everything i loved this year

I think I saw To Be or Not to Be earlier in this year and I loved it as well. Especially after another fantastic satirical look on the Nazi party just two years previously with Chaplin's The Great Dictator, it was so refreshing that even in that time period, they were able to make light on it - and even more than that, make some damn good art out of it. Especially at a time when Hitler was destroying any art he didn't approve of.

Of the rest I've seen: Mildred Pierce is a solid and unusual noir with some great performances - a favorite of a weak 1945. Rebecca seems to be a favorite of Hitchcock's work for a lot of people, but it's actually one of the lesser ones for me. As I'm currently going through his entire filmography right now (even the really, really crappy early stuff), his direction and Fontaine's performance are incredible, but the film itself doesn't really do much for me. I read the book beforehand as well, and while I think it's a great adaptation of it, it didn't exactly expand on the feelings and ideas expressed in the book. I think, actually, it would work much better as a modern adaptation under the hands of someone like Cary Fukunaga or a mid-2000s Joe Wright. Funny considering Notorious is the romantic Hitchcock that is actually one of my top 5 of his entire work.

The last one I've seen is Make Way for Tomorrow, and it's awesome that you loved it so much. It sits well with me over time, but at the time I saw it I thought it wasn't as hard-hitting or moving as I really wanted it to be (I was expecting devastation, but I only got a little teary-eyed, so maybe down the road I'll need a re-watch). The performances are lovely from Bondi and Moore (the former being my Actress winner), and the direction is very tender (especially when you think how McCarey kind of based it off his own parents following the death of his father). I will say though, I think the reason it works is that for the first half of the film, these two characters are apart and you're thinking "why should I care about them? What makes their relationship so great? They're just two old people right now and kind of nuisances." But the second they get together for that second part of the film, you suddenly realize they're perfect for each other and the film warms your soul watching them spend what might be their last days together. The dancing scene toward the end sure got me, as well as the very end, I'll say that much. Usually tear-jerkers like these want to bash over your head all the gooey, sentimental stuff, but this one uses it sparingly and with a bit of comedy layered underneath it - which is why McCarey's such a perfect fit for the material.

I'm not sure about my own list as I don't keep track of what I see in a year outside of the actual stuff released in said year (so I can say a lot about 2017 films or what I remember seeing this last week or so ha). So I'll have to think back on this.

We just don't gel. At all. But anyone that loves Make Way for Tomorrow is okay in my book. It is simply too wonderful, too wonderfully simple. It is a film which would be lesser if you cut anything out of it.

1. Madoka Magica: Rebellion (Akiyuki Shinbo, Yukihiro Miyamoto, 2013) -- The original TV show was a masterpiece, one that took Kurt Vonnegutt's maxim to writers -- "Be a sadist. No matter how sweet or innocent your characters, make sure that awful things happen to them, so that the reader may know what they are made of. -- and treated it as God's law of storytelling. The show was a horrifying work of misery porn, one that became more powerful as each decision the characters made reverberated for episodes afterward, their sins being visited upon their heads a hundredfold, wearing them down, showing the audience and -- more importantly -- themselves who they really were underneath their carefully arranged masks.

And in the end, writer Gen Urobuchi revealed his hand, writing an ending that draws on all of that hatred and despair and self loathing and never ever dismissed it, but made every horrible decision, every unforgivable action, every sickening look into the mirror of their own souls matter. He had an endgame in sight from the beginning.

So why write a sequel? If it ended perfectly (and it did), why continue the story past this point, where one must either maintain a status quo, or retroactively make the destination of the previous journey of no meaning? If the former, the film would be a cheap cashgrab. The latter, a betrayal of the audience's trust.

But in the latter lies the beauty of this story. It is an active rebellion against everything the show stood for, an anguished scream into the abyss that spits on the ending of the show, spits on everything it stood for, a self-flagellating cry of hatred towards anyone and anything that would dare give these damned souls respite.

