2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[Murdoch]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa continues to floor me, just watched Kairo for the umpteenth time and it remains a great horror story on the pain of loneliness and isolation in the modern technology-obsessed world, and probably the most frightening film I've seen from this decade. Bright Future grew on me after a few watches, there's something rather splendid about the final scenes. Still have to see Tokyo Sonata, which looks marvelous and I'm interested in seeing KK tackle family drama.

I finished Ceylan's Distant, I'm going to let it sink in before I write anything, but I'd like to know what others thought of it. I haven't seen any of his other films, so I'm new to him.

[ptatler]

SWAPSIE ALERT:

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - This was everything No Country for Old Men was supposed to be.

Um... I thought NO COUNTRY was supposed to be a horror movie/meditation on violence/verbatim adaptation of a rather simplistic Cormac McCarthy novel, not a New West update of WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S. Sorry, that's a glib reading, but I didn't find much in THREE BURIALS that was especially innovative or even just invigorating. The bit with Levon Helm was the highlight for me but even it had all the megaphone message-mongering Arriaga is known for.

Which reminds me, can we all agree to freeze Inarritu out of this go-round? His films all look dated already, even the one made three years ago.

[knives]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa continues to floor me, just watched Kairo for the umpteenth time and it remains a great horror story on the pain of loneliness and isolation in the modern technology-obsessed world, and probably the most frightening film I've seen from this decade.

That's the one Pulse was made from, correct? I tried watching it a few years ago but food poisoning hurt my judgment. I remember a real creepy bungle cord thing though.

[John Cope]

Which reminds me, can we all agree to freeze Inarritu out of this go-round? His films all look dated already, even the one made three years ago.

Iñárritu's best work is still his BMW short film (called Powder Keg I think) and that's excellent. The rest are varying degrees of good. I'd vote for Powder Keg in a heartbeat, however.

I finished Ceylan's Distant, I'm going to let it sink in before I write anything, but I'd like to know what others thought of it. I haven't seen any of his other films, so I'm new to him.

Though I love Distant it would rank fairly low in my overall favorite Ceylans. For this decade certainly Climates appears as the high point but overall I think his best remains his feature debut, Kasaba, which is so elegant, fragile and perfectly sustained. A great film about childhood too that ranks with the Erices/Kiarostamis and something like Kedzierzawska's wondrous Crows. Also, despite the competition, his most beautiful film.

All right, so what about Danny Boyle? His 00's films which have been declared successes are, at least, culturally significant but if I was going to champion one it would be his "failure", The Beach.

[colinr0380]

Despite liking Amores Perros I think I'd have to go for Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También as the more interesting Mexican film released around the same time.

I'm very slowly warming to some sections of The Beach but still do not think it is a patch on Garland's excellent novel. Though it could be worse - look at how The Tesseract turned out. I'd still go with the gorgeous looking Sunshine as my favourite Boyle film of the decade, for all its narrative flaws and cribbing from the sci-fi film canon.

[GringoTex]

Um... I thought NO COUNTRY was supposed to be a horror movie/meditation on violence/verbatim adaptation of a rather simplistic Cormac McCarthy novel

No, NCFOM was supposed to be a treatise on the classic debate of free will v. destiny. Unfortunately, those stupid Coens left out the key scene to this from the book. They obviously didn't have a clue as to what they were adapting.

[GringoTex]

Twentynine Palms - I love Bruno Dumont's America, where Turtle Wax can fix scratched paint and you don't have to pay for your ice cream. A pretty silly little horror comedy, but I got a few laughs in. Mostly at Dumont's expense, I think.

[foggy eyes]

Though I love Distant it would rank fairly low in my overall favorite Ceylans. For this decade certainly Climates appears as the high point but overall I think his best remains his feature debut, Kasaba, which is so elegant, fragile and perfectly sustained. A great film about childhood too that ranks with the Erices/Kiarostamis and something like Kedzierzawska's wondrous Crows. Also, despite the competition, his most beautiful film.

Agreed about Kasaba (which I much prefer to the two that follow), but I find Climates his most interesting film because it's his messiest...

Other mega-essentials off the top of my head: Les amants reguliers (Garrel), Five (Kiarostami), Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong), Still Life/Dong (Jia). I'll be catching up with West of the Tracks very soon, and it looks to be a shoo-in...

[Gropius]

I'll be catching up with West of the Tracks very soon, and it looks to be a shoo-in...

