- Tár.
(Todd Field) - Beau is Afraid.
(Ari Aster) - Music for Black Pigeons.
(Jørgen Leth & Andreas Koefoed) - The Artifice Girl.
(Franklin Ritch) - Killers of the Flower Moon.
(Martin Scorsese) - The Eternal Daughter + Présages (Où en êtes-vous, Joanna Hogg ?)
(Joanna Hogg) - Armageddon Time.
(James Gray) - Pacifiction.
(Albert Serra) - Reality.
(Tina Satter) - El Conde. (The Count)
(Pablo Larraín)
Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
Yannick.
(Quentin Dupieux)
Anatomie d’une chute.
(Justine Triet)
Asteroid City.
(Wes Anderson)
Metronom.
(Alexandru Belc)
Conann.
(Bertrand Mandico)
Infinity Pool.
(Brandon Cronenberg)
Babylon.
(Damien Chazelle)
Something in the Dirt.
(Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson)
Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV.
(Amanda Kim)
Kuru Otlar Üstüne. (About Dry Grasses)
(Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Le procès Goldman. (The Goldman Case)
(Cédric Kahn)
L’été dernier. (Last Summer)
(Catherine Breillat)
The Killer.
(David Fincher)
Vanskabte land. (Godland)
(Hlynur Pálmason)
L’Île rouge.
(Robin Campillo)
Showing Up.
(Kelly Reichardt)
The Holdovers.
(Alexander Payne)
Silent Night.
(John Woo)
Skazka. (Fairytale)
(Aleksandr Sokurov)
Alcarràs.
(Carla Simón)
Visions.
(Yann Gozlan)
Barbie.
(Greta Gerwig)
Aftersun.
(Charlotte Wells)
Return to Seoul.
(Davy Chou)
The Fabelmans.
(Steven Spielberg)
Marlowe.
(Neil Jordan)
Kurak Günler (Burning Days)
(Emin Alper)
La passion de Dodin Bouffant. (The Taste of Things)
(Tran Anh Hung)
Rapito. (Kidnapped)
(Marco Bellocchio)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
(James Mangold)
Wonka.
(Paul King)
Not bad either / of interest:
Wil. (Tim Mielants)
Nostalgia. (Mario Martone)
L’ultima notte di Amore. (Last Night of Amore) (Andrea Di Stefano)
Passages. (Ira Sachs)
How to Have Sex. (Molly Manning Walker)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (Chad Stahelski)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. (Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson & Kemp Powers)
Maestro. (Bradley Cooper)
Voyange en Italie. (Sophie Letourneur)
Athena. (Romain Gavras)
Inside. (Vasilis Katsoupis)
Coup de Chance. (Woody Allen)
DogMan. (Luc Besson)
The Quiet Girl. (Colm Bairéad)
Zhena Chaikovskogo (Tchaikovsky’s Wife) (Kirill Serebrennikov)
Il Boemo. (Petr Václav)
Yǐn rù chényān. (Return to Dust) (Li Ruijun)
No Bears. (Jafar Panahi)
Augure (Omen) (Baloji Tshiani)
Kuolleet lehdet. (Fallen leaves) (Aki Kaurismäki)
No Hard Feelings. (Gene Stupnitsky)
Vincent doit mourir. (Vincent Must Die) (Stéphan Castang)
Perfect Days + Anselm (3D). (Wim Wenders)
Dumb Money. (Craig Gillespie)
Le Livre des solutions. (Michel Gondry)
Lola. (Andrew Legge)
Holly. (Fien Troch)
Farang. (Xavier Gens)
Thanksgiving. (Eli Roth)
Hypnotic. (Robert Rodriguez)
Sisu. (Jalmari Helander)
Le syndrome des amours passées. (The (Ex)perience of Love) (Raphaël Balboni & Ann Sirot)
L’Employée du mois. (Véronique Jadin)
L’étoile filante. (The Falling Star) (Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon)
The Old Oak. (Ken Loach)
Top 10 Movies 2022
- Vortex.
(Gaspar Noé) - De uskyldige. (The Innocents)
(Eskil Vogt) - Nr. 10. (No. 10)
(Alex van Warmerdam) - Licorice Pizza.
(Paul Thomas Anderson) - Flux Gourmet.
(Peter Strickland) - Animals.
(Nabil Ben Yadir) - Earwig.
(Lucile Hadzihalilovic) - EO.
(Jerzy Skolimowski) - Triangle of Sadness.
(Ruben Östlund) - Mad God.
(Phil Tippett)
Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.
(Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson)
R.M.N.
(Cristian Mungiu)
The Tragedy of Macbeth.
(Joel Coen)
La Nuit du 12. (The Night of the 12th)
(The Night of the 12th)
Inexorable.
(Fabrice Du Welz)
L’Événement. (Happening)
(Audrey Diwan)
Incroyable mais vrai. (Incredible But True) + Fumer fait tousser. (Smoking Causes Coughing)
(Quentin Dupieux)
Canción sin nombre. (Song Without a Name)
(Melina León)
Masking Threshold.
(Johannes Grenzfurthner)
Zabij to i wyjedz z tego miasta. (Kill It and Leave This Town)
(Mariusz Wilczyński)
Petrovy v grippe. (Petrov’s Flu)
(Kirill Serebrennikov)
Atlantis.
(Valentyn Vasyanovych)
Ultrasound.
(Rob Schroeder)
Boiling Point.
(Philip Barantini)
After Yang.
(Kogonada)
Ich bin dein Mensch. (I’m Your Man)
(Maria Schrader)
Le otto montagne. (The Eight Mountains)
(Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch)
Drii Winter. (A Piece of Sky)
(Michael Koch)
L’Empire du silence. (Empire of Silence)
(Thierry Michel)
The Batman.
(Matt Reeves)
BARDO, Falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades. (BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths)
(Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Tori et Lokita. (Tori and Lokita)
(Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
À plein temps. (Full Time)
(Eric Gravel)
Red Rocket.
(Sean Baker)
Un autre monde. (Another World)
(Stéphane Brizé)
Sundown.
(Michel Franco)
Jaddeh Khaki. (Hit the Road)
(Panah Panahi)
Heojil kyolshim. (Decision to Leave)
(Park Chan-wook)
Competencia oficial. (Official Competition)
(Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn)
Rimini.
(Ulrich Seidl)
Falcon Lake.
(Charlotte Le Bon)
“Sr.”.