Why should I be given water to quench my thirst, when I live in a hell of my own making?

What Urobuchi does here is craft a tale that 100% fits into the characters we already know. It rips apart the end of his masterpiece, but it isn't simply some whim of the writer. The characters that we spent all that time with make their own decisions through this film. They decide to throw over the status quo, to rebel against everything they once stood for. And in retrospect, it seems inevitable that they would.

It seems inevitable that the lingering image of Madoka Magica isn't one of triumph, but of ineffable sadness. "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

The abyss whispers back with nothing but our own voices. God can not hear us. No punishment that man can devise is more horrifying than that.

2. Only Yesterday (Isao Takahata, 1991) -- What a marvelous little gem this is. A simple work that somehow never sets a foot wrong. It is a nostalgic movie that never forgets the present, a coming of age tale that never forgets the pains of adulthood or childhood. A movie about a woman that finds herself uncertain of who she is, that is always certain of what it is. I loved every second of it.

3. Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)[/b] -- Vertigo crossed with Casablanca, creating something new entirely. On paper, it's a melodrama that would seem precariously close to going over the top. But the noirish filming, the setting of a story in rubble and ruins, makes it both a love story and a mystery, in which nobody ever quite seems to be what they probably are.

the year's not over yet

I wish I had more to share, liked reading yours, for me 2017 films Three Billboards and Lucky are it. I think Three Billboards is the best American film of the last few years actually, shortlist of best of this decade, a real dare to small thinkers and small cinema too. I love the film, I love that it's an original screenplay and full of original ideas and slants on matters both big and small.

Lucky was an American film that felt foreign yet could not actually BE more American - nothing happens but only in relation to everything that is happening (life, death, survival, the nature of happiness) and you can riff on the existential nature of it for days. I'll never forget that character or the film he appears in (and beautifully directed by John Caroll Lynch whose getting no credit for a striking debut).

Maybe I have to see more - well, I definitely have to see more, but for now it's those 2. Excited to see Phantom Thread, Personal Shopper....

For old movies I saw for the first time this year, I loved much of The Devil (1972) by Andrzej Żuławski. Some of the images burn their way into your brain and are funny and horrifying and unlike some of his more famous, later films it seems playful and not hard to comprehend. I saw it around Halloween time and it very much fits, I'd like to revisit it in a years time.

I would love to drop some longer thoughts but if I'm clever, I'll go to bed as soon as possible. Among those you mention I have seen are Make Way for Tomorrow, Kiss Me Deadly, Mildred Pierce, My Neighbor Totoro, Rebecca, Notorious, The Wedding March, The Devils, Woman in the Dunes, Rocco and His Brothers, Death in Venice, To Be or Not to Be (and probably also the 2 unmentioned Lubitschs), All That Heaven Allows & The Searchers. Feels weird just listing them but I like them all at least a good deal if I don't love em. My favorite might actually be Rebecca (even though I'm still a little confused about how it fits into Hitchcock's filmography). I also have to disagree with your opening paragraph. I always liked schmaltzy melodrama and considered it high art. One of the first great films I saw after really getting into the film was Murnau's Sunrise which I still think about as being somewhat transcendental.

As for my own year in film, I think strangely enough I posted a top 10 of the month list here sometime in the spring and that contained a lot of the films that lingered already. Otherwise here's an attempt to recollect the greats (no order!):

Breakfast at Tiffany's: The first film I watched this year, I wrote a review
The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971) - Watching a film never made me physically so sick

Porto of My Childhood (2001) - Truly one of a kind. Feels like the memory of the world. Filled with stuff so lively but so old, that my parents weren't even born at that point. Close to the end there is a great segment on Europe post WW II. Europe needs more directors like this. RIP.

Manoel on the Island of Wonders (1984) - Yo, this is a surreal epic about childhood camoufalged as a TV-series for kids (litterally, this is intended a french TV production for kids - or at least this is what the producers intended it to be, what Ruiz thought, nobody knows)

Det perfekte menneske (1967) - Just straight cool and utterly bizzare. Just like our lives.

