The trouble with writing about art is that you can betray or fail to do justice (or just plain get it wrong) to one's imprecise, complex and fundamentally ineffable experience by trying to put it into words. Worse, you can begin to wall it in and overwrite what you felt with the verbal label you have now stuck on it.
What I have written here only describes or explains a fraction of what I felt or thought. I have tried not to trample on the magic.
What I can do without problem or qualification is wholeheartedly recommend these films.
1981 FRA Jacques Rivette
Le Pont du Nord is delightful. Two homeless women stumble upon (or invent) a conspiracy taking place on the streets of Paris. The joy of it, really, is in the freedom Baptiste (left), Marie and we enjoy to walk the streets, to practise martial arts, to philosophise, to shop at markets and to get embroiled in dark plots nobody understands. The naturalness between the two (Pascale Ogier and her mother Bulle) is beautiful to watch.
Le Pont du Nord's wonder makes you smile, simultaneously utterly fantastical (Baptiste is literally caught in a web created by an unknown assailant) and the everyday with a merry twist (a woman whose car they broke into to sleep in awakes them not to shout or call the police but to warn them she'll have to leave in a couple of minutes). Life can be a game if you want it to.
There's no better compliment I can pay than to say that when Marie asks Baptiste if she wants some fruit, part of me thought "None for me thanks, is there a sandwich shop near here?".
2008 JAPAN Sion Sono
The pivotal moment of Sion Sono's story comes as a teenage boy, having lost a bet with his friends, carries out a forfeit of strutting downtown in drag. Long before the end of Love Exposure's four hours, filled with bawdiness, misunderstandings, sabotage, cross-dressing and grand excitement, it has begun to resemble something Shakespeare might write if he were egged on by the Earl of Rochester and François Rabelais.
However, all this, though never superfluous or less than enriching, is rococo decoration for the central love story, which is as beautiful as any on film.
Love Exposure is exciting both emotionally and intellectually. It is irreverent towards the corruptible and corrupting margins of religion yet reverent to its tenets of love. At first glance it may appear sensationalist and provocative in its depiction of familial abuse or teenage 'perversion' yet it is always serious and believable (and original) in how upheavals affect them at this vulnerable age. These aren't just the symptoms of angst, but its core causes: What am I for? Why should I care? Do I have a stake and a place?
Love Exposure's heart is enormous; towards the charming circle of friends fashioned out of shop-lifters and up-skirt photographers; towards Yoko and Yu, who battle to remain on an even keel; even towards the girl Koike whose 'Zero Church' (in many ways the film has the protagonists return to zero, a spiritual source) attempts to brainwash them.
In the end Yoko, who longed for a man like Jesus, realises that perfection can be found in the imperfect. Yu, who searched for his own Virgin Mary, finds that lust and perversion can be happy bedfellows with true love. Through hatred, disaffection, cult programming and deprogramming and an unreasonable amount of fun, its course flows - sometimes at a trickle or a snaking drop, but never running dry.
How often do we feel unadulterated joy in a cinema?
However, all this, though never superfluous or less than enriching, is rococo decoration for the central love story, which is as beautiful as any on film.
Love Exposure is exciting both emotionally and intellectually. It is irreverent towards the corruptible and corrupting margins of religion yet reverent to its tenets of love. At first glance it may appear sensationalist and provocative in its depiction of familial abuse or teenage 'perversion' yet it is always serious and believable (and original) in how upheavals affect them at this vulnerable age. These aren't just the symptoms of angst, but its core causes: What am I for? Why should I care? Do I have a stake and a place?
Love Exposure's heart is enormous; towards the charming circle of friends fashioned out of shop-lifters and up-skirt photographers; towards Yoko and Yu, who battle to remain on an even keel; even towards the girl Koike whose 'Zero Church' (in many ways the film has the protagonists return to zero, a spiritual source) attempts to brainwash them.
In the end Yoko, who longed for a man like Jesus, realises that perfection can be found in the imperfect. Yu, who searched for his own Virgin Mary, finds that lust and perversion can be happy bedfellows with true love. Through hatred, disaffection, cult programming and deprogramming and an unreasonable amount of fun, its course flows - sometimes at a trickle or a snaking drop, but never running dry.
How often do we feel unadulterated joy in a cinema?
8. The New World
2005 USA Terrence Malick
[Edited from previous review]
Terence Malick takes us back to the beginning of America as if back to the beginning of time itself.
Ephemeral and eternal, the title The New World refers to the first steps on American soil, the first shivers of love, the first glimpse of heaven. It feels like we are slipping in and out of consciousness, sometimes within, sometimes without, sometimes just lost - internal monologues, wordless sequences, moments that seem like meadow-bound dreams and ones that are live and filthy and crawling. 1st, 2nd, 3rd person narratives pass across each other.
What impresses is that there is no hard and fast dichotomy made between pure-of-heart 'naturals' and English 'invaders'. We see that, through fear and mistrust, both sides jealously guard what is theirs and both sides may turn to violence in defence of it.
The New World is immersive. It does not want you to pass by on the waters as the English ships, but dive beneath as the natives. It is able to lift images of grasses and moons, the first symbols and signs, up from banality and into rapture.
7. Labyrinth
1986 USA Jim Henson
Labyrinth is the best of all these films. It is so spellbinding that its events, its colours, its designs, its music, like Sarah's toys, take shape and live in the rooms of our mind. They are there far beyond childhood - there should we need them for comfort or to reawaken an anxiety that makes us tingle.