Yes, on the basis of descriptions and screenshots alone, that ought to be one of the highlights of the decade, an epic documentary counterpart to the features of Jia, capturing chunks of real time in the Direct Cinema tradition. Have contemplated struggling with the French DVD, but rumour has it that there may be an English-subbed torrent out there. Apparently the Chinese government intervened to cancel a recently-scheduled screening of the first part. Does anyone know the logistics of this as a three-part film (N.B. three separate IMDB entries)? I'm aware that it screened in festivals en bloc, but were the parts intended to be spaced out, or serialised on television (not much chance of this getting shown on Chinese TV, but maybe internationally)?*

Wang Bing's new one, Coal Money, also sounds promising (didn't Zedz mention seeing it?), and Wikipedia also lists another, Crude Oil, which screened last year at Rotterdam as a 14-hour video installation; the only one of his I've actually seen so far is Fengming: A Chinese Memoir, a lengthy to-camera interview with an old woman about the hardships of the Mao era, which was interesting for its historical perspective, but deliberately short on visual incident (although he does leave the camera running when she gets up from her chair to use the lavatory).

*On the subject of television documentary, it's a shame that so little of it makes it to DVD or gets noticed outside its country of origin, because much vital contemporary work worldwide is still being done in this medium. (In a more utopian Europe, for instance, there might be an 'exchange programme' in which state broadcasters regularly showcased work from other member countries; maybe this does actually happen in more enlightened regions.)

P.S. Colin, those were some detailed reflections on Hotel on the previous page; makes me want to go back to it.

[Camera Obscura]

Just a couple of top favourites at this point:

Die Unberührbare / No Place To Go (Oskar Roehler, 2000)
L'emploi du temps / Time Out (Laurent Cantet, 2001)
Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)
The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel & Ethan Coen), perhaps their best film, just so controlled. Totally morose (just a new word I learned), but never a less engaging moment in it. Quite an achievement, and stunning photography by Roger Deakins by the way.
Comedian (Christian Charles, 2002), it helps of course if you like Jerry Seinfeld, but definitely not mandatory here, and what's not to like in a documentary that has half an hour of hilarious footage of desperately unfunny Boston comedian Orny Adams.
Secretary (Steven Shainberg, 2002)
Karaoke Terror (Tetsuo Shinohara, 2003)
Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2003), I thought this was fantastic, but I should really give some more substantial backing, and should try and rewatch it any time soon.
Bubble (Steven Soderbergh, 2005)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2005)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Doug Liman, 2005), mind boggling action scenes, genuinely smart and intelligent dialog and Brad pitt and Jolie just spark of the screen with great chemistry between the two, it's got the whole cabouche, it's got everything. I think it's all the light-hearted fun one could wish for in this 'remake', and think it's Liman's best - not ignored, but just didn't understand why it got so little critical praise.
Pusher 3 (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2005), the best in the Pusher-series. I've got Bronson in consideration as well, but I'll let that one sink for a while.
Der freie Wille / Free Will (Matthias Glasner, 2006)
The Boss Of It All (Lars von Trier, 2006), no idea why so few didn't find this the most insane laugh-out-loud farce of the year (or even the century...). Nothing beats Gambini-obsessed bad actors and out of control Danish-Icelandic feuds.
I Served the King of England (Jirí Menzel, 2006)
The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)
Cassandra's Dream (Woody Allen, 2007), if I could pick one Allen for a not so brilliant decade, it's defintely this one.
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008), the odd dissenting voices aside, no extra love needed here, I presume, but this is just an extraordinary film that shouldn't be slipping away when the votes come in.
Tôkyô Sonata (Kyoshi Kurosawa, 2008), bizarre change of pace from Kurosawa and he just pulls it off effortlessly. An odd flashback in the second half of the film aside, that really seemed to come out pf nowhere, a subtle understated family drama, and a funny, almost Tati-like eye for detail. Just got a MoC-release by the way, so easily available.

[puxzkkx]

Before I was a shill for LLL, I was a shill for Take Care of My Cat. In fact, I do believe I worked harder to promote TCoMC than its American distributor did. ;~}

I think, in the end, TCoMC is optimistic (rather in the fashion of Naruse's Lightning). Unfortunately Jeong's subsequent film (called The Aggressives) got almost no love or attention -- despite being a pretty fine film -- effectively ending her directing career (I guess she mainly just teaches now).

The Japanese DVD of Megane does have English subtitles -- and is a quite lavish set.

Yamashita's Matsugane Potshot Affair didn't turn out too well.

A lot of really fine low-key Japanese films from this decade will be out of the running -- due to the lack of any English-subbed versions.