(Chris Smith)
Not bad either / of interest:
RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) (S. S. Rajamouli)
Nightmare Alley. (Guillermo del Toro)
Saint Omer. (Alice Diop)
Holy Spider. (Ali Abbasi)
Enys Men. (Mark Jenkin)
Große Freiheit. (Great Freedom) (Sebastian Meise)
Rien à foutre. (Zero Fucks Given) (Emmanuel Marre & Julie Lecoustre)
Poulet Frites. (For a Fistful of Fries) (Yves Hinant & Jean Libon)
Cow. (Andrea Arnold)
De humani corporis fabrica. (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)
Baradaran-e Leila. (Leila’s Brothers)(Saeed Roustaee)
Les Amandiers. (Forever Young)(Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
Bones and All. (Luca Guadagnino)
Crimes of the Future. (David Cronenberg)
Men. (Alex Garland)
A Chiara. (Jonas Carpignano)
As bestas. (The Beasts) (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
Zillion. (Robin Pront)
M3GAN. (Gerard Johnstone)
Duyster. (Thomas Vanbrabant & Jordi Ostir)
Beurokeo. (Broker) (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Silent Night. (Camille Griffin)
Viens je t’emmène. (Nobody’s Hero) (Alain Guiraudie)
Żeby Nie Było Śladów. (Leave No Traces) (Jan P. Matuszyński)
La Mif. (Fred Baillif)
Walad Min Al Janna. (Boy from Heaven / Cairo Conspiracy) (Tarik Saleh)
En même temps. (Benoît Delépine & Gustave Kervern)
Guermantes + Le Lycéen (Winter Boy) (Christophe Honoré)
Yi miao zhong. (One Second) (Zhang Yimou)
The Stranger. (Thomas M. Wright)
Top Gun: Maverick. (Joseph Kosinski)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. (Sam Raimi)
Wendell & Wild. (Henry Selick)
The Northman. (Robert Eggers)
Doraibu mai kâ. (Drive My Car) (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Clara Sola. (Nathalie Álvarez Mesén)
Feathers. (Omar El Zohairy)
The Wonder. (Sebastián Lelio)
Funny Pages. (Owen Kline)
La dernière tentation des belges. (The Last Temptation of the Belgians) (Jan Bucquoy)
Zeria. (Harry Cleven)
The Buke. (Roger Michell)
Ambulance. (Michael Bay)
En corps. (Rise) (Cédric Klapisch)
Une jeune fille qui va bien. (A Radiant Girl) (Sandrine Kiberlain)
Les Passagers de la nuit. (The Passengers of the Night) (Mikhaël Hers)
L’Innocent. (The Innocent) (Louis Garrel)
Coupez!. (Final Cut) (Michel Hazanavicius)
Don’t Worry Darling. (Olivia Wilde)
Lamb. (Valdimar Jóhannsson)
Mes frères et moi. (Yohan Manca)
L’Ennemi. (Stephan Streker)
Les Cinq diables. (The Five Devils) (Léa Mysius)
Fire of Love. (Sara Dosa)
Close. (Lukas Dhont)
White Noise. (Noah Baumbach)
Corsage. (Marie Kreutzer)
Avatar: The Way of Water (3D). (James Cameron)
Les Promesses. (Thomas Kruithof)
Hytti Nro 6. (Compartment No. 6) (Juho Kuosmanen)
After Blue. (Paradis sale) (Bertrand Mandico)
C’mon C’mon. (Mike Mills)
Maigret. (Patrice Leconte)
Belfast. (Kenneth Branagh)
Peter von Kant. (François Ozon)
Bigbug. (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Top 10 Movies 2021
- Possessor.
(Brandon Cronenberg) - First Cow.
(Kelly Reichardt) - Dau. Degeneration.
(Ilya Khrzhanosky, Ilya Permyakov) - Annette.
(Leos Carax) - The French Dispatch.
(Wes Anderson) - The Card Counter.
(Paul Schrader) - The Last Duel.
(Ridley Scott) - Petite Fille. (Little Girl)
(Sebastien Lifshitz) - David Byrne’s American Utopia.
(Spike Lee) - Un Monde. (Playground)
(Laura Wandel)
Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
Ham on Rye.
(Tyler Taormina)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always.
(Eliza Hittman)
The Power of the Dog.
(Jane Campion)
Nuevo orden. (New Order)
(Michel Franco)
The Green Knight.
(David Lowery)
Metri Shish’o Nim ( Just 6.5 / La Loi du Téhéran)
(Saeed Roustayi)
Jallikattu.
(Lijo Jose Pellissery)
É stata la mano di Dio. (The Hand of God)
(Paolo Sorrentino)
Europa.
(Haider Rashid)
Titane.
(Julia Ducournau)
Benedetta.
(Paul Verhoeven)
Les Intranquilles. (The Restless)
(Joachim Lafosse)
Serre Moi Fort. (Hold Me Tight)
(Mathieu Amalric)
Stump the Guesser.
(Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson)
Dune (3D).
(Denis Villeneuve)
Saint Maud.
(Rose Glass)
Pieces of a Woman.
(Kornél Mundruczó)
Gharheman. (A Hero)
(Asghar Farhadi)
Neptune Frost.
(Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman)
The Suicide Squad.
(James Gunn)
Pretend It’s a City.
(Martin Scorsese)
The Assistant.
(Kitty Green)
City Hall.
(Frederick Wiseman)
White Cube.
(Renzo Martens)
Azor.
(Andreas Fontana)
Don’t Look Up.
(Adam McKay)
No Sudden Move.
(Steven Soderbergh)
Shiva Baby.
(Emma Seligman)
Music Hole.
(Gaëtan Lekens, David Mutzenmacher)
Fils De Plouc. (Mother Schmuckers)
(Lenny & Harpo Guit)
Retfaerdighedens ryttere. (Riders of Justice)
(Anders Thomas Jensen)
Onoda – 10,000 Nights in the Jungle.
(Arthur Harari)
Pesar-Madar. (Son-Mother)
(Mahnaz Mohammadi)
Pig.
(Michael Sarnoski)
Pleasure.
(Nina Thyberg)
Sheytan vojud nadarad. (There is No Evil)
(Mohammad Rasoulof)
The Velvet Underground.
(Todd Haynes)
Not bad either / of interest:
The Souvenir: Part II. (Joanna Hogg)
La Civil. (Teodora Ana Mihai)
Last Night in Soho. (Edgar Wright)
Satoshi Kon, l’Illusionniste. (Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist) (Pascal-Alex Vincent)
Les Prières de Delphine. (Delphine’s Prayers) (Rosine Mftego Mbakam)
Le Monde après Nous. (The World after Us) (Louda Ben Salah-Cazanas)
France. (Bruno Dumont)
Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc. (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn) (Radu Jude)
Lapsis. (Noah Hutton)
Quoi Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Zbanic)
Médecin de Nuit. (The Night Doctor) (Elie Wajeman)
The Nighthouse. (David Bruckner)
Les Choses Humaines. (The Accusation) (Yval Attal)
Slow Machine. (Paul Felten, Joe Denardo)
Tantas Almas. (Valley of Souls) (Nicolás Rincón Gille)
Mandibules. (Quentin Dupieux)
Druk. (Another Round) ( Thomas Vinterberg)
Vredens verste menneske. (The Worst Person in the World) (Joachim Trier)
The Lost Daughter. (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
The King’s Man. (Matthew Vaughn)
Let Them All Talk. (Steven Soderbergh)
Spencer. (Pablo Larraín)
Malmkrog. (Cristi Puiu)
Dear Comrades! (Andrei Konchalovsky)
Tout s’est bien passé. (Everything Went Fine) (François Ozon)
Mon Légionnaire. (Our Men) (Rachel Lang)
Petite Maman. (Céline Sciamma)
Gunda. (Viktor Kossakovsky)
Sputnik. (Egor Abramenko)
Gunpowder Milkshake. (Navot Papushado)
Zack Snyder’s Justice League. (Zack Snyder)
Nomadland. (Chloé Zhao)
Nobody. (Ilya Naishuller)
West Side Story. (Steven Spielberg)
Spider-Man: No way Home. (Jonn Watts)
Illusions Perdues. (Lost Illusions) (Xavier Giannoli)
Ghasideyeh gave sefid. (Ballad of a White Cow) (Behtash Sanaeeha, Maryam Moghaddam)
Cette musique ne joue pour personne. (Love Song for Tough Guys) (Samuel Benchetrit)
Passing. (Rebecca Hall)
Undergods. (Chino Moya)
Kom hier dat ik u kus. (Becoming Mona) (Niels van Koevorden, Sabine Lubbe Bakker)
tick, tick…BOOM! (Lin-Manuel Miranda)
The Beatles: Get Back. (Peter Jackson)
No Time to Die. (Cary joji Fukunaga)
Phèdre ou l’Explosion des Corps Confinés. (Phèdre against Covid) (Méryl Fortunat-Rossi)
The Man Who Sold His Skin. (Kaouther Ben Hania)
Re Granchio (The Tale of King Crab) (Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis) (last 3rd of the film)
Slalom. (Charlène Favier)
Gagarine. (Fanny Liatard, Jérémy Trouilh)
Ha’berech. (Ahed’s Knee) (Nadav Lapid)
In the Earth. (Ben Wheatley)
Wrath of Man. (Guy Ritchie)
Les Olympiades. (Paris, 13th District) (Jacques Audiard)
Playlist. (Nine Antico)
Sweat. (Magnus von Horn)
Promising Young Woman. (Emerald Fennell)
Sing 2. (Garth Jennings)
Sound of Metal. (Darius Marder)
Bakolo Music international. (Benjamin Viré, Tom Vantorre)
Totem. ( Fred de Loof)
Une Vie Démente. (Madly in Life) (Raphaël Balboni, Ann Sirot)
L’Origine du Monde. (Dear Mother) (Laurent Lafitte)
Bergman Island. (Mia Hansen-Love)
Dealer. (Jeroen Perceval)
Madres Paralelas (Parallel Mothers) & The Human Voice. (Pedro Almodóvar)
Le Lion Belge. (Nimetulla Parlaku)
Délicieux. (Delicious) (Éric Besnard)
Undine. (Christian Petzold)
Army of the Dead. (Zack Snyder)
SpaceBoy. (Olivier Pairoux)
Cool Abdoul. (Jonas Baeckeland)
Tre Piani. (Three Floors) (Nanni Moretti)
House of Gucci. (Ridley Scott)
Top 10 Movies 2020
- A Hidden Life.
