49. At the End of the Tunnel (2016)

48. The Other Me (2016)

47. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)

46. The Shower (1979)

45. He Married His Wife (1940)

44. Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

43. Édes Anna (1958)

42. Thelma (2017)

41. Leave the World Behind (2023)

40. Festival (1996)

39. Blonde in a White Car (1958)

38. An Old Lady (2019)

37. Lola (2022)

36. The Chase (1958)

35. Street Scene (1931)

34. My Man Godfrey (1936)

33. Quo vadis, Aida? (2020)

32. Dead End (1937)

31. Exhuma (2024)

30. The Long Walk (2019)

29. Caught in the Net (2020)

28. Heretic (2024)

27. Nope (2022)

26. That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

25. Death of a Cyclist (1955)

24. The Wild Robot (2024)

23. One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977)

22. The Surrogate Woman (1987)

21. Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

20. Seoul Spring (2023), a.k.a. 12.12: The Day

19. Shoeshine (1946)

18. Being There (1979)

17. The Cremator (1969)

16. The Juniper Tree (1990)

15. Manila in the Claws of Light (1975)

14. The Taste of Things (2023)

13. Departures (2008)

12. The Peasants (2023)

11. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000)

10. Mars Express (2023)

9. Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019)

8. Sunny (2011)

7. Shame (1968)

6. The Remains of the Day (1993)

5. Tangerines (2013)

4. The Timekeepers of Eternity (2021)

3. The Artifice Girl (2022)

2. Equinox Flower (1958)

1. Port of Shadows (1938)

And that is that. 2025, here we come!

The post Film Top 50 – 2024 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

This year has been quite the ride. The year is not over yet, but I hit my 52 mark long ago. I’ve been binging a lot of Korean cinema for the past year or so, and while most movies are from the last 2-3 decades, it has not been easy to locate films by Korean women.

Before we start, a special shout out to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. A few years ago, who would’ve thought I would willingly (eagerly, I might add) sit down to watch a Barbie movie. I still haven’t been bothered to watch the other part of Barbenheimer.. I also had a great time with Anatomy of a Fall, and Saltburn, but we’re doing lesser known films here. My whole list can be found here.

South Korea

I really wanted to highlight some of the South Korean films I watched as well, so I put them in a separate top 5. In last year’s post on my journey through South Korean cinema I also included a top 15 by women, so together with these that makes it a top 20 I suppose.

Top 10

These are some of my favourite non-Korean films this year. I stumbled upon several very surprising films during March Around the World earlier this year. Finding these gems outside of your typical Western world countries makes it extra rewarding to do this challenge each year.

Well, that’s it for this year. Have you seen anything I should definitely prioritize in 2025? Let me know!

The post 52 Films By Women – 2024 Edition appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

About that one time I watched more than 365 South Korean movies in a year

Aigo, what did I get myself into this time? Back in March I challenged myself to watch one film from as many different countries as I could. Mere months later, page after page of watched films were almost exclusively Korean. The Korea craze sweeping over the West has mostly been about K-Pop and TV shows like Squid Game. Movies, not so much. Truthfully, before this year started I had seen no more than two or three dozen of the most well known Korean films, and a few oddball entries thanks to MUBI and / or my drive to seek out the obscure. I don’t even know why I started this thing, or how. It doesn’t even feel like I ever started anything at all. One day I looked at my watched-list and noticed that I had watched nothing but Korean films all week.

It just kind of happened, and it kept happening. Then it became a fun exercise to find as many films as I could to keep the ball rolling, though never with the intention of hitting any particular number of films. Until the movies got bad, or until I got bored, I guess. But that never happened. What I did not anticipate was how deep I was willing to jump down this rabbit hole to learn about this young yet old country, its fairly turbulent recent history, and its culture. I realise full well that almost all of it came through the lens of a camera, and should therefore be taken with a healthy dosage of salt (this post included). But despite it not being as accurate as a history book, or even a Wikipedia page for that matter, you can still begin spotting patterns.

After ~400 films I believe I have picked up on a thing or two. What’s more, in true millennial fashion I consumed a bunch of YouTube videos about Korean history, read some Wikipedia pages about various subjects I came across, found some nice music, and even dabbled in a bit of Duo Lingo. Reading books isn’t my jam, so I guess that’s about the only medium that I skipped. Doing this has become something I have never tried before, and in the wise words of psychopath guru “Jonathan”: Okay, it’s good!

I learned that all North Koreans are either brain washed poor people spies who need our help interrogation and sympathy torture, or super human one-man army combat machines. I also learned that no Korean sentence is complete without including (at least) one of: Aigoo / Aish(i) / Gae-sae-kki. And I have learned that South Korean geography is Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Jeju Island, and the DMZ. Nobody lives or goes anywhere else. I have learned that Fusan is Pusan is Busan, because who cares which letter you use to start your city name with. I have learned that dictatorships and military coups are bad for films and other forms of creative expression, and that Koreans appear to have little interest in Sci-Fi and musicals. They do like spies, gangsters, and corrupt government officials. And zombies and sleazy men. Ingredients for an interesting Venn diagram. They also like to milk your tears. Every. Last. Drop.

One final disclaimer of sorts. I decided to include all Korean films I have ever seen in this post the way I see fit. At this point that’s only a handful more than what I have seen this year. I included them because it felt bad having to leave out so many of the most well known classics. Everything Korean that I have watched in 2023 can be found on this list, which I ordered by how much I liked the film. They are all ranked on my Flickchart as well, which includes all other films I have ever seen as well.

Three Eras (or four)

Did I learn anything useful at all? Well, maybe. I probably just made this up in my head as I was watching movies and learning a bit about Korean history. To me it feels like a simplified version of Korean cinema can be made by splitting it into three eras. Well, four I suppose, but for the longest time I did not know where to watch movies that were made during the Japanese occupation and the WW2 period. I did manage to sneak a few in towards the end of the year, but not enough to base an opinion on. That means that for the purpose of this post the first era begins after the end of the Korean war in 1953, and ends somewhere in the mid to late 60s. It’s a bit of of a slow transition really, but let’s just pick a year and say 1966. During this first era quite a few films are being made, and some pretty good ones too. The Housemaid / Hanyo from 1960 is the absolute standout. If you want to watch anything from this era, be sure not to miss it. Unfortunately this era did not last very long.

