I’m not sure who first coined the phrase ‘torture porn’ as a genre label, but it smacks of the insistence of musical journalese to arrive at names for supposed new musical scenes, like ‘slowcore’ and ‘nu-gaze’, which largely reflect nothing other than a handful of disconnected bands using the same guitar pedals. In the case of ‘torture porn’, it was the arrival of Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005), then retrospectively applied to Saw (2004) and its sequels as well as The Devil’s Rejects (2005) and even bizarrely The Passion of the Christ (2004) that flagged up this apparent new pattern in horror cinema.

The latest to have this label attached to it is the new film from Pascal Laugier, whose only previous directorial credit was the unspectacular Saint Ange (2004). Here, in Martyrs, we begin with a young girl named Lucie escaping from a mysterious and grisly captivity into the outside world, where she is rescued and subsequently placed into an orphanage. The authorities are mystified by the circumstances of her incarceration: though showing signs of prolonged physical abuse, the expected signs of sexual abuse are absent. Lucie is emotionally withdrawn and inevitably shows signs of deep trauma, but nevertheless is befriended by fellow orphan Anna. Flashfoward several years, and the grown-up Lucie is now out for revenge against her captors, with a somewhat spellbound Anna in tow.

From these opening scenes onwards, it is clear that the comparisons to Hostel and Saw are rather ill-fitting: these opening reels in fact position the film firmly in revenge-thriller territory, much nearer to something like Haute Tension [Switchblade Romance] (2003) or the work of Korean gore-maestro Chan-wook Park. Despite the splatter, of which there is plenty – believe me – there are also some thoughtful psychological considerations posited. Lucie is haunted by some form of demon, but it Laugier carefully leaves ambiguity as to whether this is internalised or an all-too real one. The latter renders her apparent persecution at its hands literal, but the former interpretation throws up a messy tanglement of guilt and self-harm.

There is a clear divide in the film where it diverges completely from where conventional expectations would tell us it was going. From this point on, not only does our focus on a particular character shift dramatically, but so too the tone and thematic concerns, and what follows cresendoes to what is a near-unpalatably bleak and violent third act. It is difficult to go into too much detail without giving away significant amounts of key plot developments, but suffice to say it requires a great deal from the audience, and to my mind is why reviewers have had such polarised opinions about the film as a whole. I consider that where it goes and the philosophical points is raises are enough to justify what are some of the most harrowing scenes I have seen on film; others, I can well understand, will disagree.

It is significant that the closing credits finish with a dedication to Dario Argento, for not only is the Italian’s stylish pouring-on of gore a clear visual reference point for Laugier, but so too the intellect behind the bloodshed. Argento for many years was never taken seriously as a cinematic thinker, but subsequent revisionism has pointed to underlying themes of voyeurism, gender relationships and fetishism in his oeuvre. Martyrs may well suffer a similarly long gestation period before the mainstream takes it to be anything other than exploitation, but for my money it is as necessarily horrifying and vital as the likes of Irréversible (2002) and Salò (1975), and well worth visiting for the open of mind and strong of stomach.

Before addressing the subject of Il Divo, the labyrinthine film about Italian political animal Giulio Andreotti, first a little about his political biography. Andreotti is one of the key members of the Christian Democrat [DC] party which dominated postwar Italian politics for over fifty years, until its spectacular collapse in the mid-1990s. During that time, he held practically every prominent position in government, most notably holding the office of Prime Minister no less than seven times, and oversaw Italy transform itself from a backward peasant country little changed from the days of Garibaldi into one of the world’s leading economies.

His career has been dogged by controversy upon controversy: links to the Cosa Nostra, alleged membership of the sinister P2 Masonic Lodge, and involvement in the tangentopoli corruption scandal that eventually brought down the DC party. Most notoriously, he was Prime Minster during the so-called Anni di Piombo (Years of the Bullet), a period which saw escalating terrorist bloodshed, culminating in hardline left-wing group the Red Brigades’ [BR] kidnap and eventual murder of former Prime Minister and close cohort Aldo Moro. It is widely regarded that Andreotti’s decision not to negotiate with the BR was what led to Moro’s death, but more significantly it is suggested that his uncompromising policies were intended to provoke more extremist factions into violence in order to isolate them politically.

