By the way, why can’t we just add ALL the movies? I mean, by every single director? There must be a script someone could write that would just pull them all in from IMDB right? Or maybe members can add a movie themselves if they can’t find it. Just give us a form to fill out to submit a new movie and maybe have the process automated or something. Seems like it could be much less painless.
Abbas Kiarostami
A Taste of Cherry = great
Close-Up = great
The Wind Will Carry Us = great
Ten = great
Five = very good
Through the Olive Trees = very good
Where is the Friend’s Home? = good
Ten on Ten = good
Breaktime (short film) = very good
The Chorus (short) = great
The Bread and Alley (short) = very good
Two Solutions for One Problem (short) = very good
ABC Africa = okay
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
A Moment of Innocence = great
Kandahar = great
The Cyclist = good
Samir Makhmalbaf
The Apple = very good
Blackboards = good
Majid Majidi
Song of Sparrows = great
Baran = good
Jafar Panahi
White Balloon Shrug = can’t remember, it’s been too long
Offside = very good
Forugh Farrokhzad
The House is Black (short documentary) = very good
Rakhshan Bani Etemad
Under the Skin of the City = very good
Bahman Ghobadi
Half Moon = great
Turtles Can Fly = great
Mani Haghighi
Men at Work = okay
Dariush Mehrjui
Bemani = great
The Cow = good
The Lady = okay
Mahdi Moniri
Tinar / Lonely = good
Marjane Satrapi , Paronnaud
Persepolis = very good
I think we shouldn’t disregard countries. Sure, we shouldn’t see “American film” as somehow less… but at the same time, there are unique things about each country’s films, and I find it interesting to explore a country’s films in relation to each other. You can slowly kind of “get” a certain thing or mentality from a group of films from the same country that you can’t if you’re just a “fan of all film!” where you don’t see boundaries.
Many good points made. Especially about the humorous aspects and the theme of not seeing. Repetition is a big thing for Kiarostami, and I think at first it can be off-putting because you JUST saw the same thing! But the repetition is also lulling, and forces you to watch slight variations over and over and forces you to see beyond the obvious. It appears to be simplistic at first (and it partially comes from Kiarostami’s background making children’s movies, children need a lot of repetition), but slowly it becomes either 1.) funny or 2.) meditative or 3.) both. Also, in this case it is funny and sad too because he is like a machine caught in a groove and he can’t get out of it. Like a broken record. I think he definitely rides a fine line.
It’s also on Netflix I think. I haven’t seen it either. It looks good.
I love a lot of these films… Kandahar, Ten, Offside, Song of Sparrows, Turtles Can Fly.
I’d love to talk about these some more. It’s been a while since I’ve seen most of these, except Song of Sparrows. Actually, I might re-watch Kandahar soon. That movie was really amazing to me. Here’s a kind of gushing review I wrote at the time:
The semi-true story doesn’t really go anywhere, it’s just a set-up, a background to place these big topics in, but it ultimately works. And it works precisely because it doesn’t go anywhere, it reinforces the trapped state that the women are in, and is ultimately devastating. This movie directly deals with female oppression and the very current issues of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan without being preachy or political. In fact, it is highly personal, beautiful, and moving. One thing I was particularly struck by was how well edited this film is. The pace is perfect and never felt like one of those travelling movies where the person just moves along and meets A then B then C. Here it is all very fluid and flowing. And the best editing is in the very beginning and very end of the movie. The way he re-uses some of the shots to convey two things at once. Another masterpiece from Makhmalbaf!
Reading over it reminded me of a few things that I seem to notice in several other Iranian movies
1. Women’s rights seem to be a big topic in many Iranian films
2. Politics are dealt with in a very personal way, & sometimes in a veiled way (b/c of censorship)
3. Narration is fluid but not always linear, it seems to flow the way the mind does sometimes
4. Fiction and non-fiction blend very comfortably. Use of non professional actors
I’ll write more later, I really wanna re-watch it now.
PS – I wish I could remember what I meant when I said “The way he re-uses some of the shots to convey two things at once.” I know I was referring to the editing and the way the shots accumulated meaning as they were repeated, but I can’t remember the specific instance. He did some of this in Gabbeh too, but in a more overt manner.
I’ve really enjoyed all the reviews so far. “Hafez” and “Another Morning”, especially, sounds really interesting. Here are some more descriptions from me:
OFFSIDE (Panahi)
This was another film that dealt with female oppression, which is a common theme in Iranian film. A group of girls dress up as boys and sneak into a World Cup soccer/football match (women are not allowed at sporting events in Iran). They get caught, and detained. This movie is charming and energetic and full of warm characters. The dialogue is often funny and often serves as social commentary, though sometimes tedious… and the ending is pretty moving. The really impressive thing is that it was filmed during the actual game in 2006… and so, naturally, I wonder how the movie would’ve been different if the result of the game were different… did Panahi have an alternate script in case that happened? Everything was filmed perfectly, it seemed like he hired the crowd and everything, but then later you realize that it was all out of his control except for his main crew of actors.