Blame politics, power struggles, coups, assassinations, censorship, etc. The second era is a long period of artistic draught that did not produce a whole lot worth watching, nor a whole lot at all for that matter. Unless you count Hyundai, Samsung, LG, etc. – I meant movies of course. Finally, in the early 90s more and more films got made as the country was slowly democratizing itself and censorship bans were being lifted. But it wasn’t until the government board for film censorship was ruled unconstitutional in 1995 that things really took off. The 1997 presidential elections ushered in a new era, politically, but also cinematically. Out came a tsunami of new movies. To me it does feel as if the largest waves have hit the shores, but with the recent international success of films such as The Handmaiden, Burning, and of course the Oscar winning Parasite you can’t say the waters have fully calmed.

What I will say is that in a short period of time the Korean film industry has been heavily commercialized. When a film starts it feels as though you are watching Hollywood Studio Era films. Everything is by CJ, Lotte, Showbox, or It’s New. Each with their recognisable little logo and jingle. By now they have all found their groove and are mass producing new films, but I fear it won’t be long until this will come at the expense of any and all forms of creativity. Copying Hollywood isn’t all that it’s made out to be… Films such as Killing Romance (2023) give me some hope even if its IMDb rating does not, but the days of wacky and risky Kim Ki-duk or Song Il-gon movies do seem like a thing of the past.

Note: As I started writing this post during the summer months, I was not aware of the fact that the KOFA, the Korean Film Archive, has a YouTube channel where you can watch over 100 classic Korean movies. Many are in 4K and even have English subtitles. What a treasure trove! Thank you so much for making these films available to people far beyond the Korean border. This should be as good a place as any to plug the Top 100 Korean Films list they created back in 2013. It is heavily skewed to older films though. For a more modern era focussed list, try this one from 2021. Through the Japanese occupation, World War 2, the Korean War, dictatorships, censorships, and finally just the sheer number of years, many old films are lost. The oldest available film is from 1934, called Turning Point of the Youngsters. It is a silent film that currently has no title cards, translations, or a music score. That makes it quite difficult to follow, but it has its moments. On top of that, the Korean Film Council, abbreviated as .. well .. never mind, has a lot of high quality images and info on these old films, so check them out as well.

Learning about history through film

There’s a lot of fun to be had with all the thrillers, action movies, and romantic dramas & romcoms, but if you’re looking to learn a thing or two about 20th century Korean history, look no further. I’ve got you covered. Korean film feels firmly rooted in reality no matter what you watch. There is rarely any room for fantasy, sci-fi, musical, adventure, or dreaming about things that could be. Prepare yourself for a lot of terrible people, be it criminals, corrupt politicians and cops, drunk gambling fathers, human traffickers, men excessively yelling at women (and worse), and so on and so forth. It’s an interesting dichotomy. For every film critiquing or mocking these subjects there’s another that embraces it and wallows in all the aggression and violence. Anyway, this section is not where all the happy romantic comedies and feelgood movies are. Prepare yourself for some bleak, depressing, heartbreaking stuff. I said Korea loves your tears. This is where they get them.

More than enough crazy stuff happens when your country has gone through nearly a century of occupations, wars, dictatorships, coups, corruption scandals, and many other unspeakable things. One really doesn’t have to resort to fantasy and what-ifs when you have had all these things happen for real. Unlike the three events mentioned earlier, most only resulted in a single film. But these are all very good and worth looking for:

• The President’s Last Bang (2005) and The Man Standing Next (2020) and coming soon Seoul Spring (2023)
• A Little Pond (2009)
• Han Gong-ju (2013)
• So-won (2013)
• Children… (2011)
• Way Back Home (2013)
• 1987: When the day comes (2017)
• Silmido (2003)
• Silenced (2011)

One final thing that keeps coming back are period films set during the Joseon era. This is a 500-year window roughly between 1400 and 1900. More often than not it only serves as a backdrop for any kind of film, be it palace intrigue, thriller, romance, or even a bit of science fiction and fantasy. Learning about actual people who lived and did a thing during that era is not easy, but a few films at least are based on actual events or people. They include:

• The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014)
• The Last Princess (2016)
• The Fortress (2017)
• The Great Battle (2018)

Recommendations

So let’s begin with some of the best (but not necessarily my favourite) movies I have seen from each of my invented three eras. I imagine only the third list contains familiar titles for most readers. But that just means that there are more great films that are waiting to be seen, right? Admittedly I am not the biggest fan of Action and Horror movies, so unfortunately those might be a little underrepresented here. I did watch quite a few of them though, and South Korea may just be the GOAT of the Action Thriller genre, because most of them even kept grumpy me entertained. I have filtered my full list, and your action and horror recommendations can be found here (action) and here (horror). Anyway, here’s a bunch of objectively nope still subjectively great movies. I highlighted my personal favourite film from each list.

Okay, so that third period list is probably not very useful when you’ve already seen a few Korean movies. The following 3×10 films are some of my personal recommendations from that era. I divided it into three sections. You know, so you can decide how deep you want to dive. And because OCD dictates it’s just too pleasant too look at if it’s formatted in the same way as the list above. It has nothing to do with the fact that this way I get to recommend thirty films instead of only ten. I swear.

The actors

When you watch this many films from the same country and (mostly) the same era, you will start to recognise actors and actresses, even if you can’t read their names in the credits. Or if you can, but it takes a while for you realize that IMDb has recently started reversing the name order to match how it’s written in Hangeul. I ended up finding several actors who make me smile as they make their appearance, as well as a few who annoy the heck out of me. I always use Barbara Stanwyck as the golden standard of someone who just delivers, even if everything else in the film is absolute dogshit. I now also really enjoy watching Jung Yu-mi, whatever films she’s in. She blew me away as the titular character in Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 (2019). Other people who almost always seem to elevate a film for me are Ma Dong-seok, Yoo Hae-jin, and Na Moon-hee. If we can call that the S-tier, then these are definitely A-tier for me: Jang Young-nam, Son Ye-jin, Song Kang-ho, and Sung Dong-il. I think this is the first time since getting into classic Hollywood and Japanese Golden Age films about a decade ago that I started recognising this many actors in such a short time frame. My regular viewing habits just don’t allow me to see anyone more than a handful of times per year.