It is necessary to have this knowledge before seeing the Il Divo, since this is no narratively straightforward biopic in the vein of, say, Milk (2008). In fact, its complex construction and bewilderingly large cast of secondary characters make for a somewhat overwhelming first viewing. The film opens with his re-election to the Prime Ministership in 1992 and ends with the opening of his corruption trial, but through a combination of flashbacks, reconstructions, confessions and interviews we see glimpses of the preceding years: suicides, assassinations, and in particular Andreotti’s unshakeable guilt for letting his colleague Moro die so horribly – in one of the few scenes where he lets slip genuine emotion, he questions why it was not he instead who was the one kidnapped and murdered.

If the film is an unconventional portrait in that it is non-linear in structure, then it also must be stressed that it is by no means an entirely realistic character study. Though the script is based largely in fact, from the very beginning it is clear that actor Toni Servillo is portraying him as an oddity: the opening shot is a slow zoom revealing his head to be covered in acupuncture needles, rendering him closer to Pinhead from Hellraiser (1987) than anything human, whilst much has been made of his strange folded ears which made me think of Gizmo from Gremlins (1984). He is full of strange mannerisms: curious hunched posture, an ever-present dispassionate facial expression, and his odd gliding shuffle of a walk, with various speeds including an absurd reverse gear which really needs to be seen to be comprehended. Stalking the corridors of his home in insomnia, there is a clear resemblance to Max Schreck’s titular Nosferatu (1922), if crossed with Quasimodo.

In reality, he is a man respected and reviled in equal measure: viewed by some as politically astute and unflappable, but by others as emotionally detached and calculating. For such a divisive, despised figure, the film could easily have been as accusatory as Il Caimano (2006), Nanni Moretti’s relentlessly unflattering portrait of Silvio Berlusconi, but Sorrentino treads a more subtle path here. The combination of title “Il Divo” – based on one of his kinder nicknames – and a soundtrack populated by both dramatic classical and modern rock music suggest a status, perhaps ironically given his withdrawn personality, somewhere between iconic celebrity and operatic tragedy.

There is something extraordinary about a man who has survived politically for so long where all others have fallen, and despite the wealth of allegations against him has never been convicted of any of them. As La Repubblica founder Eugenio Scalfari so aptly suggests to him in one key exchange: “You’re either the most cunning criminal in the country because you never got caught, or you’re the most persecuted man in the history of Italy”. When he further questions the ‘coincidences’ of his alleged involvement with criminal activity, and whether he chalks these up as being the will of God, Andreotti reminds him that his newspaper remained independent, successful and at liberty thanks to his premiership. Il Divo is by no means an apology for Andreotti’s alleged crimes, but there is the sense that if he is to be condemned, then so too the entire history of postwar Italy.

In a film so contemplative of the relationship between good and evil, there are inevitably strong Catholic overtones of guilt and redemption. In an opening scene Andreotti, on one of his nocturnal walks – early morning rather than late night – visits his local priest who describes the difference between he and former Prime Minster and colleague Alcide De Gasperi – “in church, De Gasperi talked to God, Andreotti talked to the priest”. “Priests vote, God doesn’t”, Andreotti quips back. If he is a repentant sinner, he is also a strongly Machiavellian one. Sorrentino presents him as a man aware, however misguidedly, of the what he believes to be the necessary contradiction of power: that in order to achieve aims in the best interest of the country, bad deeds must be done. This would make him a kind of Italian version of Richard Nixon, if it were not for the fact he has never publicly admitted any wrong-doing – mere wishful thinking on the director’s part.

