Witness

When attempting to compile a list of my favourite films, I always tend to forget this one, although I don't know why, because it's certainly up there with the best.

Probably Harrison Ford's best ever film, Witness begins with a young Amish boy and his widowed mother (a luminous Kelly McGillis) travelling to the big city for the first time, where the boy is the only witness to a drugs-related murder. When the bad guys find out the identity of the witness, the detective leading the case, John Book (Ford) is forced to flee with them back to their remote farming community - the Amish live a life of great simplicity and of strict Biblical principles, with very plain dress, no ornamentation and no technology - and hide out there while he recovers from a near-fatal gunshot wound. During his recovery, the attraction between himself and the young widow only grows stronger, yet it is clear that the social and moral conventions of their different societies mean that they cannot be together.

Although ostensibly a thriller (and the tension is certainly ratcheted up at various points such as when the baddies finally find them), this is really more a film about the clash between two different cultures: despite the attractions of a simpler life, he will ultimately be unable to conform to their stricter moral code and way of life, and if she breaks that code she will be permanently shunned by her family and whole community. With excellent directing, cinematography and acting - much of which is wordless, so relying merely on the actors' expressions - this is certainly a film worth watching, even though some may find the unhurried pace of the Amish scenes rather slow by today's standards.