Parky at the Pictures (DVD 21/12/2017)

LUBITSCH IN BERLIN.

Having started out as an actor renowned for comic roles, Ernst Lubitsch became one of the most sophisticated directors of the silent era. Famed for `the Lubtisch Touch', he was a master of visual detail, elegant wit and subtle critique. This Eureka collection demonstrates what prompted Orson Welles to declare him `a giant', François Truffaut to proclaim him `a prince' and Alfred Hitchcock to dub him `a man of pure cinema'.

Ich Mochte Kein Mann Sein/I Wouldn't Like to Be a Man (1918).

Germany was still at war when this risqué comedy was released. Remarkably modern in its attitudes to women in society, it stars Ossi Oswalda as a young woman who dons a suit to see if men have more fun. Die Puppe/The Doll (1919).

Based on an Alfred Willner operetta inspired by an ETA Hoffmann fable, the tale of toymaker's daughter Ossi Oswalda's bid to impersonate a mechanical doll to fool reluctant groom Hermann Thimig had a major influence on the Expressionist style. Die Austernprinzessen/The Oyster Princess (1919).

The irrepressible Ossi Oswalda excels again in this biting social satire, in which she plays the daughter of an American oyster tycoon, who falls for the wrong man when a matchmaker lines her up with an impoverished prince.

Sumurun (1920).

Lubitsch made his last appearance on screen in this Arabian Nights saga, as the hunchback competing with prince Carl Clewing for the favours of Pola Negri, a dancing girl at the court of sheikh Paul Wegener.

Anna Boleyn (1920).

One of several Weimar historical pageants mocking the victorious Allies, this ribald take on Tudor times sees a bluffly buffoonish Henry VIII (Emil Jannings) rely on the incompetent Cardinal Wolsey (Adolf Klein) to secure a divorce from Catherine of Aragon (Hedwig Pauly-Winterstein) so that he can marry the amorous Anna (Henny Porten).

Die Bergkatze/The Wildcat (1921).

Lubitsch would claim this slapstick operetta without music was his favourite German film. Lampooning the Prussian military mentality, it follows the efforts of chocolate soldier Victor Janson and dashing lieutenant Paul Heidemann to prevent robber baron Wilhelm Diegelmann and his tempestuous daughter Pola Negri from running rampant around the fictitious kingdom of Piffkaneiro.

BUSTER KEATON: 3 FILMS.

Nicknamed `The Great Stone Face', Buster Keaton was the best storyteller of the major silent clowns. He was also the most intuitive film-maker, whose gags had an ambition and audacity that put the even the most balletic pratfalls of his competitors to shame. This Masters of Cinema selection finds him at the peak of his powers.

Sherlock Jr. (1924).

Full of inspired sight gags (including a comic montage masterclass), this self-reflexive romp follows projectionist Buster into the screen, as fact and fantasy blur as he seeks to keep Kathryn McGuire out of the clutches of scheming suitor Ward Crane.

The General (1926).

Adapted from William Pittenger's The Great Locomotive Chase, this is Keaton's finest hour. Set during the Civil War, the dazzlingly inventive and impeccably timed action sees a railway engineer risk all to rescue sweetheart Marion Mack and his beloved steam locomotive from some Union spies.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).

Another gem with a giant prop at its core, the last of Keaton's silent classics finds him and new love Marion Byron caught up in a feud between their feuding fathers, Ernest Torrence and Tom McGuire, who respectively own a rickety paddle steamer and a slick new river cruiser.

THE PETER SELLERS COLLECTION.

Few could match Peter Sellers when it came to creating comic characters. Perhaps at his best on screen around the time he was performing in The Goon Show on BBC radio, he remained a major star until his tragically early death in 1980 at the age of 54. This quartet may not represent his best work, but it does contain two collaborations with Spike Milligan and a brush with two Beatles and two future Pythons.

The Magic Christian (1969).

John Cleese and Graham Chapman helped Terry Southern adapt his cult novel about the eccentric adventures of the worlds richest man and the homeless hobo he decides to adopt. Sellers is splendidly smug alongside Ringo Starr, whose bandmate Paul McCartney wrote the soundtrack hit, `Come and Get It', for Badfinger. With cameos from Yul Brynner, Raquel Welch, Laurence Harvey and Richard Attenborough, this madcap picaresque also contains a memorable Boat Race sequence.

Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1973).