(Terrence Malick) - I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
(Charlie Kaufman) - À l’abordage. (All Hands on Deck)
(Guillaume Brac) - Bergmál. (Echo)
(Rúnar Rúnarsson) - Samurai Marathon.
(Bernard Rose) - Small Axe: Lovers Rock & Education.
(Steve McQueen) - La Fille au Bracelet. (The Girl with the Bracelet)
(Stéphane Demoustier) - Lynn + Lucy.
(Fyzal Boukifa) - La Cravate. (The Tie)
(Etienne Chaillou & Mathias Théry) - Gretel & Hansel.
(Oz Perkins)
Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
Uncut Gems.
(Josh & Benny Safdie)
The Devil All the Time.
(Antonio Campos)
Effacer l’hisorique. (Delete History)
(Benoît Delépine & Gustave Kervern)
Adoration.
(Fabrice Du Welz)
Swallow.
(Carlo Mirabella-Davis)
1917.
(Sam Mendes)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets.
(Turner Ross & Bill Ross IV)
Mank.
(David Fincher)
Ghost Tropic.
(Bas Devos)
La Gomera. (The Whistlers)
(Corneliu Porumboiu)
Chained for Life.
(Aaron Schimberg)
Babyteeth.
(Shannon Murphy)
Monos.
(Alejandro Landes)
Mother.
(Kristof Bilsen)
The Day After I’m Gone.
(Nimrod Eldar)
Mijn Rembrandt. (My Rembrandt)
(Oeke Hoogendijk)
Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.
(Gu Xiaogang)
Nabarvené ptáče. (The Painted Bird)
(Václav Marhoul)
Berlin Alexanderplatz.
(Burhan Qurbani)
Ema.
(Pablo Larraín)
A Girl Missing.
(Kōji Fukada)
Favolacce. (Bad Tales)
(Damiano & Fabio D’Innocenzo)
Lara.
(Jan Ole Gerster)
On the Rocks.
(Sofia Coppola)
Un Pays qui se tient sage. (The Monopoly of Violence)
(David Dufresne)
Not bad either/of interest:
Om det oändliga. (About Endlessness) (Roy Andersson)
La Vérité. (The Truth) (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
House of Hummingbird. (Kim Bora)
Overseas. (Sung-a Yoon)
The Lost Okorishi. (Abba Makama)
Vivarium. (Lorcan Finnegan)
Little Monsters. (Abe Forsythe)
Systemsprenger. (System Crasher) (Nora Fingscheidt)
Light of My Life. (Casey Affleck)
Madre. (Mother) (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
The Forty-Year-Old Version. (Radha Blank)
Beanpole. (Kantemir Balagov)
Adieu les cons. (Bye Bye Morons) (Albert Dupontel)
Les choses qu’on dit, les choses qu’on fait. (Love Affair(s)) ( Emmanuel Mouret)
A Russian Youth. (Alexandr Zolotukhin)
Deux. (Two of Us) (Filippo Meneghetti)
Widow of Silence. (Praveen Morchhale)
Rocks. (Sarah Gavron)
Un Fils. (A Son) (Mehdi M. Barsaoui)
Seules les Bêtes. (Only the Animals) (Dominik Moll)
Adam. (Maryam Touzani)
Fin de Siglo. (The end of the Century) (Lucio Castro)
The Wild Goose Lake. (Diao Yi’nan)
Bad Boys for Life. (Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah)
Onward. (Dan Scanlon)
The Grudge. (Nicolas Pesce)
Escape from Pretoria. (Francis Annan)
Emma. . (Autumn de Wilde)
The Hunt. (Craig Zobel)
Des Hommes. (Home Front) (Lucas Belvaux)
Été 85. (Summer of 85) (François Ozon)
The Boys in the Band. (Joe Mantello)
Öndög (Egg) (Wang Quan’an)
Birds of Prey. (Cathy Yan)
The Invisible Man. (Leigh Whannell)
All of Us. (Willem Wallyn)
The Farewell. (Lulu Wang)
Matthias & Maxime. (Xavier Dolan)
Little Women. (Greta Gerwig)
Richard Jewell. (Clint Eastwood)
Un Divan à Tunis. (Arab blues) (Manele Labidi)
Pinocchio. (Matteo Garrone)
Jumbo. (Zoé Wittock)
Soul. (Pete Doctor)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. (George C. Wolfe)
The Trial of the Chicago 7. (Aaron Sorkin)
Wasp Network. (Olivier Assayas)
Muidhond. (Tench) (Patrice Toye)
Pompei (Anna Falguéres & John Shank)
Filles de joie. (Anne Paulicevich & Frédéric Fonteyne)
Best movies of the decade (2010-2019).
A list of my favorite films of the decade (2010-2019) in alphabetical order. I’ve limited myself to 50 films and to one film per director.
