My top 20 movies
May. 26th, 2012 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniA few weeks ago, one of my friends, inspired by the Presidential candidates, made a list of her favourite films, and asked me mine. I couldn't come up with a top 5 so I gave her my top 20...actually I provided two lists, my top 20 favourite films and my top 20 best movies (not the same!).
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Alexandre Nevski by S. Eisenstein. Eisenstein was simply a genius. I love this movie for the jokes on nazis(propaganda films can be fun!), the epic battle on ice, the touching story of the two pals in love with the same girl, Cherkassov's beauty, and Prokoviev's fantastic score.
- - L’assassin habite au 21 by H.G Clouzot. My favourite film by my favourite French film-maker. It's a film noir with a lot of funny elements. The dialogues are perfect, the gallery of characters unforgettable, the mise-en-scène spot-on, and Pierre Fresnay was excellent (and quite attractive).
- - The Red Shoes by Michael Powell. The film that made all little girls want to become ballet a dancer! It's creative and dark, like Andersen's fairy tales. Moira Shearer is divine when she dances, Lermontov is an intriguing character, the "Red Shoes" ballet sequence is a film within the film and it's very well done. An old film that hasn't aged at all.
- - The greateast show on Earth by Cecil B. DeMille. Another film from my childhood that I still rewatch with great pleasure. American entertainment at its best with the touching side-story of Buttons played by James Stewart, and a Charlton Heston who has never been more handsome!
- - Robin and Marian by Richard Lester. I adore that film. Sean Connery is a terrific aging Robin Hood, Nicol Williamson an impressive Little John (and I love how he was torn between his love for Robin and his feelings for Marian), Robert Shaw a likeable Sherif of Nottingam, and Audrey Hepburn a wonderful and beautiful Marian. It is realistic and poetic at once and uber-romantic without being soppy. John Barry's soundtrack has been used over and over after that movie to express the epitome of romantic love...
- - Excalibur by John Boorman. My teeange's film. I watched it about 30 times then! Another legend, with Nicol Williamson playing Merlin this time, while Nigel Terry was Arthur and Hellen Mirren a sexy Morgana. Boorman's take on the Arthurian's cycle is quite unique for its mix of violence, poetic dialogues and lyrism. Wagner's music (with Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana thrown in the middle!) helped a lot to make the film memorable!
- - Blade Runner by Ridley Scott. One of the best Science-Fiction movies of all time. Harrison Ford as a tired detective who seemed borrwed from a classical film noir, Rugter Hauer as a flamboyant replicant who does not want to die, Edward James Olmos as the mysterious cop following Deckard around...and E-B Farnum from Deadwood playing the nice genetic designer suffering from Methuselah syndrom! What's not to love?
- Le Nom de la Rose by J-J Annaud. Middle Ages, atmospheric movie, detective story with a mediaeval version of Sherlock Holmes (thank you Umberto Eco!!!). I forgive Annaud for changing things from the book and screwing up history regarding Bernard Gui, just because he picked Sean Connery for the role. Sean Connery as an inquisitor, it's like a film made in heaven for me!
- - Dangerous Liaisons by Stephen Frears. Brillant mise-en-scène by Frears, on a brillant script by Christopher Hampton who wrote the play based on Choderlos de Laclos' novel, and John Malkovich owns the role of Valmont for ever. He just oozes sex-appeal.
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- - Head-On by Fatih Akin. I am not into romances, literature wise, or romantic comedies when it comes to movies, but once in a while there's a film that gets it right, and when it's well done, love stories can be powerful. This one is about a crazy love between a man and a woman who first get into a sham marriage with one another, and that crazy love is at once their doom and their salvation. The performances are stellar – Birol Ünel poignant and hot, Sibel Kelkili is a revelation (she is radiant, moving and fresh while she's a former porn star) , the film is like a punkish Greek tragedy, made by a German director of Turkish roots.
- - Bin-Jip (3-Iron) by Kim-Ki Duk. A man breake into empty family homes and borrows the absent owners' life for a moment, tidying the place in the process. Original and quiet film, slow-paced, elegant and deep, with a pinch of cruelty, as only Asian directors can do.
- - The constant gardener by Fernando Meirelles. Some saw the film as a thriller, a take on how the first world (in this case the UK) exploits Africa, and it is that too, but I think it's first and foremost a love story. And there's also a philosophical side to the film that called to my mind Voltaire's Candide.
- The Prestige by Christopher Nolan. Clever scenario, great actors (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are both perfect in the roles, and Michael Caine is, as usual, a terrific supporting actor), Victorian England and a almost unrecognizable David Bowie. I love how the film provides clues all along, playing with itself in a meta way, telling the story of rival magicians while saying something about movies. Nolan mastered its subject there. Better than Memento and much much better than Inception (and less pretentious).
- Hunger by Steve McQueen. It was McQueen's debut movie and the beginning of his "fellowship" with Michael Fassbender. The film is visually maginficent and emotionally powerful. It's art sublimating what is the ugliest in life. See my review HERE.
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- - The Life of the Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. More than a story on how the stasi worked in GDR, or on how the intelligentsia reacted towards the government, it is the poignant story of a man's awakening, and a touching story of a non-meeting between tow men. Two men, who couldn't be more different, do things that have huge consequences on each other's life, and come to find out stuff about the other's life without the person in question being aware of it. They find each other but it's always a one way thing, without them actually meeting up. The last part of the film balances it out without indulging in fixing it up, as the non-meeting of the men in flesh remains. I take it as a metaphor of the weird relationship between an artist and the people who are touched by his/her art.
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- A Serious Man by the Coen brothers. My favourite movie from the Coens. It's original and very funny, and of course beautifully shot. See the review I posted on my blog.
- Eastern Promises by Cronenberg. I don't always like Cronenberg's movies, but I love that one because of its scenario and because of Viggo Mortensen's performance; the writing is excellent, very metaphorical, and the cast is up to the job. My only quibble is the voice-over (providing extracts from the dead girl's diary) which should have been either in Russian or in Queen's English, but certainly not in English with a Russian accent!
- - Winter’s Bone by Debra Granik. Beautiful film, beautiful portrait of a lady. Yes Jennifer Lawrence was excellent as Ree, but it's John Hawkes' performance as Teardrop that is really mind-blowing. All the people involved in that film can be poud of their work.
- L'exercice de l'État by Pierre Schoeller. I mentioned it here, a few months ago when I saw it.
As for my top 20 of best films:
- Oc
tober by S. Eisenstein
- Alexandre Nevski by S. Eisenstein
- La Passion Jeanne d’Arc by Dreyer
- Modern Times by Chaplin
- M. by Fritz Lang
- La règle du jeu by Renoir
- Les visiteurs du soir by Carné
- Rashômon by A. Kurosawa
- Les Sept Samouraïs by Kurosawa
- Citizen Kane by Orson Wells
- Le Corbeau by H.G Clouzot
- Les fraises sauvages by Bergman
- Rocco et ses frères by L. Visconti
- The Night of The Hunter by Charles Laughton
- On the waterfront by Elia Kazan
- The Matrix by Larry and Andy Wachowski
- Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola
- Eldorado by Bouli Laners
- No country for old men by the Coens
- Oslo 31st by Joachim Trier