Feuds with director Peter Medak and co-star Anthony Franciosa caused the studio to lose faith and shelve this resolutely strange pirate comedy, which was adapted from a children's book by Sid Fleischman. Sellers hams it up as the Irish cook who kills pirate Peter Boyle and keeps summoning his spirit to help him remember where the treasure is buried. But not even a guest spot from Milligan can keep this afloat. Still, it's good to see it at long last.

The Great McGonagall (1974).

Largely dismissed as a disaster, Joseph McGrath's offbeat biopic of Scottish poet William McGonagall (Milligan) sees Sellers pop up in drag as a sexually voracious Queen Victoria. Filmed in a theatre in under a month, this touches upon the weaver's ambitions and problems and features a touching turn by Julia Foster as his bemused wife. But the pastiche of Macbeth, the assassination attempt on Victoria and a highly Germanic Albert and the prison sequences are short on laughs and, instead, offer poignant insights into Milligan's psychological state.

The Prisoner of Zenda (1979).

There are three Sellers for the price of one in Richard Quine's misfiring adaptation of Anthony Hope's enduring swashbuckler. Having perished in ballooning accident, Rudolf IV of Ruritania is set to be succeeded by his half-brother, Rudolf V. But scheming Duke Michael (Jeremy Kemp) kidnaps the heir and lookalike Hansom cab driver Syd Frewin (also Sellers) is smuggled in from London by General Sapf (Lionel Jeffries) so that the coronation can go ahead. Notable for pitching Sellers opposite fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, this is neither exciting nor amusing.

THE RICHARD PRYOR COLLECTION.

At his best with a live audience, Richard Pryor forged a popular screen partnership with Gene Wilder. However, none of their four features together are included in this set, which keeps revealing glimpses of Pryor's charisma, while suggesting that Hollywood never quite knew what to do with his quicksilver talent.

Car Wash (1976).

Michael Schultz's cult comedy restricts Pryor to a cameo as Daddy Rich, the founder of the Church of Divine Economic Spirituality, who rides in a gold limousine through the Los Angeles neighbourhood where car wash owner Sully Boyar's tries to fathom his Mao-spouting son (Richard Brestoff), while also ensuring that the black activist (Bill Duke), ex-con (Ivan Dixon) and flamboyant cross-dresser (Antonio Fargas) on his staff keep their minds on the job. Scripted by Joel Schumacher and featuring a Grammy-winning soundtrack by Rose Royce, this feels like a time capsule from a more innocent era.

Which Way Is Up? (1978).

Pryor reunited with Schultz for this remake of Lina Wertmuller's The Seduction of Mimi (1972), which offered him the chance to play three contrasting roles. Initially, he is seen as Leroy Jones, who becomes involved with labour organiser Vanetta (Lonette McKee) when he heads to LA after accidentally joining a fruit pickers' union. But he also plays his own sexually voracious father, Rufus, and preacher Lennox Thomas, who gets Leroy's wife Annie Mae (Margaret Avery) pregnant. Pryor may be no Giancarlo Giannini, but this remains one of his better starring vehicles.

The Wiz (1978).

The choice of Sidney Lumet to bring Charlie Smalls's Broadway musical to the screen has long been debated. But he makes a decent fist of this canny rebooting of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. But Pryor fans have quite a wait to see him greet storm-tossed kindergarten teacher Dorothy (Diana Ross) and her three companions - a scarecrow (Michael Jackson), a tin man (Nipsey Russell) and a cowardly lion (Ted Ross) - at the end of their incident-packed trek to the Emerald City.

Brewster's Millions (1985).

This is the seventh screen incarnation of George Barr McCutcheon's celebrated novel and director Walter Hill gives Pryor plenty of leeway to crack wise as the pitcher with the Hackensack Bulls, who is given 30 days to spend $30 million of the $300 million fortune left to him by the eccentric Hume Cronyn. But, while catcher buddy John Candy and lawyer Lonette McKee readily help him spend, spend, spend, oily attorney Stephen Collins is determined to profit by making Pryor default.

THE STEVE MARTIN COLLECTION.

Having honed his skills as a stand-up and in sketch television, Steve Martin learned how to tailor his `wild and crazy guy persona' for the big screen under the tutelage of Carl Reiner. Only one of their collaborations is included here, but it's a gem and sits neatly alongside two of Martin's best ensemble outings.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982).