FIVE, FOR OZU (Kiarostami)
A really hypnotic and mesmerizing film. Five static shots make up this movie, things move in and out of the frame and tell 5 separate short “stories” that aren’t really narrative stories, but more like a form of marking time. It seems like a departure for Kiarostami, but also a natural progression. Even in his films before this he has always exhibited a kind of step back and watch attitude. The key to the film working is the recurrent water theme. I think that I can literally watch the ocean for hours without getting bored, and if Kiarostami had filmed trucks instead of the sea, it may not have been nearly as hypnotic or successful of a film. That said, one complaint I have about the movie is I can’t figure out why he would want to use video for this task! I mean, I understand video has many advantages, many of them being portability, ease of use, ease of editing etc. But this film is just static shots, so it wouldn’t be any harder to use film. It literally does not take advantage of ANY of the benefits of video. The film would’ve looked so much better if he had shot using film.
HALF MOON (Ghobadi)
The thing I really loved about this movie is its mysteriousness, there is a supernatural/metaphysical element and a surreal element that kicks in throughout the film, but REALLY kicks in high gear towards the end. The metaphysical element blends in with reality, making it seem almost normal, and you never know if it’s a heightened sense of storytelling or if what you’re seeing is really happening. The story itself is fittingly metaphysical in nature, it’s about death the same way Dead Man (Jarmusch) is about death, in that it’s this sort of doomed spiritual journey—doomed from the start. The humor and tone of the movie is very different from Dead Man, though, I’m just saying the overall kind of theme is similar. There were also some amazing scenes of just pure visual beauty. The movie had some flaws (the humor can be too heavyhanded) but the cumulative effect is poetic, visceral and spiritual and a little bit uncomfortable. Great movie.
BEMANI (Mehrjui)
About 3 girls and their struggles with a patriarchal society. Synopsis I copy/pasted: “Attempting to escape an arranged marriage with a much older man, a desperate young woman follows the example of her friend and opts for self-immolation.” The actual plot may not be that exciting, but actually executed extremely well. It’s the way the story was told that makes this such a good movie. Moments of charm, moments of beauty, and great characters. And at times, a very unconventional way of filming. The fourth wall is broken a lot to an interesting effect. There were moments that suddenly out of nowhere resembled a slasher film, which was weird and jolting and very effective… kinda funny, the humor is sometimes really great, but sometimes kinda weird, I’m not always sure if I’m supposed to laugh. Anyway, I loved this film. Sorry this wasn’t that expressive of a review.
SONG OF SPARROWS (Majidi)
At first blush it seems to be a simple allegory about consumerism… and it is, in a way. It’s a movie about a family trying to make ends meet, told with a lot of humor and a lot of countryside scenery… and a lot of ostriches! It follows the father as he loses his job as an ostrich farmer and finds a new one in the city (Rural vs. Urban theme that seems to come up often in Iranian film). Meanwhile the son and his friends dream up a fantasy of making money with fish, which the father frowns upon. These two storylines parallel each other, and build off each other in very interesting ways.
01. YI YI
02. WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? (Tsai)
03. SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (Weerasethakul)
04. BAMAKO (Sissako)
05. TEN (Kiarostami)
06. BEMANI (Mehrjui)
07. INNOCENCE (Hadzihalilovic)
08. 2046 (Wong)
09. KANDAHAR (Makhmalbaf)
10. MULHOLLAND DR. (Lynch)
Taiwan probably already gets a lot of attention, but maybe it still can still use more. :) Hey, I can’t help it, I just love their films. Will there be a Taiwanese thread?
I may be repeating what others have said, but here is a list of things on my Auteurs Improvement Wishlist:
Ability to re-arrange movies in our lists. For example, drag and drop movies around so that it is in the order that we want
Ability to re-arrange order of our auteur’s list.
Ability to un-rate a film (not just change a film’s rating) by going to that film’s page. The current way of doing it requires going to my own ratings page, finding the movie, and removing it. But I have hundreds of movies rated, for me to find the movie I want to un-rate would take a long time. It would be much easier for me to go to search, type in the name of the movie, and click “clear my rating” or something.
In the “Forum” section of our profile… I like that you’re listing out all the topics we’ve posted in, but an improvement would be to have the # of unread comments after it. For instance “BEST MOVIES EVER (4 new)” or something, so I know when to go look. I know there is a notification option, but I hate e-mail notifications.
Ability to add your own movies. For instance, go to a Auteur’s page. If the movie doesn’t exist, click on a new button “Add Movie”. Then it will show you a form for entering the movie info, uploading a screenshot, etc. If you guys are control freaks, you can even have a “review process” before making all submissions live. So that it would be PENDING… then you could go and approve them, making sure they are not bogus entries.
Similar process for entering new directors, actors, whatnot.
Some kind of optional notification/subscription thing for lists. When someone replies to me in someone’s personal list, i don’t think it notifies me currently. But maybe there is an option for this in the settings that I’ve overlooked. Ideally, I’d like to be able to subscribe to updates/changes/replies to certain lists that i’m a fan of, but not to others.
