LE MANS 66 aka FORD V FERRARI

I absolutely loved LE MANS 66 - a superbly made character drama centred around a beautiful friendship played out against the world of motor racing, where the "pure" fans are up against the soulless commercial users.  

The film stars Christian Bale as Ken Miles - a true pure racer. He's one of those people born with the talent to really understand a car and to be able to test it and improve it through sheer engineering knowhow and hard work.  He's also a totally unglamorous Brummie, with an inability to play the corporate game and bullshit people.  As much as I loved SENNA and all the glamour of racing, there's just something wonderful about seeing a guy who's not conventionally gorgeous or charismatic do just as well through sheer talent.  I didn't know I needed a hero who was a cheeky sweary Brummie constantly drinking a cup of tea.  But I did.  And it's just so delicious hearing his old-fashioned swearing - and his sheer joy when he races the perfect lap. God only knows what American viewers will make of Miles calling his son a "dirty stop out" or singing H-A-P-P-Y though.  And the scene where he comes off the track at Le Mans to be told his cup of tea is waiting and to hear him respond "thanks Chaz" is just a thing of brilliance!

Miles' friend and colleague is Carell Shelby, played with an almost Clintonesque drawl by Matt Damon.  He was at that point the other American to have ever won Le Mans, and when forced to retire for health reasons, he created a boutique sports car manufacturing company.  Shelby is everything Miles isn't - charismatic, able to schmooze corporates, but both share their true love of racing.  We never doubt that they truly love and respect each other, and that they bring out the best in each other. It's a pleasure to be in their company.

The conflict comes when the bankrupt Enzo Ferrari, the third pure racer in this film, refuses to sell his company to Ford because he knows they'll put commercial interests above racing.  So Henry Ford II, in a fit of pique, decides to create a racing team to beat Ferrari at Le Mans just to humiliate Enzo Ferrari. He doesn't actually give a shit about racing and neither does his oleaginous side-kick Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas).  In fact, they are so obtuse that when Ken Miles finally gets to Le Mans, and manages to get a wondrous four lap lead on the field, they actually ask him to slow down so that all the Ford cars can finish together! It's a truly humiliating thing to ask, and shows an utter disregard for Miles' achievement.  Bizarrely, it's the man who we think is going to be the villain of the piece at the start - Ferrari - who literally tips his hat to Miles, out of appreciation of his artistry.

This film succeeds because everything about it is just right.  The script - from Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, Jason Keller and director James Mangold - is perfectly constructed and rooted in authentic relationships and emotions.  For sure, the racing scenes are exhilarating and beautifully recreated. You can almost smell the petrol coming off the screen. But all this would mean nothing if we didn't absolutely care about Miles and Shelby.  It's also not a film that allows us to have easy one-dimensional portraits. As I said, Ferrari starts off as a rude tricksy tyrant but ends as just a kid who loves cars and truly appreciates them. Henry Ford II - who for the most part is a corporate arsehole - has a moment of almost childlike wonder at a car and an almost pathetic wish that his daddy had seen the GT40. Characters with smaller roles seem real and rounded.  Miles' wife Mollie (Catriona Balfe) is supportive but strong and no-nonsense, with a real generosity of spirit.  And the acting is uniformly good. Bale should get all the awards, but I even loved Damon. There's a quiet moment near the end of the film where he's deeply distressed. He gets into a sports car and revs the engine. The sound of the engine is soothing to him - a car addict.  It's both terrifying and necessary. There aren't any words - it's all on Damon's face.  This is good stuff indeed.

LE MANS 66 has a running time of 152 minutes. The film played Toronto, Telluride and London and was released in the UK and USA this weekend.

BUG - unforgettable, excruciating, unbelievably overlooked

Agnes is an alcoholic coke addict who hides from her abusive ex-husband in a seedy motel in an unspecified Southern state. The cine-literate will note her white-trash uniform: filthy wife-beater, greasy hair and cut-off jeans; abode: the sort of motel room that hides Psychos behind the shower curtain and voyeurs behind the air vents. Agnes drinks to mask a real, profound sorrow. She is retreating from life. When Peter appears, he seems almost too earnest...but in her loneliness, Agnes takes him in, relieved to find a companion by whom she is not threatened. These two form an unlikely bond despite the mocking, threatening visits from Agnes' ex. Agnes' desperation to have someone in her life, and to make sense of her grief, makes her pathetically susceptible to Peter's paranoid delusions of government conspiracy and experimentation.

If Agnes expresses our need to believe, even if we knowingly delude ourselves in that belief, then Peter is the extreme reaction of every sane, right-thinking human being to the travesties of justice and trust that we experience on a daily basis. Every time my government takes away a right I have had since Magna Carta; every time I bring home a DVD with an RFID chip; every second I inch closer to a compulsary ID card; my faith in the system is eroded. It may take severe mental illness to get to Peter's stage of paranoia and revulsion, but what makes his predicament so terrifying is that, on one level, I can sympathise with it. To that end, BUG is the movie that INVASION so desperately wanted to be - a perfect expression of angst in an era of twin fears; terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Tracy Letts' screenplay places these two characters in a claustrophobic motel room and watches them work each other up into a state of frenzied insanity. The trajectory is clear from the outset, but it is testament to the script and the performances that the audience is fascinated by their disintegration and fearful for them at every step. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are astonishingly raw in their roles as Agnes and Peter. The script and direction take them into the realms of the surreal. The movie flirts with a very black, dead-pan humour. Some of their actions and dialogue seems bizarre - maybe even laughable. But thanks to the conviction of their performances, the audience is not allowed to break the tension with a nervous laugh. Were it not for the extreme nature of the scenario and the fundamental cowardice of the voters, one could imagine both actors being nominated for Oscars. In smaller supporting roles, I was impressed by Harry Connick Junior who gives a very carefully modulated performance as Agnes' voluble but menacing ex-husband.

As for William Friedkin's direction and Michael Grady's photography, I can't praise them enough for managing to take the stock elements of a gothic horror and turn them into an entirely original, oppressive, psychological horror. A classic example of their art is the scene in which Agnes wakes up to find a fresh pot of coffee brewing. She takes a cup and wanders to the bathroom to thank Peter. The door opens and steam rolls out, elegantly obscuring a leaner torso thant we would expect from Peter. The head is obscured by steam, but the stance and voice are all wrong. Agnes' ex steps into the room and into the light. Her dream of a passive partner dissolves into the reality of a brutish husband. It's all so beautifully done

So, let us be clear. BUG is an amazing film. By turns emotionally engaging, excruciating to watch, impossibly to turn away from, frightening and fascinating. Why then, is it only playing on one small screen in the Odeon Panton Street in London? Why is there no publicity? Why was the screening near empty? This film has been done a great disservice by its distributors. This will no doubt fuel its status as Cult Movie of 2007.

BUG played Cannes, Toronto and London back in 2006 and Berlin 2007. It was released in France, the US, Turkey, Russia, Greece, Brazil and Thailand earlier this year and is currently on release in the UK. BUG is available on Region 1 DVD.