Blown away

DVD club: Truffaut was to the fore as critic, group promoter and writer-director and his feature debut, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups, a slang term 'Faire les quatre cents coups' meaning to raise hell), ignited the 1959 Cannes Festival from which he'd been barred as a critic for his vituperative reviews.

A Year Without Love

Andrew Pulver: A gloomy tale about a sensitive young poet who is falling into the grip of Aids-related illnesses, and starts a chronicle of what he thinks is the last year of his life.

Tony Takitani

Philip French: An exquisite Japanese movie with a minimum of dialogue, a continual voice-over narrative and carefully composed shots.

Hell

Philip French: The acting isn't to be faulted, but the guilt-laden atmosphere and teasing script make for a dull time.

U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha

Philip French: ... a ragged, watchable piece, but much inferior to the magnificent Otto Preminger-Oscar Hammerstein Carmen Jones.

13

(Cert 15)

Tsotsi

Philip French: ... this deceptively simple movie brings to mind Italian neo-realist classics of the 1940s