[El Laberinto del fauno]
2006 – Spain
Director
Guillermo Del Toro
Starring
Ivana Baquero
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Well this was everything I expected it to be — and more, honestly… I think it is the perfect combination of classical fairy tale themes and the subversion of the same, offset by the true horrors of reality. Gutwrenching, visceral, emotionally exhausting. The ending pretty much killed me, & that’s what I like in my movies.
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2006 – US
Director
Laurie Collyer
Starring
Maggie Gyllenhaal
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I’m having a hard time rating this film because Maggie Gyllenhaal really is magnificent and she is, of course, the heart and soul of the film. For her, perhaps a 4 (or an Oscar nod?). For the film alone, perhaps a 3. It’s glossy verite never really putting a new spin on themes of drug abuse, reentry into society, sexual abuse &c. I appreciate its simplicity and true-to-lifeness; Maggie brings emotional complexity and honesty to many scenes. In the end I don’t feel it does anything beyond its conceit. A film about a woman with these problems, this history, this attitude is always going to be moving; the fact that people actually live lives like this is moving. There’s no art to that. Collyer’s film does nothing beyond it.
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1965 – US
Director
Vincente Minnelli
Starring
Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton
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Out of nowhere, I decided to pursue a Liz Taylor/Richard Burton fixation… well, I think I’m over it already… This satisfies on that level, but otherwise it’s a silly hippie-preachy film with perhaps the most poorly motivated love affair I have ever witnessed… & it’s boring, if the Burton/Taylor thing isn’t the attraction. Blah. Hard to believe this is just one year before Who’s Afraid…
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2003 – France
Director
Claude Lelouch
Starring
Jeremy Irons, Patricia Kaas
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An absurd and convoluted film that follows two lonely amnesiacs through a transcontinental search for a cure, or simply something true — films about the unreliability of memory probably should be a bit convoluted, leave you wondering what really happened, what was imagined, and in what sequence reality unfolds, but here it just strikes one as laziness and slapdashery… Still and all, I enjoyed its goofy meandering very much! Romantic, silly, now and then very thought-provoking. Nice music, too, between the Patricia Kaas soundtrack and Michel Legrand score. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, but I like it.
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[Mia aioniotita kai mia mera]
1998 – Greece
Director
Theo Angelopoulos
Starring
Bruno Ganz
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Bit of an overlong, meandering film — half the time this works very well anyhow, and the other half… it just meanders. Overall a moving and enjoyable film about coming to the end of one’s life with dignity and living, even if only finally on one’s last day, without regret. Bruno Ganz is terrific, & I can’t wait to see some of Angelopoulos’ earlier stuff.
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Some emotional highs and satisfying moments (most coming from Jennifer Hudson), but overall this is emphatically not the best film of the year. Will never understand the audience I saw it with, however, bursting out into laughter every time the actors burst out into song — I’m sorry, have we never seen a musical? Did we not know we were seeing one tonight? The cinematic experience would be a perfect thing if not for people.
2006 / Todd Field
Principal Cast Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley
Writing Credits Todd Field & Tom Perrotta
Country US
Genre drama
Links IMDb
What I love most about this film is how it plays with the viewer’s expectations. It sets you up to expect the cinematic thing, then goes and does a very real thing instead. Changes in tone are unexpected, but natural. Narration alternately unnecessary and very clever. Overall a quiet and subtly disturbing film that ultimately affirms the choices we make to survive.
Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini
1970 – Italy
Director
Vittorio De Sica
Starring
Dominique Sanda
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Moving portrait of the Jewish upper class in Fascist Italy. It is ominous and tragic to watch the young adults learn about life and love, making decisions about their education and future, while they and their parents go on business as usual, largely ignoring the increasingly restrictive ‘racial laws.’ They seem to have no idea what is coming, as prepared and wise as they may seem to be. The viewer knows all too well. The ending is a sorrowful elegy to lost innocence, a lost way of life, an entire lost generation.
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Un Homme et une femme
1966 – France
Director
Claude Lelouch
Starring
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Anouk Aimee
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I loved every moment of this light, very New Wavey romance. What it may lack in depth it makes up for with an overflow of charm — and it does have much style and substance in the way it shows the development of love and trust, from shy smiles to tender, trusting embraces. The film was shot on a small budget and many of the stylistic outcomes may have been accidental — all the exterior shots are in color and interiors in b&w not for any purpose, but because that was all the color film Lalouch could afford. No matter. Editing is used to creative and meaningful effect anyway, and whether accident or great, careful art I don’t care. I absolutely adore it. As high as #12, I’m tempted to chart it.
1968 – UK/US
Director
Stanley Kubrick
Starring
Keir Dullea
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This film was unlike any other I have ever seen, and so was my reaction different from any other I have experienced. I am left with the impression that, on the whole, I disliked it. This may very well be a personal problem, related to the prejudices and baggage I bring to a first screening of any film, and what I am usually looking to gain from a film. I may be single-minded to a fault: I like films about people, I say, about figuring out our connections to each other. 2001 undermines this concern completely (and probably quite brilliantly): it’s more about our connections to the universe, the transcendence of an entire species — it undermines the ego. It places the individual in a context too vast to grasp.
I’m having a difficult time reasoning out my impression that I disliked it — though I’m happy to own it for the time being. I get the sense that a lot of you who love the film now did not like it on first viewing — but I’m not seeing it for the first time as a child or a cinematic n00b. I don’t want to dismiss long sequences as pretentious bullshit, especially when I cannot find the words to describe why I found them frustrating and maddening.
Well, the film certainly affected me, & I think I’ll revisit it in a month or so (just when I think I’m over the initial shock!). I don’t honestly expect my opinion to change but I do hope to develop a fuller response, and I think I may mature as a viewer if I can approach this film on its terms…
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 Lauren, 27, librarian, & like you, obsessed with film. My tendency is to immerse myself in long & obsessive projects to the exclusion of all else, but you'll typically find a lot of classic Hollywood, 60s/70s world cinema, & contemporary awards bait on these pages.
Review archive — Favorite films — Viewing log
» The Godfather 1972, Francis Ford Coppola
» Avatar 2009, James Cameron
» Days of Heaven 1978, Terrence Malick
» The Young Victoria 2009, Jean-Marc Vallée
» Broken Embraces 2009, Pedro Almodóvar
» Nine 2009, Rob Marshall
» There’s Always Tomorrow 1956, Douglas Sirk
» Thunderbolt 1929, Josef Von Sternberg
» The Love of Sumako the Actress 1947, Kenji Mizoguchi
» Alibi 1929, Roland West
Liveblogging the Globes (6)
- Lauren: I actually liked Basterds a lot. Whole bunches. Maybe even enough to think it’s due some...
- Sean: Avatar was all right but the amount of awards its getting is laughable. Why didn’t you like Basterds?
- Lauren: Better that way. Avatar has nothing to recommend it whatever except being-in-mass-culture. The awards habit...
The Godfather (2)
- Allison Almodovar: Oh I was wondering what #6 was. I think it’s great that you’re working on...
- Shubhajit Lahiri: In my opinion, Godfather isn’t just THIS great, it is even greater than its ranking suggest...
Catching Up With 2009 (4)
- Lauren: Interesting–I seem to go too hard on my favorite directors, if anything. I’m cutting Almodovar no...
TSPDT Top 100 Intro (3)
- Ian: I discovered TSPDT around the same time as YMDB, and both were such a major boost in my education. I think I...
- Lauren: I think, too, that I was distracted away from the canon too soon, and after all I’ve seen outside it...
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