Another thing that I noticed as my top 20 most watched actors on Letterboxd developed during this project was the absence of women. It wasn’t too bad at first, but as numbers kept rising, more and more women dropped off the list. Was I watching the wrong movies? I mean, I watched over 300 almost exclusively from 2 decades, so.. surely not? So let’s be honest, we all know why. The films I was able to watch were often very male-dominated. I can’t say this for sure, but it feels that Korea has a far more patriarchal society than the western countries I am used to. It is especially evident within the action and crime/thriller genres. And those happen to be the most dominant genres over all. Actresses generally have a shorter shelf-life (how I hate using that phrase) than their male counterparts. It is no different on the other side of the planet. It sucks.

Directors: the men

There’s really not much for me to say here. I did not find a new favourite director, but that does not mean that there are not several directors to watch out for. Of course there are the internationally famous ones, such as Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. But there are so many others waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. From the shorter 90 minute creative and often shocking films of Kim Ki-duk to the old classics of Kim Ki-young, Im Kwon-taek, and Lee Man-hee. Or from the thrills provided by Kim Jee-woon and Na Hong-jin to the dramas of Lee Chang-dong. I absolutely forgot several others, and that just goes to show how well developed the South Korean film industry has become in such a short period of time. However, I do feel like this is where you can find another similarity between Classic Hollywood and contemporary Korean cinema. Directors don’t seem to matter as much as they do in the auteur-crazy Western world. It’s the writers and the actors doing most of the heavy lifting.

The only consistently negative experience I had, and not for lack of trying (I tried 10 times), was with Hong Sang-soo. We exist on two different wavelengths it seems. To me, he just makes the same stupid film over and over. Not like Bergman claims he did in his time (and besides, he didn’t), it’s actually true this time. Nearly every Hong Sang-soo film:

• Protagonist is one of three things: a film director, a poet or a writer, a student/teacher.
  • Hey, the three things the director also is/was
• Protagonist is an unpleasant male.
• Always revolves around inappropriate relationships and affairs with very young women.
• Dialog delivery that rivals Tommy Wiseau’s in The Room.

Apply some Woody Allen level creepiness (and similar prolificness, if that is even a word), while practically begging the audience for validation of its protagonist’s actions. Done. And so am I.

Directors: the women

As I previously mentioned, the role of women in a lot of films leaves a lot to be desired. They are often mistreated, hurt, or outside of a few films, given minor or insignificant roles. It was quite a struggle to find more than a handful of films directed by women. Unfortunately, South Korea is still waiting for its own Agnès Varda. Ever since #52FilmsByWomen became a thing in 2016 I have tried (with mixed results) to complete this challenge, so I felt like giving it its own section. Perhaps it helps you to watch a more diverse Korean cinema while still working towards that magical number 52. It will be quite the challenge to reach 52 purely on Korean films, but this (filtered) list shows all Korean ones I managed to find and watch this year.

The Korean-American film Past Lives (2023) looks to be a potential Oscar nominee in 2024, and it is definitely a very good film. Because of film history and how the world works, most films are directed by men. It’s getting better bit by bit, but we’re not in a place where film directors are people, and not just “men unless”. I had a great time with almost all Korean female directed films this year, so I want to highlight the ones that I liked most. Because what struck me was that, while there were not very many films to watch, the average quality was quite high. I chose to include Aloners (2021) here also, even though I did not watch it in 2023.

Fifteen great films by Korean women

• Paju (2009)
• Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (2019)
• Past Lives (2023)
• Way Back Home (2013)
• The World of Us (2016)
• Helpless (2012)
• Snowy Road (2015)
• Miss Baek (2018)
• A Brand New Life (2009)
• Aloners (2021)
• Shadows in the Palace (2007)
• A Girl at My Door (2014)
• The Truth Beneath (2016)
• The Way Home (2002)
• Treeless Mountain (2008)

The numbers

I like numbers and stats. These images were taken on December 21. I’ll probably watch a few more before the year is over, but this is close enough.

First off a count-per-year and average rating. The latter seems kind of useless. This aligns with how I feel about Korean cinema as a whole. The baseline is pretty high. Films are almost always a solid 6-7 out of 10, with a few dips and spikes. That’s good news, because it means you can’t really go wrong.

And finally a bunch of compiled stats. Some more useful and interesting than others, but if you have the data, why not keep track.

Fun Flickchart match-ups:

I really enjoy ranking all of the films that I have seen on a site called Flickchart. It gives you two films and simply asks you which one you prefer. You click it and get two new ones. Do this and eventually you will end up with a more or less ordered list of your favourite films. Every so often you get some funny match-ups. Either because they’re two completely incompatible films, think Barbenheimer, or because of their titles. I found quite a bunch of them while ranking the more obscure films I watched. Purely for entertainment purposes, here are some of them to wrap up this post:

The post One South Korean film a day appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

Pandora’s Box

Pandora’s Box is a movie that had been on the shortest version of the short version of my watchlist for the longest time. I choose not to watch those films all at once, so the joy is spread out over a few years. It also hypes the movie up to impossible levels, usually resulting in postponement due to fear of disappointment, but that’s a whole other topic.

Pandora’s Box is a film from the tail end of the silent era. Or you could just as well say the early years of the sound era, because in 1929 the majority of films were so called talkies. Pandora’s Box is opened by Louise Brooks, an American actress who was mistreated in Hollywood and went to Germany to star in a bunch of foreign films. And what a bunch they’d turn out to be! Your initial thought though might still be that this seems strange, but with no spoken dialog there really wasn’t much of a language barrier. Translated title cards were being cut into the films before they were distributed abroad, so that was that. In fact, there was a load of cross-over between countries and actors exactly because of this. With the introduction of sound this all but stopped, killing many-a movie career more or less overnight.