I don’t really understand the difference between writing a “review” for a movie and just writing something on a movie’s wall. Maybe you can beef up the reviews functionality so it can be more tempting to write them. Maybe a “LIKE” or “DISLIKE” function that people can click on your review, and also maybe people can write comments in response to your review. Then when you go to a movie page you can “sort reviews by:” most comments, most number of likes, most number of dislikes, etc.
Can we make the “Favorite Films” section of our profile into one of those scrollable things… sort of like the widget at the bottom of the amazon page… or the widgets on this page http://digitalbooks.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ (look at the iPod Compatible Audiobooks, those covers underneath there, and the little arrow where you can go right and left)
Also, to cut down on your workload: the “submission form” for new films or directors to add would have some AJAX shit that would make it pop up and say “this movie has already been requested and is pending approval” if it’s a movie that has already been submitted. That way, you won’t get 29382393 requests to add DUST IN THE WIND (which you need to add by the way… wink-wink, haha). The message would pop up as they are typing in the name of the movie. And to account for different ways of spelling a movie, perhaps you can have a field where they enter the IMDB url of the movie too, so that would be the unique identifier of any new movies.
Here’s an initial post of movies I’ve seen and a few I have not seen. The ones I haven’t seen have links to pages with more info. The ones I’ve seen have a synopsis in my own words. Please contribute your knowledge and your reviews of these films.
2000 Yi Yi (Edward Yang)
Epic family drama, follows several storylines and characters as they wrestle with modern-day ennui.
Mirror Image (Hsiao Ya-Chuan)
“Tung-ching is running his father’s pawnshop on the outskirts of Taipei with his girlfriend Eiko while his father is in hospital. A scooter accident has left Tung-ching with no lines on his palm, frustrating Eiko’s desire to know his fate. A beautiful woman comes into the shop, who Tung-ching calls Xiaode Le (Now I Know), and they begin a relationship in love and illegal hawking.” http://bit.ly/6NQ1Ck
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)
Period drama, artistic license.
2001 Millenium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
Stylistic movie about a woman, drugs, nightclubs, a controlling boyfriend and another guy she meets later on.
What Time is it There? (Tsai Ming-Liang)
A man and a woman try to make a connection, though she is in France and they’ve only met once. Nobody does anything about anything.
2002 The Skywalk is Gone (Tsai Ming-Liang)
This short film is a continuation of WTiiT, the lead woman tries to find a vendor (the main guy in WTiiT) but the skywalk where he sold is watches is no longer there.
A Way We Go (T’ung Wang)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0911042/
Double Vision (Chen Kuo-fu)
“A serial killer is tracked down by a dogged Taiwanese police detective and an American FBI expert. " http://bit.ly/60Ws77
2003 Cafe Lumiere (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
In t his quiet tribute to Ozu, a woman tries to do research on a composer.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-Liang)
While the last feature (King Hu’s Dragon Inn) plays for the last time at an old and grand Taipei cinema that is about to closing down, a few of the remaining characters wander and interact aimlessly in the theater.
The Missing (Lee Kang-Sheng)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0497642/
2005 Three Times (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
Three short films representing three different times.
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-Liang)
A continuation of WTiiT and tSiG. The main character has turned to making pornographic films. Meets the woman in WTiiT again and for the first time makes some kind of connection.
2006 I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-Liang)
“Lee Kang-sheng stars in a dual role as a brain-dead patient being cared for by a young woman (Chen Shiang-chyi), and as a homeless man who is severely beaten by a mob, and then found and cared for by a Bangladeshi migrant worker (Norman Atun).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Want_to_Sleep_Alone
2007 Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
A tribute to The Red Balloon (Lamorisse), Juliette Binoche tries to raise her little son in Paris.
Help Me, Eros (Lee Kang-Sheng)
“The film centers around the lives of three socially isolated characters – the newly-unemployed Ah Jie (Lee), the call center counsellor he depends on for support, Chyi (Liao), and, Shin (Yin Shin), one of the team of provocatively dressed girls employed in selling betel nuts and cigarettes to passing customers at a street kiosk below his apartment.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_Me_Eros
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee)
An espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai, in which a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.
2009 The Message (Chen Kuo-fu & Gao Qunshu)
“Set in 1942, the Chinese government is a puppet of imperialistic Japan. A string of high Chinese officials are assassinated. Japan’s intelligence agency tries to find out the mole inside the intelligence agency by sending a false telegraph. Five suspects are caught reading the telegraph and then are sent to a closed fortress. To little avail, interrogators torture them to confess. The chief officer of the agency and the five suspects start to lose patience and sanity. Self-sacrifice for their nation, brotherhood, and betrayal lead to an unforgettable climax.” http://bit.ly/7c9aGx
Visage (Tsai Ming-Liang)
“Hsiao-Kang, a Taiwanese film director, travels to the Louvre in Paris, France, to shoot a film that explores the Salomé myth.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262420/
Another suggestion: when you type in a URL in the forum, it should automatically make it a link. Example: http://www.google.com should have been made into a link instead of static text. Thanks!
