Sight and Sound 2022 Round 8: 241-250 (well 264, to be exact)

The winners so far:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Playtime
Stalker
The Third Man (tie)
Goodfellas (tie)
Spirited Away (tie)
The Spirit of the Beehive
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
The Seventh Seal
Pickpocket
Black Narcissus
Double Indemnity
Zama
Crash

Several favorites but few I love:

A Canterbury Tale
Flowers of Shanghai
Sullivan's Travels
A Taste of Cherry

My vote's a foregone conclusion, but these are solid runners-up:

A Canterbury Tale
My Darling Clementine
Pandora's Box
Syndromes and a Century
Werckmeister Harmonies

oh yeah I'd add My Darling Clementine (on most days my favorite Ford western) and Pandora's Box.

I've only seen it once, but I loved the Jonas Mekas film. After that, yes, Annie Hall--which, unlike Manhattan, I can still watch and enjoy--Werckmeister Harmonies (again, based on a single viewing), and, even though I hate all the gross stuff near the end, Videodrome.

Flowers of Shanghai, with A Canterbury Tale, Pandora’s Box, My Darling Clementine and possibly Possession in the runners-up.

Did anyone catch Werckmeister Harmonies at Film Forum last May?

i feel like A Canterbury Tale and Videodrome would make a tight double bill

The Mekas remains tantalizingly out of reach for me so far

Not only was I lucky enough to see it, I spoke to him for two or three minutes after the film.

(Meeting famous people is far from a preoccupation of mine. But Mekas, that's someone I'm compelled to post about.)

Peter Kubelka, when I saw him, talked for so long before actually showing the movie that I had to bolt before the Q&A could even begin

L'intrus,Possession and Werckmeister Harmonies could all have won other polls, but there's no way I don't vote for Syndromes and a Century. That movie's a portal to another dimension!

Amazing the way Possession has grown in favour over recent years. It got some seriously stinky reviews at the time:

Possession received lukewarm critical response when it was initially released in the summer of 1981. Derek Malcolm of The Guardian stated that, while Żuławski displayed talent and the special effects were unforgettable, the film itself was far too serious for its own good. Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews gave the film a grade of "C+", calling it "an uncompromising demented cult oddity". Leonard Maltin wrote of the film: "Adjani 'creates' a monster, to the consternation of husband Neill, lover Bennent—and the viewer", ultimately deeming the film a "confusing drama of murder, horror, intrigue, though it's all attractively directed". Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "At times, the living-color Possession recalls Roman Polanski's black-and-white Repulsion, though only because Miss Adjani is required to slice up as many male victims as Catherine Deneuve did in the earlier, far better film."

Harry Haun of the New York Daily News panned the film, awarding it one-and-a-half out of four stars and writing that Adjani's "prize-winning mad-act is impossible to appraise because the film it's in is outlandishly unhinged as well... Just about any dialogue accompanying this mess would seem ludicrous". The Philadelphia Daily News's Joe Baltake deemed the film a "boringly camp-elegante attempt by a group of reputable French, German and Polish filmmakers" and assessed Adjani's performance as "babbling, incoherent yet arresting".

(Norm Macdonald voice) A dimension called...BOREDOM!

(Sorry, Cherish and everyone else who loves that film and filmmaker--just couldn't pass up the joke.)

Wha-- !

I don't feel bad about Crash anymore, haha.

I never did.

at first glance thought it would be between annie hall or canterbury tale, but looked again and realised neither of those had veronica lake in them.

will have to watch Flowers of Shanghai again. I only saw it once shortly after it came out, but remember it as being incredibly beautiful

It’s interesting to see such a recent film as Céline Sciama’s Petite Maman(from 2021) on this list. Although it had a somewhat surreal and meta plot line, there were no particularly dramatic moments in the film, and it was confusing at first because it featured two girls who in the story were from ostensibly separate families but who in real life were played by identical twins. As far as I remember it wasn't reviewed or discussed that much at the time, but it was a memorable film

of all the films Claire Denis has made, I think The Intruder (L'Intrus, 2004) is the most opaque to interpretation

As a Céline Sciama fan, I don't at all get the affection for Petite Maman

I think it is ultimately about children and their capacity to believe, and how adults need to understand that to understand children

I became an adult in the 70s, and Annie Hall was a seminal film for me

I really liked Syndromes and a Century, but I think it is the most linear of Joe's films. His willingness to float into the ether in his later films has been so amazing

As far as I remember it wasn't reviewed or discussed that much at the time

It made all these Year-End lists and got rave reviews pretty much everywhere! It was v much discussed:

https://www.yearendlists.com/visuals/petite-maman-f20b2791-a752-4961-86bb-c8cc5b4f0fd2

A CANTERBURY TALE
FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI

need to flip a coin here

"NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (Patricio Guzmán; 2010)"

As good as this is it's incredible that Battle for Chile isn't in the list?

I've been wanting to see Zulawski's Possession for a long time but it has not been available in any format in the US until recently. I see it is now on AMC, but I don't want to have to subscribe to another useless cable service just to watch this film

As far as I remember it wasn't reviewed or discussed that much at the time

― Dan S, Friday, August 18, 2023

It made all these Year-End lists and got rave reviews pretty much everywhere! It was v much discussed:

https://www.yearendlists.com/visuals/petite-maman-f20b2791-a752-4961-86bb-c8cc5b4f0fd2

― Ward Fowler, Friday, August 18, 2023

But it wasn't talked about at the time as if it were one of the 250 best films of all time, which is a very high bar. I'm ok with that, though, it's as good as any of these films

In Vanda's Room was an intimate experience and was an incredible film, portraying someone confessing about their drug abuse in their bedroom. It had a very refreshing non-filmic quality, but it was almost too sad

The Erice is one of my all-time favourites, and this list contains my personal best by Apichatpong, Costa and Hou.

Haven't seen Possession yet, and based on my response to the other three Żuławski I've seen, I'm not hopeful. ""Impossible to appraise because the film it's in is outlandishly unhinged" about covers it.

I'm ambivalent about Werckmeister Harmonies because I'd written about and interviewed Tarr in 1995, very enthusiastic about Sátántangó, and my expectations were perhaps too high. I found a certain contrivance - unlike his two previous films, it felt like onscreen events were happening for the sake of creating long takes, rather than long takes being used to capture events that wouldn't be the same depicted otherwise. Also, there was a new streak of pathos or sentimentality (say in the depiction of the fool, or the big fish), that I'm not sure he had in control.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted for Hou, the looked and saw In Vanda's Room. Oops.

Hou needs more love these days, it seems

(After this, I will do the poll of the winners, which I fully expect to end in a tie of Goodfellas and The Third Man)

Pleasedontdothis.jpg

also ended up voting for Flowers of Shanghai

it is on the criterion channel

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Perverts

Lol, the solution is for Allen to be totally banished from S&S.

Give it ten years.

All those people who voted Spirit of the Beehive #1 in one of the other polls need to check out Quince Tree Sun!

It me.

And don’t sleep on The South!

THE LAST LAUGH (F.W. Murnau; 1924)

Very touching film, the restoration is so beautiful to look at.