Fifteen year old Sarah journeys through the maze to rescue her brother Toby from the Goblin King. As she does she grows to understand that she can control her dreams and fantasies of Princes and castles rather than have them control her (we could say that the whole adventure is conjured by her mind given how what is in her bedroom populates Jareth's world). It's clever and heart-warming because she doesn't finally reject childish things. She has moved on but can always look back.
Nostalgia isn't indiscriminate. It doesn't bow down to anything we saw when we were young. Labyrinth above all others sealed within me its songs (David Bowie's music fits snugly), its riddles, its costumes, its sense of wholeness and wholesomeness. Even now there are bits that are perfect or just right.
Would that those days of the intelligent artist, the sorcerers of storytelling, would come again.
6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2000 CHINA Ang Lee
A mark of a viscerally rousing film is that it sends you out onto the streets mimicking its action, the film still speaking through your movements. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, exhilarating beyond compare, makes you want to, and feel like you can, fly.
The sine qua non of superb action is not choreography but emotional significance. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has both in harmony. The parries of swords are an extension of real and profound anger and frustration. The breathtaking floating flight the logical and natural result of a multi-faceted wish to be free. One could draw a comparison with musicals, where, at their best, a burst into song is the inexorable result of an out and overpouring of emotion.
In this way Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a quiet and meditative film of thwarted love and ambition whose emotional peaks are represented by the force and elegance of dancing conflict.
It is 1966. Chen and May play pool. They have known each other only a day. They are awkward and tentative. They are nervous for new love is sensitive to the touch. They look at each other and then away. They are comfortably uncomfortable. Later the quickening pulse of the heart will surface as hiccups of laughter. This electricity keeps them wary yet every collision of ball on ball, known as a "kiss", works as a nearing, as a way of saying "I want to be with you".
This first part of Three Times is an immaculate depiction of that immaculate emotion.
Our palate is cleansed by the second part, an even more sedate story of a courtesan in 1911 who longs without fulfilment for a client. The plucking of instruments, the tweaking of costumes, the wiping away of a single tear. Everything is minute and unspoken. Its lyrical stillness gives us time to breathe.The sine qua non of superb action is not choreography but emotional significance. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has both in harmony. The parries of swords are an extension of real and profound anger and frustration. The breathtaking floating flight the logical and natural result of a multi-faceted wish to be free. One could draw a comparison with musicals, where, at their best, a burst into song is the inexorable result of an out and overpouring of emotion.
In this way Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a quiet and meditative film of thwarted love and ambition whose emotional peaks are represented by the force and elegance of dancing conflict.
5. Mirror
1975 USSR Andrei Tarkovsky
Light touches objects and the wind moves them as in no other film, as if bringing them to life. Our gaze moves like a ghost, sliding slowly so as to not disturb the dream.
Judged purely on aesthetic merit, Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror is supreme.
Tarkovsky can summon a spell, an ambience, like no other - in Solaris a car journey is so mesmeric as to be nigh on upsetting.
The sounds, birds, creaks, children calling, are dropped into a bottomless well of silence giving each thing and instant a sort of spiritual power and existence of their own (for example the vase that we wait to fall or the vanishing condensation left by a coffee cup), The music darkly dredges up the past, shrill, eerie, euphoric.
I was awestruck. After it no film seems worthy of the form, banal and amateurish by comparison.
However, Mirror is incorporeal and fractured. That is, evidently, integral to its charm but the people and what they lived, told piecemeal and with no chance of full comprehension, didn't move me as they might. The sometimes cryptic and hallucinatory recollections of one man as he lies dying lack that soupçon of humanity that would have made Mirror even more remarkable.
Tarkovsky can summon a spell, an ambience, like no other - in Solaris a car journey is so mesmeric as to be nigh on upsetting.
The sounds, birds, creaks, children calling, are dropped into a bottomless well of silence giving each thing and instant a sort of spiritual power and existence of their own (for example the vase that we wait to fall or the vanishing condensation left by a coffee cup), The music darkly dredges up the past, shrill, eerie, euphoric.
I was awestruck. After it no film seems worthy of the form, banal and amateurish by comparison.
However, Mirror is incorporeal and fractured. That is, evidently, integral to its charm but the people and what they lived, told piecemeal and with no chance of full comprehension, didn't move me as they might. The sometimes cryptic and hallucinatory recollections of one man as he lies dying lack that soupçon of humanity that would have made Mirror even more remarkable.
4. Three Times
2005 TAIWAN Hou Hsiao Hsien
It is 1966. Chen and May play pool. They have known each other only a day. They are awkward and tentative. They are nervous for new love is sensitive to the touch. They look at each other and then away. They are comfortably uncomfortable. Later the quickening pulse of the heart will surface as hiccups of laughter. This electricity keeps them wary yet every collision of ball on ball, known as a "kiss", works as a nearing, as a way of saying "I want to be with you".
This first part of Three Times is an immaculate depiction of that immaculate emotion.
The third part, set in the modern day, is noisier and more complicated with the relationship between the two (each pair is played by Shu Qi and Chang Chen) involving other people. It is a sad section. Here they are together physically but not altogether in spirit. They are broken people who hope, perhaps in vain, that the other they cling to can fix them. They only understand one thing about themselves: they don't want to be alone.
Three Times is excellent from start to finish. Those first forty minutes, though, are perhaps film's finest hour.
