(Hee hee). But everybody has a list called "Films I Don't Like!" I wanted to borrow an expression from a dear friend of mine (who also includes "Stalker" among hers).
I agree I do have a long way to go. There are many more films I'd like to see, and much deeper art to plunge into, and my perspective changes with each great one I do see. But I maintain each film on this list struck me as intellectually bankrupt as the last (but that's only my opinion - I don't mean to be an internet asshole). *(I'll remove "Double Life of Veronique" and "Rebel Without a Cause". I saw "Double Life" three times and it didn't feel whole by end [removed for Irene Jacob's quietly astounding acting]. I admit I might have misinterpreted "Rebel", but only because when I saw it I hadn't seen Ray's other work, or yet developed a guilty taste for melodrama.)
If you'd like to sway me from my erroneous beliefs, direct me toward analyses that will give me food for thought. I'm very open and will watch a film again with a new perspective.
However, I don't think "Taste of Cherry", "Stalker", "E.T." and most especially "A Clockwork Orange" are leaving anytime soon. Anyone who is impressed by Kubrick's adaptation can kindly be directed to Anthony Burgess's novel; much more challenging, engrossing, beautiful, complex and graceful than Kubrick did justice. So much of the fun and fascination of the novel is the manipulation of prose; reading it is like learning a new language. It is like a puzzle until we decipher what is really happening, and then it's disgusting - though serving the greater purpose as a question of violence and the minds of those who carry it out, its affect on society, and our expectations of what we'd like to do with these people. Perspective is key: Alex is our only way to view the world he inhabits. Kubrick failed to realize pictures are too literal to translate Burgess's words without actualizing them, therefore taking out the clever duality of entertainment, emotion, shock and moral conscience and turning it into tacky sets and wide-angle lenses.
"Taste of Cherry" was really a 'nothing' movie. So much could have been explored that is only hinted at in the third act, but still it refuses to engage us. Heck - there could even have been characters! (It might sound silly, but I also found it a bore [how much talent does it take to put a camera in a car and watch people drive around and talk?]).
"Stalker" was three hours of people wading through sewers with water dripping. Tarkovsky was so obsessed with texture that he wasn't paying attention to how those textures play into the fabric of the narritive - or really any point. Some scenes (particularly at the beginning of part II) were even unintentionally hilarious - watching the actors wander around afraid of unseen forces was like watching three kids play 'pretend'.
Okay, that was snarky. I'm starting to turn into an internet asshole. You got me.
I guess the only thing more I can say is compare "La Strada" to "Ugetsu".
In a list with The Hangover, Star Wars and E.T., you mention Taste of Cherry and two of Tarkovsky's masterpieces, A Clockwork Orange and La Strada? Not only these types of films have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but also it shows that you have a long way to go. The list should be named: Films I Don't Like, not the emperor has no clothes... It's not really emperor's fault if you can't see his clothes.