For those wanting a Japanese "home drama" that's a bit different -- there is Daihachi Yoshida's "Funuke: Show A Little Love, You Losers". I am very surprised that this extremely savage (but funny) look at "the Japanese family" has not gotten more attention in the West. At least here, however, there is a passable subbed HK DVD. In my mind, vastly better than Morita's Family Game. (Funuke reminds me a good deal of some of Kon Ichikawa great films like Crowded Streetcar).

Have you seen "Strawberry Shortcakes" or anything by Kumakiri - specifically "Hole in the Sky" or "Antenna"? Three films I'm dying to see.

[Camera Obscura]

I just received some great news.

just got off the phone with Tashkent and they found out there's a pristine copy of the considered 'lost' 2001 Uyghur allegorical fantasy A Mighty Herd of Saigas (surprised nobody mentioned it here on the boards). All the more exciting, since I can now compare this version with The Story of the Wheeping Camel, the Mongolian remake, or rip-off, depending on your point of view. I sure hope this will not stir any further diplomatic rows with the Chinese, since this is the find of the century.

Anyway, I'm terribly excited! Hope I get to see this before the deadline.

Oh, and please don't PM me about the exact whereabouts and condition of this copy. I know you're just as excited as I am, but I'll tell you when I find out.

EDIT: I should really give this a separate thread. Or wait, isn't there a topic about lost films? Where is it? I can't find it..

[tojoed]

EDIT: I should really give this a separate thread. Or wait, isn't there a topic about lost films? Where is it? I can't find it..

It's here.

Also, glad to see Ghost World on your list. A terrific film.

[GringoTex]

Amores Perros - When I said I had a lot of catching up to do in this decade, I meant it! A film strongly rooted in the telenovela tradition (whether intentional or not)- I enjoyed ticking off all the archetypes. And the Mexico City mileu was very well rendered. But Inarritu is a brutal filmmaker and the way he force feeds the interconnectivity of the three stories and telegraphs the self-reflecting of the characters became tiresome. It also probably helps to be an animal lover to be emotionally engaged with this film, which I'm not.

[foggy eyes]

Wang Bing's new one, Coal Money, also sounds promising (didn't Zedz mention seeing it?), and Wikipedia also lists another, Crude Oil, which screened last year at Rotterdam as a 14-hour video installation; the only one of his I've actually seen so far is Fengming: A Chinese Memoir, a lengthy to-camera interview with an old woman about the hardships of the Mao era, which was interesting for its historical perspective, but deliberately short on visual incident (although he does leave the camera running when she gets up from her chair to use the lavatory).

Coal Money is brilliant, but much narrower in focus than the "epics" (as you can tell from the running-time!). Heaven knows whether Crude Oil will ever show up anywhere - we'd probably have to organise an installation in London to be able to see it...

West of the Tracks was programmed at LFF (2003/4), but I have no idea how they structured the screening...

[Michael Kerpan]

Have you seen "Strawberry Shortcakes" or anything by Kumakiri - specifically "Hole in the Sky" or "Antenna"? Three films I'm dying to see.

I haven't quite made up my mind on Strawberry Shortcakes. It is certainly quite interesting -- and I am a big Chizuru Ikewaki fan. Some parts of this work well -- and others ... maybe not. I need to rewatch it.

I have seen Kumakiri's Sora no ana (Hole in the Sky), but only unsubbed. Again, a film that is very worth seeing -- but not sure it would make it onto my top 50 list.

I wish Satoshi Miki's Tenten (Adrift in Tokyo) had a subbed release. A great film that has gotten way too little attention.

The same comment can also be made about the complete works of the late Jun Ichikawa (except for Tony Takitani which got at least a little attention). I would say that JI's Tokyo Marigold (2001 -- suubed Japanese DVD), Aogeba totoshi (2006 -- unsubbed Japanese DVD) and Ashita no watashi no tsukurikata / How to Become Myself (2007 -- unsubbed Japanese DVD) are his most outstanding works of the decade (I've not yet seen his last posthumously released film). (I forget -- did we here recognize even one of his great 90s films in our last list?)

So many great Japanese films in the 00s. And Korean and Chinese (of every sort). ;~}

[puxzkkx]

I think Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China have been putting out the best films this decade - only they haven't been noticed at all in the West. Watch Vibrator if you haven't already!

[jonp72]

Here's my reviews on some recent viewings of films from 2000-2001:

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000), the best of the batch I've seen so far. Wong Kar-Wai reminds me of Resnais for his ability to bend time in such a way that it stimulates the memory centers of the brain, the way you daydream in your remembrances of things past. It's a story of star-crossed lovers, but Wong Kar-Wai makes it feel as if you are watching the stars cross all by themselves. That being said, I will probably give the edge to 2046, because I find it so much easier to give myself emotionally to that film, whereas In the Mood for Love depicts its tale of unrequited love with almost Ozu-like restraint. Still, it will rank highly, especially for the wonder that is Maggie Cheung in a never-ending series of Chinese cocktail dresses. Definitely a Top Ten contender on my list. (Also, it is easy to see how much Lost in Translation has borrowed from this film. Sofia Coppola acknowledged as much in her acceptance speech for her screenplay Oscar.)

Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000), it's just shy of three hours long, but I never found it less than absolutely absorbing, especially for how it so thoroughly depicted almost every possible dramatic angle that could be found in one family unit. Like the child Yang-Yang's experiments with his camera, the film shows you things you have not yet seen and lets you learn things you do not already know. Definitely in my top 25, if not the Top Ten.

The Circle (Jafar Panahi, 2000), I'm a big fan of the White Balloon, and I also like this film, but I liked the White Balloon better. Panahi has a deep humanist sympathy for the plight of women in Iranian society that rivals Mizoguchi's sympathy for women in Japanese society, but I felt that the shifting of protagonists in the Circle made it easy for me to empathize with Iranian womanhood in general, without necessarily increasing emotional involvement with any female character in particular. In other words, the microcosm is lost in the macrocosm here. However, I like more than enough of Panahi's style that I will also have to check out Deep Crimson and Offside later.

The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, 2000) I was somewhat underwhelmed by the film. You have vast expanses of white snow in the Canadian wilderness to depict a story of pre-contact Eskimos, but I felt that the director did not fully exploit the natural canvas given to him, and I wasn't that crazy about the glossy digital feel to the film either. The naked foot-chase across barren ice is usually considered the best sequence in the film, but I actually thought the ritual head punching scene was actually better for its claustrophobic intensity.

Platform (Zia Jhang-Ke, 2000) This film may make my Top 50, but I'm not as high on the film as some people on the board. It reminded me of the Travelling Players by Theo Angelopoulos, in how it uses a troupe of performing artists to depict the grand sweep of history. The films are also stylistically similar in how they use static medium-to-long shots to promote a macrocosmic view of history and allow scenes to develop organically. On the other hand, I felt that the 4 hours of the Travelling Players went by faster than the 2 1/2 hours of Platform, even though I still like the latter film. Perhaps, am I raising the bar too high?

The Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, 2000) Its long takes and fluid camera movement reminded me of films that I liked by Tarkovsky and the Hungarian director Miklos Jancso, but felt slightly derivative to me. It also failed to transport me into the mystic in the way Tarkovsky does or to see grand historical events the way Jancso does. I see how the film has an interesting theme about order vs. chaos in the breakdown of life in an Eastern European village, but it still made me think of those "Come Dressed as the Sick Soul of Europe Party" films that Pauline Kael used to deride in the mid-1960s. By the way, if you like Tarr's style in this film, you have got to see both The Red and the White and Red Psalm by Miklos Jancso. I'm intrigued enough to want to seek out Tarr's The Man from London, but I doubt Werckmeister will be on my final list.

George Washington (David Gordon Green, 2000), Its depiction of poor children playing in a decaying industrial landscape reminded me of Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, but I found Killer of Sheep more naturalistic and insightful. On the other hand, the film's depiction of the quasi-title character's messiah complex was gripping, and it's definitely better than a lot of recent American indies. This could "bubble under" on my list.

Time Out (Laurent Cantet, 2001) Its depiction of a French businessman who constructs an elaborate lie to hide the fact that he was fired almost reminded of a French Sinclair Lewis, novelistically finding that heart that beats under the businessman's gray flannel. The plot then takes a more Chabrol-esque turn, but that simply made me crave what Chabrol might have done with the plot.

Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2001) It pinpoints how sister vs. sister rivalry and gawky adolescence contribute to the construction of female sexuality, but I still felt completely sucker-punched by a shock ending that I simultaneously thought was both powerful, yet completely unearned in any dramatic sense.

What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming Liang, 2001), I've heard comparisons to Tati from zedz, and I would agree. Although his mise-en-scene isn't as "busy" as Tati, Tsai has an adept handle on making visual jokes that force you to pay attention to the whole frame of the film. It may not be consistently funny ha-ha as some films, but I found it amusing throughout, and the gag at approximately the 49-minute mark is indeed killer. I also felt that Tsai handled it very well, when the film shifted tone into a more sensuous direction, deepening the emotional resonance of the film, instead of merely tacking on a spicy ending. So far, it looks it's making the list, with a slight edge over Dragon Gate Inn.