3. Star Wars Episodes I - VI
1977-2005 USA George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Richard Marquand
Star Wars is the epitome of myth - a family saga whose fate determines that of the entire galaxy.
It is excitement and camaraderie. There are monk-like priests who fight and there are bug-eyed patsies. There are kings and there are fools. Star Wars is slapstick and it is planet-shattering tragedy. It is the teeming detail of alien life and the sweeping scale of light years. It is the temptation of adventure and of power. It is a terrible fall into dictatorship, war and evil and a rise into democracy, peace and redemption.
It is kinetic spectacle without equal. It is timeless, the ancient past set within the schemata of science fiction futures. It is transporting, carrying us into the stars on its title crawl. It is deep too in allusion and allegory. It is a universe designed in 360 degrees. It is invention and giddy fun. It is colourful and it is grey and forbidding.
It is a cultural monolith that remains agile and surprising. Star Wars is the greatest story ever told on film.
My essay on Star Wars (via Revenge of the Sith)
2. Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me
1992 USA David Lynch
[Adapted from previous review]
The tragedy of Cinema is that we are looking through a one-way mirror at a world that is unreachable, that is blind and alone. I have never seen a film where the screen has felt so thin, the story so immediate and raw as it does in Fire Walk With Me. The screen, though, is still too thick to smash, too thick to allow us to intervene.
Since the beginning of film, there have been depictions of abused and exploited women such as Kenji Mizoguchi's Oharu or Robert Bresson's Mouchette. I find those depictions to be somewhat withdrawn. The character is little more than a doll in a cardboard house beaten by an outsized hand. Their sorrow is cathartic and our emotions are easily washed away with tears. There is a tasteful distance, a slow pan, and eyes ultimately turned away.
In Fire Walk With Me there is awful horror and staggering beauty but neither is fetishized. And Lynch never turns away. He shows us what others imply, and shows it unsparingly. He shows what we want to see, not out of titillation or the promise of retribution, but out of sympathy. The world abandons Laura but we do not. We must not.
Suffering, Laura has turned to prostitution. She has become a drug addict. She has become selfish and cruel. She is manipulative, childlike and devilish. What's more, she is always aware of what she has become:
"Your Laura disappeared...it's just me now"
She fears that she cannot be saved. The angel in the painting on her wall disappears. She fears that she cannot be loved and is beyond redemption. When her end finally comes her angel is waiting for her. Disbelieving joy convulses out of her. It is the first time she has been happy for years.
The film ends on a freeze frame of her smiling face, just as every episode of Twin Peaks concluded on her beaming high-school portrait. Only this time the image that was once a cliched symbol of a corrupted innocent, a good girl gone bad, a suburban town with dirty secrets, has been brought to life and reconstructed. Laura is no longer a mere object around which the TV show's weird and farcical storylines revolved. The closing image is no longer a lie. The pain and the happiness is real.
The only qualm is the nature of Bob which is unnecessarily muddled and muddied. It worries me that he might be Evil possessing Leland as opposed to a representation and projection of Leland's evil. I am thankful that the film doesn't confirm either point of view as the possibility of Leland being exonerated in some way could make the film distasteful.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is true horror - in other words, hurt and the fear of hurt. It has a love for the character that is noble, beguiling and bewitching. It is an absolutely wonderful film.
1. Dekalog
1988/9 POL Krzysztof Kieslowski
Dekalog appears plain or even artless. It was made as a television series and it looks like one.
Dekalog is humble and a masterpiece. It is made of ten stories each rooted in one of the Ten Commandments. Eschewing pontification and didacticism, we are shown that life is hard to live by law and diktat, and that some commandments may indeed overlap or even contradict each other.
In a manner of speaking each film is in fact a parable on Jesus' 11th Commandment - one that was not carved in stone - "love one another as I have loved you". The Dekalog is Old Testament law and ideals seen through the prism of New Testament compassion.
Every episode is perfectly scripted and acted, always credible and never artificially adding drama. Where there are symbols they are seamless and illuminating. Following the steps these people take as they wrestle with the burdens and moral conundra of life is all the drama we need. We are distant but consoling simply by being there.
No moralising, no sensationalism, just the cold faces and hands of men and women.
Each film ends with a fade to black as if inviting us into contemplation and prayer. I was speechless.
Each film ends with a fade to black as if inviting us into contemplation and prayer. I was speechless.
[A few essays and a previous review of Dekalog]
Your thoughts on FWWM are great. The sad thing is that the series of "Twin Peaks" kinda DOES let Leland off the hook for the murders, out and out depicting BOB as an inhabiting spirit, the equivalent of Pazuzu from "The Exorcist". That was mostly borne out of necessity, with ABC forcing Lynch and Frost to reveal Laura's killer in the second season. In a very real way, FWWM corrects that mistake and lets us see BOB primarily as a manifestation of Leland's lust and violence, a hand-me-down of sexual abuse that smartly implies that the horrible things happening to Laura very well may have happened to him (the show goes into this a bit, too-- the abused becomes the abuser). I don't doubt that this is Lynch's masterpiece, though I do wish that he'd gotten a chance to wrap up the series properly.
ReplyDelete"HOW'S ANNIE?!?"
Obviously I'm a "Star Wars" nut, so I love seeing the saga at #3 behind FWWM and Kieslowski. You have a pic from ESB, which might actually be my least favorite episode of the series personally, but it's still head and shoulders above so many other sci-fi and fantasy efforts out there.
