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

[Fierias]

I'm still waiting to see Everyone Else (actually, I can't think of a 'new' film that I'm anticipating more right now), but I think that Forest for the Trees is not without flaws (most of the supporting characters are so relentlessly detestable that, particularly in the first half, the set-up for Melanie's situation comes off as too heavy-handed), so it's conceivable that I'll like this new film more.

I've seen La Cienaga half a dozen times, and Headless Woman once, so I've definitely warmed up to the former quite a bit more, but I also recall being more immediately impressed with it as well. I admired Headless Woman more than anything else, and had quite a bit of trouble getting into it (arguably the point).

[GringoTex]

You people like La Cienaga more than La mujer sin cabeza?

Yes! La cienaga is one of the great "childhood" debuts in cinema, right up there with Vigo, Truffaut, Pialat, and Bill Douglas. As I mentioned previously, it is Martel's Renoir and the colder, more abstract La mujer sin cabeza is her Antonioni.

[franco]

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

[puxzkkx]

Well, I still have to see The Forest for the Trees, but do you people like it more than Everyone Else?

I actually haven't seen the latter yet, but it is one of my most anticipated films of this year.

I kind of disagree with Fierias re: the supporting characters in TFftT. I think that it is clear what path Melanie's 'new life' is going to take right from the beginning, but there's always a glimmer of hope there. The only thing that I thought was a bit over the top was the high school students' reactions. But those days not being as far away for me as I would wish, I still remember how awful it was at my schools for new teachers. I don't think the reaction the students' had was THAT unrealistic.

I hope Ade continues making films after Everyone Else - I can see her becoming a big name in world cinema.

[GringoTex]

Tropical Malady - Now I know (after being unimpressed with Blissfully Yours) that Weerasethakul is a great filmmaker because the first half of this film says so. But then it switches into a stupefyingly long, boring and poorly filmed jungle hunt sequence. And worst of all the two leads, who were so spectacularly natural and at ease in the first half, are suddenly stilted and terrified of the camera as Weerasethakul forces them to "act" out the folk tale. Maybe the whole second half just went over my head.

[Phil]

But then it switches into a stupefyingly long, boring and poorly filmed jungle hunt sequence.

While I personally like it a lot I can totally understand the first two adjectives there, but poorly filmed just doesn't make any sense at all to me, care to elaborate on that a bit? I thought it was gorgeous, and quite, for lack of a better word, seductive - very much in service of how mysterious the whole 2nd half feels (tonally I was reminded of Hitchcock more than anything). I will say that when it shifts from subtly to overtly magical/mythical I thought it was a bit heavy-handed; might still make my list though (Mysterious Object at Noon and Syndromes and a Century almost certainly will).

[zedz]

Tropical Malady - Now I know (after being unimpressed with Blissfully Yours) that Weerasethakul is a great filmmaker because the first half of this film says so. But then it switches into a stupefyingly long, boring and poorly filmed jungle hunt sequence. And worst of all the two leads, who were so spectacularly natural and at ease in the first half, are suddenly stilted and terrified of the camera as Weerasethakul forces them to "act" out the folk tale. Maybe the whole second half just went over my head.

I haven't watched the Second Run disc of this yet, but when I saw this on the big screen, I thought that second half was one of this century's great arguments for the importance of cinema over home viewing, as I couldn't imagine how the experience could be replicated on the small screen, even with the finest transfer imaginable. Much of its impact was in terms of the shifting textures of very low contrast imagery and the subtleties of the sound design - it was a film that was playing as much - or more - to your peripheral perception as to your direct, engaged consciousness. Dramatically abstract, but completely immersive, and that unexpected climax came off like live action Miyazaki.

I still don't know exactly what the relationship between the two halves of the film is (or if Weerasethakul actually had a precise narrative relationship in mind), but they mesh / interact / contradict one another beautifully on the emotional and formal levels. Anyway, Gringo, if you get the chance to see this on film, it might strike you differently. Or not!

Administrative note: I'm just about to update the Swapsies Register at the top of this thread, so if your nominee is still absent, PM me.

[Michael Kerpan]

Claire Deni's 35 Shots of Rum. Seen. Almost certainly will make the cut. Possibly my favorite recent family drama -- after Still Walking, of course.

[zedz]

Claire Deni's 35 Shots of Rum. Seen. Almost certainly will make the cut. Possibly my favorite recent family drama -- after Still Walking, of course.

I liked this a lot when I saw it several months ago, but I'm such a Denis hog I didn't think I'd be able to find room for it ahead of the other Denis films destined for my list. It's so low-key that some people have dismissed it as 'minor'. I'd reserve that classification for something like Vers Mathilde, but I could see what they meant. However, it's a film that keeps returning to my mind. I can't go a day or two without a scene, an image, a movement from the film coming back to me. Of all the new films I've seen this year it's certainly the one with the most staying power, and another few weeks percolation will surely see it rise to my top 50.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

Claire Deni's 35 Shots of Rum...... Of all the new films I've seen this year it's certainly the one with the most staying power, and another few weeks percolation will surely see it rise to my top 50.