Louise Brooks

This film stands or falls with how much you can appreciate the screen presence of Brooks. For me, she shines in every scene she’s in. She oozes the sex and charm her role of a (very) amoral woman required. Things of course get way out of hand because of it. This film is a great example of why the Hays Code came into existence in the early thirties. Begone amorality, sexuality, alcohol, drugs, and what have you. We should be thankful that films like this still exist, as it is estimated that roughly 75% of all silent films ever made are now considered lost. From the same year, director, and star, Diary of a Lost Girl, another silent film, also still exists. It’s similarly sexy, amoral, etc. and well worth a watch.

Sadly, things did not go well for Louise Brooks after her German stint. Like I mentioned, the days of foreigners starring in sound films would be over for a very very long time, more or less until subtitles, unless you dubbed them (that’s you, Italy, blergh!). Although she would move back to the US, her days of starring in movies was over. Being more or less blacklisted, she only made a few more talkies, which all flopped, and then went into two very dark decades. Fortunately for her, later on in life she reinvented herself as a writer and film essayist. A small bright note to end with. Louise Brooks passed away in the summer of 1985, aged 78.

The post Pandora’s Box – G. W. Pabst – 1929 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

Sound of the Mountain and Mikio Naruse

One of my big discoveries of 2017 is Japanese director Mikio Naruse. That is hardly relevant anymore, but I wrote most of this post back in early 2017, and soon after that the site crashed for a couple years. Anyway. People always talk about the big three when it comes to classic Japanese directors. When they say that, of course they mean Akira Kurosawa, Yasujirô Ozu, and my favourite director Kenji Mizoguchi. As more Japanese films become available to audiences around the world we may have to revise that and make it a Mount Rushmore style big four. Mikio Naruse deserves recognition for his work especially in the 50s and 60s, when Japanese cinema was at its peak. Of the classic big three, Naruse can best be compared to Ozu. He focusses a lot on family and social issues drama. His take on life tends to be a bit more pessimistic than Ozu’s however, so maybe a mix of three quarts Ozu and one quart Mizoguchi gives a better impression of what can be expected of a Naruse film.

Made in the same year as better known Japanese classics such as Seven Samurai, Sansho the Bailiff, the original Godzilla (Gojira), and Twenty-Four Eyes, Sound of the Mountain is a progressive film that deals with social issues like broken marriage with resulting affairs, and even abortion. The film is seen through the eyes of the father-in-law of the wife in this loveless marriage. They are played by Japan’s greatest ever actress, Setsuko Hara, and Sô Yamamura. Yamamura is relatively unknown to Western audiences, although you might recognise him as the Japanese admiral in Tora! Tora! Tora!

Sound of the Mountain gives a very interesting perspective into its story as you only see and hear what the father-in-law experiences and nothing else. It leaves its viewer, you, to fill in the blanks yourself whenever stuff happens off screen. This lack of information helps you understand the situation of the father a little better. The film is slow enough to allow for some inflection as you’re watching it, so you can really put yourself in his shoes and think about how you would handle each situation. I love films that allow you to do that, so it’s really no surprise to me that this became my #1 of the year all the way back in 2017.

2017 becomes 2022

Looking at the post above through 2022 glasses, sadly Naruse is still not fully recognised for the importance and quality of his work. It has gotten better though, mainly through some help from Criterion and its Criterion Channel. A Naruse box set by Masters of Cinema was out of print in 2017 and unfortunately remains out of print. I have now seen 20 Naruse films. There are so many amazing films hidden in his filmography, and even his lesser works are still pretty decent. Some (okay a lot of) recommendations other than Sound of the Mountain:

• Meshi / Repast (1951)
• Inazuma / Lightning (1952)
• Late Chrysanthemums (1954)
• Ukigumo / Floating Clouds (1955)
• Nagareru / Flowing (1956)
• When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
• Midareru / Yearning (1964)
• Midaregumo / Scattered Clouds (1967)

If you would like to branch out, and/or enjoy silent films, the Criterion Eclipse Silent Naruse box is highly recommended as well.

The post Sound of the Mountain – Mikio Naruse – 1954 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

A failure in planning, prioritisation, pressed for time, or all or none of the above.. Whatever it is, no fancy long post. Maybe next year.

Previous years

The site was borked for several years, so sadly there’s a gap here.

• Film Top 10 – 2016
• Film Top 10 – 2015
• Film Top 10 – 2014
• Film Top 10 – 2013 (in Dutch)

As list

I like lists, so I made one.

Last Night in Soho:	(9.3 / 10)
Le trou:	(9.2 / 10)
All About My Mother:	(9.0 / 10)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips:	(8.9 / 10)
After the Wedding:	(8.6 / 10)
The Invisible Guest:	(8.5 / 10)
The Scent of Green Papaya:	(8.5 / 10)
The Train:	(8.4 / 10)
On Body and Soul:	(8.4 / 10)
Day for Night:	(8.4 / 10)

In pictures

A pictures says more than a thousand words they say, so I guess this is going to be a long-ass post after all. Instead of my scribbles I’ll let these images speak for themselves. Each and every one of these films is absolutely amazing!

In summary

Let’s end with a solid bit of life advice, brought to you by Joëlle from Day for Night.

The post Film Top 10 – 2021 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

2021, new year, more good intentions, and with some effort put in the mix. It’s really not that difficult if you try a little. I forgot how rewarding it is to seek out things you don’t normally watch. Earlier this year I took part in March Around The World, which means watching 30 movies from 30 different counties in the 30 days that.. make up.. March? That in and of itself was totally worth doing, but it also kickstarted my films by women list with +8 movies. Now it’s already late October as I begin typing the draft for this post and I’m currently sitting at 50/52. I can’t do a month-by-month overview anymore like I did in 2016, but I figured I’d share some of the highlights anyway. A Top 10 will do.

Oh all right, I suppose I am going to be ignoring a handful of movies. Chloé Zhao / Nomandland won Best Picture and Director statuettes, which 2018 me totally saw coming when he tiny-reviewed Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Little Women and Promising Young Woman got nominated for Best Picture as well. 2020 was a stacked year for films by women, and I loved all three of them. I’m also not going to include the 2021 remake of La Famille Bélier (2014), CODA, because it seems to be getting along just fine on its own. Susanne Bier made a masterpiece with After the Wedding (2006), which then got butchered to an American remake nobody asked for. Finally, a bit to my surprise, I also ended up enjoying the heck (hah!) out of Clueless (1995). And even with all of these goodies DQ-ed, I’m still having a really difficult time cutting the remaining movies down to just ten. But..