"Your thoughts on FWWM are great."
ReplyDeleteThanks Bob!
Maybe I need to rewatch the film and the series to nail down the way Bob is depicted. Now that I think of it Leland does say towards the end of the film something along the lines of "I thought you knew it was me" which would definitely point towards Leland's evil instead of evil possession.
I still think, though, that it could have done with a little more clarity. I think it is one aspect of Lynch's films which certainly doesn't benefit from mystery and obfuscation.
"You have a pic from ESB, which might actually be my least favorite episode of the series personally, but it's still head and shoulders above so many other sci-fi and fantasy efforts out there."
The Empire Strikes Back is probably my favourite and what you say about it I can apply to Attack of the Clones - the worst but still better than the vast majority.
I’ve been following your Top 50 from the start, but didn’t want to drop comment until it was complete. There’s a lot to say here; too much actually. I won’t say it all. There are some great and not so great films that must remain unturned. Out of your 50, I’ll respond to 18.
ReplyDeleteThe three I simply cannot stomach:
Antichrist – It’s committed. I’ll give that much, but not much else.
The New World – Yes, it looked pretty (they always do), but I was not won over by Malick’s inner monologues. I never am.
Southland Tales – A crudely pasted series of obvious attempts...at everything. Mostly obnoxious rhetoric, though I did enjoy Boxer, Krysta and Madeline’s dance number.
The five I admire and/or enjoy like hell, but can’t quite call them favorites:
A.I. Artificial Intelligence – Thematically profound as they get. A marvel of mise-en-scène. An unprecedented merging between two filmmaking visions. Yet I still watch it with study more than connection.
Rebecca – I can’t imagine how anyone could dispute the changes Hitchcock made. I agree: Maxim is not the main character, and the changes make the film so much more effectively low key. The unconformable vibe between the characters sells it for me and Danvers is so deliciously off her rocker.
The Mirror – I’m torn between this and Stalker. The first time I watched it I had the flu. That may sound like an unpleasant experience. Bizarrely, it wasn’t.
Knowing – Notably cliché but, as you pointed out, largely surprising as well. I consider it a cinematic incarnation of Omni Magazine, which makes it awesome by default.
Aliens – I still prefer Scott’s original, but I don’t make negative comparisons either. Cameron made a wise decision by essentially making his own Alien movie. The bulk of the film is solid; the last 20 minutes, extraordinary.
Continued below...
My Top 10 from your Top 50:
ReplyDelete10. Top Secret! – There’s a brief moment where an anonymous “brotha” walks into frame and gives Chocolate Mousse some skin, with no explanation whatsoever. Epic genius!
9. Au Hasard Balthazar – I fell in love with Marie. I still love her. I first saw it when I was very young and thought nothing unusual about a donkey driven narrative. It just seems to work perfectly without even asking.
8. The Trial of Joan of Arc – It’s strange how so much can be said about the beauty of sparsity. This movie, of course, is an exemplar of said beauty.
7. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – I think you summed my feelings well enough, but I’d like to add just how perfectly the film integrates humor. It’s moving, romantic and deeply spiritual, but also downright hilarious at times, both dryly and with slapstick--but never at the expense of the story or characters.
6. Korol Lir – Ugh! I’m forced to rank it just below Ran, but it’s still a visual wonder.
5. Labyrinth – With this, too, do I place 2nd with great reluctance; equal with The NeverEnding Story, but just behind Time Bandits (the greatest kid fantasy movie of all time!). Anyhow, Labyrinth is every bit as sweet and charming as you claim, and then some. How effortless and unpretentious is David Bowie?! The man duets with Bing Crosby like he’s being knighted; here, sounds off with puppets without even the slightest subatomic particle of irony or depreciation. He’s absolutely loving it. In the closing scene when Sarah turns from the mirror and sees the whole gang (and even the baddies) hanging out in her room, singing and dancing, and she runs over and joins the fun… well lets just say that every movie should end that way.
4. Gion Bayashi – I’ll always favor Kurosawa’s sensationalism, but always revere this as a nice counterbalance alternative. It truly is a soft, exquisite piece.
3. Poltergeist – By far…by far…the best of Spielberg’s American suburban mythos. This movie is so jam packed with thematic detail–a full blown thesis of various American cultural undercurrents–it’s mind boggling. And yet it never distracts or comes off self-indulgent. It merely entertains. Was it Hooper or Spielberg? Who knows? Regardless, the film is immaculately blocked, shot and edited.
2. Die Hard – I consider this the peak of action guy movie lyricism, overflowing with irreverent charm. McTiernan has such wonderful intellect that is woven into camera work, characters and humor.
1. Star Wars – My favorite films of all time.
_I_ am speechless. A thoroughly eclectic and highly personal collection with capsules that are some of the most cogent at this site.
ReplyDeleteStephen, this is terrific work. I'll seek out some of the titles I've not even heard of here.
Bravo!
Definitely a list to come back to, and one to appreciate from the point of view of eclecticism, diversity and originality. Sure there are some here that would never make my own list (Labyrinth, Star Wars, Twin Peaks) but likewise the same thing would happen if I posed my own favorite list, which I will try to here, now that Space Cadet has broken the ice in that regard. Of course you specify 'favorite' here which represents a fine line between what one would name as greatest of most historically significant.
