Amateur

Amateur! Accountancy, Murder, Amnesia, Torture, Ecstasy, Understanding, Redemption; just some of the topics covered in this gem of a film. Nineties indie noir returns with this welcome re-issue on blu ray of Hal Hartley’s 90’s cult classic. Set in New York the story opens with an unconscious Thomas lying in a New York street. When he comes around he is suffering from amnesia. Wandering into a diner he meets with ex nun Isabelle who is trying to make a living writing porn. Together they try to work who he is and where he’s come from. Meanwhile, on the other side of town Sofia in trying to escape her cruel boyfriend and a life of being a porn actress. The boyfriend it later transpires is Thomas and she thinks she has killed him by throwing him out of a window. She turns to Edward, friend of Thomas and accountant to mysterious Jacque, who has been bankrolling Thomas and the porn films Sophie stars in. Trouble comes though when Sophie hatches a plan to exhort money from Jacque. Throw in a couple of hit men chasing both her and the not dead boyfriend over town and you have a cult classic that had art house cinema lovers talking for the next couple of years. It also helped launch the careers of Martin Donovan and Isabelle Huppert and it sold thousands of posters of quirky beauty Elina Lowensohn. More importantly though it cemented Hartley’s reputation as a serious player in the hipster indie film scene. It boasts a great cast and besides those already mentioned Damien Young is fantastic as the idiosyncratic accountant driven mad from a spell of electric shock torture from hit men Chuck Montgomery and Dave Simonds. Amateur is one of Hal Hartley’s best films. Watching twenty five years on and the film has dated very well and manages to feel both contemporary and classic in equal measure. It should be in your 100 films you need to watch. If you haven’t then watch it. If you have watch it on blu ray, although if you have watched it you probably don’t need me to tell you that. This is part of a release of three of Hartley’s most popular movies that includes The Unbelievable Truth (out May 27th), Simple Men (10 June) and Amateur out on May 11th, all are worth having.