KARLOVY VARY Through the past to the present Russian films at the 37th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Russia has a far larger presence at Karlovy Vary than the Czech Republic's closer neighbours, doubtless because directors from the country provided some of the strongest films in the festival. Andrew James Horton surveys the Russian fare on show. Elegy to history Aleksandr Sokurov's Russkii kovcheg (Russian Ark) Sokurov's latest film is not only a pinnacle of his own oeuvre but also of recent Russian cinema. Auteurs old and new Aleksandr Rogozhkin's Kukushka (Cuckoo) Kira Muratova's Chekhovskie motivy (Chekhovian Motifs) Sergei Potemkin's Mashina prishla (The Machine is Here) Valery Fokin's Prevrashchenie (Metamorphosis) Musing gangsters Sergei Bodrov's Sestry (Sisters) Ekaterina Kharlamova's Memorabilia—sobranie pamjaatnykh veshchei (Memorabilia—A Collection of Memorable Things) Aleksandr Strizhenov and Sergei Ginsburg's Upast' verkh (Falling Up) Konstantin Murzenko's Aprel' (April) Valery Rybarev's Prikovanni (The Chained One) Back into the past Nikolai Lebedev's Zvezda (The Star) Aleksandr Kott's Ekhali dva shofera (Two Drivers) Also of interest Rich rewards in simpler forms: Russian films at the 36th Karlovy Vary Film Festival (2001)

The hidden face of horror Georges Franju's Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1959) In this special Kinoeye horror section, an international trio of film scholars—Curtis Bowman (US), Elizabeth Cowie (UK) and Reynold Humphries (France)—present original and theoretically distinct takes on Franju's 1959 masterpiece. Dr Franju's "House of Pain" and the political cutting edge of horror Drawing valuable connections between Les Yeux sans visage and the work of Fritz Lang, Victor Halperin and Luis Buñuel, Reynold Humphries sheds new light on the political implications and "symbolic messages" of Franju's classic. Taking aim at recent work on Les Yeux sans visage, Curtis Bowman suggests that we eschew political interpretations of Franju's film, at least in the first instance, in favour of explanations "in terms that are available to us from our everyday lives." A film without politics Anxiety, ethics and horror Seeking to isolate and theorise the source of her disturbance upon initially viewing Les Yeux sans visage, Elizabeth Cowie turns to Lacan's psychoanalytic account of desire to explore the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of horror cinema.

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