Wittily scripted by Reiner, Martin and George Gipe, this parodic homage to the heyday of film noir opens with the death of scientist-cum-cheesemaker John Hay Forrest (George Gaynes). His daughter, Juliet (Rachel Ward), doesn't believe the fatal car crash was an accident and hires low-rent shamus Rigby Reardon (Martin) to check out the names on the lists of the friends and enemies of a femme fatale named Carlotta. Brilliantly edited by Bud Molin to enable Martin to interact with such legends as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, this is movie buff heaven.

Parenthood (1989).

Directed by Ron Howard from a script by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, this is a nimbly constructed comic soap that follows the fortunes of the four children sired by martinet Jason Robards. Steve Martin and wife Mary Steenburgen are trying to help their oldest with his behavioural problems, while Harley Jane Kozak struggles to prevent husband Rick Moranis from micro-managing every aspect of their daughter's life. Single mom Dianne Wiest has her own problems with teens Martha Plimpton and Leaf Phoenix, while black sheep Tom Hulce has some bridges to build with his neglected son.

Sgt. Bilko (1996).

There are bad ideas and the decision to dust down the Nat Hiken-scripted classic, The Phil Silvers Show (1955-59), ranks among the worst. Martin does what he can. But there is only one Sergeant Ernie Bilko and director Jonathan Lynn's dogged efforts to keep things bright and brisk, as major Phil Hartman seeks revenge by moving in on Martin's fiancée (Glenne Headley). But Andy Breckman's script isn't up to muster.

Bowfinger (1999).

The second self-reflexive corker in this set was scripted by Martin himself and reunited him 11 years on with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels director, Frank Oz. The concept is key, as Martin's aspiring film-maker uses every ruse imaginable to make a movie around Hollywood star Eddie Murphy without him knowing he's being filmed. But it's the slickness of the playing by a company that includes Heather Graham, Jamie Kennedy, Christine Baranski and Kohl Sidduth that makes this such a deft delight.

THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION.

Nine decades have passed since Leslie S. Hiscott and Julius Hagen first brought Agatha Christie to the screen with The Passing of Mr Quin (1928) and Kenneth Branagh is among those hoping that her appeal remains strong. The four whodunits gathered here include three to tax the little grey cells of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and one from the casebook of St Mary Mead's own spinster sleuth, Miss Jane Marple.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Inspired by the Lindberg baby kidnapping and still regarded as one of Christie's most fiendish plotlines, the killing of despised financier Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark) on a transcontinental train gives Poirot (Albert Finney) plenty to think about. But, as he interrogates an all-star cast that includes the Oscar-winning Ingrid Bergman, the pieces begin to fall into place. Beautifully designed by Tony Walton and atmospherically photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth, this evokes 12 Angry Men (1957), thanks to director Sidney Lumet's mastery of enclosed spaces.

Death on the Nile (1978).

Peter Ustinov took on the moustache-twirling duties in John Guillermin's take on an exotic mystery that was thoughtfully adapted by Anthony Shaffer, the acclaimed writer of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth (1972). David Niven provides urbane support, while the cast of suspects includes Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith and future Miss Marple, Angela Lansbury. Jack Cardiff's photography adds to the pleasures of a rattling yarn.

Evil Under the Sun (1982).

With Guy Hamilton at the helm, Shaffer and co-writer Barry Sandler send Ustinov from the Yorkshire moors to the Adriatic island of Tyrania to discern the connection between a dead woman and a millionaire. Among the guests assembled at Maggie Smiths luxury hotel are Diana Rigg, James Mason, Sylvia Miles, Roddy McDowall and Jane Birkin. But, despite the spirited playing and Christopher Challis's evocative imagery, this never quite seizes the imagination.

The Mirror Crack'd (1980).

Hamilton remains in situ and Sandler is joined by Jonathan Hales as the scene shifts to a sleepy English village for a tale of 1950s Hollywood rivalry and simmering vengeance. Angela Lansburys Miss Marple is abetted by nephew Inspector Craddock (Edward Fox), as a local is bumped off while bitter foes Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor) and Lola Brewster (Kim Novak) arrive with husbands Jason Rudd (Rock Hudson) and Marty Fenn (Tony Curtis) to make a movie about Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot is fine, but the performances are a little ripe.

