Juggertrout

Death of a Man in the Balkans begins with a clearly distraught man turning on a web camera in his apartment. The screen goes black, we hear a gunshot, and we are returned to the point of view of the web camera where the man's body has fallen tantalizingly just out of view. There's a knock on the door, an ordinary looking man - his neighbour - walks in and sees the man's dead body.

So begins a series of farcical exits and entrances, including, but not limited to, neighbours, real estate agents, opportunistic funeral directors, paramedics, police, and amusingly, a pizza delivery man. Each offers their own, unguarded take on the suicide. His neighbours struggle to remember his name, but recall that he was a somewhat well-known composer, the paramedics and police are unenthusiastic and more concerned with their mobile phones than with the dead body. A real estate agent stoically tries to give a lady a tour of this apartment, despite the man's body gracing the living room floor. A pizza delivery man shows up. The composer had ordered it in advance for the assembled crowd.

All this is captured by a switched on web camera, which records unnoticed until the film's last few minutes. Thus the film is presented, convincingly, as one long unbroken shot unfolding in real time. Death of a Man in the Balkans is a funny, entertaining and original look at a man's death and various people's reactions to it. It may not be the best farce out there, but I left feeling satisfied by a film with a great premise, spot-on performances and some very funny dialogue.

Frenzy is a very atypical Hitchcock film. The men aren't charming, the women are neither blonde nor beautiful, lines like "He's been pulling your tits" and "I let you finger me!" are fired off casually, while Hitchcock's black humour descends into borderline tastelessness ("I hear he rapes the women before he strangles them," "Well at least this cloud has a silver lining – hahahaha"). That said there still some typical Hitchcock tropes present, mainly the idea of the wrongly accused man, but it's clear that Hitchcock is intent on challenging audiences' perception of him with a more atypical style of direction and scenes of remarkable brutality.

Oh yes there is brutality. Free from Hays Code restrictions, Hitchcock seems to have gone wild with the possibilities of shocking the audience. Nudity, swearing and violence litter the film, but it's the disturbing, excruciating, almost painful rape scene cum asphyxiation that really stands out. Even by today's standards this scene is brutal, so imagine how it would have been in 1972. In fact, along with A Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs which emerged around the same time, it must be one of the most disturbing rape scenes in cinematic history, and a point of concern for critics who have often labelled Hitchcock as a misogynist. It's mainly this scene that explains why Frenzy remains Hitchcock's only 18 rated film in the UK.

After this gratuitous scene of exploitation however, Hitchcock seems content with disturbing us in other ways. The next 'event' is a masterpiece of how to show nothing but elicit everything. The murderer escorts an unassuming young woman up to his flat, and lets her in, remarking "You know, you're just my type…" As the door closes, the camera slowly backs away, creeps down the stairs, floats out the door and angles across the street as people go about their hectic daily business. It's arguably the most meaningful, disturbing, economic tracking shot ever performed, and shows Hitchcock can genuinely chill without flamboyant rape and asphyxiation scenes.

Frenzy is by no means top tier Hitchcock, but it does contain enough flashes of brilliance to put it close and justify its position as 'the last great Hitchcock film'.

Waterboys is a zany, sweet comedy about a group of boys who get roped into starting a synchronised swimming team, and then have to get together a routine for an exhibition in a few weeks time! It's fun stuff that aims low and hits hard. There are lots of great sight gags and other slapstick comedy, but there's also an interesting love story and fantastic acting from the boys.

The film rolls along at a great pace, with Yaguchi a talented director treating us to lengthy tracking shots and other technical flourishes. The film never bores and always pleases, and as we head towards the climax, the comedy keeps coming, and the final 'routine' will delight you with its genius. A fun, endlessly rewatchable madcap comedy.