Amour
(Michael Haneke, 2012)
Anomalisa
(Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman, 2015)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
(Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
Blue Ruin
(Jeremy Saulnier, 2013)
Când se lasa seara peste Bucuresti sau metabolism
(When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism)
(Corneliu Porumboiu, 2013)
Christine
(Antonio Campos, 2016)
Climax
(Gaspar Noé, 2018)
A Cure for Wellness
(Gore Verbinski, 2016)
L’Ecume des Jours (Mood Indigo)
(Michel Gondry, 2013)
Elle
(Paul Verhoeven, 2016)
Evolution
(Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2015)
A Field in England
(Ben Wheatley, 2013)
Des filles en noir (Young Girls in Black)
(Jean-Paul Civeyrac, 2010)
Le Gamin au Vélo (The Kid with a Bike)
(Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2011)
Der Goldene Handschuh (The Golden Glove)
(Fatih Akin, 2019)
The Grand Budapest Hotel
(Wes Anderson, 2014)
Holy Motors
(Leos Carax, 2012)
The House that Jack Built
(Lars von Trier, 2018)
Hugo (3D)
(Martin Scorcese, 2011)
Inside Llewyn Davis
(Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013)
In Time
(Andrew Niccol, 2011)
Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross)
(Dietrich Brüggemann, 2014)
Laurence Anyways
(Xavier Dolan, 2012)
The Lobster
(Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
The Lost City of Z
(James Gray, 2016)
Manchester by the Sea
(Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
The Master
(Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
Meek’s Cutoff
(Kelly Reichardt, 2010)
Michael
(Markus Schleinzer, 2011)
Mon Ange (Angel)
(Harry Cleven, 2016)
A Most Violent Year
(J.C. Chandor, 2014)
The Neon Demon
(Nicholas Winding Refn, 2016)
No
(Pablo Larraín, 2012)
Rabot
(Christina Vandekerckhove, 2017)
Réalité (Reality)
(Quentin Dupieux, 2014)
Reality
(Matteo Garrone, 2012)
La Región Salvaje (The Untamed)
(Amat Escalante, 2016)
The Rider
(Chloé Zhao, 2017)
Saul fia (Son of Saul)
(László Nemes, 2015)
The Souvenir
(Joanna Hogg, 2019)
Srpski Film (A Serbian film)
(Srdjan Spasojevic, 2010)
Stoker
(Chan-wook Park, 2013)
Teret (The Load)
(Ognjen Glavonic, 2018)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
(Tomas Alfredson, 2011)
Le Tout Nouveau Testament (The Brand New Testament)
(Jaco Van Dormael, 2015)
The Tree of Life
(Terrence Malick, 2011)
Under the Silver Lake
(David Robert Mitchel, 2018)
Vénus Noire (Black Venus)
(Abdellatif Kechiche, 2010)
Vita Brevis
(Thierry Knauff, 2014)
Vivre sa mort
(Manu Bonmariage, 2016)
Top 10 movies 2019
- Der Goldene Handschuh. (The Golden Glove)
(Fatih Akin) - The Favourite.
(Yorgos Lanthimos) - Koko-di Koko-da.
(Johannes Nyholm) - The Souvenir.
(Joanna Hogg) - Peterloo.
(Mike Leigh) - An Elephant Sitting Still.
(Hu Bo) - Holiday.
(Isabella Eklöf) - One Cut of the Dead.
(Shinichiro Ueda) - Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bod Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.
+ The Irishman (: A Frank Sheeran Story by Martin Scorsese).
(Martin Scorsese) - In Fabric.
(Peter Strickland)Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
Ahlat Agaci. (The WIld Pear Tree)
(Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Vox Lux.
(Brady Corbet)
Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood.
(Quentin Tarantino)
J’Accuse. (An Officer and a Spy)
(Roman Polanski)
Domestik (Domestique)
(Adam Sedlák)
Joker.
(Todd Phillips)
The Lighthouse.
(Robert Eggers)
Ray & Liz.
(Richard Billingham)
So Long, My Son.
(Wang Xiaoshuai)
Styx.
(Wolfgang Fischer)
La Casa Lobo.
(Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León)
Pájaros de verano. (Birds of Passage)
(Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego)
Ayka.
(Sergei Dvortsevoy)
Dolor y Gloria. (Pain and Glory)
(Pedro Almodóvar)
Ang Hupa. (The Halt)
(Lav Diaz)
Étangs Noirs.
(Pieter Dumoulin & Timeau De Keyser)
Oleg.
(Juris Kursietis)
High Life.
(Claire Denis)
The Mountain.
(Rick Alverson)
Il Traditore. (The Traitor)
(Marco Bellocchio)
Varda par Agnès. (Varda by Agnes)
(Agnès Varda)
Dragged Across Concrete.
(S. Craig Zahler)
Parasite.
(Bong Joon-ho)
Night Comes On.
(Jordana Spiro)
Tommaso.
(Abel Ferrara)
Le Daim. (Deerskin)
(Quentin Dupieux)
Le Jeune Ahmed. (Young Ahmed)
(Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Bacurau.
( Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles)
A Vida Invisível. (The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão)
(Karim Aïnouz)
J’ai perdu mon corps ( I Lost My Body)
(Jérémy Clapin)
The Two Popes.
(Fernado Meirelles)
First Love.
(Takashi Miike)
Midsommar
(Ari Aster)
Ad Astra.
(James Gray)
Pahokee.
(Patrick Bresnan & Ivete Lucas)
La Cordillera de los sueños. (The Cordillera of Dreams)
(Patricio Guzmán)
Torpedo.
(Sven Huybrechts)
Not bad either/of interest:
Light as Feathers. (Rosanne Pel)
Mid90’s (Jonah Hill)
The Current War. (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon)
Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle. (Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream) (Frank Beauvais)
At Eternity’s Gate. (Julian Schnabel)
Temblores. (Tremors) (Jayro Bustamante)
Lillian. (Andreas Horvath)
Chambre 212 (On a Magical Night) (Christophe Honoré)
Sympathie pour le Diable. (Sympathy for the Devil) (Guillaume de Fontenay)
Killing. (Shinya Tsukamoto)
Us. (Jordan Peele)
Ash is the Purest White. (Jia Zhangke)
We the Animals. (Jeremiah Zagar)
Abrakadabra. (Luciano & Nicolás Onetti)
Piercing. (Nicolas Pesce)
Thunder Road. (Jim Cummings)
Celle que vous croyez. (Who You Think I Am) (Safy Nebbou)
Touch Me Not. (Adina Pintilie)
Mitten. (Gerard-Jan Claes & Olivia Rochette)
Les Misérables. (Ladj Ly)
Napszállta. (Sunset) (László Nemes)
Upgrade. (Leigh Whannell)
Aniara. (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja)
Santiago, Italia. (Nanni Moretti)
It Must Be Heaven. (Elia Suleiman)
Dronningen. (Queen of Hearts) (May el-Toukhy)
Sorry We Missed You. (Ken Loach)
Serenity. (Steven Knight)
Glass. (M. Night Shyamalan)
3 Tage in Quiberon. (3 Days in Quiberon) (Emily Atef)
Eight Grade. (Bo Burnham)
On va tout péter. (Blow it to Bits) (Lech Kowalski)
Coureur. (Kenneth Mercken)
Sophia Antipolis. (Virgil Vernier)
Das Schweigende Klassenzimmer (The Silent Revolution) (Lars Kraume)
Grâce à Dieu. (By the Grace of God) (François Ozon)
Tel Aviv on Fire. (Sameh Zoabi)
God Exists, Her Name is Petrunija. (Teona Strugar Mitevska)
Fête de Famille. (Happy Birthday) (Cédric Kahn)
Atlantique. (Atlantics) (Mati Diop)
The Report. (Scott Z. Burns)
Nuestras Madres. (Our Mothers) (César Díaz)
Toy Story 4. (3D) (Josh Cooley)
Triple Frontier. (J.C. Chandor)
The Dead Don’t Die. (Jim Jarmusch)
Dumbo. (3D) (Tim Burton)
Luz. (Tilman Singer)
Donbass. (Sergey Loznitsa)
La Belle Époque. (Nicolas Bedos)
Cleo. (Eva Cools)
Double Vies. (Non-Fiction) (Olivier Assayas)
Gräns. (Border) (Ali Abbasi)
Shazam! (David F. Sandberg)
The Highwaymen. (John Lee Hancock)
Marriage Story. (Noah Baumbach)
Leto. (Kirill Serebrennikov)
Knives Out. (Rian Johnson)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. (Chad Stahelski)
The King. ( David Michôd)
El Árbol de la Sangre. (The Three of Blood) (Julio Medem)
Werk ohne Author. (Never Look Away) (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Duelles (Olivier Masset-Depasse)
Apollo 11 (IMAX) (Todd Douglass Miller)
La Terra dell’abbastanza. (Boys Cry) (Damiano & Fabio D’Innocenzo)
La Paranza dei Bambini. (Piranhas) (Claudio Giovannesi)
El Camino. (Vince Gilligan)
Les plus belles années d’une vie. (The Best Years of a Life) (Claude Lelouch)
Chanson Douce (Perfect Nanny) (Lucie Borletau)
De Patrick. (Patrick) (Tim Mielants)
Au Nom de la Terre. (Édouard Bergeon)
Papicha. (Mounia Meddour Gens)
Lola vers la Mer. (Laurent Micheli)
The Nightingale. (Jennifer Kent)
Motherless Brooklyn. (Edward Norton)
Lucky Day. (Roger Avery)
A Rainy Day in New York. (Woody Allen)
Adults in the Room. ( Costa-Gavras)
Zombi Child. (Bertrand Bonello)
High Flying Bird / The Laundromat. (Steven Soderbergh)
If Beale Street Could Talk. (Barry Jenkins)
The Mustang. (Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre)
The Beach Bum. (Harmony Korine)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. (3D) (J.J. Abrams)
Dolemite is My Name. (Craig Brewer)
Little Joe. (Jessica Hausner)
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu. (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) (Céline Sciamma)
Avengers: Endgame. (3D) (Anthony & Joe Russo)And probably the single most painful viewing experience of my life:
Domino. (Brian De Palma)
TOP 10 MOVIES 2018
- Climax.