Fellini – 8 1/2 tied with Nights of Cabiria
Bergman – Scenes from a Marriage
Kurosawa – Seven Samurai
Truffaut – The 400 Blows
Renoir – Rules of the Game
Fassbinder – The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant
Herzog – Stroszek
Godard – Band of Outsiders
Antonioni – La Notte tied with The Passenger
Bresson – Pickpocket
Hitchcock – Vertigo
Bunuel – That Obscure Object of Desire
Lang – M
Tarkovsky – Mirror
Mizoguchi – Ugetsu
Rossellini –
Altman – Three Women
De Sica – Bicycle Thieves
Polanski – Knife In The Water
Rivette – Celine and Julie Go Boating
Wenders – Wings of Desire
Rohmer – My Night at Maud’s
Melville –
Kubrick – 2001: A Space Odyssey
I’m interested in if he said Antichrist sucks, or if he just said he wouldn’t consider watching it given what he’s seen of Von Trier’s previous movies. I think the latter is perfectly acceptable, but the former seems a bit ignorant.
Of Von Trier’s films, I have only watched Dancer in the Dark. If that movie is representative, then I kind of agree with Rosenbaum in that he seems to exploit melancholy, instead of having melancholy arise organically. His films are depressing without redemption, and I don’t mean that redemption is always necessary, but if the purpose of the film is solely to exploit one emotion, it is almost like melodrama. Interestingly enough, I just checked on imdb and Von Trier’s latest film will be 2010’s “Melancholia”.
Back to Rosenbaum, what did he mean when he said films cannot depict the times… As in, it is IMPOSSIBLE? or just very hard? Because if it is impossible, what is the point of bringing up Kiarostami’s name? I’m a bit confused about this point.
Did he give any more clarification on the difference between “depict” and “reflect”?
My opinion is that films cannot help BUT depict the time they are made in. Even when it’s a period piece or a film that is trying to mis-represent the present, a clever film viewer would be able to (if he wanted to) see through all that and glean really telling details about the time it was made.
That is why you can learn a lot about cold war fears through a movie like THEM!, a sci-fi thriller that is definitely not trying in any way to be a social commentary or to be a document of the times, but you can still read into it and see what the mentality was at that time.
I think a movie like The Color of Pomegranates (Parajanov) would be interesting to study in relation to objects. There are many objects in that movie, and they are used in interesting ways, I think it would require some deep scholarship to unearth all the levels of meanings, but on a casual watch, I gleaned a lot of emotional weight from them even though I didn’t know exactly what everything meant. Gabbeh (Makhmalbaf) also uses and re-uses objects in different contexts, often to symbolize different things.
I remember watching an Iranian movie called Poet of the Wastes (Ahmadi) that is about a poet who earns his meager living as a street sweeper. It seems like it might fit in with your theme well if you can find it.
Also may be interesting to look at objects in a surreal film like Un Chien Andalou, though it might be a bit too obvious for your purposes? Not sure.
Oh Scorpiorising just reminded me: What Time Is It There would be a good one. You can study all the clocks and watches in that movie and the different forms they take (there are a lot of them). Not sure if the emotional weight of the watches/clocks changes as the movie goes on or if it’s basically the same. Haven’t thought hard about it yet, I guess haha. Also, the mother at one point masturbates to the ashes of her dead husband, which is almost like making a person into an object and then trying to treat it as a person. haha. I’m sure there are other objects worth examining in that film.
Kaifu: I realize that. I didn’t set out to do that, however, if you can think of any other Taiwanese movies to contribute, please share! It’s not meant to be Tsai/Hou heavy, it’s just that they are the most known and I can only write what I know, right? Please share some of your favorites from the last decade, thanks!
Which movies would you like to see on The Auteurs? over 2 years ago
Hou Hsiao Hsien’s DUST IN THE WIND.
By the way, why can’t we just add ALL the movies? I mean, by every single director? There must be a script someone could write that would just pull them all in from IMDB right? Or maybe members can add a movie themselves if they can’t find it. Just give us a form to fill out to submit a new movie and maybe have the process automated or something. Seems like it could be much less painless.
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Iranian Films over 2 years ago
Here are my opinions of the ones I’ve seen:
Abbas Kiarostami
A Taste of Cherry = great
Close-Up = great
The Wind Will Carry Us = great
Ten = great
Five = very good
Through the Olive Trees = very good
Where is the Friend’s Home? = good
Ten on Ten = good
Breaktime (short film) = very good
The Chorus (short) = great
The Bread and Alley (short) = very good
Two Solutions for One Problem (short) = very good
ABC Africa = okay
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
A Moment of Innocence = great
Kandahar = great
The Cyclist = good
Samir Makhmalbaf
The Apple = very good
Blackboards = good
Majid Majidi
Song of Sparrows = great
Baran = good
Jafar Panahi
White Balloon Shrug = can’t remember, it’s been too long
Offside = very good
Forugh Farrokhzad
The House is Black (short documentary) = very good
Rakhshan Bani Etemad
Under the Skin of the City = very good
Bahman Ghobadi
Half Moon = great
Turtles Can Fly = great
Mani Haghighi
Men at Work = okay
Dariush Mehrjui
Bemani = great
The Cow = good
The Lady = okay
Mahdi Moniri
Tinar / Lonely = good
Marjane Satrapi , Paronnaud
Persepolis = very good
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How do I un-rate a movie? over 2 years ago
I rated a film 3 stars. Then I realized that it’s not the film I thought I had seen. How do I clear the rating?
