A Cinema Canon for the Ages

[oscar jubis]

Thank you, Chris, for going to the trouble of finding that quote and sharing it with me. I appreciate that.

I'm the one who posted the quote, not Chris.

One added note... Oscar mentioned Ikiru and then Chris said this film moved him more than any movie he'd ever seen. That's a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one.

Given how prolific Kurosawa was, it's weird Chris and I both love Ikiru and Rashomon more than any others from his filmography. Yes, a ringing endorsement of Ikiru

I have added some recent or fairly recent films to my all-time list:

Ida

A black-and-white film, released in 2013, shot in academy ratio about a girl raised in a (Catholic) convent who finds out at age 17 that she's Jewish. It fits into the transcendentalist style proclaimed by Paul Schrader in his book about the films of Dreyer, Bresson, and Ozu. It inspired Schrader to make a film that may one day be included on this list: First Reformed.

Minari

Excerpts from the review by Chris Knipp: "Minari is a very low-keyed, personal, authentic film whose widespread success with critics and viewers astonishes in view of how much it avoids conventional markers or payoffs. There's a defiance in it that underlines its personal-ness, and unwillingness to please or impress, that fits with the pivotal relationship of Soonja with her eight-year-old grandson, David (Alan S. Kim). This is a film that requires us to internalize the action and ponder it. We're in it for the long haul, not the payoffs. We aren't fed dramatic markers or modeled reactions, but must find them. I'd say it's the richer for this. This is, after all, a story that needs no fanfare for many in this country of immigrants. The hardships here are those of many, but not all. What fits a great number is how it is for the foreign born who have American children and see them take a foothold in this country they may have had to struggle for. As Vanity Fair's Anthony Breznican explains in a recent article typical of many now, Lee Isaac Chung'S "semi-autobiographical story" about "young Korean immigrant parents" who take their family "to rural Arkansas" to start a farm "defies categorization in many ways." It is "a tearjerker, a comedy, a coming-of-age story, and a kind of adventure, all in one." It also is an American film, made and set in America with American actors released by the winning young American distributor A24 - but, confusing categories, having over half its dialogue in Korean. People have been thrown off by this. Minari was listed as a foreign film for the Golden Globes (in which category it won) - but is currently a regular best picture contender in the Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Best Picture leader for the Oscars. Americans are leery of foreign languages. They need to accept that families who speak something other than English at home are an American staple. Perhaps even scoffers will come to tolerate and then befriend this oddball, bravely personal movie." (Knipp)

Sorry We Missed You

Ken Loach has won the Palme D'Or twice but I think this film that also premiered at Cannes (2019) is even better. Sorry We Missed You is about the nature of work in our fucked-up times and how it impinges on marriage and family life. It features a delivery man from Manchester married to a home-care nurse, their rebellious graffitti-artist teenage son, and bright 11 year-old daughter. It's about ordinary people doing ordinary things and having ordinary problems. If that sounds "neo-realist" in the Italian post-WWII mode, consider the use of non-actors in some major roles and real-location shooting. It builds to an emotional crescendo that elicits a compelling, empathetic catharsis. As far as I know, it was not released in America, which illustrates the current style of censorship in USA. Sorry we missed your masterpiece, Mr. Ken Loach.