James R | On 17, Sep 2016

Heard of BFI Player? Well, there’s also BFI Player+, a subscription service that offers an all-you-can-eat selection of hand-picked classics.

Every Friday, Mark Kermode highlights one of the collection’s titles with a video introduction. This week, it’s The Arbor.

Clio Barnard’s remarkable debut, which paved the way for the equally excellent The Selfish Giant, is an ambitious, experimental docudrama about playwright Andrea Dunbar.

What else is available to stream? Every week, we bring you a round-up of the latest titles on BFI Player+:

Unrelated

Catch a young Tom Hiddleston in Joanna Hogg’s debut film from 2007, which sees a forty-something woman on a Tuscan break fall in with a group of partying teens.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

What happens to someone if they’re locked up and raised in a cellar for 16 years? In 1828, Nuremberg found out, when a young man calling himself Kaspar emerged from captivity. Werner Herzog’s study of his struggle to integrate with the world moves between poetic, sympathetic, detached and delicate.

Capricorn One

Peter Hyams’ 1977 sci-fi thriller sees James Brolin, OJ Simpson and Elliott Gould play astronauts fighting to survive following a hoaxed mission to Mars.

That Sinking Feeling

Before Gregory’s Girl came Bill Forsyth’s caper about a group of unemployed teens who plan to steal some stainless steel sinks. As you do.

L’Amore

Rossellini’s two-part anthology was conceived as a showcase for the director’s wife, Anna Magnani, with the first half written by Jean Cocteau and the second penned by Federico Fellini.

Dodes’Ka-Den

Kurosawa’s first colour film follows a group of people living in a city dump, from a young disabled boy to a homeless man and his child.

Night of the Hunted

BFI Player+ concludes its Jean Rollin season with his 1980 futuristic horror about patients at a mysterious clinic, who find their memories disintegrating.

 

A BFI Player+ subscription costs £4.99 a month with a 30-day free trial. For more information, visit http://player.bfi.org.uk.
 

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