Let it grow, let it grow
Let it blossom, let it flow

Even though I can never see CD stooping to Eric Clapton, this sprang to mind.

[zedz]

Even though I can never see CD stooping to Eric Clapton, this sprang to mind.

Well, she's set her cultural limbo bar lower than I ever expected with 'Nightshift', so who knows? She's pretty flexible for an old girl - must have been taking lessons from Mathilde Monnier.

[Fierias]

Our Beloved Month of August (Gomes) - I started and stopped this over the course of two days, and have just now finished it. It's a modest epic about..pretty much everything from filmmaking to musical performance. I'm not sure how it all fits together, especially the music (which was occasionally lovely) and an odd love triangle (square?). I never watch films this way, but in between its hypnotic and viscerally electrifying bits, it frustrated the hell out of me, despite never being boring, and I probably didn't pick the best time to dive in to a film like this. Could make my list, pending a rewatch.

[life_boy]

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003)
I got about halfway through before I realized I was watching a bunch of ghosts kick around an old movie house. Tsai holding a shot for long time doesn’t bother me, really. I kept feeling like he was daring me to leave the theater and walk around the movie like all his characters keep doing instead of sitting with it. But I was watching it on DVD so I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I really love this film. I laughed a lot.

Mutual Appreciation (Bujalski, 2005)
The characters are inarticulate, rambling and insecure individuals who believe they are great communicators via art, but they really just kind of repeat themselves and uh, you know, say stuff. Not the most astute observation but I suppose it is a pertinent one to a generation of American film students trying to either break into Sundance or Hollywood or start an indie band, anything that actually beats working. I won’t say that I hated this film; like I said, I kind of think it has something meaningful to say, I just didn’t really enjoy sitting with it because I already knew that about life.

Burn After Reading (Coen, 2008)
Typical Coens kicking the Sturges can around for a while. At first I was surprised at the sheer contempt they have for the characters and then I remembered I was watching a Coen Brothers movie. Pitt is kind of fun, though.

Good Dick (Palk, 2008)
Harmless little film I happened to catch during an empty slot at a festival. I could be overly cynical about it because is it really that different from anything else from Sundance Class of ‘0-whatev? But it is harmless which is better than the worst of these types, I guess.

Make-Out with Violence (The Deagol Brothers, 2008)
A slightly interesting genre bend exercise (a zombie coming-of-age romance), fairly focused for a first feature by two brothers.

Black and White Trypps Number Four (Russell, 2008)
A hypnotic and frightening revelation. I feel the undercurrent of a celebrity, as if submitting alien messages in the pauses, in-between the frames, attacking and vicious: Richard Pryor stars in Mothlight: The Musical. Definitely charting on my list.

Mission to Mars (De Palma, 2000)
I loved this film. I can’t really defend it right now because of the honeymoon. De Palma takes me at least two viewings before I become intelligible.

Woman is the Future of Man (Hong, 2004)
The Power of Kangwon Province broke my top 10 last decade and this one looks like it’s setting a similar course. The final shot has stuck with me for hours on end. I was completely taken by Hong's deconstruction of male manipulation ("Let me cleanse you.") and boredom-lust ("Will you suck me off?") and am fascinated and perplexed by the information included and excluded ("I have a present for you. Fresh snow."). I've read how others consider this minor Hong; it's only my second, but if this is minor I don't know if I can handle his major works.

[franco]

Our Beloved Month of August (Gomes) - I started and stopped this over the course of two days, and have just now finished it. It's a modest epic about..pretty much everything from filmmaking to musical performance. I'm not sure how it all fits together, especially the music (which was occasionally lovely) and an odd love triangle (square?). I never watch films this way, but in between its hypnotic and viscerally electrifying bits, it frustrated the hell out of me, despite never being boring, and I probably didn't pick the best time to dive in to a film like this. Could make my list, pending a rewatch.

Hey Fierias... how did you see the movie? Is it even on DVD? I had a chance to see it in cinema but I left half way through. I'd blame the headache, the rain (outside), the 3 movies I watched earlier that day, and the nasty scene where a woman goes around the guys asking for an actress role (which kind of angered me as I had the impression that the scene was intended to be funny). I read that the second half is very different from the first half.

[Michael Kerpan]

Some critics have brushed off each new Hong Sang-soo film (since Turning Gate) as "minor Hong". I frankly never understood this attitude. Each film has had its own unique charms (and virtues). If I had to pick just 2 Hong films from the past decade, this would not make the cut -- simply because I love Virgin Stripped Bare and Woman on the Beach even more.

[franco]

Michael have you see Like You Know it All or Night and Day? I thought these are minor Hong too. Liked the first halves of both films.

[Michael Kerpan]

Michael have you see Like You Know it All or Night and Day? I thought these are minor Hong too. Liked the first halves of both films.

Night and Day (lacking a DVD release anywhere) continues to elude me. The Korean DVD of Like You Know It All just came out recently -- and (based on just one viewing) I think I do like (and will continue to like) this one quite a bit (even if not as much as Virgin and Woman on the Beach).