[zedz]

Twentynine Palms - I love Bruno Dumont's America, where Turtle Wax can fix scratched paint and you don't have to pay for your ice cream. A pretty silly little horror comedy, but I got a few laughs in. Mostly at Dumont's expense, I think.

I doff my cap to you. A very silly film, and pretty offensive in its assumption that a woman's life is simply collateral damage to a crisis of masculinity (women are just there to take abuse, but a guy getting fucked is the end of the world). All of Dumont's films irritated me to a greater or lesser extent - they're so pompous and adolescent - but he has undeniable chops as a filmmaker. There are serious cultists around here, though, so expect some hatemail!

Good call on Amores Perros as well: a daytime soap that's been injected with Tarantino testosterone. I know there must have been at least one of those many coincidence-heavy interwoven narrative films this decade that I liked, but I can't think which it would be.

[jonp72]

Good call on Amores Perros as well: a daytime soap that's been injected with Tarantino testosterone. I know there must have been at least one of those many coincidence-heavy interwoven narrative films this decade that I liked, but I can't think which it would be.

I hadn't noticed the similarities with telenovelas before, but the intertwining Tarantino plot lines in Amores Perros are definitely quite derivative. (I also regret that nobody gives Jarmusch's Mystery Train credit for popularizing the three intertwined plot lines in the American indie world first.) I also consider Amores Perros a pale shadow of one of my favorite films ever, Los Olvidados.

[GringoTex]

I doff my cap to you. A very silly film, and pretty offensive in its assumption that a woman's life is simply collateral damage to a crisis of masculinity (women are just there to take abuse, but a guy getting fucked is the end of the world). All of Dumont's films irritated me to a greater or lesser extent - they're so pompous and adolescent - but he has undeniable chops as a filmmaker. There are serious cultists around here, though, so expect some hatemail!

Good call on Amores Perros as well: a daytime soap that's been injected with Tarantino testosterone. I know there must have been at least one of those many coincidence-heavy interwoven narrative films this decade that I liked, but I can't think which it would be.

I didn't even think about it until you tied these two filmmakers together in your post, but Dumomt and Inarritu are so strongly grounded in their home turf, that disaster only awaited when they left it. I loved Life of Jesus, because of it's total, hermetic devotion to setting. With L'Humanite, Dumont loses the plot when he has his main character view the setting from the outside perspective of a passing train. That destroyed the film for me. And then with Palms and Flandres, he's just jerking off to a foreign setting.

I haven't seen 21 Grams or Babel yet, and I don't plan to, but I can only imagine the nonsense Inarritu (who is nowhere near as talented as Dumont) is relegated to outside his home turf.

[GringoTex]

Mysterious Skin - Best American film I've seen this decade. Araki has spent so much of his career making "irresponsible" gay fuck-you films, that when he takes on child molestation, the cynicism has already been exorcised. Absolute masterpiece. I see it as a gay response to Linklater (the two filmmakers adore each other's work).

[life_boy]

I know there must have been at least one of those many coincidence-heavy interwoven narrative films this decade that I liked, but I can't think which it would be.

Can't fool us, zedz. We know it was Crash.

[Murdoch]

After a few days of thought on the subject, I'm still not sure if Ceylan's Distant will make my list, but it has definitely piqued my interest in his other work. I found Distant to be profoundly sad depiction of class divisions in Turkey, but the relationship between Yusuf and Mahmut was the highlight of the film and a great showcase of class differences, I didn't feel the relationship between Yusuf and his ex was developed enough - nor his relationships with the other women in the film - but perhaps they were merely there to give an impression of Yusuf's life instead of delving too deep into it. Anyway, the Tarkovsky/porn scene was absolutely hilarious - and for those who haven't seen this I urge you to since I know I piqued your interest by mentioning Tarkovsky and porn in the same sentence.

L'intrus I gave another go and this film just won't leave my head, it's images are imprinted in my mind and I'm still struggling over the meaning and relationships of each character. There is an ethereal brilliance about it, and I keep feeling the need to return to the film if only to see the few brief scenes with Beatrice Dalle (I don't know the significance of the last scene, but it sure did leave me with a smile). Definite top five material, and a film I will continue to revisit in the future once I buy a copy of it and return the one in hand to the library to give someone else a chance to see it.

[zedz]

I know there must have been at least one of those many coincidence-heavy interwoven narrative films this decade that I liked, but I can't think which it would be.

Can't fool us, zedz. We know it was Crash.

Hah! I've managed to avoid it thus far and hope to take that ignorance to my grave (so nobody better go all swapsie on me). I recall quite liking Barbara Albert's Free Radicals, but not so much that it's in contention or anything.