Phillipe is a diplomats son and is living in London at the embassy with his father and mother. He is taken care of by the embassy butler Baines, a stoic and rather emboldened man that he idolises. On the other side of this is Mrs Baines, a hard nosed and mean spirited woman that is cruel and unkind to Phillipe. This draws him closer to Baines along with his stories of Africa and tales of daring adventure. They all leave Phillipe with a dream like image of a man that cares for him. The problem is that Baines is in love with another woman. He has taken to meeting her and they have both decided to get married. The problem is he hasn’t told Mrs Baines or even split from her. When Mrs Baines finds out from Phillipe about the situation and confronts him, she ends up at the bottom of some stairs dead. Mr Baines has to prove it wasn’t him that pushed her…

This film is the second greatest film, written by the writer and director team of Graham Greene and Carol Reed. Greene is a personal hero of mine. A Writer that knew people, passions and perspective like no other. Reed also is an amazing director, understanding the balance of image and craft. This film should be seen by literally anyone that loves film. Why??  some will say it is to old or not relevant anymore. A mistake of the highest order. Film is an art form directed by seeing and this film is all about how we are seeing. How we see our world, how we see events within this and how we construct logic of these things. Take it as you would a film about space and time. The space is vast but can confuse the viewer and the little boy, who we are expected to connect with as he is our guide within this realm. The time is the fractured part and is unclear as to the how and the why. We can relate this to anything within the media, news stories, television etc as these are often perspective of time and space.

Now  the disc itself is filled with some great bits for the viewer. Take the Ayode piece, which is clear and clever. I am not a fan of Ayode but I feel he under stands film and makes it connected to the audience and the root of why it is still valuable. The other documentaries he disc help to build on this but it Ayode that hopefully a new audience will breath new words and thoughts into a masterpiece.