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Darling (1965)

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Darling is an adult fairytale about a woman who marries a prince but because this is a John Schlesinger film she doesn't live happily ever. Diana Scott is my favourite Julie Christie role, she's a 1960s cold "It" girl, not as openly malevolent as Meredith (Charlotte Rampling) in Georgy Girl, or as delusionally thick as Yvonne in Smashing Time but still with all the ticks in the right place to score 100% on an "Are you a Sociopath?" test. Superficially charming, impulsive, callous, she'll use you to get to the top, although because this is the 1960s and she's a woman, she's going to get used right back. The film is also an incisive look at the hypocrisy of the world of entertainment and celebrity. Perhaps not topics that require much effort to skewer, and Schlesinger doesn't pull punches. A posh charity dinner, backdropped with images of famine in Africa, has black children dragged up with 18th century wigs serving the food. One of the rich ...
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Deep End (1970)

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I love Deep End and not just because it contains two of my favourite (very different) British actresses. I love it not just because it has an amazing soundtrack by Cat Stevens. I love it not just because of its obsession with the colour red, or its wonderful cameos. But all of those things make it stand out as one of the best films of the late 60s/early 70s. Deep End is a sexual awakening film with a difference - almost everyone is a sexual predator. It is both jarring and visually fascinating. Although a British film, this is not Britain as we know it - the director, Jerzy Skolimowski, is Polish, and the film's style feels distinctly European. Skolimowski got the actors to improvise some of the scenes, giving them an unpredictable, unpolished energy at times. Even if you were around in London in the 1970s, I think you'd still find the world that this film depicts to be discombobulating, perhaps because a lot of it was shot in Munich,including the fading, rococco leisure ce...
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