THE AGNÈS VARDA COLLECTION Now in her 90th year, Agnès Varda is still going strong, even though her latest offering, Faces Places, failed to find a UK distributor. Despite seeming disarmingly mischievous, Varda is an exceptional film-maker and a woman of fierce intellect, social commitment and artistic tenacity. She may occasionally lapse into nostalgic anecdotage, but her keen insights into the real and imaginary worlds she has inhabited and the innovative way in which she has reflected them make this collection a consistently engaging experience.

La Pointe Courte (1954).

This neglected short is widely acknowledged as the first film of the nouvelle vague. Its debt to neo-realism is evident in Paul Soulignac and Louis Stein's candid footage of the Mediterranean fishermen struggling to make a living in the face of a contamination scare. But Varda opts for a discordantly stagy approach in chronicling returning native Philippe Noiret's naive bid to rescue his marriage to chic Parisian Silvia Monfort. This jarring juxtaposition (reinforced by editor Alain Resnais) emphasises the filmicness of the action.

Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962).

One of the most experimental pictures produced during the French New Wave, this freewheeling feature rigorously avoids narrative linearity as cinematographer Jean Rabier follows chanteuse Corinne Marchand through the streets of Paris, as she chat with strangers and even breaks into song with Michel Legrand to pass the time while awaiting the results of some medical tests. There's even a film-within-the film starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Le Bonheur (1965).

Political critique is dressed up as domestic drama in this vivaciously colourful, but deceptively downbeat dissection of the bourgeois mindset that won both the Prix Louis Delluc and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Real-life married Jean-Claude and Claire Drouot play the contented couple whose relationship is shattered when he confesses to an affair with Marie-France Boyer. But, such is the complacency of the citizenry in Charles De Gaulle's Fifth Republic that life goes on much as before, even after a tragedy.

L'Une chante, l'autre pas (1977).

Varda toys with the conventions of the woman's picture, as she chronicles the friendship of Thérèse Liotard and Valérie Mairesse, who are 22 and 17 when the former's photographer partner, Robert Dadiès, leaves her to raise their two children after she hangs himself after she has an abortion. Liotard finds happiness with doctor Jean-Pierre Pellegrin, while Mairesse puts her singing career on hold to marry Iranian student Ali Raffi. Often neglected, this fanfare for the common woman represents Varda's most strident statement on gender politics.

Vagabond (1984).

Alternating between features and documentaries, Varda endured mixed fortunes in France and the United States in the middle of her career. But she returned to trenchant form with this hard-hitting drama, which uses a mixture of flashbacks and testimonies to discover why 18 year-old Sandrine Bonnaire has frozen to death in a ditch. This is a much harsher society than the one the genial Corinne Marchand encountered. But Bonnaire is no angel herself and Varda pulls no punches in revealing that she is very much a product of a callous, alienating environment that is captured with a spartan lyricism by Patrick Blossier's restless camera.

Jacquot de Nantes (1990).

This fond portrait of Varda's director husband Jacques Demy as a young man covers his childhood during the Nazi Occupation, his obsession with making homemade animations and his fear that his garagist father would prevent him from studying cinema in Paris. Based on cosy conversations and the nouvelle vague confections that made Demy the heir to Vincente Minnelli, this may present an idealised vision of provincial life and Demy's complex personality. But it's also exquisite and irresistible.

The Gleaners and I (2000).

By establishing the historical precedent for salvaging discarded items for survival, pleasure and creativity, Varda imparts some dignity to the hand-to-mouth existence of her subjects. However, the canvases by Van Gogh, Breton and Millet and extracts from such film classics as Alexander Dovzhenko's Earth (1930) cannot disguise the ignominy of the gleaners' daily struggles or Varda's dismay at a civilisation that wastes as blithely as it marginalises.

The Beaches of Agnès (2008).

Varda assembles an affecting self-portrait in this deceptively effortless assemblage of photos, home-movies, exhibits, reconstructions and clips from her wondrously diverse filmography. Combining autobiography with impish digression and a cameo from Chris Marker in the form of a cartoon cat, this is a musing memoir designed to illuminate and obfuscate in equal measure. But, while she clings to her secrets, the dauntless Varda is happy to share her infectious love of life and cinema.

MELVILLE: THE ESSENTIAL BLU-RAY COLLECTION.