ReplyDeleteIn no numerical order:
City Lights (Chaplin)
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
Tokyo Story (Ozu)
Au Hasard Balthasar (Bresson)
Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
The Last Picture Show (Bogdonich)
Far From Heaven (Haynes)
The Third Man (Reed)
The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
But ask me tomorrow, and I'll have different choices! Ha!
Af far as your list goes, I am thrilled to LOVE EXPOSURE (I just saw this recently for the first time and agree it's a masterpiece), THE MIRROR, THREE TIMES, your chosen Rivette and Malick, and of course that towering #1 choice, THE DEKALOG, one of the cinema's greatets masterpieces.
Space Cadet,
ReplyDeleteAntichrist is committed. I'm always open to visions that are unmitigated (or at least bolder than others) and intense. It is very powerful and visually splendid.
The New World is the only Terrence Malick film that I like. I find the others rather mundane and by-the-numbers poetry. The characters have a dumb kind of lyricism that appears to ape a time of yore of different values and behaviours.
I can certainly understand your views on Southland Tales . For me it was very exciting. Partly because, like Antichrist it seems fearless and open to any possibility.
I'm glad you like Knowing . and Rebecca . A.I. is indeed thematically complex, visually impressive and a film of some philosophical curiosity and insight, something you can watch again and again.
Space Cadet (continued),
ReplyDelete"There’s a brief moment where an anonymous “brotha” walks into frame and gives Chocolate Mousse some skin, with no explanation whatsoever. Epic genius!"
Haha! I don't remember that. It goes to show how many gags there are in Top Secret! that you can forget more good jokes than there are in a dozen regular comedies.
The "beauty and sparsity" of The Trial of Joan of Arc tempts me to rate it much much higher because it feels like the perfection of a type of cinema. It is moving in a deeper way than films that make you cry.
It's nice to hear people getting behind Korol Lir and Gion Bayashi . They aren't exactly among even the best known unknowns.
I will not countenance Time Bandits ahead of Labyrinth !
Poltergeist sure is entertaining and a rounded well-crafted film.
Star Wars, for me, never grows old.
JAFB,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much indeed.
"I'll seek out some of the titles I've not even heard of here."
I'm glad. I hope you enjoy them. What was new to you, by the way?
Sam,
ReplyDeleteThank you. City Lights is a film I enjoyed well enough but nothing in it is near the extraordinary ending (for which alone it has a place in history).
Of course I concur on Fanny and Alexander and Au Hasard Balthazar. The others I like, though they didn't move me particularly strongly (Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and the black and white photography in The Third Man stand out).
Far From Heaven I still haven't seen (sorry) nor The Last Picture Show. I will rectify this, I hope, soon.
"But ask me tomorrow, and I'll have different choices! Ha!"
Yes indeed. This is more likely for you I am sure given the amount of films you have watched. Love Exposure feels like a film that could be very popular but is destined to be under the radar.
Thanks again.
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteI was speaking about the whole series generally. As for this part, I hadn't even heard of Labyrinth till now.
Thanks for that!
Earlier I had wrote a huge comment, and it was gone in a second. I'd hate to write it again, but I think I just will.
ReplyDelete"Love Exposure" is a masterpiece and you nail it perfectly in every sense, and it's just one of my favorite movies for me too. But I think one of the main reasons why I loved it, it's because of how spiritually religious in its depiction of love, a spiritual and true love beyond any boundaries.
"Labyrinth" was one movie I didn't watch as a kid, so I don't have any sort of attachment to it, I saw it recently and found it extremely unimaginative as fantasy movies come.
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is one of my favorites as well, a love story and a kickass wuxia to beat 'em all.
"Mirror"... Mirror, Mirror... Don't know... I watched, didn't do one small thing to me, but I'll stop here, because I know many people name this the best movie ever made.
"Star Wars"... would never name any of them a 'favorite', but I'll rate them anyway.
I: ***
II: ***
III: ****
IV: ****1/2
V: ****1/2
VI: ****1/2
"Dekalog" is one I really wanna see, I've just seen the first episode and I can't wait for the rest.
My personal favorite movie of all time is Donnie Darko, but that's me and me alone, no matter how much classic and obscure cinema I see, this remains the most close to my heart.
Congrats on completing this awesome personal project, Stephen. It's been a blast to keep up with.
ReplyDeleteRivette and Lynch might be my two favorite directors, so obviously I'm thrilled seeing Le Pont du Nord and FWWM show up this high. I love both very much, and each movie for me really distills some of the more singularly mysterious and alluring qualities those respective directors possess. I can revisit them both endlessly. Big, BIG fan of Dekalog, Zerkalo and The New World as well, so awesome seeing those here. Your write-ups are, as usual, simply fantastic.
I need to see both Crouching Tiger and Three Times again, they were each the first movie I saw from those respective directors, and others have since made far stronger impressions on me. And I haven't seen any of the Star Wars films or Labyrinth since I was much younger, so I look forward to revisiting those at some point as well. I didn't care much for Love Exposure to be perfectly honest, but I'm not at all familiar with Sono's other stuff and feel like I probably have a lot of work to do in that area before I make any final judgments one way or the other, so I'll just leave it at that.
Great job again, Stephen!
JAFB,
ReplyDelete"As for this part, I hadn't even heard of Labyrinth till now."
Aha. It was made primarily with children in mind but I'm sure you'll like it.
"Thanks for that!"
My pleasure.