The Fall (2006) - A fantastic film about the tradition of storytelling. Very unfairly labelled style over substance.

Spring in a Small Town (1948) - Ok, not necesarilly a huge favorite but such a lovely little film. It needs some mention.

Touki Bouki (1973) - The African Bonny and Clyde is better than the American version and a strange poetic musing on longing away in modern day Africa.

Odd Man Out (1947) - This is dying the movie basicly. So draining.

A Moment of Innocence (1996) - One of the best films abotu youth, makes you feel like you can do anything.

The Hart of London (1970) - One of the great experimental films. There's death and snow and it all runs in a cycle.

Toni Erdmann (2016) - Best film of its year.

Ascent (1977) - The magnum opus of a female director who in my view probably knocks all of those currently working out of the ballpark. If you think Biegelow is rough, you ain't seen nothing yet. RIP.

Lucifer Rising (1972) - Just half an hour of overstuffed gay baroque mysticism. Give me this, I need it.

Out 1, noli me tangere (1971) - Rough around the edges but an absolute cornerstone in cinematic history for a reason. Shut up Rivette, you had me at the Goethe poem.

7th Heaven (1927) - <3

Mädchen in Uniform (1931) - This is really close to the absolute top. It just keeps on running around in my mind. So sad and dark and gloomy and claustrophobic. It feels like the last outcry of a doomed civilisation. Also directed by a woman whose career was much shorter than it should have been.

A Grand package of Renoir classics - What can I say? He just grew and grew on me and just about everything I see from him is great.

Olympia (1938) - has its length but absolutely exceptional, yet also frightening.

Storm over Asia (1928) - This is the film that takes Sovjet-montage to its true peak.

Elle (2016) - A nice companion piece to Toni Erdman. This is just allaround how film should be. And it was strange to see a top tier Thriller like that play out in a European city.

Genuine (1920) - A heartbreaking film about the inevitable fragility of beauty.

Elephant (2003) - What the hell is this? How does Van Sant do that? The portrait that he paints, it looks so asleep, life just happens. I know that world but it no longer exists.

The Burden of Dreams (1982) - Fornication.

Deep End (1970) - I actually really kind of like coming of age films I guess but damn, the idea is great, the setting is perfect, this film just does it.

Aguaespejo granadino (1955) - A totally new way to see film.

Stromboli (1950) - Rosselini just does what he does <3

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950) - How does he do it? I'm just so absolutely in those films.

Mildred Pierce (1945) - Did a long writeup already. Was absolutely stunned. Didn't epect this.

Accident (1968) - A stunning societal portrait.

Yeelen (1987) - my favorite African film. I just adore mythical cinema.

The Devil Probably (1977) - As I already said, this film feels 40 years ahead of its time, maybe 50. This one will last as long as hummanity does. No dust could bury it.

By the Bluest of Seas (1936) - If a film ever just screamed beatuty...

Bigger than Life (1956) - This' some scary shit.

Les trois couronnes du matelot (1983) - I think Ruiz probably injected art into his venes.

Chikamatsu monogatari (1954) - Mizoguchi is somewhere in the realm of Murnau. His aestethics are so strangely pure. You see his films and they just burn.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) - It's one of these melodramas again.

Duel (1976) - I wrote about this one already. I absolutely adore Rivette's inventiveness.

Blair Witch Project (1999) - Wrote a short piece about this one aswell in the Halloween thread. It had a strangely serene quality.

Silence (2016) - Scorsese is definitely at it. His best film in decades.

Howard's End (1990) - The cinematography and Emma Tomphson just kills me. It's also a great story (and you know, I like these mannered dramas). My favorite of the Ivory-Merchant productions.

A Place in the Sun (1951) - Also wrote a really long piece about this one.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970) - I just watched it today but I kind of feel like mentioning it. This is a film where something happens all the time and the settings and costumes look absolutely like in a painting, yet it's highly vulgar and surreal. I don't know what is going on but I really had a blast watching it. This is a film that exists entirely in the now.