Anyone who has been in a position of power for as long as Andreotti has necessarily becomes isolated both publicly and privately, and though the film is, to an extent, a portrait of a severely flawed man, it at least understands this as an inevitability. In interviews, director Paolo Sorrentino has made reference to Stephen Frears’ The Queen (2006), and this is a useful comparison, for here too we have an individual who has been ever-present in the public eye for well over half a century, and yet remains emotionally monolithic, inscrutable to the point of inhumanity. Very little is known of his private life, so what is shown here of his interactions with his wife is entirely speculatory, though judging from the real-life Andreotti’s reaction to seeing the film, it is not hard to infer that Sorrentino hits upon at least some home truths.

All of this would be fascinating enough to anyone with even a passing interest in Italian political history, but what gives the film a more universal appeal is the ever-exciting direction of Paolo Sorrentino. His previous films, Le Conseguenze dell’amore (2004) and L’Amico di famiglia (2006) flagged up a new director with a hugely confident, masterful control of visual style, and Il Divo might just represent its coming to full fruition. In fact, the dazzling, dizzying camerawork, breathless editing, all offset by an inventive use of scoring might just mark him out as the true successor to Martin Scorsese, whose Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995) are undeniably Sorrentino’s major stylistic influence here.

Praise has been heaped on Sorrentino’s fellow Neapolitan director Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra (2008) for its ultra-realistic portrayal of modern-day organized crime, and deservedly so. But while that film exposed Italy’s sinister underbelly, Il Divo is a much more profound piece of work, questioning on a much grander scale the price of political success, and meditating on the contradictions inherent in the making of political decisions. And in raising a most divisive political figure to an operatic caricature, Sorrentino’s film is able to hit on human truths far beyond the reach of mere realism.

Two confessions: firstly, I am no big fan of Zack Snyder, director previously of Dawn of the Dead (2004) and 300 (2006), both of which while entertaining and exhibiting no little visual flair were let down by rather flabby storylines and frankly embarrasing characterization. Call me old fashioned for asking for a little of these. Secondly, I must also make clear that I have never read Watchmen, Alan Moore’s legendary (to put it mildly) comic book series which serves as this film’s considerable basis, so am in no position to discuss whether it adheres faithfully to the original source material or not. All I will try to do, then, is assess whether or not Watchmen works as a film.

The answer is: well, sort of. As a piece of entertainment, it is certainly riveting enough to keep an audience’s attention, even for its absurdly long 162 minute running time, a duration even some ten minutes longer than last year’s slog of a superhero epic The Dark Knight (2008). In comparison with a lot of other films adapted from comic books, it is undeniably superior: obviously better than things like Fantastic Four (2005) or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), but I would significantly add that I found it more enjoyable than V for Vendetta (2005) which I found both tedious and shallow. Where I find fault, however, is my general beef with the director: he is perfectly able to enthrall on a visceral level, but not on an emotional or intellectual plane. This may have been okay with a glossy zombie film or a blatantly historically inaccurate swords and sandals gore-fest, but Watchmen is something different.

Firstly, I would congratulate Snyder on making what is clearly a complex, multi-layered source into a coherent, fully realised world and also in being able to squeeze out of it something of a semi-coherent narrative from it. Time will jump around considerably during the course of proceeedings, but for simplicity our ‘present’ timeframe is an alternate 1985, a world where Richard Nixon has been re-elected for another term after winning the war in Vietnam, largely thanks to the presence of a group of masked superheroes. A montage at the beginning of the film elegantly illustrates the effect that the presence of these anonymous characters has had on shaping this off-kilter version of reality: the Kennedy assassination, the moon landings, the fall of counterculture all were somehow touched by them.

Now the world stands on the brink of nuclear annihilation following a standoff between the USA and the USSR in spite of, or perhaps because of, the presence of the nuclear-powered superhuman Doctor Manhattan. For several years now the other superheroes have found themselves outlawed and have either found themselves in retirement or acting as above-the-law vigilantes. The murder of one of their clan, The Comedian, leads another, the masked Rorschach, to seek out the others warning that someone is trying to kill them off, possibly in relation to the upcoming potential war.