Oh look, a top 10!

I like lists. Especially when they’re in no particular order, like this one.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020):	(7.7 / 10)
On Body and Soul (2017):	(8.3 / 10)
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011):	(7.6 / 10)
The Eternal Breasts (1955):	(7.3 / 10)
Summer Survivors (2018):	(8.1 / 10)
Meek’s Cutoff (2010):	(7.8 / 10)
The One and Only (1999):	(7.4 / 10)
A New Leaf (1972):	(7.8 / 10)
The Farewell Party (2014):	(7.7 / 10)
Look Both Ways (2005):	(7.5 / 10)

We’re going to be taking a bit of a stroll through the cinema of the world now. Ten films, seven different countries, four continents. Let’s get going.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

	Original title: Never Rarely Sometimes Always
	Country:
	Year: 2020
	Director: Eliza Hittman
	Duration: 101 min.
	Genre: Drama

Earlier I said 2020 was a stacked year. It really was! I did not even include One Night in Miami, or Lost Girls, which I totally could have if the list was a little longer. Things are starting to look better for female directors each year. More and more movies are being made, and there are plenty of really good ones too. There is still a long way to go, but I feel like we’re heading in the right direction. After all, 2021 already gave us Bergman Island, CODA, Hive, Matrix 4, Moxie, Passing, Plan B, Reminiscence, Titane, Together Together, or even Black Widow and Eternals if that’s your thing. There’s a lot of quality to choose from, and to be honest that feels good. I’m sure I missed some movies as well, or that they’re still hiding in obscurity. Here’s to hoping 2022 will be better still.

But while we wait for 2021 to wrap up and have all its films available to the general public, we have 2020, and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. A beautiful film about a young girl from a rural USA who gets pregnant and wants an abortion. The taboo is still big where they live and everyone knows everyone. Together with a friend she travels to NYC to an abortion clinic that might be able to help. But these two young women do not know big city life and many other things, so it’s a bumpy ride. The acting is really well done by the two unknown leads who both make their feature film debuts. It also exposes a lot of problems surrounding abortion (read: the problem is religion), shows the disconnect between rural and urban America, and gives a coming-of-age road trip sort of experience. A great film to start this list with.

On Body and Soul (2017)

	Original title: Teströl és lélekröl
	Country:
	Year: 2017
	Director: Ildikó Enyedi
	Duration: 116 min.
	Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery

I started typing the little blurb for this movie multiple times now and I’m not getting anywhere. It annoys me so. My favourite movie of the ten, and I can’t find words to describe it. A story about a man and a woman in a slaughterhouse who share a dream in which they are deer. Where do you even go from there? This movie is ethereal and weird and wonderful. Do not expect a normal film narrative. It is kind of there, but it also kind of isn’t. I really enjoyed the visuals and the mood throughout, but if you don’t like to see how the things you eat end up on your plate, maybe skip a scene or two. Perhaps you should also skip it if you’re in a dark place right now. But other than that, I really wish I could have done a better job in selling this film. It was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, if that is important to you.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)

	Original title: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
	Country:
	Year: 2011
	Director: Zoya Akhtar
	Duration: 155 min.
	Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Pause. Executive decision: exception time. This Indian film has been seen by way too many people to qualify, however since it doesn’t even have an English title I’m guessing most of those people are from India. That and this movie was just too lovely to let slip through the cracks due to some silly self-imposed rules. Besides, what fun are rules anyway if they’re never going to be broken? This year I watched my first (and long overdue!) Bollywood film, 3 Idiots, and loved it. This was my second, and I believe I may need to watch even more of them now. I do find it a bit difficult to navigate through the inflated ratings and 3h+ runtimes though, but it seems to be worth the effort!

As I said, this movie is just a joy to watch. You soon forget its runtime, and you’ll forgive it for being a little too over-the-top at times. It’s light-hearted, fun, and oozes charm. The film’s title can translate to any of many ways of saying the same thing: don’t let life pass you by, carpe diem, YOLO. It is about three men who grew up together and made a pact. Whenever one of them gets engaged, they will undertake a road trip to a place of his choice. As with most road trip movies, there are unprocessed emotions, and a plethora of other difficulties need to be dealt with. Things do get serious at times, but never for long. These moments do give depth to the three male leads, and also to their female counterparts. That’s what sets this movie apart from so many other romance/comedy movies where there’s really not much besides hunk + chick = eventual marriage.

The Eternal Breasts (1955)

	Original title: Chibusa yo eien nare
	Country:
	Year: 1955
	Director: Kinuyo Tanaka
	Duration: 106 min.
	Genres: Drama, Romance

So did you know that aside from being one of the grande dames of the Japanese silver screen, Kinuyo Tanaka, also directed half a dozen films? And excellent ones to boot. At least that has been my impression after having seen two of them. Love Under the Crucifix, her last of six, was my first one back in 2016. It is great, so it was about time I followed that up with another. If I am being honest, I do like Crucifix a little more than this one, but I am already looking forward to the third installment. It’s a darn shame Tanaka’s films are so difficult to find. Oh well, maybe soon.

The Eternal Breasts, or Forever a Woman, take your translation pick, tells the story of a family woman who writes poetry. Just when she starts to make a name, her husband leaves her, and she is diagnosed with breast cancer. This results in her losing her breasts, but her career blossoms. Then a young journalist from Tokyo visits her. He is an admirer of her poetry and wants to write about the story of her life. So in 1955 Japan we have a woman directing a movie about an older woman who lost her breasts to cancer loving a much younger man. Much of this is still a bit of a taboo, as we still admire the men dating younger woman (well done old chap!), but came up with calling women dating younger men cougars, a name just short of black widow.. And losing breasts equals losing femininity, right? Well anyway, rant aside, this is just a really solid film.