Borrowing a surname from the author of Moby Dick, Jean-Pierre Melville founded his own studio, Organisation Générale Cinématographique, in 1945 and retained an enviable independence throughout his career. Often serving as his own cameraman and art director, he may not always have had the biggest budgets at his disposal, but he turned his penury to aesthetic advantage in films that were often headlined by stars of the calibre of Lino Ventura, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Yet, while his work always bore the stamp of his obsession with American cinema, he declined over 50 offers from Hollywood.

Bob le Flambeur (1956).

A noirish pall covers this intricate study of honour among thieves, as gambler Roger Duchesne decides to knock over a Deauville casino after a run of bad luck. Inspector Guy Decomble is convinced his old friend has reformed. But careless talk by loyal lieutenant David Cauchy results in lover Isabelle Corey tipping the wink to informer pimp Gérard Buhr. Moodily photographed by Henri Decaë, this had a considerable influence on the young mavericks of the nouvelle vague.

Leon Morin, Prétre (1961).

As intense in its depiction of daily life during the Nazi Occupation as Le Silence de la Mer (1949), Melville's most commercial outing centres on the bond that is forged when Communist widow Emmanuelle Riva decides to have her half-Jewish daughter baptised and she picks a fight with pragmatic parish priest, Jean-Paul Belmondo. Based on a novel by Béatrix Beck, this is a provocative dissertation on belief, sacrifice and resistance.

Le Doulos (1962).

Inspired by a Pierre V. Lesou, this seething underworld saga follows burglar Serge Reggiani, as he murders fence René Lefèvre for killing his girl while he was behind bars. Superintendant Jean Desailly suspects Reggiani of the crime and of stealing loot belonging to club-owning gangster Michel Piccoli. He gets a tip off that Reggiani is planning a robbery. But, when he is killed trying to foil the raid, informer Jean-Paul Belmondo has to act quickly to avoid being accused of setting up Desailly. Gritty, cynical and satisfyingly complex. Army of Shadows (1969).

Drawing on his own wartime experiences to supplement Joseph Kessel's acclaimed novel, Melville depicts resisting the Nazis as a vital job rather than the stuff of comic-book heroics. Thus, even though Marseilles cell leader Lino Ventura is sprung from camps and prisons and is smuggled into London to meet General De Gaulle, his first duty is to comrades like Paul Crauchet, whose arrest prompts him to risk all to rescue him. With Simone Signoret superb as a Maquis housewife, this is uncompromising and compelling.

Le Cercle Rouge (1970).

Reuniting with Alain Delon after Le Samouraï (1967), Melville again examines the bond between crooks, as Delon follows up a tip-off about a jewellery shop in Place Vendôme by hooking up with escaped prisoner Gian Maria Volonté and alcoholic ex-cop Yves Montand. But, while the meticulously staged heist goes according to plan, the trio are betrayed by snitch François Périer and pursued by cop Bourvil, who not only went to the police academy with Montand, but also let Volonté slip through his grasp. Strikingly shot in bleached colours by Henri Decaë.

Un Flic (1972).

Melville's swan song is a ménage policier that pits Catherine Deneuve in between Parisian commissioner Alain Delon and urbane crook Richard Crenna. The robbery during a seaside storm and the audacious helicopter descent into a speeding Paris-Lisbon express are the picture's most memorable moments. But Delon's investigation of a prostitute's murder and his dealings with cross-dressing narc Valérie Wilson are every bit as authentic as the downbeat depiction of the capital and its world-weary citizens.

THE ANDREI TARKOVSKY DELUXE COLLECTION.

Andrei Tarkovsky died on 29 December 1986. Despite completing only seven features during the last quarter century of the Soviet era, he remains one of cinema's most enigmatic visionaries. Yet, such was his antipathy towards commercial film-making, there is no guarantee that he would have prospered under more accommodating circumstances. Indeed, Tarkovsky's art may well have been very different without the challenge of having to circumvent the restrictions imposed by a totalitarian state.

Ivan's Childhood (1962).

Adapted from a Vladimir Bogomolov story, this pertinent memoir of the Great Patriotic War turns around 12 year-old Kolya Burlaiev, who survives the massacre that accounted for his family only to be sent behind enemy lines as a spy. Meticulously composing Vadim Yusov's monochrome imagery, Tarkovsky uses natural light, birch trees, water drops and human faces to create a form of poetic linkage that was feted by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Ingmar Bergman in winning the Golden Lion at Venice.

Andrei Rublev (1966).