This much is clearly portrayed. The problems only start arising when, once again, we turn to Snyder’s handling of themes and subtexts. There are long passages of the film where the script verbosely tries to tackle what are obviously complex subjects from the Moore original: ideas about human nature, spirituality in the face of a seemingly omnipotent being, alienation and identity concealment, even the vary nature of time and the way humans perceive it. The trouble is, I get the impression that the director doesn’t know what to do with these ideas, instead loading the film with expositionary dialogue and flashy graphics and hoping this will be enough for the audience. I have to say I left the auditorium unsatisfied, wanting a lot more. I suspect I will have to read Alan Moore’s original to get this.

The long wait for Watchmen to arrive on screen appears largely to have achieved the impossible task of satisfying its legions of fans in terms of bringing to life the style and to an extent the content of the comic book series. There will always be nit-pickers at the periphery complaining about missing scenes, references or minor characters, an argument that I neither can nor want to wade into. All I can say is that were it not for the weight of expectation and the obviously grand ambition and scope of the project, this would be a worthy, enjoyable action romp. But as is obvious from the ringing out of “The Times They Are a Changin'” over the opening credit sequence, in terms of its supposed social commentary this is ultimately a film which has set its aim way too high for its own good.

I, for one, was not enticed by the prospect of Frost/Nixon, a cinematic rendering of Peter Morgan’s play of the same name which dramatised the now-famous series of interviews which the disgraced former US president Richard Nixon gave in 1977. My objections were twofold: firstly, I generally dislike film adaptations of theatre productions, finding the majority of them to lose much in translation between the wooden boards and the silver screen. Secondly, and on a related note, there seemed to be something inconsequential about what took place in those interviews: certainly, the eventual candid admissions of the former president were unprecedented, but did they really change anything in the historical record, or undo the wrongs of his terms in office?

Amazingly, I found my reservations were mostly dismissed in the course of the film. Peter Morgan’s screenplay, much like last year’s excellent Man On Wire which constructed itself akin to a classic heist movie, finds cinematic terms with which to approach the subject. In Frost/Nixon‘s case what surprisingly emerges is something like a Rocky film: the plucky underdog going several rounds on the ropes against a dogged, seemingly impermeable villain before against the odds landing a series of killer punches to nail his opponent. Along the way, there is a real sense of drama, despite the apparently low stakes.

What drives things along are in fact three competing poles jostling for position. Firstly there is Nixon himself, frustrated at his political and personal exile, who sees the interviews as a chance to rehabilitate his public image and to exonerate himself of his crimes. On the other camera is David Frost, a semi-successful TV presenter looking to use the interviews as a springboard to raise his international fame, and to work on bigger more glamorous projects. And then there is the third influence, less visible but clearly behind it all: the people who wish to see Nixon brought down once and for all, demanding at the very least an admission of guilt for his actions over Watergate, Vietnam and Cambodia. Substitute the words ‘Bush’ and ‘Iraq’ in there, and see how little has changed in thirty years.

Ron Howard is not a director who I massively admire, but he manages to control the pacing and flow almost impeccably. The casting is first-rate: Langella excels as the browbeaten passive-aggressive Nixon, while secondary roles for Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon and Matthew Macfadyen support the leads ably. Strangely, Michael Sheen’s superb performance as David Frost reminded me of what Anthony Hopkins managed to achieve in the lead role in Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995), in that he managed entirely to convince me that he was the character he was portraying without either going overboard in trying to resemble him physically nor descending into caricature. There are unavoidable touches of his Tony Blair there too, in particular that Cheshire Cat grin, but also something of the Steve Coogan about him – at first we see his Alan Partridge-esque bumbling TV persona, but later as he gets more entrenched in the project there is the Tony Wilson of 24 Hour Party People, slowly realising that he has stumbled across something bigger, and more important, than himself.