(Gaspar Noé) - Phantom Thread.
(Paul Thomas Anderson) - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
(Joel & Ethan Coen) - The Rider.
(Chloé Zhao) - Teret. (The Load)
(Ognjen Glavonic) - Rabot.
(Christina Vandekerckhove) - Under the Silver Lake.
(David Robert Mitchel) - Les Garçons Sauvages. (The Wild Boys)
(Bertrand Mandico) - Anon.
(Andrew Niccol) - Transit.
(Christian Petzold)
Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
The House that Jack Built.
(Lars von Trier)
The Beauty and the Dogs.
(Kaouther Ben Hania)
Girl.
(Lukas Dhont)
First Reformed.
(Paul Schrader)
A Ghost Story.
(David Lowery)
Kuso.
(Flying Lotus)
Human, Space, Time and Human.
(Kim Ki-duk)
The Disater Artist.
(James Franco)
Lucky.
(John Carroll Lynch)
Ce Magnifique Gâteau! (The Magnificent Cake)
(Emma De Swaef & Marc James Roels)
Lazzaro Felice. (Happy as Lazzaro)
(Alice Rohrwacher)
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms 3D.
(Lasse Hallström & Joe Johnston)
Roma.
(Alfonso Cuarón)
Call Me By Your Name.
(Luca Guadagnino)
The Florida Project.
(Sean Baker)
Hannah.
(Andrea Pallaoro)
Game Night.
(John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein)
Sollers Point.
(Matthew Porterfield)
Cold War.
(Pawel Pawlikowski)
The Shape of Water.
(Guillermo del Toro)
Wildlife.
(Paul Dano)
The Death of Stalin.
(Armando Iannucci)
Mandy.
(Panos Cosmatos)
The Sisters Brothers.
(Jacques Audiard)
Beast.
(Michael Pearce)
A Ciambra.
(Jonas Carpignano)
A Prayer Before Dawn.
(Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)
Le Temps où les Arabes dansaient. (When Arabs Danced)
(Jawad Rhalib)
First Man.
(Damien Chazelle)
Outlaw King.
(David Mackenzie)Not bad either:
Woman at War. (Benedikt Erlingsson)
Sweet Country. (Warwick Thornton)
Shoplifters. (Hirokazu Kore-Eda)
McQueen. (Ian Bonhôte & Peter Ettedgui)
Twarz. (Mug) (Malgorzata Szumowska)
Ceres. (Janet Van den Brand)
The Greenaway Alphabet. (Saskia Boddeke)
3 Faces. (Jafar Pahani)
Ni Juge, ni soumise (So Help Me God) (Yves Hinant, Jean Libon)
Capharnaüm. (Nadine Labaki)
Hereditary. (Ari Aster)
Lowlife. (Ryan Prows)
Au Poste! (Keep an Eye Out) (Quentin Dupieux)
Wajib. (Annemarie Jacir)
Foxtrot. (Samuel Maoz)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. (Martin McDonagh)
Isle of Dogs. (Wes Anderson)
Hostiles. (Scott Cooper)
Ralph Breaks the Internet. (Phil Johnston & Rich Moore)
Der Hauptmann. (The Captain) (Robert Schwentke)
Caniba (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel)
RBG. (Julie Cohen & Betsy West)
Breathless. (Daniel Lambo)
Jusqu’à la Garde. (Custody) (Xavier Legrand)
Red Sparrow. (Francis Lawrence)
Nos Batailles. (Our Struggles) (Guillaume Senez)
Beautiful Boy. (Felix van Groeningen)
Gueule d’ange. (Angel Face) (Vanessa Filho)
A Star is Born. (Bradley Cooper)
Private Life. (Tamara Jenkins)
Plaire, aimer et courir vite. (Sorry Angel) (Christophe Honoré)
Brawl in Cell Block 99. (S. Craig Zahler)
Ant-Man and the Wasp 3D. (Peyton Reed)
Frères Ennemis. (Close Ennemies) (Daniel Oelhoffen)
Gutland. (Govinda Van Maele)
De chaque instant. (Nicolas Philibert)
When the Day Had No Name. (Teona Strugar Mitevska)
A mon âge je me cache encore pour fumer. (I Still Hide to Smoke) (Rayhana Obermeyer)
The Day After. (Hong Sang-Soo)
Los Silencios. (Beatriz Seigner)
Before We Vanish. (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Burning. (Lee Chang-dong)
Unsane. (Steven Soderbergh)
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead. (Ben Wheatley)
As Boas Maneiras (Good Manners) (Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas)
I, Tonya. (Craig Gillespie)
Revenge. (Carolie Fargeat)
The Endless. (Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead)
Mon Ket. (Dany) (François Damiens)
Le Jeu. (Nothing to Hide) (Fred Cavayé)
In den Gängen. (In the Aisles) (Thomas Stuber)
Insyriated. (Philippe Van Leeuw)
Fahrenheit 11/9 (Michael Moore)
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. (Gus Van Sant)
Wonder Wheel (Woody Allen)
Lady Bird. (Greta Gerwig)
Pour Vivre Heureux. (For a Happy Life) (Salima Glamine & Dimitri Linder)
Nico, 1988. (Susanna Nicchiarelli)
Apostle. (Gareth Evans)
Lean on Pete. (Andrew Haigh)
Hold the Dark. (Jeremy Saulnier)
Hymz. (Insect) (Jan Svankmajer)
Avengers: Infinity War 3D. (Anthony & Joe Russo)
Molly’s Game. (Aaron Sorkin)
Bad Times at the El Royale. (Drew Goddard)
Patser (Gangsta) (Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah)
Todod lo saben. (Everybody Knows) (Asghar Farhadi)
Les Confins du Monde (To the Ends of the World) (Guillaume Nicloux)
The Insult. (Ziad Doueiri)
En guerre. (At War) (Stéphane Brizé)
Loro. (Paolo Sorrentino)
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote)
The Post. (Steven Spielberg)
Pupille. (In Safe Hands) (Jeanne Herry)
Amin. (Philippe Faucon)
A Simple Favor. (Paul Feig)
Kin. (Jonathan & Josh Baker)
Overlord. (Julius Avery)
The Commuter. (Jaume Collet-Serra)
Downsizing. (Alexander Payne)
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. (Andy Serkis)
BlacKkKlansman. (Spike Lee)
Disobedience. (Sebastián Leilo)
Le Monde est à Toi. (The World is Yours) (Romain Gavras)
Dogman. (Matteo Garrone)
Le Grand Bain. (Sink or Swim) (Gilles Lellouche)
They Shall Not Grow Old. (Peter Jackson)
Benzinho. (Loveling) (Gustavo Pizzi)
Amanda. (Mikhaël Hers)
Un Amour Impossible. (An Impossible Love) (Catherine Corsini)
L’amour Flou. (Romane Bohringer & Philippe Rebbot)
The Reports on Sarah and Saleem. (Muayad Alayan)
Un Ange. (Angel) (Koen Mortier)
Leave No Trace. (Debra Granik)
Ramen Shop (Eric Khoo)
Early Man. (Nick Park)
Utøya 22. juli. (Erik Poppe)
Den Skyldige. (The Guilty) (Gustav Möller)
The Night Comes for Us. (Timo Tjahjanto)
Mission : Impossible – Fallout 3D. (Christopher McQuarrie)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman)
Deadpool 2. (David Leitch)
Black Panther 3D. (Ryan Coogler)
Bumblebee 3D. (Travis Knight)
En Liberté. (The Trouble With You) (Pierre Salvadori)
Widows. (Steve McQueen)
Mortal Engines 3D. (Christian Rivers)
Suspiria. (Luca Guadagnino)
The Wife. (Björn Runge)
Kursk. (Thomas Vinterberg)
Niet Schieten. (Stijn Coninx)
Mademoiselle de Jonquières. (Emmanuel Mouret)
24 Frames. (Abbas Kiarostami)
Katie Says Goodbye. (Wayne Roberts)
Manifesto. (Julian Rosefeldt)
The Happy Prince. (Rupert Everett)
Halloween. (David Gordon Green)