Jaime,
ReplyDelete""Love Exposure" is a masterpiece and you nail it perfectly in every sense, and it's just one of my favorite movies for me too. But I think one of the main reasons why I loved it, it's because of how spiritually religious in its depiction of love, a spiritual and true love beyond any boundaries."
Thank you. You're absolutely right. It's more moving and more powerful because of how that depiction is arrived at, through all kinds of problems and doubt and anger.
""Labyrinth" was one movie I didn't watch as a kid, so I don't have any sort of attachment to it, I saw it recently and found it extremely unimaginative as fantasy movies come."
Aha. Is there any film you saw as a child that made a big impact on you? Mirror isn't something I had to work to enjoy so much so I can't simply say 'Oh, but you should watch it like this...or with this in mind' It just captivated me.
re Star Wars, you may not have them as favourites but you rate all the original trilogy highly.
I do like Southland Tales and The Box a lot and saw them after I saw Donnie Darko, which I didn't like. I will watch it again and maybe it will be transformed.
Drew,
ReplyDelete"Congrats on completing this awesome personal project, Stephen. It's been a blast to keep up with."
Thank you so much Drew.
"I'm thrilled seeing Le Pont du Nord and FWWM show up this high. I love both very much, and each movie for me really distills some of the more singularly mysterious and alluring qualities those respective directors possess."
Yes. Fire Walk With Me has a real punch that his more recent films don't have. It's less of a puzzle and the images, for me, are more striking than in his recent films - especially the digital of Inland Empire. I seem to like the films by Rivette that feel more 'real', less about actual magic - hence Jeanne La Pucelle and Le Pont du Nord being on this list.
"I need to see both Crouching Tiger and Three Times again, they were each the first movie I saw from those respective directors, and others have since made far stronger impressions on me"
Which ones in particular? I did like The Ice Storm and Hulk in parts. As for Hou Hsiao Hsien, his older films haven't quite got me under their spell.
re Love Exposure, I actually saw the first hour and then gave up on it, bored. I came back and watched it again a few months later and, well, it was like a different film. There are times when a film suddenly says something to you and sends you back to it.
Great list as always, Stephen. That Rivette film is one of my favorites as well, an utterly playful film that does, as you say, turn life into a game, like all of Rivette's films, albeit a game with potentially serious results. Along with Gang of Four and the Duelle/Noroit diptych, it's one of Rivette's very best films.
ReplyDeleteI also love Fire Walk With Me, which amps up the horror aspect of the TV series and really runs with it. There are some baffling bits and pieces, but the whole is terrifying and beautiful and really intense. There are Lynch films I prefer (I'm a big fan of his more recent work especially, as I know you're not) but this one is right up there, for sure.
Mirror is a film I really love but need to revisit since I feel like, when I saw it years ago, I only grasped at best parts of its very rich, dense structure.
Hard to argue with the Star Wars films. I loved Star Wars as a kid, with a very intense passion for those characters, for that world. Lucas' tinkerings, both with the original films and the lousy prequels, have soured me a bit on that love, but the original films still hold up, for their nostalgia if nothing else. They're fun, and in their rough way kind of beautiful. The roughness, too, is part of the appeal, something Lucas doesn't seem to have realized in re-imagining the series as digital kitsch.
"Which ones in particular? I did like The Ice Storm and Hulk in parts. As for Hou Hsiao Hsien, his older films haven't quite got me under their spell."
ReplyDeleteWith Lee, The Ice Storm and Ride with the Devil struck me really hard, and with Hou, Millennium Mambo is one of my favorite movies ever. I have copies of a couple of 80's Hou's but I haven't gotten around to them yet. I have quite a bit left to explore from each director.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteThanks, and thank you for the comments throughout.
I haven't yet seen Gang of Four but recently saw Noroit and Duelle. I thought the later was OK (it skated along the surface of a compelling story), the former good and sometimes - in a painterly image or a moment of complete inspiration - brilliant.
Fire Walk With Me is so very powerful. What makes it so good for me is that it doesn't turn its beauty or its horror into beauty and horror for their own sake. Nor does it apply an 'entertainment' gloss, if you know what I mean.
I'm not sure why I like Mirror more than Tarkovsky's other films. I'd put Ivan's Childhood as his second most accomplished.
Although I think the new Star Wars films are excellent I do realise that I'm closer to the characters in the original trilogy - they are better written and more charismatic. The lack of abundant CGI also gives it more weight, in more ways than one.
"Digital Kitsch" is a great description.
Drew,
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen Ride With the Devil.
"I have copies of a couple of 80's Hou's but I haven't gotten around to them yet. I have quite a bit left to explore from each director."
I too am working my way through older Hou Hsiao Hsien films (I'm yet to see The Puppeteer and Goodbye South Goodbye).
I must say that I'm more eager to explore Hou Hsiao Hsien's films (including his upcoming The Assassin). Crouching Tiger seems to be a one-off.
Oddly, I'm actually more attached to the PT characters in "Star Wars", nowadays. Oh, I like oldies like Luke, Obi-Wan, Vader and Yoda well enough. The droids are fine, as is Chewie. But Han-- I outgrew his "charm" when I was back in grade school. I can relate more to the angsty side of Anakin than that cocky space-cowboy. Leia's okay, but I do prefer Amidala (she's a classy dame).