Summer Survivors (2018)

	Original title: Išgyventi vasarą
	Country:
	Year: 2018
	Director: Marija Kavtaradzė
	Duration: 91 min.
	Genre: Drama

Short Term 12 as a road movie? Sort of? Such a simple comparison is either totally unfair to this beautiful hidden Lithuanian gem, but at the same time I mention both movies in the same breath. Both are movies about troubled individuals reluctantly receiving help from a young woman to deal with their struggles. Summer Survivors (not a sequel to Summer Wars – bad joke, sorry..) is about a young intern, Indre, who is assigned to drive two patients over to a psychiatric hospital in a seaside town. Paulius is bipolar, and Juste struggles after a suicide attempt. Communication is difficult at first, but the journey together might do everyone good. The movie finds a perfect balance between the seriousness of the situation and the lightness of being a road movie, where something unexpected may happen at any given time.

Meek’s Cutoff (2010)

	Original title: Meek's Cutoff
	Country:
	Year: 2010
	Director: Kelly Reichardt
	Duration: 104 min.
	Genres: Drama, Western

Much to my own surprise I find myself writing about a western. I’m not much of a western watcher and when I do I don’t often like them a whole lot. Part of that is because so many have John Wayne whom I find as insufferable on screen as he was off screen. But even when you get say Robert Mitchum or James Stewart or whoever else to star it’s still a tough sale for me. Well anyway, they’re all dead, and the western as a genre is all but dead. Every once in a while a new one comes along and nobody pays much attention. Been there done that, I guess. Unless we get blood and limbs splattering all over the screen I guess we as a public just don’t really care anymore. Enter Meek’s Cutoff. I never thought this would have less than 25k votes on IMDb, but it’s barely passed the halfway mark.

As far as I can remember, limbs remain attached to the body, and there is no blood flying around either. Just a bunch of settlers trying to get from A to B to hopefully live a better life. A western where the women are more than meek helpless beings whom the burly manly men need in order to procreate and do their laundry and cooking. The journey through the hot desert is not without its challenges, but many of them are quite existential and require inflection rather than riding a horse or drawing a gun. Michelle Williams is awesome in the lead role, and director Kelly Reichardt creates a beautiful but desolate world with many long slow shots. There is very little music in the movie, which only increases the feeling of being all alone out there.

The One and Only (1999)

	Original title: Den eneste ene
	Country:
	Year: 1999
	Director: Susanne Bier
	Duration: 106 min.
	Genres: Comedy, Romance

This year I watched two films by Danish director Susanne Bier. The first being After the Wedding / Efter brylluppet from 2006. It’s an amazing family drama, but unfortunately it is too well known to be on this list. It may very well make my unfiltered best-of list of the year though. I am glad that I found another one of her films to include her though. It is a 1999 romantic comedy called The One and Only. It feels quite different from most of the Hollywood romantic comedies of the era. I guess I was expecting the schmaltzy pulp the Hugh Grants and Meg Ryans of the world were making during those years. Kitchen installer Niller finds himself in beautician Sus’s apartment installing a new kitchen and oh myyy. You can almost see the electricity flying through the screen. Unfortunately both are already in a relationship so that ends that. The only quibble I have with this film is that the Italian partner is so stereotypical it hurts.

A New Leaf (1971)

	Original title: A New Leaf
	Country:
	Year: 1971
	Director: Elaine May
	Duration: 104 min.
	Genres: Comedy, Romance

In her directorial debut, Elaine May also plays the female lead, Henrietta, together with Walter Matthau who plays Henry. I never thought The Big Clock would ever see another movie rival in originality its lead characters’ names but there you have it. Henry is filthy rich, until one day his lawyer informs him he no longer is. His playboy lifestyle and complete disregard for personal finances made him lose every last penny. Now he intends to find a gullible rich woman to marry, and to then murder so he can continue his old life on her money. This movie is an absolute delight. It may sound like the plot to some sinister film noir, but that could not be farther from the truth. A New Leaf is a romantic comedy, reminiscent of the old Screwball Comedy that was so popular in the 1930s and 1940s.

May continued directing movies in the 70s. The Heartbreak Kid in ’72, and Mikey and Nicky in ’76. After a workplace conflict during the making of the latter she was essentially blacklisted by her studio and only directed one more movie, Ishtar (1987). It flopped so hard that it was mentioned as one of the worst movies ever made. I doubt that’s true at all, but it still did flop. She did all right for herself besides directing, but it is a shame that she never got to direct more movies. A New Leaf recently got a lovely Masters of Cinema release and it proudly sits on my movie shelf as well as on this top 10.

The Farewell Party (2014)

	Original title: Mita Tova
	Country:
	Year: 2014
	Directors: Tal Granit, Sharon Maymon
	Duration: 95 min.
	Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

The Farewell Party is another gem that came from the March Around the World project. It’s a black comedy about several residents in a retirement home who end up building a self-euthanasia machine for a suffering friend. The machine lets the user end their life without leaving a trace. Things get a little difficult when word gets out about this machine. Oh no it doesn’t reach the police or anything like that. Others want to use it as well. Some even who are not terminally ill or suffering from pain. Where to draw the line?

Sadly euthanasia is still taboo. People seem to think that allowing euthanasia equals KILLING ALL THE PEOPLE, or whatever. We legalized it in 2002, and we’re still alive and doing just fine. The main thing killing old people right now are “wappies”, those who refuse to get their Covid vaccinations for dumb reasons. But I digress. There are not that many movies (that I know of) that deal with euthanasia. Mar Adentro (2004) takes the serious approach, while The Farewell Party uses dark comedy to take it to several extremes to make its point. It’s not just about ending one’s own life though. It’s also about the value of life at an older age in general. And it’s about trying to break taboos such as euthanasia, gay relationships, and acceptance of others for who they are and the choices they make/made. It shows you these people and their desires, and without telling, it makes you ask yourself what the heck it is we’re doing. And why we’re hurting so many people with these social stigmas, restrictions, and so on.

Look Both Ways (2005)

	Original title: Look Both Ways
	Country:
	Year: 2005
	Director: Sarah Watt
	Duration: 100 min.
	Genres: Drama, Romance

And finally an Australian Hyperlink-ish movie. I don’t think there are enough story lines and people to qualify as one, but it’s kind of like one. The lives of several people in a place intersect around the news coverage of a tragic train accident, another smaller scale one, and several other dealings with death and mortality. This is going to be a shorter bit because I don’t want to give away more than that, and that’s in part because that’s really kind of all there is to know. Look at life, look at death, and find a place where you feel comfortable to deal with it.