Little is known about this 15th-century icon painter. So, Tarkovsky and co-scenarist Andrei Konchalovsky based their 10 chapters around incidents from an era of pagan ignorance and Tartar tyranny that had a bearing on recent Soviet history. The role of religion is crucial, with the closing colour montage celebrating Rublev's ability to find beauty amidst brutality. But this is primarily a treatise on the artist's duty to record the injustice, chaos and violence happening around them.

Solaris (1972).

Tarkovsky became best known in the West for this adaptation of Stanislas Lem's sci-fi classic, in which psychologist Donatas Banionis is sent to a space station to investigate a spate of deaths comes face to face with supernatural phenomena and his own regrets and fears. Both an allegory on the failing Communist experiment and a rumination on man's potential for salvation, this mesmerising rumination on memory, science, fear and renewal didn't impress its maker, however, who declared it `the worst of my films'.

Mirror (1975).

First mooted in 1964, frequently redrafted over the next decade to satisfy the censors and the director himself, and then requiring 20 rough cuts to realise what he called `sculpting in time', this is Tarkovsky's most personal film. Divided into three eras (the 1930s, the war years and the present) and drawing on childhood memories, his father's poetry and archive footage, he succeeds in visualising ideas about time, the Motherland, the artistic impulse and death in a stream of consciousness reverie that epitomised the filmic theory inspired by Aristotle. It's hard work, but it's also a pivotal work, whose audacity and ingenuity is matched by its lyricism and poignancy.

Stalker (1979).

Tarkovsky suffered heartache and a heart attack while adapting Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic. Like many viewers, he struggled to fathom the precise meaning of guide Aleksandr Kaidanovsky's progress from a sepia-tinted city across the mysteriously colourful Zone to help writer Anatoli Solonitsyn and professor Nikolai Grinko reach the Room capable of fulfilling all desires. But this densely complex, stylistically austere and teasingly contradictory allegory about existence, faith, integrity and the debasing power of ambition teaches us the importance of survival and the search for love.

Nostalgia (1983).

Exile weighs heavily on Tarkovsky in this deceptively simple tale of a Russian writer whose research trip to Italy turns into a personal pilgrimage. Scripted with Tonino Guerra, it centres on academic Oleg Yankovsky, who befriends homeless eccentric Erland Josephson, who believes he can save the planet by carrying a lighted candle across a hot spring. Slipping between monochrome, sepia and colour and incorporating dreams and flashbacks to explore its recurring dualities, this was declared a cinematic miracle by Krzysztof Kieslowski.

The Sacrifice (1986)/ With its location (Faro), themes (alienation, faith and death), cinematographer (Sven Nykvist) and star (Erland Josephson) all primarily associated with Ingmar Bergman, the Swede's influence is all-pervasive throughout this sombre rumination on nuclear conflagration and self-sacrifice. The rigid formalism and uncompromising detachment may prove alienating. But Tarkovsky insisted that films didn't have to be enjoyable to be valuable and this intense, measured treatise on humanity's need for something to believe in proved an apt valedictory statement.

BUÑUEL: THE ESSENTIAL BLU-RAY COLLECTION.

Luis Buñuel once said, `What I am aiming to do in my films is to disturb people and destroy the rules of a kind of conformism that wants everyone to think that they are living in the best of all possible worlds.' Throughout his career, he delighted in his status as the tormentor-in-chief of the Conservative and the Catholic. Yet, before his death in Mexico City in 1983, he spent many of his final days in the company of a priest.

Diary of a Chambermaid (1964).

Buñuel revisits Octave Mirbeau's novel rather than Jean Renoir's 1946 reworking in an underrated drama that launched his screenwriting collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière. Switching the action to the late 1920s, the pair exploit maid Jeanne Moreau's dealings with foot fetishist Jean Ozenne, his frigid daughter Françoise Lugagne, her frustrated husband Michel Piccoli and their murderously rapacious gamekeeper Georges Géret to consider the role played by class and religion in the rise of Fascism.

Belle de Jour (1967).

Buñuel won the Golden Lion at Venice for this coolly amoral study of suburban prostitution, which is dominated by the finest performance of Catherine Deneuve's career, as the prim wife of doctor Jean Sorrel, who resists the attentions of old friend Michel Piccoli only to become entangled with obsessive client Pierre Clémenti while working in the brothel run by Geneviève Page.

The Milky Way (1969).

