The Longest Post On Filmwurld

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for the post Chris. I like reading White's criticism and I'm glad he elevates TREE OF LIFE as well as Jonze's HER which doesn't quite make my list but I admire. It elicits interesting thoughts and discussion about modern existential issues. I'm going to add Pedro Costa's HORSE MONEY to the list instead. This Portuguese director is more than the sum of his signature techniques (chiaroscuro, fixed camera, declamatory passages, partial camera perspectives,"wooden" performative style,) Amongst other things, Costa's filmography is also a chronicle of a richly detailed immigrant community of Cape Verdeans in Lisbon. Costa's films are brilliant in a very original way and HORSE MONEY is his most accessible.

I also have to edit my initial post to add a couple of movies that I have watched many times over the years and ponder their relative merits. These are two movies that have finally won me over completely. I think now most definitely that MARNIE is second only to VERTIGO amongst Hitchcock films and I am so happy that there is a film of his that unlike PSYCHO, VERTIGO and others has an ending that is optimistic about the possibility of mending a dark, broken heart and having love win out. It's the opposite of the so tragic Vertigo.

One more film to add will be a surprise, I'm sure. I think Albert Brooks' MODERN ROMANCE is absolutely great and a better examination of romantic neurosis than any film by Woody Allen.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the favorable comment on Armand White. I may post his latest annual "Better Than" list, which seems more sane and mainstream arguably, this year.
I am aware of Pedro Costa from Lincoln Center events, primarily the NYFF, and of the details you note. From Ne change rien and Colossal Youth. There has been talk in year's end listings etc of Vitalina Varela but I have not seen it. Ne change rien (so visually vivid and memorable) made me aware of Jeanne Balibar's singing which in turn prepared me for her impersonation of the French singer Barbara in Matthieu Amalric's film, which was beautiful and atmospheric to see in Paris even though few Americans would see the point of it. I will look into Albert Brooks's Modern Romance but hope your'e not joining the American band wagon chorus trashing Woody Allen. I've reviewed most of his oeuvre in recent years and think he's well worth the trouble. To me it is a scandal that English speaking countries (US, UK) are blackballing Woody's new film A Rainy Day in New York, so you have to go to Paris to see it. Since French critics love it and say it's his best and most upbeat in years, the Metascore of 48% just isn't believable. The AlloCine press rating is 4.0, equivalent to 80%.

[oscar jubis]

The most recent release that I have added to my canonical list of love objects is...the 4 hour, 2-part American film: A BREAD FACTORY (USA/2018)

Here's a quote from Richard Brody about it:
“A Bread Factory” is, above all, a comprehensive vision: with a ferociously dedicated, deeply empathetic, finely conceived sense of purpose, Wang offers a steadfast utopia of imagination, devotion, integrity, memory, and love in the face of hatred, corruption, despair, and loss. He dramatizes the value of art as the enduring embodiment and living memory of its creators’ humane relationships; he distills community and culture into a mighty cinematic force.

I will also add another film from the 2010s! Repeat viewings and discussions with my FIU students lead me to conclude that
Ciro Guerra's EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (Colombia/2015)
is a unique achievement in the art of film that must be watched by anyone who loves the medium.It's about encounters between the last member of an extinct Amazonian tribe and two Westerns explorers, 40 years apart.

Justin Chang in Variety:
"The ravages of colonialism cast a dark pall over the stunning South American landscape in “Embrace of the Serpent,” the latest visual astonishment from the gifted Colombian writer-director Ciro Guerra. Charting two parallel journeys deep into the Amazon, each one undertaken by a European explorer and a local shaman, this bifurcated narrative delivers a fairly comprehensive critique of the destruction of indigenous cultures at the hands of white invaders, and if Guerra somewhat exhausts his insights before the end of its two-hour-plus running time, there’s no denying the film’s chastening moral conviction or the transfixing power of its black-and-white imagery. At once blistering and poetic, not just an ethnographic study but also a striking act of cinematic witness, “Serpent” should continue to garner critical and audience acclaim on the festival trail following its top Directors’ Fortnight prize at Cannes."