Silent Light (2007)

Director: Carlos Reygadas

Though it admittedly requires a great deal of patience to get through, Reygadas's third feature is a sensitive, mature film that capitalizes on the virtues of his previous work whilst eschewing its sensationalism and trading its pretentious obscurity for thoughtful complexity and ambiguity.

It focuses on the affair between Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr), a married member of a religious sect, and Marianne (Maria Pankratz), and its repercussions. As usual with Reygadas, we experience things as the characters experience them, and that simple but affecting storyline means that this quality yields far greater results this time around: in one especially effective and typically understated scene, Johan gives his wife Esther (Miriam Teows) the heartbreaking news during an awkward car journey; the camera stares listlessly from the passenger seat out of the window at the rain as she does.

The meticulous time-lapse photography of dawn breaking in the astonishing opening scene sets the pace and tone: this is a very slow film (virtually static); but rich, and visually considered to a high degree.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

A mad, disorienting film despite its stately pace, Anderson's superb return to form after the blundering Punch-Drunk Love and the overblown Magnolia is distinguished by excellent writing (frequently funny, sinister and bizarre), rich photography, Jonny Greenwood's remarkable score, and, of course, Daniel Day-Lewis's towering turn as oil prospector Daniel Plainview. His casting certainly builds on his existing Bill the Butcher persona from Scorsese's Gangs of New York, but in Plainview he finds greater depth (and with it greater ambiguity) - and more weirdness.

Grindhouse (2007)

Directors: Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie

A commercial flop, and not faring much better critically either, the Grindhouse project is certainly a bizarre endeavour. It's true that the irony of spending $53 million on recreating the feel of B-movies means that the line between total trash and stylish piece of art is often blurred; and it's not always clear which Grindhouse is trying to be.

The authenticity of Tarantino's feature, Death Proof, is marred by his relentless focus on his trademark features such as "snappy" dialogue (actually not snappy, just irritating, and boring, as in most of Kill Bill), and an obscure, retro soundtrack (here glaringly foregrounded as the boldly labelled record goes on in the bar). As such, it seems more like Tarantino's celebration of his own aesthetic than of Grindhouse cinema. There are moments that fit right in here - the climactic car chase and the fantastic ending among them - but so much more could have been done with his segment.

That said, Rodriguez's segment, Planet Terror, is an absolute scream. Intelligent it ain't, but it is knowing; funny and bloody, and, crucially, unpretentious, it makes for a hugely enjoyable pastiche. Additionally, the fake trailers (from directors Rodriguez, Roth, Wright and Zombie), positioned before and between the features, are uniformly superb.

Though it may not justify its budget, its novelty value may wear thin in places, and it may be too smug for its own good, Grindhouse ultimately provides more than three hours of good (bad) late-night entertainment, regardless of its aims. This is one that should be seen in the cinema, at night, as a whole (not in its extended, individual incarnations, which, taken out of context, don't have anything like the same effect). It's an experience, and that's the whole point of the thing - though this means that as a film with intrinsic value, it isn't necessarily much.

La Vie En Rose (2007)

Director: Oliver Dahan

Dahan's Edith Piaf biopic opts for a non-linear approach that quickly becomes wearisome. It means that we are offered only glimpses of certain aspects of Piaf's character and of certain stages in her life; even some highly significant events are largely glossed over (for instance, the death of Piaf's child is momentarily shoehorned into the final sequence through clumsy use of flashback).

For all its refusal to embrace straightforward structure, however, the film is far from experimental; mostly it's a by-the-numbers, Oscar-friendly bore. Piaf's parents are little more than two-dimensional evil caricatures, for example; and then there's the highly predictable decision to end the film with a performance of "Je Ne Regrette Rien". Especially misguided, completely unnecessary and just inexplicable, is a saccharine scene in which Piaf communicates with a guardian angel.

Cotillard is undeniably impressive, but since her performance is sliced up and is part of such a mediocre melodrama, it's often difficult to appreciate.