At Land + Badlands

Terrence Malick's masterpiece, screening with Maya Deren's haunting short film which moves through a series of shifting spaces where landscape becomes dreamscape. To book online click here.

Badlands

One of the most impressive directorial debuts ever, Terrence Malick's film focuses on James Dean-lookalike garbage-collector Kit (Martin Sheen) and listless schoolgirl Holly (Sissy Spacek), who embark on an apparently random killing-spree after the girl's father objects to the pair's relationship.

The superb recreation of the late 1950s, through Jack Fisk's subtle art direction, Tak Fujimoto's limpid camerawork and Malick's inspired use of music, evokes a postwar rural Midwest of near-halcyon innocence, despite the ever-present threat (and history) of violence. But what makes the film so special is Malick's sophisticated, coolly ironic approach to motivation, with Holly's voiceover (couched in the style of the celebrity-obsessed magazines she's forever reading) tellingly balanced both by the fugitive couple's actions and by Kit's oddly moralistic pronouncements, uttered with a view to posterity. The brilliance of the leads' performances is merely the jewel in an exquisite crown.

At Land

In Maya Deren's haunting short film the protagonist (Deren) emerges from the sea and magically moves from beach to a bourgeois dinner party and on, through a series of shifting spaces where landscape become dreamscape.

Badlands

Directed by:

Terrence Malick

Cast:

Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri

Country:

USA

Year:

1973

Running time:

94min

Certificate:

15

At Land

Directed by:

Maya Deren

Cast:

John Cage, Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, Parker Tyler

Country:

USA

Year:

1944

Running time:

15min