And that wraps up my 2021 top 10 noteworthy new-to-me directed-by-a-woman but not already well known films. In total I watched 67 films (co-)directed by a woman this year. Seven of them were short films; some Alice Guy, but the most interesting one was a lovely short called This Time Away by Magali Barbé, starring Timothy Spall of Secrets & Lies fame. I hope 2022 will continue to give a lot of great new (and old) films by women. There certainly is a lot more where this all came from, so perhaps until this time next year for another ten great films directed by women.

The post 52 Films By Women – 2021 Edition appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

For the sixth time now, my November is not Movember but Noirvember. The month in which to celebrate all that is noir, noirish, post-noir, proto-noir, colour noir, international noir.. any kind really. Film Noir may very well be my most favourite kind of style, genre, mood, or whatever you want to call it. I think it is because it is something intangible, something fluid, that it appeals to me so much. Nobody will ever quite agree on what film noir actually is, and that means for once, I, the film illiterate film enthusiast, get to decide which is which. I like to think that it really does not matter and that trying to define film noir by one beautiful and concise set of rules or definitions is a complete waste of time. It is not in the spirit of the month anyway to get stuck in an endless back and forth over whether or not film X is a [true] film noir or not.

Every November since 2016 I have tried to find a balanced diet of dark alleys, smoky cafés, black holes, and seducing female eyes. But also the occasional homme fatale, silent film, or modern era post-noir. For the last two years I have tried to watch some more international noir and post noir. If you’re looking to get into film noir, have a look at this list or this one. When you’re looking to dive deep, this list may be more useful to you. These are all of the movies I have watched in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. My favourite film noirs can be found over on my Flickchart. However it should be said that tagging movies as Film Noir is an impossible task, so the list is both incomplete and too long. Finally, I rarely re-watch movies, but every year I try to find one big title to watch again. Sometimes to give it a second chance, sometimes just for the joy of seeing it again. I have not decided on this year’s re-watch yet, but I’m eyeing the noir-ish The Night of the Hunter (1955) and / or The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

So far this year has been fine, but a little underwhelming. No real highs or lows, but a few slight disappointments. I guess it comes with watching more and more obscure movies every year. Nonetheless, I would like to highlight a few movies that I think deserve their neon signs lit. One classic noir, one neo noir, and one foreign language (post) noir.

A Colt Is My Passport (1967)

	Original title: Koruto wa ore no pasupooto
	Rating: (3.5 / 5)
	Year: 1967
	Director: Takashi Nomura
	Duration: 84 min.
	Genres: Action, Crime, Film Noir

A Colt Is My Passport is what is called a Nikkatsu Noir, named after Japan’s oldest film studio that produced them. They made quite a few of them during the late 1950s and 1960s and so far all of them that I have seen are quite good. Criterion, on its Eclipse label, has bundled five of them together in a neat box set. Unless you’re into Pinku Eiga (NSFW), this is probably the last good thing they ever did at Nikkatsu, unfortunately. “Colt” is the last film in the Eclipse set, but it’s a great final entry. During a time when the Japanese New Wave was about at its peak, this movie remains quite normal. The movie tells the story of a hitman and his helper who are forced on the run after the assassination of a high up yakuza gang boss. They find themselves in a hideout, a room in a little motel near the ocean, when things go wrong. The film is shot in black and white and has some pretty nice action sequences.

A Woman’s Vengeance (1948)

	Original title: A Woman's Vengeance
	Rating: (3.5 / 5)
	Year: 1948
	Director: Zoltan Korda
	Duration: 96 min.
	Genres: Drama, Film Noir

From the Japanese seaside to 1948 Hollywood. Henry, a bit of a French playboy type, is married to a sickly woman. Henry has culture, as they say, his wife does not. They do not seem to understand each other on an intellectual level, something Henry and his secretary do. You think you know where this is going? Think again, because on the side Henry is seeing another barely 18 year old girl, also of the uncultured variety, but she obviously has the looks to make up for it. That’s just how those things [don’t] work. The day after having had an argument, Henry’s wife dies, but it is blamed on her nurse who allowed her to eat something she wasn’t supposed to eat. Henry’s secretary is ready to throw herself at him, but Henry secretly marries the young girl instead. Insulted and humiliated, several things about Henry’s wife’s death are a little odd. Did he murder her? Aside from a standard opener, this movie is a look into the minds of the main players. There’s no real mystery here. It’s the journey that counts, not the destination.

As a fun side note, Ann Blyth, who plays the young wife in this movie is one of only a handful of actors from this era who are still alive today. Her most famous role is that of Veda Pierce, starring alongside Joan Crawford in one of Film Noir’s all time greats, Mildred Pierce (1945). She also plays smaller parts in other noirs, such as Brute Force (1947) and Thunder on the Hill (1951).

Hammett (1982)

	Original title: Hammett
	Rating: (3.5 / 5)
	Year: 1982
	Director: Wim Wenders
	Duration: 97 min.
	Genres: Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Mystery

Hammett, Dashiell Hammett. Likely one of the greatest contributors to Film Noir to ever have lived. He wrote novels, pulp fiction, short stories.. anything. We can thank him for The Thin Man, not quite noir but it leads up to his greatest work, The Maltese Falcon. So great that the 1941 version we all know is actually a remake. If we’re feeling inclusive and count Satan Met a Lady, it is actually the third incarnation of the story. He also wrote The Glass Key (also filmed twice) and proto-noir City Streets from 1931. But these are all things that Dashiell Hammett actually did. What he didn’t do was to have anything to do with the 1982 movie Hammett. The main character is a fictionalized version of the real Hammett, but none of the things that happen actually happened.

So what didn’t actually happen then? Hammett has moved on from his life of sleuthing to establish himself as a writer. He’s a heavy smoker and drinker, something the professions of noir private eye and writer have in common. When the film starts he is writing the script for a new novel. One day he is visited by an old friend from his detecting days, and before he knows it he is searching Chinatown for a young Chinese girl. His old friend goes missing and he loses his script. He is being followed by some shady character, and people even end up dead. Before he knows it he is in way over his head. And like any sensible film noir character (none, ever), whenever he is offered a way out, he isn’t going to take it.