[Zazou dans le Metro]

Just sprinkling a few titles into the mix rather than making an impassioned plea. Don't think I've seen 'Cool and Crazy' mentioned. Norwegian doc about a male voice choir in the arctic circle of advanced age and questionable sanity who sing outdoors in blizzard conditions. Good companion piece to Kitchen Stories and Roy Andersson that have been mentioned already. Also Lucas Belvaux. Both for his Trilogy genre experiment and his ultra Melvillean take with La raison du faible. And whilst I'm stopping - 13 Tzameti .

[zedz]

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003)
I kept feeling like he was daring me to leave the theater and walk around the movie like all his characters keep doing instead of sitting with it. But I was watching it on DVD so I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

You should have checked out the basement. I think that's where the action is.

Black and White Trypps Number Four (Russell, 2008)
Richard Pryor stars in Mothlight: The Musical.

Brilliant! I think this one's going to make my list as well. If you liked this, you should check out Matsmoto's Ecstasis, if you haven't seen it. There's an extract from it in Funeral Parade of Roses and the whole thing (in dodgy quality) is available on ubuweb.

Woman is the Future of Man (Hong, 2004)
The Power of Kangwon Province broke my top 10 last decade and this one looks like it’s setting a similar course. The final shot has stuck with me for hours on end.

Like a lot of the films under consideration for this decade, I haven't seen this since it first came out, but I thought the way the film twisted around in its final moments was very smart indeed. I can understand the perspective of those who see a decline after On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate, but I think it's more a case of Hong becoming a slightly different kind of filmmaker at that point, shifting away from the structural experiments of the early films and pushing harder and harder against the norms of audience identification instead. The films are structured as if they're romantic comedies with conventionally sympathetic protagonists, but they're practically the opposite.

[foggy eyes]

Night & Day is Hong's greatest film! Such a shame that it's not available on DVD (Like You Know It All is very minor in comparison, I think). Ditto 35 Rhums for Denis - her warmest, most moving, and (what the hell, sorry zedz) biggest yet. Even just the sound/movement/light train stuff at the beginning towers over pretty much everything in Beau Travail...

[zedz]

Night & Day is Hong's greatest film! Such a shame that it's not available on DVD (Like You Know It All is very minor in comparison, I think). Ditto 35 Rhums for Denis - her warmest, most moving, and (what the hell, sorry zedz) biggest yet. Even just the sound/movement/light train stuff at the beginning towers over pretty much everything in Beau Travail...

I think Night and Day is the best nu-Hong (post-Turning Gate) film, but until now I thought I was completely alone in that opinion!

We're really quibbling over degrees of perfection re. Denis, so this is probably more in the realms of theology than film criticism, but snuggly as it is I don't think it's any warmer than Vendredi soir or more moving than Nenette et Boni. Bigness isn't a value judgement (and it won't be especially rewarded on my 2000s list anyway), but I think the sprawling, knotty L'Intrus and the heightened, open air Beau Travail are 'big' in a way that the intimist 35 Rhums and Vendredi soir simply aren't, just as Kagemusha is bigger than Early Summer. But this is basically irrelevant, since I don't think I've ever accused 35 Rhums of being 'little' or 'minor'.

The lastest round of discussion has prompted me to provisionally overhaul my old list. Only a smidgen over half of the titles I nominated last time survived and 35 Rhums did indeed make the cut, behind two other Denises. My current top ten is basically a reshuffle of the last one with one addition (my swapsie) and one stratospheric riser (Le Pont des Arts - The Portugese Nun looks to be one of the great unseens of this iteration, along with Police, Adjective), but after that it's still rather random, and I'm reminded how many films I need to revisit before I put this to bed.

[franco]

I can't wait for my DVD of 35 Rhums to arrive!

It's a shame that Police, Adjective won't reach too many cities before the year's end. IMDB lists December 23 for limited US release. Not sure if that is for real or not. The movie is playing at the Windsor International Film Festival. Maybe those who live in Detroit will feel like crossing the bridge.

Have people been seeing Tsai Ming-Liang's new film? It appears to have divided fans in a similar way that The Limits of Control divided Jarmusch's fans.

[zedz]

Have people been seeing Tsai Ming-Liang's new film? It appears to have divided fans in a similar way that The Limits of Control divided Jarmusch's fans.

I haven't seen it and have only heard bad reports, but everything I hear about it makes it sound stranger and stranger, thus making me ever keener to see it.

And then there are those stills:

Bad, maybe, but boring?

[franco]

I've seen Face twice and have no problem saying that it's my favorite Tsai (though it still involves some lame scenes). There is a three minute "trailer" that collects the best scenes from the movie accompanied by its most irresistible song (sung by Laetitia Casta). You guys must have seen this clip, no? It's been there for a while.

I can easily see how people could find the movie boring, however, although I cannot understand how someone can place Birdsong in the pantheon of "slow/contemplative cinema" and Face in the backyard of "student films." They both involve meticulously composed images of characters fumbling around and stretching the duration of a scene.

[knives]

Those stills look very interesting. I can't imagine something that looks like that being bad-bad. By the way should I make my first Tsai Goodbye, Dragon Inn or should I search out an other?