Venom 3D. (Ruben Fleischer)
Ready Player One 3D. (Steven Spielberg)
Top 10 movies 2017
- The Lost City of Z.
(James Gray) - A Cure for Wellness.
(Gore Verbinski) - La Región Salvaje. (The Untamed)
(Amat Escalante) - Mon Ange. (Angel)
(Harry Cleven) - Lerd. (A Man of Integrity)
(Mohammad Rasoulof) - Manchester by the Sea.
(Kenneth Lonergan) - The Eyes of My Mother.
(Nicolas Pesce) - Krotkaya. (A Gentle Creature)
(Sergei Loznitsa) - Le Fidèle. (Racer and the Jailbird)
(Michaël R. Roskam) - Happy End.
(Michael Haneke)Would not have been misplaced in my top 10 either:
Good Time.
(Benny & Josh Safdie)
Nelyubov. (Loveless)
(Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Lumière!, l’aventure commence.
(Thierry Frémaux)
Un Beau Soleil Intérieur. (Let the Sun Shine In)
(Claire Denis)
You Were Never Really Here.
(Lynne Ramsay)
On Body and Soul.
(Ildikó Enyedi)
Laissez Bronzer les Cadavres. (Let the Corpses Tan)
(Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani)
The Greasy Strangler.
(Jim Hosking)
Swiss Army Man.
(Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)
Grave. (Raw)
(Julia Ducournau)
The Love Witch.
(Anna Biller)
American Honey.
(Andrea Arnold)
Sieranevada.
(Cristi Puiu)
Wiener-Dog.
(Todd Solondz)
Safari.
(Ulrich Seidl)
Stranger in Paradise.
(Guido Hendrikx)
Everybody Wants Some!!!
(Richard Linklater)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
(Yorgos Lanthimos)
David Lynch: The Art Life.
(Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes & Olivia Neergaard-Holm)
Marquis de Wavrin, du manoir à la Jungle. (Marquis de Wavrin, From the Manor to the Jungle)
(Grace Winter & Luc Plantier)
Visages Villages. (Faces Places)
(JR & Agnès Varda)
Félicité.
(Alain Gomis)
Anchiporuno. (Antiporno)
(Sion Sono)
Burning Out.
(Jérôme Le Maire)
Atomic Blonde.
(David Leitch)
Dunkirk.
(Christopher Nolan)
Patti Cake$.
(Geremy Jasper)
The Square.
(Ruben Östlund)
Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
(Matthew Vaughn)
Brimstone.
(Martin Koolhoven)Not bad either:
Magallanes. (Salvador del Solar)
Cartas da Guerra. (Letters from War) (Ivo Ferreira)
Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)
Message from the King. (Fabrice du Welz)
Even Lovers Get the Blues. (Laurent Micheli)
Powidoki. (Afterimage) (Andrzej Wajda)
El Color del Camaleón. (Anders Lubbert)
Home. (Fien Troch)
Sobytie. (The Event) (Sergei Loznitsa)
120 Battements par minute. (BPM) (Robin Campillo)
Estiu 1993. (Summer of 1993) (Carla Simón)
Thelma. (Joachim Trier)
Dog Eat Dog. (Paul Schrader)
Prevenge. (Alice Lowe)
Moonlight. (Barry Jenkins)
Get Out. (Jordan Peele)
John Wick: Chapter 2. (Chad Stahelski)
I’m Not Your Negro +Le jeune Karl Marx (The Young Karl Marx) (Raoul Peck)
Au-revoir là-haut. (See You Up There) (Albert Dupontel)
Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)
Coco. (Lee Unkrich & Adrian Molina)
War Machine. (David Michôd)
La La Land. (Damien Chazelle)
Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki. (Juho Kousmanen)
War for the Planet of the Apes. (3D) (Matt Reeves)
L’ amant Double. (François Ozon)
My First Highway. (Kevin Meul)
78/52. (Alexandre O. Philippe)
Tarde para la ira. (The Fury of a Patient Man) (Raúl Arévalo)
The Nile Hilton Incident. (Tarik Saleh)
Mobile Homes. (Vladimir de Fontenay)
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore. (Macon Blair)
L’échange des princesses. (Marc Dugain)
Como Nossos Pais. (Just Like Our Parents) (Laís Bodanzky)
Lady Macbeth. (William Oldroyd)
The Party. (Sally Potter)
Noces. (Stephan Streker)
Jalouse. (David & Stéphane Foenkinos)
All the Money in the World. (Ridley Scott)
Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time. (Rob Taylor)
The Founder. (John Lee Hancock)
Food Coop. (Thomas Boothe & Maellanne Bonnicel)
Que Dios nos perdone. (May God Save Us) (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
The Other Side of Hope. (Aki Kaurismäki)
Beyond the Mountains and the Hills. (Eran Kolirin)
Petit Paysan. (Boody Milk) (Hubert Charuel)
Paris Pieds Nus. (Lost in Paris) (Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon)
El Bar. (The Bar) (Álex de la Iglesia)
Corporate. (Nicolas Silhol)
Paddington 2. (Paul King)
Thor: Ragnarok (3D) (Taika Waititi)
Spielberg. (Susan Lacy)
The Beguiled. (Sofia Coppola)
Blade Runner 2049 (3D) (Denis Villeneuve)
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. (3D) (Rian Johnson)
Free Fire. (Ben Wheatley)
Baby Driver. (Edgar Wright)
Wind River. (Taylor Sheridan)
Logan. (James Mangold)
Wonder Woman. (3D) (Patty Jenkins)
Una Mujer Fantástica. (A Fantastic Woman) (Sebastián Lelio)
Tueurs. (Jean-François Hensgens & François Troukens)
Why Him? (John Hamburg)
Je suis resté dans les bois. (Michaël Bier, Erika Sainte & Vincent Solheid)
Loving Vincent. (Dorota Kobiela)
Le Redoutable. (Michel Hazanavicius)
Die göttliche Ordnung. (Petra Volpe)
D’après une histoire vraie. (Based on a True Story) (Roman Polanski)
Split. (M. Night Shyamalan)
Wonderstruck. (Todd Haynes)
The Woman Who Left. (Lav Diaz)
Battle of the Sexes. (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
Borg McEnroe. (Janus Metz)
The Wall + American Made. (Doug Liman)
Fai Bei Sogni + Sangue del mio Sangue. (Sweet Dreams + Blood of My Blood) (Marco Bellocchio)
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). (Noah Baumbach)
L’atelier. (The Workshop) (Laurent Cantet)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (3D) (Jon Watts)
El ciudadano ilustre. (The Distinguished Citizen) (Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn)
The Autopsy of Jane Doe. (André Øvredal)
Seven Sisters. (Tommy Wirkola)
Les Gardiennes. (The Guardians) (Xavier Beauvois)
Okja. (Bong Joon-ho)
Laavor et hakir. (The Wedding Plan) (Rama Burshtein)
Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)
Hidden Figures. (Theodore Melfi)
Tschick (Goodbye Berlin) (Fatih Akin)
Bushwick (Cary Murnion & Jonathan Milott)
Alive in France (Abel Ferrara)
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. (Ang Lee)
Alien: Covenant. (3D) (Ridley Scott)
Le Sens de la Fête. (C’est la vie!) (Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano)
La Promesse de l’aube. (Promise at Dawn) (Eric Barbier)
It Comes at Night. (Trey Edward Shults)
Suburbicon (George Clooney)
It: Chapter One. (Andy Muschietti)
Het Tweede Gelaat. (Control) (Jan Verheyen)