Ultimately, one’s interest in the film hinges on whether one considers the subject of Richard Nixon as at all fascinating; I am interested in the period because I think it marks a turning-point in attitudes towards the US presidency, permanently soured after the relative high-points of popularity enjoyed during the Kennedy and Roosevelt administrations. What I took from the film was a sense that after the Frost-Nixon interviews politicians would never be viewed the same again, which has led us up the path to the spin-centred politics which we are presented with now, where television is a more important a weapon of political control than a rifle. Nixon should have known this: after all, as we find out, it was his sweaty lip which cost him the 1960 election.

Two films showed up in competition at Cannes in 2008 which appeared to suggest new artistic directions being taken by two sets of the festival’s recent favourite filmmakers. The first was Le silence de Lorna (2008) by the frères Dardenne, which narratively seemed to take their usual naturalistic realist aesthetic and graft in onto an increasingly fairytale-like story. The second was Three Monkeys, the latest film from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose beautifully shot if languidly paced previous two films Uzak (2002) and İklimler (2006) had received significant critical acclaim and effectively established his position at the forefront of European cinema, alongside the brothers from Belgium.

Ceylan’s output may well be the very quintessence of many peoples’ idea of what constitutes an arthouse film: broadly existential themes, use of naturalistic acting, and a hugely idiosyncratic visual style. Where the work of the Dardennes frequently invites comparisons with that of Robert Bresson, Ceylan’s oeuvre unavoidably brings to mind references to the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky and Abbas Kiarostami: schools of filmmaking which glide at meditative paces, allowing the viewer to concentrate on how surrounding environments shape individuals’ assessments of their own identity. In short, his films are more than a little slower than Michael Bay’s.

Both Ceylan’s particular thematic concerns and filmmaking aesthetic can be considered to be present and correct in his new film: long unbroken takes, careful attention paid to faces and expressions, the breakdown of relationships and bonds of trust, the director’s painterly eye for capturing both urban geography and the force and beauty of the native Turkish weather. The difference though is in the type of story being told. Narratively, Uzak and İklimler, both focusing on slow disintegrations of familial relationships, could hardly be described as being stuffed with drama: Three Monkeys announces itself as different from the very off, beginning as it does with a most tragic event, a fatal car accident. Servet, a wealthy businessman running for office in upcoming elections, has run down and killed a pedestrian.

Sensing a premature end to his political ambitions, he rings up Eyüp, his usual driver, with a deal: take the blame for the accident and serve the brief prison time in exchange for a large cash sum for him and his poor family. Eyüp, wanting to do the best for his wife Hacer and son İsmail, agrees and duly enters into a short prison sentence. All is far from well back at home, however: İsmail has failed to get into college and appears to have fallen in with a bad crowd, much to the consternation of his mother who, desperate and lonely becomes ever closer to their rich, charismatic benefactor Servet.

Already a somewhat fractured family unit at the start of proceedings, the film slowly toys with the moral implications of Eyüp’s acceptance of Servet’s shady deal. The film’s title is an allusion to the proverbial three monkeys who see, hear and speak no evil respectively, and though it is never entirely a satisfactory allegory for the three family members here, the point is still a valid one: that they are all in some way in denial about what has been happening, unable either to forgive or even to accept the realities of their situation. On paper, this all sounds a little preachy and in the hands of a lesser filmmaker could have easily descended into moral soapboxing, but Ceylan keeps things ambiguously opaque enough not to suggest over-indulgence.

My enjoyment of the film was somewhat soured by my having read other reviews which explicitly made reference to the highly unusual and entirely unexpected supernatural elements which begin to filter into the story: needless to say I shall not do the same, but would comment that they were most intriguing to me; I am not entirely decided of what their presence was for, but certainly feel they add something – hinting at some hidden grief at loss which may explain other matters on further watches perhaps? As with Ceylan’s previous work, the ending seems to reinforce the director’s strongly pessimistic view of human nature, but where Uzak and İklimler were sombre reflections rooted in melancholy, Three Monkeys feels like something entirely new from him, a straight-faced parable of the dangers of moral corruption which weighs uneasily on the mind.