Waaay too long but I have a hard time condensing these. Can't even really tell you which one was the best.

No way, that's actually hilarious! You've got awesome taste man. I remember you're also a big fan of Mysteries of Lisbon, right?  

Hmm, have you seen O Lucky Man? That's one of my favorites I don't see mentioned here often. 

I still have a few more films I plan to see before New Years but I'll share my two cents on some I loved this year. I'm still high on pain meds writing this so I am sure it isn't the best I can do and will come across as me talking out of my butt. I am too tired for this but looks like this is how the rest of the year will look for me. So, here goes...

Come and See (1985) is the best war movie I have seen in a long time, probably my favorite war movie in general after Apocalypse Now and Shoah. It explores the evils of war from the point-of-view of a child and blends surrealism in the mix quite naturally. I'm gonna strongly disagree with the criticism of the Nazis being brain dead zombies here because of the perspective this war fairy tale takes. The ending shot with Hitler's baby portrait and what that implies addresses this criticism anyway and integrates it into a pivotal scene delving into the deeper themes of this film. I loved this film so much. It is perhaps the most immersed I have been in a film since I saw Melancholia (2008) last year. Every scene topped the one before and it just held my interest for so long and the payoff is cinematic splendor.

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) is so amazing. It's funny how the film (series?) doesn't really become great until the seventh hour or so when it then plunges forth into the greatest character study put to the screen of all time, I swear. It's incredible. I've always been a sucker for The Godfather and how it treats the moral catalog of its characters, and this takes it a step further. The more "boring" episodes are recontextualized by the ending of this emotional tour de force and the final hour is freaking crazy avant-garde complete with angels and Velvet Underground. This has some of the best characters ever and they are played expertly by their respective actors. This has challenged my own narrative and moral sensibilities and that is generally a good thing in my opinion. Props to tobias for the rec.

On the Silver Globe (1988) is a psychological fever deem. It is a visual and sensory masterpiece and I was along for the whole ride. I'm sorry you didn't really get how you couldn't enjoy this, Film Socialism   , but at least you are sincere about your taste, as I am mine. In my opinion, this is one of the bets crafted science fiction films I have ever seen and is on the same playing field as 2001 and Solaris. I really got into Andrzej Żuławski this year in general and really enjoyed Possession (1981) as well to the point I am planning on creating a video analysis of that film exploring its themes of homosexuality and role of parenthood sometime in the nearish possible future. Would anyone be interested?

Close-Up (1990) is a film I most regret not having seen sooner. How can anyone not like this. In addition to serving as a pleb-litmus test, Close-Up is the film to see if you are interested in film as an art form and art in general. It breaks narrative conventions while appealing to my artistic passion like no film before. I can't really recall if it made me cry or not, but I am sure a rewatch would make me shed a tear--a happy one.

Love Exposure (2008) is the most insane movie ever that shouldn't work as well as it does. 4 hours long, Catholicism, upskirt photographers, cultists, lesbians, borderline incest, anime-like imagery, ninjas(?), child abuse, school shooting, Nirvana, feminism, sexism, blasphemy, religion, erections, porn, faith ... like what the heck is this. It's great is what it is.

Black Moon (1975) fulfills my craving for dark fantasy metaphors representing political issues. It's a fairy tale, one that I wish more films would aspire to take after. It doesn't even all fully work and that's part of why I love it. Love the world building and I love the magic. 

For All Mankind (1989) is way better than it needed to be and I thank atn for this recommendation. I have always been interested in space travel and this made me realize how surreal the reality the idea of leaving Earth really is. It's also inspirational much like Close-Up and is arguably the most patriotic film.

Naked (1993) is another great character study that explores the psychology of loneliness, sex, and despair. It has some of the most compelling characters played exceptionally well by their actors. Thewlis has a lot more screen presence than I would have imagined. It's a shame the other film I saw him in this year was Wonder Woman though. I really dig this and you will too.