Putting religious dogma under satirical scrutiny, this picaresque joins vagrants Paul Frankeur and Laurent Terzieff on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostela. En route, they encounter Jesus (Bernard Verley), Mary (Edith Scob), Satan (Pierre Clémenti) and the Marquis de Sade (Michel Piccoli), while debating the merits of the Catholic faith and such heresies as Jansenism.and Priscillianism.

Tristana (1970).

Having humiliated the Franco regime with Viridiana (1961), Buñuel returned to the pages of Benito Pérez Galdós for this deceptively unconventional drama about the relationship between innocent waif Catherine Deneuve, her aristocratic guardian, Fernando Rey, and dashing artist, Franco Nero. Despite losing a leg during a serious illness, however, Deneuve proves anything but a victim, as she seeks to establish her independence and wreak her revenge on the hypocritical abusive Rey.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).

Always a Surrealist at heart, Buñuel charts the misadventures of six characters in search of a meal in this scathing Oscar-winning satire. It all starts when Paul Frankeur and Delphine Seyrig get their days mixed up when they take Mirandan ambassador Fernando Rey and wife Bulle Ogier for dinner with Jean-Pierre Cassel and Stéphane Audran. But events keep conspiring to keep the civilised sextet from settling down. The performances are as sharp as Buñuel and Carrière's script, but don't overlook Pierre Guffroy's endlessly ingenious production design.

The Phantom of Liberty (1974).

Harking back to the scurrilous subversion of his collaborations with Salvador Dalí - Un Chien andalou (1929) and L'Age d'or (1930) - this cavalcade of sketches, symbols and snipes is like a summation of Buñuel's pet social, sexual and spiritual themes. Familiar faces include Michel Piccoli, Jean-Claude Brialy, Monica Vitti and Jean Rochefort. But this is a dazzling and dizzying experience that requires repeat viewing, even though there are no guarantees of enlightenment or entertainment.

That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).

Buñuel bowed out with this adaptation of Pierre Louÿs's 1898 novel, La Femme et le Pantin, which had also inspired Josef von Sternberg's The Devil Is a Woman (1935). The action centres on the efforts of smug bourgeois Mathieu (Fernando Rey) to get Sevillean dance Conchita (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) into bed. Much has been made of two actresses playing one character, but the best gag is the name of the terrorist cadre: The Revolutionary Army of the Baby Jesus.

THREE FILMS BY KEN LOACH.

The fascinating thing about these features from the middle of Ken Loach's long and decorated career is that each picture was scripted by a different writer. Subsequently, he has been locked into a 14-film collaboration with Paul Laverty that has rather calcified his approach to the contentious topics that he still tackles with laudable courage and unflinching conviction. Some may lament the seepage of the raucous humour that characterised the social realist snapshots that re-established Loach as a feature director after a tricky transition from making hard-hitting television films. But what's most notable about this triptych is that they feel like stories about real people rather than melodramatic political tracts.

Riff-Raff (1991).

A romance between a Scottish drifter (Robert Carlyle) and an Irish singer (Emer McCourt) provides the rather predictable dramatic core to this Bill Jesse screenplay. But the scenes on the building site are packed with anti-Tory invective, as three labourers - named Larry, Mo and Shem after the Three Stooges (Ricky Tomlinson, George Moss and Jimmy Coleman) - get involved with various scams and a campaign to improve safety conditions.

Raining Stones (1993).

With jobs scarce, northerner Bruce Jones struggles to find the money for his daughter's communion dress in this Jim Allen scenario, which refuses to sentimentalise poverty and injects an air of bleak humour, as Jones and pal Ricky Tomlinson try to make a few extra quid by stealing a sheep (whose meat they try to flog in the pub) and lifting the turf from the Conservative club bowls club. But Loach also captures the desperation these men endure, as they duck and dive and fend off loan sharks in a bid to banish the emasculating shame of unemployment.

Ladybird, Ladybird (1994).

Chrissy Rock won the Best Actress prize at Berlin for her gutsy performance in this fact-based Rona Munro drama, as a small-time singer with four children by different partners and a chance of overdue happiness with South American political refugee, Vladimir Vega. However, vengeful and abusive ex Ray Winstone has a score to settle and he is not content just to see the kids taken into care. With its echoes of Cathy Come Home (1966), the delivery ward sequence ranks among the most harrowing things Loach has ever done.