Jun 16th  
Walkabout*    
(GB/Australia/US 1970)                    
Twentieth Century Fox/Max L. Raab-Si Litvinoff. 100m. 

A teenage schoolgirl and her younger brother are deserted in the wild outback to wander along  with an Aborigine native before eventually finding sanctuary.
Mainly symbolic rite-of-passage drama excuse for the director to photograph arid Australian locations, quite arty and less harsh than the similar Lord of the Flies, and also something of a cult for those familiar with the Jenny Agutter of The Railway Children, who somehow manages to keep her poise throughout the whole bewildering endeavour.

Written by: Edward Bond, from the novel by James Vance Marshall.
Producer: Si Litvinoff.
Director/Photography: Nicolas Roeg.
Starring: Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, David Gulpilil, John Meillon.
Music: John Barry.

Jun 15th  
Chevalier** (12A)  
(Curzon Colchester)   

(US/Czech 2022)
Searchlight/TSG/Element Pictures. 108m.

The largely unfictionalised history of an illegitimate black son of a French aristocrat, whose gift for music wins him favour with Marie Antoinette who accords him Chevalier status, until racial prejudice and the French Revolution turns fate the other way.
The film opens with a likely apocryphal encounter where Mozart is upstaged by Joseph Bologne, although this works very much in the spirit of an unheralded musical pioneer of the 18th century (suppressed later by Napoleon), with good period detail without too much concession to recent trends, with the prejudices and the pleasures of the time reasonably accurate.

Written by: Stefani Robinson.
Producers: Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Stefani Robinson, Dianne McGunigle.
Director: Stephen Williams.
Starring: Kelvin Harrison, Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton (as Marie Antoinette), Ronke Adekoluejo, Minnie Driver, Martin Csokas, Jim High, Alex Fitzalan, Henry Lloyd-Hughes (as Gluck), Sian Clifford, Joseph Prowen (as Mozart).
Photography: Jess Hall.
Music: Kris Bowers.

Jun 11th  
Audrey Rose**  
(US 1977)                              
United Artists. 113m. Panavision

A New York family are stalked by a mysterious man who claims their daughter is a reincarnation of his own, suffering from nightmares of her previous life.
The latest in a cycle of "child possession" films of the time, a flawed but well acted psychic thriller despite some pretentious longueurs in the later stages.

Written by: Frank De Felitta, from his novel.
Producers: Joe Wizan, Frank De Felitta.
Director: Robert Wise.
Starring: Marsha Mason, Anthony Hopkins, John Beck, Susan Swift, Stephen Pearlman, John Hillerman, Norman Lloyd, Ivy Jones.
Photography: Victor J. Kemper.
Music: Michael Small.
Editing: Carl Kress.

Jun 7th  
A Clever Woman** (15)  
(Ultimate Picture Palace, Oxford)

(GB 2021)
Tull Stories. 88m. ws

Two sisters come to terms with the death of their mother by performing some of her music and songs.
Documentary-style reparation drama, thoughtful and still enjoyable, relying mostly on its performers to provide the dramatic thrust.

w, d: Jon Sanders
p: Anna Mottram, Jon Sanders
s: Josie Lawrence, Tanya Myers, James Northcote, Anna Mottram
ph: David Scott
m: Douglas Finch