Fargo (1996) *****

Breaking The Waves (1996) *****

Once Upon A Time In Triad Society (1996) *****

Leck Kwan is the scamiest and vilest gangster in Hong Kong. On a nice day, he will kill a tailor, try to rape his daughter and then sell her as a hooker to a bordello in the Middle East. Shot by fellow gangsters, he's transported to a hospital, but nobody there wants to treat his wounds. Everyone would like to see the last of Leck Kwan. Is he really such a bad person ? In the first flashback, Leck tells us a bullshit story about his childhood: what a nice boy he was, how he was forced to join the triads, how his friends betrayed him, how his pregnant wife was killed by gangsters. All lies. Then, Leck tells the true story: how he killed his best friend, double-crossed his boss, humiliated his girlfriend and got away with one murder after another. The film is basically a parody of "GoodFellas", but Leck Kwan makes Henry Hill look like an altar boy. The film is viciously and gloriously cynical; its humor drips like acid.

Private Confessions (1996) *****

Directed by Liv Ullmann. With Pernilla August, Max von Sydow and Samuel Froler. The final segment of Ingmar Bergman's trilogy about stormy relations between his parents, which began when they were children in "Fanny And Alexander" (1983) and continued with "The Best Intentions" (1992). The entire film consists of five long conversations between a middle-aged woman and the three men in her life: her husband, her confessor and her lover. Two people talking, with Sven Nykvist's stationary camera capturing their faces in close-ups - it's a quintessential Bergman film, a quiet masterpiece of suppressed emotions, tentatively exploring the most intimate aspects of a woman's life.