Hammett features a film noir staple in Elisha Cook Jr. He’s obviously no longer his young self, and instead is playing a cab driver who keeps popping up to transport people around San Francisco. Back in the days, Elisha Cook Jr. was known for playing the sucker crooks, hopeless saps, or when he held a job it would be as a bell boy or waiter or something at the lowest rung of the social ladder. He was great at playing this type of supporting role and for that reason I’m always happy when I see his name pop up in the credits. He’s become a personal favourite over the years. Other names from classic Hollywood who make an appearance are Sylvia Sidney and Samuel Fuller, who usually directs movies instead of playing in them.

That’s the perfect bridge to the final bit of this post. It wasn’t going to be there, but I kind of forgot to finish up writing the thing and as such ended up seeing several other movies. The latest one, and my favourite of the month so far, is way over the top post-noir Shock Corridor (1963). It is directed by, you guessed it, Samuel Fuller. His Pickup on South Street (1953) and Park Row (1952) are terrific classic film noirs to watch as well. I hope you are inspired to enjoy some great classic movies, and I hope I could help with these suggestions. Or if you’re a newcomer, do check out some of the all time greats from one of the linked lists. I wish you all a great Noirvember!

The post Noirvember 2021 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

Brink of Life

I have seen most of the big Ingmar Bergman films, so I guess I was not really expecting Brink of Life to be as good as it is obscure. Whoa! Sometimes a film gets you by surprise and this one sure caught me off guard. Brink of Life is not very long at only 84 minutes, but it is a typical Bergman Chamber Piece. The setting is a single hospital room that the camera never enters or leaves. This is a technique that is also used in non-Bergman movies such as 12 Angry Men and Dial M for Murder, and more recently in movies such as Locke and All is Lost. Even, to lesser degree, Coherence, which I wrote about years ago. You can often find this technique in stage adaptations as well, because on a stage it is easier (and cheaper) not having too many different locations. Years ago I got Brink of Life in a small four movie box set containing “lesser” Bergman films. Well, if this is lesser then I think I am good for a while. In between watching the film and writing this review (site went kaboom) I bought the Criterion Bergman Box, so discovering more gems like this one should not be a problem. It seems as though lately this film has gone through a name change as well. I see it is often called So Close to Life these days, but I’m going by the title in the original box set for now.

Brink of Life focusses on three women in a maternity ward in an unknown hospital somewhere. I do not recall the camera ever leaving the room. It doesn’t have to. These three women all have different things happening to them and it is the way in which they deliver their stories that makes it all work. They – Eva Dahlbeck, Ingrid Thulin, and Bibi Andersson, all Bergman regulars – deliver such amazing performances that there’s just no need for there to be more. The camera captures the different states these women are in with surgical precision. We see every emotion, every thought, every doubt and every fear that being pregnant might bring. The cast list also includes two more Bergman regulars in side roles, but I will leave those out of this review to be a nice surprise for when you watch the film.

As you can see from the images, the film is in black and white and the room is sterile. There really isn’t much to see besides the three beds and the people in them. This must have been an intentional choice, to make us focus on these women, their faces, the way they move, the way they talk.. So that everything that happens to them feels real. You’re happy when they’re happy, and you’re devastated when they go through rough times. You get to experience it all, packed together in 84 minutes that feel like 9 months. During this small slice of time where the lives of these three women briefly intersect, you are there with them. You are reminded that happiness can turn to sadness in the blink of an eye, but also that (wo)man is strong and that they can overcome the worst moments of fear and despair.

But regardless of how much I adored Brink of Life, I am not sure I would ever recommend it to anyone unless I know they are into this type of film. If intense but slow paced drama without much action or agency is not your cup of tea, have a look at the Adventure page. If it is, and if you’re willing to dig deep into the filmography of one of the greatest directors to have ever lived, then Brink of Life is the film for you!

The post Brink of Life – Ingmar Bergman – 1958 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.

Where Do We Go Now?

Before we figure out where we’re going, let us see where we came from first. I first got into the films of Nadine Labaki through the more recent Capharnaüm / Capernaum (2018) and my semi-official films by women side project. It resonated with me a lot, and so I figured I would watch another one. I did not know much about her filmography, but quickly found out it was between this one and Caramel. The former won out. Again it resonated, and even more so than Capernaum did. It feels like we’re on a similar wavelength as far as movie tone and feel goes. She has only made three feature films so far, I have only seen two, and already I cannot wait for the fourth.

To boldly go where..?

Where Do We Go Now? is a Lebanese comedy/drama about a small unnamed village inhabited by a group of Christians and a group of Muslims. While the country struggles with civil unrest (religion, yay!), the women of the village band together to keep the slightly hotheaded male population from doing anything they might regret. They begin with simple things such as sabotaging the radio and tv, or to simply be kind and show affection. As the situation outside the village slowly escalates, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the peace at home. It would be a shame to get into more detail here as it would certainly spoil things, so I will just say that I loved all the insane situations. As crazy as they are they also have some truth to them. I think that is what made the comedy work for me. The themes of the movie might make you stop and think, but the sometimes farcical comedy and big heart mean that this is still a pleasant lighthearted watch.

As those round brackets in the previous paragraph might have revealed already, I am not exactly big on (institutionalised) religion. The things people can do to each other in the name of one deity or another is beyond my comprehension. The insanity of this kind of behaviour is perfectly showcased in this movie, however it also shows that having opposing beliefs does not mean you cannot still live together and be friends and neighbours. As is so often said, the difference between an atheist like myself and, say, a Christian, is that I reject all deities and they all but one. In absolute numbers, that is really only a very small difference. In the end we are all people and we all pretty much want the same things.

And finally, the title of the film deserves an answer. So, where do we go now? Well, like a single lady on a boat to the Hebrides, towards Sukkar banat / Caramel (2007) of course! Hopefully soon.

The post Where Do We Go Now? – Nadine Labaki – 2011 appeared first on basvanstratum.nl.