"The Cameraman's Revenge" (1912) is insane for when it was made. Personified dead insects commit adultery and making exploitation films to expose those who have hurt them... I'm down.

Vive L'Amour (1994) is one of the best films of the 1990's and highlights just how skilled of a director Tsai really is. The crying scene at the end is pure catharsis. Uh, yeah, I'm too tired to explain.


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That was my top 10 new watches of this year. The rest listed below are the other 9/10's I handed out this year to films and shorts I really liked:

100% yes. 

@ tobias -

Have you seen The Devil (referenced in my post above)? I never see it talked about here but I really dug it and glad I was able to see it this year.....

I'll go with ten for now, in no real order:


Birth (2004) ....Icy in its technique, fiery in its commitment to infusing a supernatural conceit with feelings of longing and desire that transcends any kind of rationalization. The kind of masterpiece that blends mystifying emotion with a formal (and sonic) perfection that reaches rare heights. Would not hesitate in calling this one of the most moving experiences I've had watching a film.




El Sur (1983).... I adore this film.




Blowup (1966, rewatch).... reaffirmed my belief that Antonioni is simply the greatest, and that his cinematic language is light years ahead of everyone else's. His talents lie in his uncanny ability to express the inexpressible, and this film probably showcases it better than any other. It's almost funny how many levels it operates on.. a stylish time capsule, a commentary on the nature of reality, on art and perception but also providing enough intrigue and suspense to work as a straight (anti?) thriller.... the hitchockian macguffin at its core is used almost as an excuse for Antonioni to build the entire film around it, carelessly straying from it at every possibility.....Groovy hypnotic jazzy rhythms, idleness, boredom, models, drugs, murder and sex... this film oozes pure sex, which I guess would also apply to much of Antonioni's work, but this one crystallizes that feeling in ways his other don't.



Goodbye to Language (2014) ... what an apt title. Not sure what I can say that hasn't already been said but yeah this is great stuff, Godard experimenting with form, digital, 3d, editing and toying with words and language until they're reduced to pure meaninglessness and absurdness. Ironically this is possibly Godard at his most childishly playful, and he seems very comfortable in this filmmaking mode.



Liebelei (1933).... really surprised by how astonishing this film was, further convincing me that the early 30s (post silent period) is where cinema truly reached an alt-peak that we still haven't caught up with. But yeah, Ophuls's idyllic romanticism and the tragedy that later crushes is quite heartbreaking to witness. Not quite as opulent (ha) as his later pieces but somehow more emotionally resonant and every bit as good.



Ratcatcher (1999).... poetic realism. Calling it a fairytale would be appropriate if it weren't such an unflinchingly real (and at the same time magical) potrayal of misery, poverty and loneliness  .... So many haunting, simulatenously ugly and beautiful images. Ramsay's camera lingers on its characters passively at a distance approaching the contemplative skills of the likes of Tarkovsky, Ozu or Bresson. Powerful stuff.



Toni Erdmann (2016) .... comedy and tragedy, humor and sadness are really two sides of the same coin, two polar opposites that more often than not intersect in ways we don't expect and I don't think any other film has conveyed that idea as accurately as this one. Also a timely existential parable that acts as a mirror both of the individual and society itself, turning out to be the most culturally relevant film we've had in years and (among other things) a cautionary tale about the loss of our sense of self in the face of capitalism that really shouldn't be overlooked or ignored.



SubUrbia (1996).... punk cinema. This is Linklater at his most furious, and his ability to effortlessly weave naturalistic dialogue and well rounded characters reaches its zenith here. Love the lived-in setting, the characters which are so oddly familiar and somewhat lost, grappling with their fragile identities and ideals, each in their own way. This is really the perfect hang out movie and so much better (and more personal, I'd wager) than the overrated Dazed and Confused or the very good but not quite great Slacker.



