Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)

Undead knights on undead horses? Gorgeous Spanish country-side? An ancient monastery? Loads of really bad gore?  Yes, It's Amando de Ossorio's classic 1971 shocker, Tombs of the Blind Dead, about...well, about undead knights on undead horses, gorgeous Spanish country-side, an ancient monastery, and loads of really bad gore.

L'Avventura (1960)

What exactly did happen to Anna?

That's the central question in Michelangelo Antonioni's haunting masterpiece, L'Avventura, a film uneasy with answers and so much more than a missing persons case.  Like Anonioni's later film, Blow Up, it builds suspense, not with the shock and action of a modern-day thriller, but what we--and the characters--think has happened, or might happen.

The plot is deceptively simple: A group of wealthy socialites on a leisurely yachting expedition decide to spend the afternoon exploring a remote island chain.  They dock near an islet that could be called desolate, if that weren't such an understatement: the place is a rock, covered in nothing more than sparse scrub; waves crash all around it violently.  Sitting atop it all, ancient and lonely, is a small stone building, long abandoned.

Wings of Desire (1987)

Regarded by some as an inscrutable poetic masterpiece, I can't help but think that Wings of Desire, despite all its beauty, falls into the category of pretentious arthouse cinema. The film follows two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, through a series of images and setpieces, as they regard the modern world around them--always observing, pondering, helping.  The angels have existed since the beginning of time ("it took a long time for the river to meet its bed") and watched the progression of God's creations with a mix of sympathy and wonder.

The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Sergei Eisenstein's classic about the maritime uprising that was a catalyst for the Bolshevik Revolution.  Cause of mutiny?  A pot of spoiled soup.

Tensely mounted sequences of rebellion aboard the Potemkin spill onto the shore of Odessa, as villagers, sympathetic to the revolution, take up against their oppressors.  Well-shot, tightly edited, and propagandist to the bone, Potemkin is another fascinating silent film that was far ahead of its time.  (I could even forgive--though just barely--a grossly manipulative sequence involving a baby rolling down a flight of stairs in its carriage, as the Odessa massacre carries about on all sides.)  Still, I'm dubious about the film's merit as one of the greatest ever made.

Might be of interest to those partial to Russian history.

1925; starring Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky; directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein; 75 min; Not Rated; silent w/ Russian cue cards translated into English.  

Beauty and the Beast (1946)

I am unfamiliar with the work of Jean Cocteau, and Beauty and the Beast was not the place to start.  Or maybe it was.  Regardless, after reflecting on the film, as well as the review I posted this morning, I realize I am presently unequipped to fairly judge the work--which is odd, since I rarely lack judgement on anything.  At the core, I feel I may have passed over a few salient points that would have quelled some of the more vociferous objections I had to the film on first viewing.

The Virgin Spring (1960)

"God...I don't understand you!"

So Max von Sydow, as an anguished father, cries out in the closing scene of Ingmar Bergman's great The Virgin Spring (1960).  The moment, when it comes, is inevitable: the end of a path paved by torment and loss of faith.

I've long suspected that Bergman (1918-2007) was the cinema's greatest director; after my second viewing of The Virgin Spring, I'm sure of it.  And if Bergman was the greatest director, then so too was Sven Nykvist (1922-2006), his long-time collaborator, the best of all cinematographers, a master lensman who understood better than anyone else the awesome power of light and shadow.

The Son (Le Fils; 2002)

Raw, intense and powerful. Olivier Gourmet (who won Best Actor at Cannes) gives a masterful performance as a Belgian carpentry instructor who becomes obsessed with a new student (Morgan Marinne). The Son (2002) centers around these two characters, and I'll say no more except that what happens, and why it happens, transforms the way we look at film--and ourselves--by reaching profound levels of the human condition.  Yes, I'm being vague; but once you see the movie, you'll understand why.

Onibaba (1965)

My first movie of 2010, and ho-lee shit!  War-torn Japan.  A destitute mother and her daughter-in-law, with nary a moral fiber between them, murder samurai and sell the belongings for food.  Mom gets pissed when her son is killed in battle and his best friend returns unharmed, only to make a play for her son's new widow.  The old woman is visited by a samurai in a demon mask who torments her and...

Mon Oncle (1958)

My penultimate film of 2009. Jacques Tati (who also directed) stars as Monsieur Hulot, an unemployed vagabond who seems to find mischief with alarming frequency. Nearly silent, the movie comprises a series of set pieces for the hapless Hulot: a blind date attended by a party of one; a factory job that ends in disaster; a lunch party that goes from formal to frantic; a children's game that would be cruel if it weren't so funny; and a running joke with a fountain fish that somehow gets funnier with each shot.

Pickpocket (1959)

The last film I saw in 2009. Robert Bresson's classic about a professional pickpocket who becomes so good at his job, he fears he'll never be able to stop.  A powerful story of one man's compulsion, helped by the fact that Martin LaSalle has probably the most haunting eyes I've ever seen on screen; they define the movie. Extraordinary choreography and camera work as a group of thieves descend on a train station to steal every wallet, bauble and bangle that isn't nailed down. Presently unreliable ending.

1959; starring Martin LaSalle, Marika Green; directed by Robert Bresson; 75 min; Not Rated; in French w/ English subtitles; available on Criterion.