ReplyDelete"The Phantom Menace" has my favorite SW character, nowadays-- Qui-Gon Jinn, the hippie-dippie Jedi, man. McDiarmid's Palpatine is tops, too. I wouldn't even say that the writing is necessarily better in the OT, it's just not as self-conscious in its corniness, and therefore doesn't have that same approachable character to it (but at the same time, it avoids really terrible clunkers like "laser brain" and "who's scruffy lookin'?", stuff that always made me cringe in ESB).
FWWM has some absolutely terrible dialogue, too, as does all of "Twin Peaks", but it works as a comic counterpoint to all the genuine tragedy going on, a way to relieve the tension. "I'm a turkey in the corn. Gobble, gobble".
Something I admired about the PT was that it actually upset so many so-called "Star Wars" fans. That, I think, is the barometer for if a creator is taking their chances and pulling off something great, if they're able to alienate their own base by going outside the comfort zone. McGoohan did it with his ending of "The Prisoner". Anno did it with BOTH endings he's done so far for "Evangelion" (with another on the way, eventually). Lynch sure as hell did it with the finale of TP and FWWM.
Excellent conclusion to an excellent list. Just when I thought I could predict your eccentric tastes, this top ten throws in a few more out of left field!
ReplyDeleteLove the inclusion of The New World, Mirror, and Dekalog, each of which would make its way into a top twenty of mine. I'm curious why you were less impressed by Malick's other films. Though I agree with you that The New World is his finest achievement thus far, his previous three features (Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line) all seem like primers for themes he would cumulatively explore in great depth in TNW. I guess I just don't see how the "by-the-numbers poetry" and "dumb kind(s) of lyricism" you see in his early films are absent in TNW (which, I should add, are anything but by-the-numbers and dumb).
Also, out of curiosity, have you seen Kieslowski's other work? I love Double Life of Veronique and Blue. Kieslowski has a real knack for deeply investigating the sensory worlds of his characters.
I saw the first hour of Love Exposure once but had to stop at the scene when the man's erection is scissored off. To this day, very few images provoke more skin-crawling discomfort out of me. But I didn't necessarily stop watching because of the distress of that image; it was more that I had to continue volunteering at the festival at which it was screening!
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI was never a big fan of Han Solo either; I didn't like how he mocked Leia.
By being closer to the characters I meant not that I necessarily like them more (I'm with you on Padme and Palpatine and C3PO and R2D2 are pretty much the same in all the films) but that they feel more vivid. I think we spend more time with them that isn't merely plot advancement work.
The Original Trilogy does have more human energy. I don't really like Qui Gon, possibly because I've seen Liam Neeson in so many other things (Alec Guinness was new to me when I saw Star Wars).
I don't think that there is any "terrible dialogue" in Fire Walk With Me. The 'Gobble,Gobble' isn't meant to be realistic or mysterious, just odd - like the character isn't aware of where she is or what she's saying - and that's what I got from it.
Sure, Lynch's dialogue is well thought through and has greater significance than this but often these lines are merely striking a note that echoes with a mood.
The ending of Fire Walk With Me is just incredible, even though it could have felt like a cop out, or sentimental or kitsch.
I still haven't seen The Prisoner.
Carson,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
"I'm curious why you were less impressed by Malick's other films."
I'm not altogether sure and it's something I've been thinking on recently. I think the story of The New World, of new life and of a new nation, lends itself more to his style.
By "dumb sort of lyricism" (which was wrongly phrased) I meant characters who are made to appear closer to the earth and whose philosophising is made more 'deep and meaningful' through their apparently limited intelligence. It doesn't convince.
That's one thing I don't get in The New World. The trailer for Tree of Life, apart from again being balanced between a National Geographic aesthetic and true cinematic beauty, has more of this brand of cod-profundity.
"Also, out of curiosity, have you seen Kieslowski's other work?"
Yes, apart from one or two of his earliest films (I've only seen Camera Buff of the pre Dekalog creations). In the Three Colours Trilogy I think his use of symbolism (generally restricted in Dekalog to one staggering example per film - the tears of the icon, the wasp in the glass etc.), coincidence and music is a little on the oppressive side; the colours, the emotions, everything would seem richer but for me it distances and seduces less than his previous work.
That's not to say that I don't like them (Three Colours Red is a great allegory for and exploration of God's role in the world).
"To this day, very few images provoke more skin-crawling discomfort out of me. But I didn't necessarily stop watching because of the distress of that image; it was more that I had to continue volunteering at the festival at which it was screening!"
Haha!
Re: Liam Neeson vs. Alec Guiness
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I've always preferred Qui-Gon (since '99, anyway) partly because of what you're talking about. ANH introduced me to Guiness, who I'd later watch in good, quality stuff like the films he did with David Lean and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy". When TPM came out, by contrast, I'd already seen Neeson in a few things-- "Shindler's List", "Michael Collins", "Krull", even an episode of "Miami Vice" where he plays a romantic IRA soldier. He was an actor I'd always enjoyed watching, so it was cool to see him play a rebellious Jedi in TPM. It was the same feeling I got from seeing recognizable entities like Ewan McGreggor (from "Trainspotting"), Samuel L. Jackson (from Tarantino and Spike Lee's flicks) and Natalie Portman (from "Leon"). Perhaps this is the big difference between the OT and the PT-- in the old movies, almost everybody was a new discovery, whereas in the newer ones only Anakin was.