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How do I un-rate a movie? over 2 years ago
Easier said than done when it is a movie that is not commercially available
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Iranian Films over 2 years ago
I just watched Gabbeh tonight, Jazzaloha. It was, indeed, great.
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Film on its way up or down as an art? Opinions. over 2 years ago
I think we shouldn’t disregard countries. Sure, we shouldn’t see “American film” as somehow less… but at the same time, there are unique things about each country’s films, and I find it interesting to explore a country’s films in relation to each other. You can slowly kind of “get” a certain thing or mentality from a group of films from the same country that you can’t if you’re just a “fan of all film!” where you don’t see boundaries.
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What is your favorite animated film, excluding all of Disney? over 2 years ago
I need to watch more. But I really like:
Triplets of Belleville
Castle in the Sky
Billy’s Balloon
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THE WIND WILL CARRY US over 2 years ago
Many good points made. Especially about the humorous aspects and the theme of not seeing. Repetition is a big thing for Kiarostami, and I think at first it can be off-putting because you JUST saw the same thing! But the repetition is also lulling, and forces you to watch slight variations over and over and forces you to see beyond the obvious. It appears to be simplistic at first (and it partially comes from Kiarostami’s background making children’s movies, children need a lot of repetition), but slowly it becomes either 1.) funny or 2.) meditative or 3.) both. Also, in this case it is funny and sad too because he is like a machine caught in a groove and he can’t get out of it. Like a broken record. I think he definitely rides a fine line.
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american films that define the 2000s over 2 years ago
HAHAHAHA. Umm.. yeah, I didn’t catch the sex.
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Iranian Films over 2 years ago
I’ve made an IRANIAN CINEMA list. Come to my page to look at it.
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Best Films of the Noughties: Helping us all find lesser known greats: Centre of operations over 2 years ago
I just started a best of the 00’s list today. Go look at it. It’s linked to from my page.
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IF WE IGNORE 81/2 AND DOLCE VITA, WHAT'D BE THE BEST FELLINI MOVIE? over 2 years ago
Nights of Cabiria. It is tied with 8 1/2 in my mind as Fellini’s best.
After that it’s I Vitelloni, La Strada, Amarcord. I actually don’t care for Dolce Vita that much.
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Best Films of the Noughties: Day 1 - Iran over 2 years ago
It’s also on Netflix I think. I haven’t seen it either. It looks good.
I love a lot of these films… Kandahar, Ten, Offside, Song of Sparrows, Turtles Can Fly.
I’d love to talk about these some more. It’s been a while since I’ve seen most of these, except Song of Sparrows. Actually, I might re-watch Kandahar soon. That movie was really amazing to me. Here’s a kind of gushing review I wrote at the time:
The semi-true story doesn’t really go anywhere, it’s just a set-up, a background to place these big topics in, but it ultimately works. And it works precisely because it doesn’t go anywhere, it reinforces the trapped state that the women are in, and is ultimately devastating. This movie directly deals with female oppression and the very current issues of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan without being preachy or political. In fact, it is highly personal, beautiful, and moving. One thing I was particularly struck by was how well edited this film is. The pace is perfect and never felt like one of those travelling movies where the person just moves along and meets A then B then C. Here it is all very fluid and flowing. And the best editing is in the very beginning and very end of the movie. The way he re-uses some of the shots to convey two things at once. Another masterpiece from Makhmalbaf!
Reading over it reminded me of a few things that I seem to notice in several other Iranian movies
1. Women’s rights seem to be a big topic in many Iranian films
2. Politics are dealt with in a very personal way, & sometimes in a veiled way (b/c of censorship)
3. Narration is fluid but not always linear, it seems to flow the way the mind does sometimes
4. Fiction and non-fiction blend very comfortably. Use of non professional actors
I’ll write more later, I really wanna re-watch it now.
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Best Films of the Noughties: Day 1 - Iran over 2 years ago
PS – I wish I could remember what I meant when I said “The way he re-uses some of the shots to convey two things at once.” I know I was referring to the editing and the way the shots accumulated meaning as they were repeated, but I can’t remember the specific instance. He did some of this in Gabbeh too, but in a more overt manner.
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Best Films of the Noughties: Day 1 - Iran over 2 years ago
I’ve really enjoyed all the reviews so far. “Hafez” and “Another Morning”, especially, sounds really interesting. Here are some more descriptions from me:
OFFSIDE (Panahi)
This was another film that dealt with female oppression, which is a common theme in Iranian film. A group of girls dress up as boys and sneak into a World Cup soccer/football match (women are not allowed at sporting events in Iran). They get caught, and detained. This movie is charming and energetic and full of warm characters. The dialogue is often funny and often serves as social commentary, though sometimes tedious… and the ending is pretty moving. The really impressive thing is that it was filmed during the actual game in 2006… and so, naturally, I wonder how the movie would’ve been different if the result of the game were different… did Panahi have an alternate script in case that happened? Everything was filmed perfectly, it seemed like he hired the crowd and everything, but then later you realize that it was all out of his control except for his main crew of actors.
