the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner: (1962. dir: Tony Richardson) That wonderful British road between Kitchen Sink and Carnaby Street is studded with lovely pieces, and this is one, arguably Tony Richardson's best work. Its great flaw is in his use of the "comic techniques" (ie: "it's very funny to see people moving in fast-motion". It's really not). In the following year, this same taint would proliferate and spread its eldritch tentacles all through his Tom Jones so that, highly lauded as it was at the time, it's faintly embarrassing and almost unwatchable in retrospect. With that exception, though, his instincts are right on in Loneliness and he carries us dynamically through a largely introspective story which might have stagnated in cravener hands. Equal credit goes to Tom Courtenay, one of the greats of the time. Although only twenty-five while filming, he seems like an old man playing a young one and doing it extraordinarily well, with the distance and wisdom of age but without sacrificing the raw emotion of youth.
Montenegro: (1981. dir: Dusan Makavejev) I've seen this strange film exactly twice: once in the theatre in my youth, where I fell in love with it, and again some twenty years on. I was clenching my teeth the second time through, expecting it to have lost its appeal since I'd long ago well squashed my salad-days' passion for allegory, but I was pleasantly surprised with its lingering charms. Makavejev strikes just the right balance between absurdity and dark satire, and never lets his lead character, easily and unpretentiously played by Susan Anspach, flatten into less than three dimensions. There are plot twists and surprises around each corner, and although it flirts heavily with cynicism, the humor keeps its touch light enough for enjoyment. It's a sentimental favorite, too, because it reintroduced me to Marianne Faithfull, with her gravelly, post-apocalyptic voice.
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