andrewinet

Loved the Trainspotting / Shallow Grave aesthetic for the 1994 scenes - I'm sure Danny Boyle and team would approve! Really caught the period beautifully.

Lewis Gribben as the young Cameron Walker was a compelling counterpoint to the shifting, shambolic older self in Peter Capaldi's brilliantly lurking performance.

Story structure was well put together, despite what others on here say about the ending. I beg to differ.

Black Mirror at its best wants you to think but I think the message here was crystal clear: The old cro-magnon core still drives us along, but technology has been worming its way inside our brain and changing our chemistry. How's that going to play out?

The producers managed to assemble a quality cast - Bernard Hill, Virginia McKenna, Alun Armstrong, Sue Johnson, Una Stubbs, Simon Callow and more - so I thought it might be worth a watch. It wasn't.

The script was an embarrassment - paper thin characters, poorly constructed scenes, and a plot like it had been thrown up over a drunken weekend. How did they manage to line up so many good actors?

Money, I suppose. Certainly the budget didn't go on technical or artistic talent behind the camera.

The end credits gave some clues. They went on and on... and on. Every background extra was named. Seriously - every single one. And there were loads. I can only assume they all paid to be in it and that accounted for a swathe of the budget.

So who was the mastermind behind this amateurish drivel? I came here to find out.

Step forward... Nick Knowles. Yes, him. The big gaffer / beloved TV personality / alpha geezer wiv a heart of gold from that BBC DIY show was the executive producer and, more significantly, one of the writers.

I can only assume Diamond Nick offered to renovate all the actors' houses if they'd appear in his half-arsed muddle of a movie. And maybe all the crew's kitchens and extras' back bedrooms.

Hope so. Hope it keeps him so busy he never again gets near a laptop to attempt another script.

Best get a professional, Nick. Saves you money in the long run.

Saw this at the Glasgow Film Theatre in the late 1990s when it enjoyed a little renaissance on the back of Terry Gilliam's '12 Monkeys', which I'd loved.

Good as Gilliam is, this is something else again. A work of art comparable to a Picasso painting or a Beckett play.

I don't speak French so had to follow the subtitles, but the choice, framing and pacing of the images works beautifully. And the achingly brief moment when the stills begin to move had my heart in my mouth.

Although set in the future, someone expecting more standard sci-fi fare may be disappointed. This short film is a genuinely profound exploration on the conflicted nature of humanity set within a deep meditation on the nature of time.

I've watched this wonderful artwork several times since and though I see something slightly different each time - as the makers clearly knew - it never fails to move me.

So please, suspend your usual expectations of film, story, character and plot. Open yourself up to an experience, and watch 'La Jetee'.