T2 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle)
The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)
Silence. (Martin Scorsese)
Detroit. (Kathryn Bigelow)
The Snowman. (Tomas Alfredson)
Song to Song. (Terrence Malick)
Koolhoven’s BRIMSTONE.
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A young woman called Liz (Dakota Fanning) lives among Dutch immigrants in ‘the new world’. She forms a family with a husband and two children. When the father teaches his son to shoot she is visibly upset and tries to stop them. We quickly learn she’s unable to speak and she’s not the natural mother of the boy. The film truely gets going when one day a new reverend (Guy Pearce) arrives in the small town -with a giant scar on his face across his left eye- and Liz starts to be haunted by past demons or a demon from the past to be more exact. Things really start to take a bad turn when Liz -while performing her duties as a midwife- needs to make a decision to safe the life of either the mother or the child.
The film tells the story of Liz in an achronological order (somewhat befitting of a film starring the lead actor of Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000) although it doesn’t completely mimic that films structure) divided into four chapters; Revelation, Exodus, Genesis and Retribution slowly but surely revealing how all the elements fit together.
Although the film contains all the familiar elements we’ve become to expect (a duel in the streets, outlaws fighting over gold, scenes set in a horse stable, a whorehouse, …) Brimstone is not your usual western. It combines elements of both the classic american as well as the european western and that of horror films, with at times ‘gutsy’ results.
Martin Koolhoven has definitely studied the genre at length and you can tell he’s less interested in the more straightforward, simplistic, good versus evil (and of course good prevailing in the end), dressed in black versus dressed in white type of western when he finally was able to present his take on it. His heart tends to lean more towards individuals like the 3 Sergio’s (Leone, Sollima and Corbucci) or Hollywood outlaws such as Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, …) and Robert Altman (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, … ) and the man that has almost become the personification (both as an actor and as a director) of the western: Clint Eastwood (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Unforgiven, … ).
Throughout the film you can detect hints towards other westerns; the character that can not speak from a.o. Corbucci’s The Great Silence, a body being fed to pigs as in the HBO series Deadwood, … we could go on for quite some time. The film that he’s quoted most directly however is Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), probably the most cinematic movie ever made by an actor. When you see the character Liz sitting on her porch with a shotgun in an attempt to guard over her family inside (“Never leave your loved ones alone. You should know that by now.”) and in the distance you hear a voice singing menacingly (without even trying hard at it) it’s impossible not to think of Lilian Gish and Robert Mitchum in the aforementioned masterpiece.
As far as horror films are concerned at times Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976) came to mind. There’s the importance of a birthmark (has a completely different role in Brimstone though) and the scene in which a nanny hangs herself in quite a spectacular fashion during a chidren’s birthday party that may have influenced Koolhaven for one of the films most horrific and significant moments.
Also Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) may well have (consciously or unconsciously) been on Koolhoven’s mind when he came up with the concept of Brimstone. Besides some pigs blood and a house being burnt to the ground it was actually the image of a fanatically religious parent draging her child through the house and into a broom closet -dragging through the mud in Brimstone- that immediately made a connection in my mind with the De Palma film.
Also the scene in which a character is being offed while in an outhouse for a number two, seemed to combine a scene from Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) with De Palma’s Blow Out (1981). I’m referring to the scene in the De Palma film in which a prostitute is brushing her teeth in a train station toilet but is murdered in quite a brutal fashion by the man that supposedly was to be her next customer.
Koolhoven has expressed his admiration for De Palma in the past and even had a scene in his previous film Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime, 2008) that was clearly influenced by De Palma’s Blow Out. The director was kind enough to take the time to acknowledge the influence when I recently pointed it out in a Tweet, even though he didn’t see it as an ‘homage’: https://twitter.com/MartinKoolhoven/status/823147953917427712
You can check the comparison clip here:
Another potential Blow Out reference in Brimstone:
Some inferno and brimstones in De Palma’s Carrie:
Another film that may have influenced Koolhoven -even though Brimstone was conceived well before- is Bertrand Bonello’s L’Apollonide (2012) a film set in a early 20th century brothel that similarly depicts the hardships women had to endure in the past.
Kolhoven was able to gather an impressive and interesting cast. With her role of Liz, Dakota Fanning should easily be able to get rid of her perception of a child star once and forever. Women are hardly ever the main character in westerns, I can think of only a few that have the name of a women in the title –Calamity Jane (1953), The Sons of Katie Elder (1967), Hannie Caulder (1971) and Jane Got a Gun (2016)– or in which women play an important part –Westward the women (1951), Johnny Guitar (1954) and Meek’s Cutoff (2010).
Guy Pearce who starred in the Australian western The Proposition seems ever so eager to revisit the genre with his depiction of the Reverend that looks like a devilish, self flagellating evil twin of Abraham Lincoln who keeps re-interpreting the Bible to condone his unforgivable and gravest of sins. “Beware of false prophets, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing”.