FIVE, FOR OZU (Kiarostami)
A really hypnotic and mesmerizing film. Five static shots make up this movie, things move in and out of the frame and tell 5 separate short “stories” that aren’t really narrative stories, but more like a form of marking time. It seems like a departure for Kiarostami, but also a natural progression. Even in his films before this he has always exhibited a kind of step back and watch attitude. The key to the film working is the recurrent water theme. I think that I can literally watch the ocean for hours without getting bored, and if Kiarostami had filmed trucks instead of the sea, it may not have been nearly as hypnotic or successful of a film. That said, one complaint I have about the movie is I can’t figure out why he would want to use video for this task! I mean, I understand video has many advantages, many of them being portability, ease of use, ease of editing etc. But this film is just static shots, so it wouldn’t be any harder to use film. It literally does not take advantage of ANY of the benefits of video. The film would’ve looked so much better if he had shot using film.
HALF MOON (Ghobadi)
The thing I really loved about this movie is its mysteriousness, there is a supernatural/metaphysical element and a surreal element that kicks in throughout the film, but REALLY kicks in high gear towards the end. The metaphysical element blends in with reality, making it seem almost normal, and you never know if it’s a heightened sense of storytelling or if what you’re seeing is really happening. The story itself is fittingly metaphysical in nature, it’s about death the same way Dead Man (Jarmusch) is about death, in that it’s this sort of doomed spiritual journey—doomed from the start. The humor and tone of the movie is very different from Dead Man, though, I’m just saying the overall kind of theme is similar. There were also some amazing scenes of just pure visual beauty. The movie had some flaws (the humor can be too heavyhanded) but the cumulative effect is poetic, visceral and spiritual and a little bit uncomfortable. Great movie.
BEMANI (Mehrjui)
About 3 girls and their struggles with a patriarchal society. Synopsis I copy/pasted: “Attempting to escape an arranged marriage with a much older man, a desperate young woman follows the example of her friend and opts for self-immolation.” The actual plot may not be that exciting, but actually executed extremely well. It’s the way the story was told that makes this such a good movie. Moments of charm, moments of beauty, and great characters. And at times, a very unconventional way of filming. The fourth wall is broken a lot to an interesting effect. There were moments that suddenly out of nowhere resembled a slasher film, which was weird and jolting and very effective… kinda funny, the humor is sometimes really great, but sometimes kinda weird, I’m not always sure if I’m supposed to laugh. Anyway, I loved this film. Sorry this wasn’t that expressive of a review.
SONG OF SPARROWS (Majidi)
At first blush it seems to be a simple allegory about consumerism… and it is, in a way. It’s a movie about a family trying to make ends meet, told with a lot of humor and a lot of countryside scenery… and a lot of ostriches! It follows the father as he loses his job as an ostrich farmer and finds a new one in the city (Rural vs. Urban theme that seems to come up often in Iranian film). Meanwhile the son and his friends dream up a fantasy of making money with fish, which the father frowns upon. These two storylines parallel each other, and build off each other in very interesting ways.
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THE AUTEURS BEST OF THE DECADE: FILMS over 2 years ago
01. YI YI
02. WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? (Tsai)
03. SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (Weerasethakul)
04. BAMAKO (Sissako)
05. TEN (Kiarostami)
06. BEMANI (Mehrjui)
07. INNOCENCE (Hadzihalilovic)
08. 2046 (Wong)
09. KANDAHAR (Makhmalbaf)
10. MULHOLLAND DR. (Lynch)
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Best Films of the Noughties: Helping us all find lesser known greats: Centre of operations over 2 years ago
Taiwan probably already gets a lot of attention, but maybe it still can still use more. :) Hey, I can’t help it, I just love their films. Will there be a Taiwanese thread?
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Help make The Auteurs totally awesome over 2 years ago
I may be repeating what others have said, but here is a list of things on my Auteurs Improvement Wishlist:
Ability to re-arrange movies in our lists. For example, drag and drop movies around so that it is in the order that we want
Ability to re-arrange order of our auteur’s list.
Ability to un-rate a film (not just change a film’s rating) by going to that film’s page. The current way of doing it requires going to my own ratings page, finding the movie, and removing it. But I have hundreds of movies rated, for me to find the movie I want to un-rate would take a long time. It would be much easier for me to go to search, type in the name of the movie, and click “clear my rating” or something.
In the “Forum” section of our profile… I like that you’re listing out all the topics we’ve posted in, but an improvement would be to have the # of unread comments after it. For instance “BEST MOVIES EVER (4 new)” or something, so I know when to go look. I know there is a notification option, but I hate e-mail notifications.
Ability to add your own movies. For instance, go to a Auteur’s page. If the movie doesn’t exist, click on a new button “Add Movie”. Then it will show you a form for entering the movie info, uploading a screenshot, etc. If you guys are control freaks, you can even have a “review process” before making all submissions live. So that it would be PENDING… then you could go and approve them, making sure they are not bogus entries.
