My score is about 6. There’s a song in it with fabulous slide guitar by Ry Cooder …
Which brings us on to “Paris, Texas”. An excellent film with a wonderful Ry Cooder sound track. He put microphones out in the desert and recorded the ambient sound. He came to the conclusion that the desert was in Emin - so the sound track music was played in the key of Emin
“Heat”. The only time Pacino and De Niro have acted together. Superb gangster/cop movie
Another inadvisable late night - a double bill of "Repulsion" and “Cul-de-Sac”. Two psycho/horrors by Polanski. Good films but don’t go to see them blistered on weed … [1969]
I’ve probably told this story before but shall again.
Staying with my aunt and uncle in Norfolk in their ancient house with twisty staircases, we watched Don’t Look Now, it finished quite late, they had last minute dog biz to sort but I went to bed: on my way I noticed my little cousin’s duffle red coat and had a sudden inspiration, so got a carving knife from the kitchen, went to the top of the stairs put the duffle coat on and waited, kneeling in a pair of my uncles shoes in the almost dark. holding the knife up with my arm bent,
VERY effective 
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I’m still reeling from the sheer evil of this stunt ! I can’t believe it ! Effective ?! I bet it was. What was the punishment your A & U must needs have meted out?
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Hahahaha luckily they have a good sense of humour - but I saw them in March this year and it was mentioned again so clearly it has left a lasting memory over 35 years later
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I am not surprised!
The thing about Nic Roeg was that he tapped into the psychological depths of a situation and did not spare us the blackest elements of it. Thus the menace that hangs over all of “Walkabout”, the disturbing treatment of identity in “Performance”.
That final shot of the car pulling away, after the mobsters had found the house. Who was that at the car window - Jagger? We had already seen Jaggers’ body dumped in a broom cupboard but that face at the car window … ?
Funny how the memory plays tricks – just remembered a charming French animated film about a boy who, with grandmère as his trainer, eventually gets to race in the Tour de France. Plus an adventure.
Bought the DVD back when I forget. Was surprised to find the whole film on YouTube. I’d call this a classic film - it premiered at Cannes Film Festival and first appeared in 2003. Film lasts 1hr 20mins.
Love the artwork, the animation, the music, and love the doggy…!
Don’t let the short sepia intro of the film deter you……
Review
Film
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Sous le sable is one of my favourites.
I can unreservedly recommend a French movie from 2003 called ‘Les Textiles’
on YouTube:
I saw it in a Hong cinema with my dear French uncle who is now sadly no longer with us. We were alone for the matinée viewing, sat right in the centre of an empty room and laughed like drains all the way through.
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I saw a film, the B film to Star Wars when it first came out, a film that was memorable to me as a film, but also memorable in that the audience, myself and my girlfriend, all clapped spontaneously and wildly at the end!
I’ve tried to find a video but can only find what might be the same film but another version – all indoors under dull artificial light looking very drab. I remember daylight and real live colours and outdoor scenes, white picket fences and a garden.
The film was about a woman who had answered a farmer’s ad for a wife in wide open farming country in New England in the late 1800s. They married but he turned out to be a hard-line Christian in that he would not allow music, makeup, pretty clothes or anything that was joyful in any way. He was a big strong man who worked very hard all day long out in the fields. She was clearly unhappy but endured it and became an obedient and dutiful wife.
She woke one morning and her husband lying next to her was dead, strangled in his sleep. The local sheriff and deputies investigated and searched the house for clues – the house hadn’t been broken into, and she was clearly of such stature, that it couldn’t possibly have been her. But the sheriff was suspicious and asked the deputies to intensify the search.
Two women from neighbouring farms had come over to comfort her and suggested she come with them to stay while the deputies continued searching for clues. The sheriff was reluctant to let her leave, but one of her friends said what harm can it do – all she needed to take with her was her knitting basket.
So, she went to search for it, found it and took a look inside to see if everything she needed was there. Right at the bottom of the basket, she found a folded red silk handkerchief. She opened it and there lay a canary with its neck broken. She and everyone in the audience knew then what had happened.
The audience burst into applause as she made it to the garden gate with her two friends with the knitting basket.
Have no idea what this film was called and whether it is still around somewhere.
So what had happened?
Her husband has killed the canary, the only remaining joy in her life. There had to be an outburst of such outrage in her that she developed the strength to strangle him.
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Well done Stella, thanks!
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