BBC’s top 100 century list
By The BBC list has been making the rounds; seems like it deserves a thread.
I think I share two of my top three with the list; In The Mood For Love remains a clear #1 for me (indeed, I’d have to go back to at least the 70’s to think of a film that would challenge it for me), and while I need to rewatch it I’m prepared to keep Mulholland Drive at #3. I’m pleasantly surprised to see Spike Lee’s 25th hour as high as it is; I hadn’t realized critical consensus was finally catching up to where it should be.
More fun that debating what’s too high or too low is most egregious inclusions and exclusions. Here’s mine:
Most egregious exclusions, of the top of my head:
1. Bad Education. #2 so far for me; my favorite Almodovar by far. (Talk to Her is just about right around #30). How many directors have rattled off four films in a row as strong as All About My Mother–Talk To Her–Bad Education–Volver?
2. The films of Hirakazu Kore-eda. Still Walking is probably in my top 10; Our Little Sister isn’t far behind. There are lots of films and directors who’ve been influenced by Ozu and for the better, but with these two films I’m tempted to believe in reincarnation–the man directing these films just has to be Ozu. The effortlessness with which these films, like Ozu’s best work, produce powerful emotional moments from a series of moments from ordinary life is just remarkable. As with Ozu I find it difficult to convey exactly why these films work so well for me. After Life and Nobody Knows are a step below those two, and more Ozu-influenced than Ozu-embodying, but probably both make the backend of my list as well. The conceit of After Life (basically, when you die you get to pick out one day from your life, which you’ll experience over and over again forever. There are council
3. Assayas is represented, properly, with Carlos at 100, and while his very best work is from the 1990’s, at a minimum Summer Hours belongs on this list as well. Structurally similar to Still Walking, and while I prefer the Kore-eda the performances Assayas gets out of Binoche, Berling and Renier are among their best work, and the layering of the family conflict is near-perfectly done. Clouds of Sils Maria is on my must see soon list; Lemieux and Loomis will tell you it belongs on the list. And I don’t know that Clean would make my top 100, but it’s an excellent treatment of addiction, and gets great work from Nolte and Cheung.
4. No Zhang Yimou? Have Hero and House of Flying Daggers seen a decline in their critical reputation? I like them both at least as much as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I haven’t seen them since the theatrical releases, but on the strength of my reactions to them at the time I’d say they belong at least on the back-end, especially Hero.
5. On the Pixar front, Up is much better than Ratatouille (which I liked a fair bit) or Finding Nemo (which was just OK).
6. On the non-Pixar animated front, I think a decent case could be made for The Iron Giant
Most egregious inclusions:
Spring Breakers. Critics seem to be under some sort of bizarre spell regarding Korine. I’ll actually defend Kids, but Korine hasn’t really had any new or good ideas since as far as I can tell, and has only become more pretentious. I almost walked out of Spring Breakers and by the end I regretted not having done so.
I find Moulin Rouge! to be completely and totally unwatchable. I started it three times, never made it more than 30 minutes in. I just don’t understand.
On the Linklater front, I can’t quite call Boyhood an egregious inclusion. It was a legitimately interesting and not unsuccessful experiment. I doubt it would make my top 100 but including it on the back-end of such a list wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable, and I’m amenable to bonus points for technical difficulty. But #5? Come on. And Before Sunset is just awful. Ethan Hawke might be a decent actor for all I know, all I can think about when I see him is how much I loathe everything about the Before movies.
Korine has a pretty staggering pretension to achievement ratio, but von Trier tops him for Dogville. A dumb, silly, dull film.
And while I feel like a bit of a philistine for saying it, what’s the deal with the love for Apichatpong Weerasethakul? I don’t hate his films–they’re pretty to watch and he’s clearly got some talent as a director, but I find myself checking the time pretty frequently when watching his films. None of them are bad, just kind of boring.
[SL]…It is just amazing to me that Dogville‘s reputation survives in 2016. Even at the time the defenses of it could basically be boiled down to “George W. Bush sucks.”
[djw]…three more egregious exclusions worthy of an update:
1. Donnie Darko. Either you agree of you don’t, so no point making the case.
2. Turtles Can Fly. Follows a group of war orphans who scavenge for undetonated mines in a Kurdish refugee camp on the eve of the 2003 Iraq war, working with non-professional Kurdish kids as actors. Hilarous moments (especially a scene where the leader/boss of the kids offers his translation services for George W. Bush speeches, but tells the village elders what he thinks they want to here), but the plot twist/reveal that’s as emotionally devastating as anything from any of these films.
3. Blind Shaft. A film about murderous grifters who work in illegal mines in Northern China. They pick up itinerant workers, convinvce them they can get them a job if they claim to be a relation of some sort, and once they get him in the mines they kill him, make it look like an accident, and extort the owners/managers of the mine. Scathing, haunting indictment of Chinese capitalism, and the place of excess labor in the social order.
[EL] A few thoughts here. First, some of the films are ridiculously high. The Tree of Life? Really? Another 45 minutes of random dinosaur images in between this sort of story about growing up in the 50s would totally make it #1. I do get that in an era where TV has replaced film as the visual media of prestige that someone trying new things gets a major pass, but Tree of Life is just not very good. Albeit it’s a hell of a lot better than To The Wonder, which is an atrocious film. Also, Inside Llewyn Davis at #11? I grant that the cat was cute. But A Serious Man is far, far better. I’m far from sold on Synecdoche, New York at 20. The Master was a complete mess and does not belong at 24. The Social Network? Stop.
Also, Lars Von Trier is a terrible director who has made a career on exploiting women on screen.
That said, I was highly pleased that films seemingly forgotten like Fish Tank; Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring; The Return, and The Gleaners and I made the list. The Return especially is one few have seen but is truly outstanding.
What is missing? The Hateful Eight for starters. After all, he only wanted a blanket. Dirty Pretty Things, which is flawless and wonderful. There’s no Ken Loach and Sweet Sixteen is well worth inclusion. In the Mood for Love is well worth its position at 2 but 2046 is nearly as good and surely should be in the top 100. Arnaud Desplechin is missing entirely. Kings and Queen is outstanding. So is A Christmas Tale. The entire Romanian New Wave is missing. That’s ridiculous. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days should be there. (So it is there there. The Romanian New Wave still should have more than 1 film) 12:08 East of Bucharest too. Another great and obvious inclusion should be Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light. Where are the films of Johnnie To? Exiled at the very least should be included. I know everyone loved Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell and I liked it too. But I thought Take This Waltz was really great and has one of my five favorite scenes of all time. Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture is incredibly powerful. And Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria, definitely.
But it’s good enough to argue about, which is really the point. Even though I simply refuse to accept Boyhood at #5. And unlike everyone else on this blog, I really like the Before Sunrise/Sunset films But c’mon.