Similar process for entering new directors, actors, whatnot.
Some kind of optional notification/subscription thing for lists. When someone replies to me in someone’s personal list, i don’t think it notifies me currently. But maybe there is an option for this in the settings that I’ve overlooked. Ideally, I’d like to be able to subscribe to updates/changes/replies to certain lists that i’m a fan of, but not to others.
I don’t really understand the difference between writing a “review” for a movie and just writing something on a movie’s wall. Maybe you can beef up the reviews functionality so it can be more tempting to write them. Maybe a “LIKE” or “DISLIKE” function that people can click on your review, and also maybe people can write comments in response to your review. Then when you go to a movie page you can “sort reviews by:” most comments, most number of likes, most number of dislikes, etc.
I’ll have more I’m sure. Thanks for listening!
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Help make The Auteurs totally awesome over 2 years ago
One more thing:
Can we make the “Favorite Films” section of our profile into one of those scrollable things… sort of like the widget at the bottom of the amazon page… or the widgets on this page http://digitalbooks.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ (look at the iPod Compatible Audiobooks, those covers underneath there, and the little arrow where you can go right and left)
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Help make The Auteurs totally awesome over 2 years ago
Also, to cut down on your workload: the “submission form” for new films or directors to add would have some AJAX shit that would make it pop up and say “this movie has already been requested and is pending approval” if it’s a movie that has already been submitted. That way, you won’t get 29382393 requests to add DUST IN THE WIND (which you need to add by the way… wink-wink, haha). The message would pop up as they are typing in the name of the movie. And to account for different ways of spelling a movie, perhaps you can have a field where they enter the IMDB url of the movie too, so that would be the unique identifier of any new movies.
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Help make The Auteurs totally awesome over 2 years ago
LAW: Ooh! Thanks for that advice! I’ll try it now.
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Taiwanese Films That Define the 2000s over 2 years ago
Here’s an initial post of movies I’ve seen and a few I have not seen. The ones I haven’t seen have links to pages with more info. The ones I’ve seen have a synopsis in my own words. Please contribute your knowledge and your reviews of these films.
2000
Yi Yi (Edward Yang)
Epic family drama, follows several storylines and characters as they wrestle with modern-day ennui.
Mirror Image (Hsiao Ya-Chuan)
“Tung-ching is running his father’s pawnshop on the outskirts of Taipei with his girlfriend Eiko while his father is in hospital. A scooter accident has left Tung-ching with no lines on his palm, frustrating Eiko’s desire to know his fate. A beautiful woman comes into the shop, who Tung-ching calls Xiaode Le (Now I Know), and they begin a relationship in love and illegal hawking.” http://bit.ly/6NQ1Ck
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)
Period drama, artistic license.
2001
Millenium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
Stylistic movie about a woman, drugs, nightclubs, a controlling boyfriend and another guy she meets later on.
What Time is it There? (Tsai Ming-Liang)
A man and a woman try to make a connection, though she is in France and they’ve only met once. Nobody does anything about anything.
2002
The Skywalk is Gone (Tsai Ming-Liang)
This short film is a continuation of WTiiT, the lead woman tries to find a vendor (the main guy in WTiiT) but the skywalk where he sold is watches is no longer there.
A Way We Go (T’ung Wang)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0911042/
Double Vision (Chen Kuo-fu)
“A serial killer is tracked down by a dogged Taiwanese police detective and an American FBI expert. " http://bit.ly/60Ws77
2003
Cafe Lumiere (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
In t his quiet tribute to Ozu, a woman tries to do research on a composer.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-Liang)
While the last feature (King Hu’s Dragon Inn) plays for the last time at an old and grand Taipei cinema that is about to closing down, a few of the remaining characters wander and interact aimlessly in the theater.
The Missing (Lee Kang-Sheng)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0497642/
2005
Three Times (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
Three short films representing three different times.
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-Liang)
A continuation of WTiiT and tSiG. The main character has turned to making pornographic films. Meets the woman in WTiiT again and for the first time makes some kind of connection.
2006
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-Liang)
“Lee Kang-sheng stars in a dual role as a brain-dead patient being cared for by a young woman (Chen Shiang-chyi), and as a homeless man who is severely beaten by a mob, and then found and cared for by a Bangladeshi migrant worker (Norman Atun).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Want_to_Sleep_Alone
2007
Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
A tribute to The Red Balloon (Lamorisse), Juliette Binoche tries to raise her little son in Paris.
Help Me, Eros (Lee Kang-Sheng)
“The film centers around the lives of three socially isolated characters – the newly-unemployed Ah Jie (Lee), the call center counsellor he depends on for support, Chyi (Liao), and, Shin (Yin Shin), one of the team of provocatively dressed girls employed in selling betel nuts and cigarettes to passing customers at a street kiosk below his apartment.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_Me_Eros
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee)
An espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai, in which a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.