Funny Ha Ha (2002).... another one that seems to draw heavily from early linklater, with even less insistence on narrative and more on small, mundane conversations, little quirks and moments and traits that come off as wholly authentic and honest.. there's a simplistic, easy-going beauty to it that really encapsulates the best of indie-mumblecore cinema. So good that it kicked off a whole movement, countlessly imitated but never bettered.



The Lost City of Z (2017)... it moves in the realm of Coppola and Herzog, harkening back to the lost art of the american epic while also doing its own thing, and doing it really well. Obsession and dreams, hidden worlds that may or may not exist and the consuming desire to reach this ideal place that never quite formalizes itself (paradise, nirvana, or whatever it may be - it assumes practically the same role as The Room in Stalker). The last 20-30 minutes are incredible, rivalling the hallucinogenic intenisty and otherworldliness of the best parts of Apocalypse Now. I'm not exaggerating when I say  this will be looked back on as one of the best films of the decade, hopefully a modern classic in the making because it's honestly that good.




Some other cinematic highlights or changes I've undergone this year: discovering Pedro Costa, seeing A Family Friends Entertainment and getting into Stan Brakhage (which seemed to open up new ways of seeing cinema), Mysteries of Lisbon as my window into Ruiz, Zack Snyder becoming a favorite (and a growing appreciation for vulgar auteurism), Robert Bresson cementing himself as one of my absolute favorites, Rosetta and kitchen sink realism, Rossellini and the proto-modernism of Stromboli, Evolution of a Filipino Family and the 10-hour family epic, a growing aversion to movies that function as fashionable political/social statements with nothing else going for them(Get Out, Moonlight), an increasing distaste for sadism and empty provocation, rewatching Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy, Palo Alto and drifting youth, Fritz Lang and the art of noir, Kenneth Lonergan, Sleep Has Her House and ambient cinema as a subgenre, an increased affinity for Japanese Cinema and its zen-like simplicity (Ozu, Mizoguchi and Naruse), etc.......

No, actually not yet. I've only seen Posession so far but I'm very excited to see more as Posession was so amazing. I'll keep this one in mind. I think it looks really good for sure.

That's funny, usually I'd say that'd be the late 20's and that sound set cinema back (because even though it gave the option for more complex dialouge, it truly restrained the camera). With films like The Passion of Joan or Ark, Sunrise, The Wind, The Wedding March, Storm over Asia, An Anadalusian Dog, Regen, Man with a Movie Camera, The Docks of New York, Metropolis, 7th Heaven, Napoleon, etc. all being films with such a serene quality that cinema never quite found again.

However it's true that 30's cinema is still very special in that regard because the experimentation still exists and some films have their own special ways, it's a form of cinema that hasn't really survived either. I think most of these absolute highpoints of great experimentation came from Europe but there's also some American films I really adore (often made be european immigrants). From Ophüls there's also Everybody's Woman (which is basicly Citizen Kane just 10 years earlier, though it's not quite as good) & Sans Lendemain. I also like his first film, The Company in Love, it's still somewhat amateurish but it got a really unique touch already. though Liebelei is the best and probably also my favorite european film of the decade. Otherwise the decade is of course dominated by Renoir who made an entire pack of great films. Then there's so boundlessly strange and eternally beautiful stuff like By the Bluest of Seas, Mädchen in Uniform, Men of Aran, Alexander Nevsky (my favorite Eisenstein), I was Born But..., Dovzhenko's Earth, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, The Blood of a Poet, the great animation of Wladyslaw Starewicz, the early works of Marcel Carne, the few films there are from Jean Vigo and Fritz Lang made at least 3 really good films this decade. And even in America Hawks, Lubitsch & Sternberg are making so self-contained and yet vulgar stuff, that they go in an entirely other direction again. And images in their films seem to play an entirely different role than images often do in our films today. Sternberg for instance really lingers on there, even in the small images, Lubitsch's blocking i stellar and Hawks' drama cathartic.