In smaller parts you may well recognise Kit Harington (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) as an outlaw and Carice van Houten (Melisandre in Game of Thrones, Black Book, Valkyrie) as the Reverend’s wife and Paul Anderson (Brian De Palma’s Passion, The Revenant, the TV series Peaky Blinders) as the owner of ‘Frank’s Inferno’.
Dutch DoP Rogier Stoffers -who since he shot the Oscar winning film Karakter (1997) was able to further his career in Europe as well as in Hollywood- was chosen to photograph the film and does a fine job. Most notable are a series of impressive top shots. Koolhoven re-teamed with editor Job ter Burg who also edited his previous film Oorlogswinter and who has also cut every Paul Verhoeven since his return to Europe. The music was done by another Dutch collaborator: Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg) who has a firm foothold in Hollywood with music scores for Mad Max: Fury Road (2016), Deadpool (2016) and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).
The film is known as Brimstone but the title clearly mentions Koolhoven’s Brimstone. Perhaps the director is hereby somewhat playfully hinting at Tarantino’s proudly announcing his film as the 8th or 9th film by Quentin Tarantino. It may be that for the first time he felt like he made a film of which he truly is the author and therefore in keeping with the title of the famous Frank Capra autobiography ‘The Name above the Title’ (which by the way has a foreword by another legend of the western: John Ford) he earned to put his name above the title.
As previously stated Koolhoven, as is Tarantino, is a cinephile in general and a western aficionado in particular and both can’t help but referring to other films. The main difference is that Koolhoven in this film is not going for the fun factor.
The fact that Martin Koolhoven is a cinephile (strangely enough reviewers oftentimes seem to consider this as a negative) didn’t at all prevent him from leaving his own personal, original imprint on the genre. Despite the fact that the film was shot on location in Germany, Spain, Hungary and Spain, Brimstone has an original feel that has no problem in passing for an otherwise nondescript American West.
He certainly did not make a film that aims to please everybody and there’s plenty of stuff in this film to be shocked or offended by for those that wish to be so. The depiction of the religiously inspired suppression and physical violation of women -you’ll have to see the chastity belt-like headlock-set that locks up women’s faces to believe it- may well prove to be too much for some. It is nevertheless refreshing and not without merit -specifically in the present day- to show this kind of depiction in a non-islamic setting.
Brimstone has gained its place among a number of recent film such as Slow West (2015), Bone Tomahawk (2015), The Homesman (2014) Meek’s Cutoff (2010) (a rare western that was actually also directed by a woman) and the HBO series Westworld (2016) that prove that now for more then a century the genre of the western keeps inspiring directors to add new, personal and interesting films to its canon.
I was also pleased to see the name of Harry Kümel, the director of Daughters of Darkness, Malpertuis, … and former teacher of director Martin Koolhoven, being mentioned among the names that were thanked.
Jan Bollen
The Winemaker: first taste of a feature in the making.
In December of 2016 I came across a number of interesting tweets in which people were making connections between art (mainly paintings) and films via the hashtag #artinfluencesfilm which was linked to the Twitter handle @ArtIntoFilm. I quickly joined the movement of tweeps combining their passion of art and film which was apparently created by someone who likes himself to be addressed to as Narsiesse.
On his twitter profile I noticed he was working on a short film called The Winemaker that had the ambition by way of a 4-part mini web series to eventually grow into a feature length film. The short has recently been released on Vimeo: vimeo.com/199781869
This is clearly a very personal project made in collaboration with his family members and dedicated to the memory of his father in-law Joseph Van Den Hurk who obviously had been a spiritual inspiration. The filmmaker has expressed that via his The Winemaker film (series) he wishes to combine his passion for First Nation mythos, Japanese culture, William Shakespeare and Art influences film references.
Narsiesse has a Canadian First Nations background which is being referred to from the get-go via the ‘moving image’ of a running buffalo accompanying the title The Winemaker as well as with a relic/necklace I’m assuming is containing a buffalo tooth and via further artifacts later on.
It’s hard not to notice a couple of Stanley Kubrick references. One of the first images is that of a hand holding a bone with the sun in the background immediately bringing 2001: A Space Odyssey to mind.
Later on there are 2 kids that appear at the end of a hallway who end end up holding hands. Even though they are a boy and a girl and not girl twins it’s impossible no to connect this shot with Kubrick’s twin sisters from The Shining. Is the character of The Winemaker what the character of the Caretaker(s) is/were for The Shining?
At some stage a female character is heard via a voice-over stating: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Open locks, whoever knocks!” Yes we have arrived in Macbeth and hence William Shakespeare country. The boy is played by Narsiesse’s real life son called Laertes, yes the man has a passion for Shakespeare. Narsiesse himself plays Vic, perhaps a reference to The Old Vic in London famous for staging a lot of Shakespeare’s plays?
At some stage a female character is heard via a voice-over stating: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Open locks, whoever knocks!” Yes we have arrived in Macbeth and hence William Shakespeare country. The boy is played by Narsiesse’s real life son called Laertes, yes the man has a passion for Shakespeare. Narsiesse himself plays Vic, perhaps a reference to The Old Vic in London famous for staging a lot of Shakespeare’s plays?
Some of the symbols and references to Japanese culture that were clearly in there I was less familiar with, perhaps they will be further explained in the future miniseries and or feature version.
Although the film was shot on an I-Phone the result looks great and contains some impressively executed transitions. A shot of the moon reflected in a puddle of water transitions from the circular moon into the circle of the iris of an eye and further into a drop of water dripping from a winemaking machine. It made me think somewhat of the famous series of transitions in Citizen Kane in which every transition focussing on the lit window and in which each transition moves the viewer closer to the bedroom window of the Xanadu palace in which Charles Foster Kane is to utter his puzzling last words: Rosebud. Perhaps the main reason it reminded me of the Citizen Kane opening series of transitions is that it also contains one of a reflection in the water.
I haven’t really discussed the narrative of the short yet, but that’s what reviews tend to overdo anyway. I therefore suggest you read the brief synopsis which is mentioned on Vimeo which appears to go beyond the narrative of the short.
If you are expecting a straightforward short film you may be dissapointed as the short seems to be conceived more as a teaser for things to come then it is a stand alone short film. I see Narsiesse’s project as if it were a ‘Matroesjka in reverse’. A Matroesjka is perhaps more commonly known as a Russian Doll. You have a big doll containing a smaller doll which in turn contains an even smaller doll and so on. Here instead we start off with the smallest doll, the short film that needs to excite the audience to want to see the next doll(s), the 4-part mini web series and culminating in the biggest doll, the feature, each adding new layers and meaning. It’s working for me so far.
If you are expecting a straightforward short film you may be dissapointed as the short seems to be conceived more as a teaser for things to come then it is a stand alone short film. I see Narsiesse’s project as if it were a ‘Matroesjka in reverse’. A Matroesjka is perhaps more commonly known as a Russian Doll. You have a big doll containing a smaller doll which in turn contains an even smaller doll and so on. Here instead we start off with the smallest doll, the short film that needs to excite the audience to want to see the next doll(s), the 4-part mini web series and culminating in the biggest doll, the feature, each adding new layers and meaning. It’s working for me so far.
You won’t be able to ignore it anyway, but please take a special notice of the lovely artwork Eugene Cobb (@cinemaofdreams) has designed especially for this film which is being showcased at the beginning and the end of the short film.
Jan Bollen
Back to the cinema 