2009
The Message (Chen Kuo-fu & Gao Qunshu)
“Set in 1942, the Chinese government is a puppet of imperialistic Japan. A string of high Chinese officials are assassinated. Japan’s intelligence agency tries to find out the mole inside the intelligence agency by sending a false telegraph. Five suspects are caught reading the telegraph and then are sent to a closed fortress. To little avail, interrogators torture them to confess. The chief officer of the agency and the five suspects start to lose patience and sanity. Self-sacrifice for their nation, brotherhood, and betrayal lead to an unforgettable climax.” http://bit.ly/7c9aGx
Visage (Tsai Ming-Liang)
“Hsiao-Kang, a Taiwanese film director, travels to the Louvre in Paris, France, to shoot a film that explores the Salomé myth.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262420/
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Best Films of the Noughties: Helping us all find lesser known greats: Centre of operations over 2 years ago
OK, I took the initiative :)
Taiwan: http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/6701
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Help make The Auteurs totally awesome over 2 years ago
Another suggestion: when you type in a URL in the forum, it should automatically make it a link. Example: http://www.google.com should have been made into a link instead of static text. Thanks!
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Best film by each of these directors over 2 years ago
Fellini – 8 1/2 tied with Nights of Cabiria
Bergman – Scenes from a Marriage
Kurosawa – Seven Samurai
Truffaut – The 400 Blows
Renoir – Rules of the Game
Fassbinder – The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant
Herzog – Stroszek
Godard – Band of Outsiders
Antonioni – La Notte tied with The Passenger
Bresson – Pickpocket
Hitchcock – Vertigo
Bunuel – That Obscure Object of Desire
Lang – M
Tarkovsky – Mirror
Mizoguchi – Ugetsu
Rossellini –
Altman – Three Women
De Sica – Bicycle Thieves
Polanski – Knife In The Water
Rivette – Celine and Julie Go Boating
Wenders – Wings of Desire
Rohmer – My Night at Maud’s
Melville –
Kubrick – 2001: A Space Odyssey
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Singaporean Films that Define the 2000s over 2 years ago
I’m really interested in these films. Wish more of them were available on DVD.
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Jonathan Rosenbaum is giving a lecture for my cinema class tonight. Any questions you'd like to ask? over 2 years ago
I’m interested in if he said Antichrist sucks, or if he just said he wouldn’t consider watching it given what he’s seen of Von Trier’s previous movies. I think the latter is perfectly acceptable, but the former seems a bit ignorant.
Of Von Trier’s films, I have only watched Dancer in the Dark. If that movie is representative, then I kind of agree with Rosenbaum in that he seems to exploit melancholy, instead of having melancholy arise organically. His films are depressing without redemption, and I don’t mean that redemption is always necessary, but if the purpose of the film is solely to exploit one emotion, it is almost like melodrama. Interestingly enough, I just checked on imdb and Von Trier’s latest film will be 2010’s “Melancholia”.
Back to Rosenbaum, what did he mean when he said films cannot depict the times… As in, it is IMPOSSIBLE? or just very hard? Because if it is impossible, what is the point of bringing up Kiarostami’s name? I’m a bit confused about this point.
Did he give any more clarification on the difference between “depict” and “reflect”?
My opinion is that films cannot help BUT depict the time they are made in. Even when it’s a period piece or a film that is trying to mis-represent the present, a clever film viewer would be able to (if he wanted to) see through all that and glean really telling details about the time it was made.
That is why you can learn a lot about cold war fears through a movie like THEM!, a sci-fi thriller that is definitely not trying in any way to be a social commentary or to be a document of the times, but you can still read into it and see what the mentality was at that time.
Thanks for this thought provoking thread!
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The Value of Objects in Films (help!) over 2 years ago
I think a movie like The Color of Pomegranates (Parajanov) would be interesting to study in relation to objects. There are many objects in that movie, and they are used in interesting ways, I think it would require some deep scholarship to unearth all the levels of meanings, but on a casual watch, I gleaned a lot of emotional weight from them even though I didn’t know exactly what everything meant. Gabbeh (Makhmalbaf) also uses and re-uses objects in different contexts, often to symbolize different things.
I remember watching an Iranian movie called Poet of the Wastes (Ahmadi) that is about a poet who earns his meager living as a street sweeper. It seems like it might fit in with your theme well if you can find it.
Also may be interesting to look at objects in a surreal film like Un Chien Andalou, though it might be a bit too obvious for your purposes? Not sure.
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The Value of Objects in Films (help!) over 2 years ago
Oh Scorpiorising just reminded me: What Time Is It There would be a good one. You can study all the clocks and watches in that movie and the different forms they take (there are a lot of them). Not sure if the emotional weight of the watches/clocks changes as the movie goes on or if it’s basically the same. Haven’t thought hard about it yet, I guess haha. Also, the mother at one point masturbates to the ashes of her dead husband, which is almost like making a person into an object and then trying to treat it as a person. haha. I’m sure there are other objects worth examining in that film.
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Taiwanese Films That Define the 2000s over 2 years ago
Kaifu: I realize that. I didn’t set out to do that, however, if you can think of any other Taiwanese movies to contribute, please share! It’s not meant to be Tsai/Hou heavy, it’s just that they are the most known and I can only write what I know, right? Please share some of your favorites from the last decade, thanks!
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