Re: FWWM's dialogue
Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling it out on being bad, per se, but... Okay, maybe I am. But it's bad with a purpose, you could say. Laura Palmer is a screwed up girl, and you aren't about to expect her to spout off perfectly scripted one-liners. If you had dialogue on the level of guys like Aaron Sorkin or William Goldman, it would be unrealistic. Lines like "gobble, gobble" may be kinda stupid, but they make perfect sense for her age and spirit, and they have a goofy kind of charm to them, too. They make you remember that down deep, she's really just a kid, still, and it makes you feel that much more protective of her.
The ending of FWWM is like the ending of ROTJ-- after you've gone through that much darkness, the movie earns the right to give you some kind of a happy ending. People who don't like happy endings always see them as cop-outs or unrealistic, but narratively you can't have nothing but darkness and downbeatness without it just getting boring. To quote "The International", a favorite movie of my own-- "That's the difference between fiction and reality. Fiction has to make sense."
I must say that I'm partial to an actor or actress coming as an unknown to a character. We have no frame of reference - Mark Hamill is Luke Skywalker in the most basic of ways. All we see is the character.
ReplyDeleteIt would need to be an exceptionally well-drawn character or special performance to make me forget that it Ewan McGregor isn't fully Obi-Wan Kenobi, because he's other people too. It may sound silly or childish even but it's always somewhere at the back of my mind.
"Lines like "gobble, gobble" may be kinda stupid, but they make perfect sense for her age and spirit..."
Yes, I agree, and especially in her situation where she's really still a child drowning in the evil side of an adult world.
"People who don't like happy endings always see them as cop-outs or unrealistic, but narratively you can't have nothing but darkness and downbeatness without it just getting boring"
The vast majority of the time I do want a happy ending, but in Fire Walk With Me it's a far stronger yearning because of a) what she's been through and b) how poignant Lynch makes it and how real Sheryl Lee makes it.
I admire a film-maker who wants to give a character who has had so much pain (and has therefore come to be defined in some respects by that pain) a happy ending - Psycho IV comes to mind here.
It must be borne in mind that in Twin Peaks and Psycho the 'happy ending' is tinged with a suffering that will never be forgotten and will be part of them forever. In a romantic comedy, say, the pitfalls that lead to the happy ending are relatively piffling.
"To quote "The International", a favorite movie of my own-- "That's the difference between fiction and reality. Fiction has to make sense.""
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Or if it doesn't people will complain.
"It would need to be an exceptionally well-drawn character or special performance to make me forget that it Ewan McGregor isn't fully Obi-Wan Kenobi, because he's other people too. It may sound silly or childish even but it's always somewhere at the back of my mind."
ReplyDeleteWhat makes guys like McGregor, Jackson and Portman work for me is how their previous roles are so completely at odds with their SW characters, they give you something wildly contradictory to expect. Obi-Wan the dope-fiend? Mace Windu the bad motherfucker? Padme the apprentice assassin? Other well-known actors fit more readily into their tailor-fit roles (Neeson's a good Jedi mentor, Christopher Lee's a perfect bad guy), but I enjoy the mental disonance.
By the way, did you know that originally Lucas had envisioned Qui-Gon to be played by Kyle MacLachlan? Or at the very least considered him for the role? That would've been interesting.
I do agree that Lucas' previous strategy of casting unknowns reaped great dividends. Perhaps Hayden Christensen would've been more accepted had he been in TPM and allowed three whole movies for us to get to know him, instead of two.
As for the other comments above-- yeah, the simpler story of the OT allows us to get closer to the characters, but I do like the more complex plot of the PT, myself. And agreed, Leia could've done much better than Han. Lando seems like a perfect gentleman, comparatively.
"I admire a film-maker who wants to give a character who has had so much pain (and has therefore come to be defined in some respects by that pain) a happy ending - Psycho IV comes to mind here. "
No wonder you can find the silver lining of "End of Evangelion" a bit easier than me. I'm definitely hoping that Shinji, Asuka and Rei have a happier conclusion by the time "Evangelion 4.0" rolls around. Like all the characters we're talking about, they've suffered enough already.
"Other well-known actors fit more readily into their tailor-fit roles (Neeson's a good Jedi mentor, Christopher Lee's a perfect bad guy), but I enjoy the mental disonance."
ReplyDeleteI can understand that, but I'd still prefer not to have the comparison(!)
"By the way, did you know that originally Lucas had envisioned Qui-Gon to be played by Kyle MacLachlan?"
I vaguely remember something along those lines. I think he would have been better than Liam Neeson. Like Alec Guinness in the original film, Kyle MacLachlan has the expression, demeanour and presence of a man who has a lot going on beneath the surface - wisdom, secrets etc. I think The Phantom Menace could have used that, given its subject.
I always thought they were a bit harsh on Lando re turning them over to the Empire (especially Chewbacca choking him). What else is he meant to do? Fall on his lightsaber?
There were moments where Han Solo was cool (with Greedo and Jabba). The problem is that not only does he think that he's "God's gift" but Leia, by falling for him, only proves it to him and massages his ego (despite a little sniping).
"Perhaps Hayden Christensen would've been more accepted had he been in TPM and allowed three whole movies for us to get to know him, instead of two."
Hmm. I wonder if Lucas could have made the separated-from-mother angle (part of what leads him to the Dark Side) as believable if he were in his late teens? They would have had to have been separated before the start of the film.
"No wonder you can find the silver lining of "End of Evangelion" a bit easier than me."
If you've created a character, even if he/she is a reprobate, then I would expect there to be a sort of affection there. A wish to redeem, gladden, offer a second chance.