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I don’t know what’s more stunning, Heroic Times itself or that it was made by the director of childhood favorite The Princess and the Goblin?

This is a radically different film, but then I can’t think of a film like this. At closest maybe one of Marker’s still photograph films. The film on my mind though was The White Mare. Like that film this takes a story of national pride and filters it through a startling aesthetic. Whereas I found Jankovics‘ effort off putting for how it engages with myth Gemes seems capable of steering the narrative from any traps. Probably derived to save money the style which recalls medieval paintings instantly sets up a critical approach to the story like you would have in a museum piece. The story itself is a rather classical myth, but told with this hearty exhaustion like the last shot of Conan the Barbarian stretched to feature length. There aren’t many chuckles to be had here, but if you want blood soaked ennui have I got the film for you.

Most of Wheels on Meals isn’t an action film, but the three fold fight scene that ends this is possibly the best I’ve seen. Chan’s part in particular could be shown to anyone and everything about his star would instantly become clear. Most of the film though is a really hilarious comedy that’s much more in the vein of silent slapstick then anything else I’ve seen by the trio. The basic plot and execution kind of fit a working class Bogdanovich vibe as two brothers vie for the heart of a crook and a bumbling wannabe PI stumbles into actual crime. Hung really just takes his time to set up all the relationships in way that makes everything else feel far greater than they actually are.

Nice appreciation, one of my favorite martial arts movie discoveries from the last few years’ splurge of content

Thanks, I’ve been trying to gobble up Chan films this year and this was easily the most pleasurable so far.

Speaking of pleasure, although it’s guaranteed to be an orphan at this late stage I beseech swo to add and everyone to see Ivory’s The Bostonians. It’s this sapphic exercise in austerity that reminded me more of de Oliviera than of their other queer films of the decade which tend toward a certain buoyancy and openness. I suppose a source for the difference between this and say A Room with a View beyond the contrast of British wit and New England neurosis is the actual text of the film. This is as much about the crush of society on every woman as that on these individual women. There’s no partner equivalent to Reeve’s snake here elsewhere and Verena ‘has to’ settle anyhow so if it must be with a snake at least have it be with one who she can socialize with.

This sounds rough and harsh, but Ivory with the typically sly script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala the film always feels joyous. I stayed with a smile as does our heroine.

Added, thanks!

Unexpectedly I thought this was the best year of the ‘80s so far. It was really hard making a final list and there’s still something like 30 films I wanted to get to.

Weird thing about my list is that the first four are alphabetical as A A B C

As a reminder, you have until the end of the day today to vote. Thanks to those that have been contributing to the thread!

Too late to make a difference but some recs:

PiRâMidas 1972-1984 (Ivan Ladislav Galeta)

A simple premise (a tram ride where the camera keeps abruptly flipping the horizon) but the effect is hypnotic. I'm not sure what the years mean at the end of some of Galeta's films. He has other titles that end with 1869-1896 and 1985-1895. Certainly this wasn't 12 years in the making. Stream it here.

One Woman Waiting (Josephine Massarella)

Available on this great Black Zero disc. Simple, mysterious, iconic.

Voyage d'une main (Raúl Ruiz)

Certainly a B-side for Ruiz but this short really gets under your skin. Fantastic score.

A & B in Ontario (Joyce Wieland & Hollis Frampton)

17 years earlier, these two experimental filmmakers had been playing a game of camera tag as a lark, chasing each other around town while trying to hide from the other's view. Finally in 1984, Wieland edited the footage into a film that was simultaneously fun, technically interesting, and a fitting tribute to Frampton after his passing.

White Fire (Jean-Marie Pallardy)

Don't mess with this guy's sister!

Finally, don't forget Zbigniew Rybczyński, who was basically the Michel Gondry of the '80s:

Art of Noise: Close (to the Edit)
Chuck Mangione: Diana D (Zbigniew Rybczyński)
Belfegore: All That I Wanted
Rickie Lee Jones: The Real End

The 1984 List



##. Film (Director) points/votes(top 5 placements, aka likely votes in decade list)/highest ranking

01. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders) 194/9(6)/1
02. Blood Simple (Joel & Ethan Coen) 152/8(4)/3
03. Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen) 149/7(6)/1
04. Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme) 120/6(2)/2
05. Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch) 119/7(2)/1
06. 風の谷のナウシカ [Kaze no tani no naushika] [Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind] (Hayao Miyazaki) 99/6(1)/4
07. Choose Me (Alan Rudolph) 87/5(2)/4(x2)
08. Body Double (Brian De Palma) 84/5(3)/3(x2)
09. The Terminator (James Cameron) 82/5(1)/1
10. Love Streams (John Cassavetes) 81/4(2)/1
11. Gremlins (Joe Dante) 80/5(1)/5
12. Amadeus (Miloš Forman) 76/4(2)/3
13. Manoël dans l'île des merveilles [Les Destins de Manoël] [Manuel on the Island of Marvels] (Raúl Ruiz) 71/3(3)/1(x2)
14. Vengeance Is Mine (Michael Roemer) 67/4(2)/3
15. Les Nuits de la pleine lune [Full Moon in Paris] (Éric Rohmer) 66/4(1)/2
16. This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner) 65/4(2)/3(x2)
17. Angyali üdvözlet [The Annunciation] (András Jeles) 63/3(2)/1
18. Boy Meets Girl (Leos Carax) 62/4(1)/3
19. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone) 61/5(1)/1
20. 黃土地 [Huang tu di] [Yellow Earth] (Chen Kaige) 59/4/7
21. A Soldier's Story (Norman Jewison) 58/4(1)/4
22. Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest) 56/4(1)/2
23. Starman (John Carpenter) 49/3(1)/4
(tie) 快餐車 [Kuai can che] [Wheels on Meals] (Sammo Hung) 49/3/7
25. Enrico IV [Henry IV] (Marco Bellocchio) 48/3/7(x2)
26. Repo Man (Alex Cox) 46/3(1)/4
27. Un dimanche à la campagne [A Sunday in the Country] (Bertrand Tavernier) 45/2(1)/1
(tie) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (W.D. Richter) 45/3(1)/4
(tie) Efter repetitionen [After the Rehearsal] (Ingmar Bergman) 45/3(1)/4
30. American Dreams (Lost and Found) (James Benning) 42/2(1)/1
31. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg) 41/4(1)/3
32. Secret Honor (Robert Altman) 40/2(1)/5
33. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman) 39/2(1)/3
(tie) Moscow on the Hudson (Paul Mazursky) 39/3/8
35. 冬冬的假期 [Dong dong de jia qi] [A Summer at Grandpa's] (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 38/2/6
(tie) Napló gyermekeimnek [Diary for My Children] (Márta Mészáros) 38/3/9
37. Klassenverhältnisse [Class Relations] (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet) 36/2/6
38. 28 Up (Michael Apted) 33/2/9
39. A Passage to India (David Lean) 31/3/9
40. A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven) 30/2(1)/3
(tie) The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé) 30/2/11(x2)
42. Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis) 29/2/7
43. 上海之夜 [Shang hai zhi yen] [Shanghai Blues] (Tsui Hark) 28/3/6
44. The Hit (Stephen Frears) 27/2/10
45. Kaos (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani) 26/2(1)/3
(tie) The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer (Stephen & Timothy Quay) 26/2/8
47. 逆噴射家族 [Gyaku-funsha kazoku] [The Crazy Family] (Gakuryū Ishii) 25/2(1)/5
(tie) Meantime (Mike Leigh) 25/3/10
49. Comfort and Joy (Bill Forsyth) 24/2/6
(tie) Daliás idők [Heroic Times] (József Gémes) 24/2/7
(tie) L'amour par terre [Love on the Ground] (Jacques Rivette) 24/2/9

ALSO-RANS

Streets of Fire (Walter Hill) 23/2/12
アントニー・ガウディー [Antonio Gaudí] (Hiroshi Teshigahara) 21/2/7
Country (Richard Pearce) 21/2/14
Top Secret! (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams & Jerry Zucker) 20/3/8
The Pope of Greenwich Village (Stuart Rosenberg) 20/2/13
Under the Volcano (John Huston) 20/2/15
Streetwise (Martin Bell) 19/2/11
L'Amour à mort [Love Unto Death] (Alain Resnais) 19/2/14
Swing Shift (Jonathan Demme) 19/2/15
Dune (David Lynch) 19/3/18

The Brother from Another Planet (John Sayles) 18/2/11
The Cotton Club (Francis Ford Coppola) 15/2/12
Cal (Pat O'Connor) 14/2/15
お葬式 [Osōshiki] [The Funeral] (Jūzō Itami) 12/2/16
Songwriter (Alan Rudolph) 11/2/16
The Bostonians (James Ivory) 11/2/20
Harry & Son (Paul Newman) 10/2/18

ORPHANS

Film (Director) highest ranking

Fear City (Abel Ferrara) 17
Birdy (Alan Parker) 8
Alphabet City (Amos Poe) 2
La Femme publique [The Public Woman] (Andrzej Żuławski) 13
Tricheurs (Barbet Schroeder) 23
Őszi almanach [Almanac of Fall] (Béla Tarr) 14
Notre histoire [Our Story] (Bertrand Blier) 18
Bless Their Little Hearts (Billy Woodberry) 13
Heartbreakers (Bobby Roth) 21
All of Me (Carl Reiner) 20
Abwärts [Out of Order] (Carl Schenkel) 13
The Jewel in the Crown (Christopher Morahan & Jim O'Brien) 25
Les Ripoux [My New Partner] (Claude Zidi) 15
Bao giờ cho đến tháng mười [When the Tenth Month Comes] (Đặng Nhật Minh) 1
Carmen (Francesco Rosi) 22
Варљиво лето '68 [Varljivo leto šezdeset osam] [The Elusive Summer of '68] (Goran Paskaljević) 14
Ciske de Rat [Ciske the Rat] (Guido Pieters) 12
A & B in Ontario (Hollis Frampton & Joyce Wieland) 16
Hrafninn flýgur [When the Raven Flies] (Hrafn Gunnlaugsson) 22
Paradise (Ishu Patel) 18
PiRâMidas 1972-1984 (Ivan Ladislav Galeta) 11
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Jack Hofsiss) 9
Success Is the Best Revenge (Jerzy Skolimowski) 10
Slavnosti sněženek [The Snowdrop Festival] (Jiří Menzel) 14
Sixteen Candles (John Hughes) 23
One Woman Waiting (Josephine Massarella) 9
Játszani kell [Lily in Love] (Károly Makk) 15
The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (Ken Burns) 15
伽倻子のために [Kayako no tame ni] [For Kayako] (Kōhei Oguri) 3
Rok spokojnego słońca [A Year of the Quiet Sun] (Krzysztof Zanussi) 24
Forbrydelsens element [The Element of Crime] (Lars von Trier) 16
五郎八卦棍 [Wu lang ba gua gun] [The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter] (Lau Kar-leung) 18
Barres (Luc Moullet) 15
Cuore [Heart] (Luigi Comencini) 24
A Private Function (Malcolm Mowbray) 20
Los santos inocentes [The Holy Innocents] (Mario Camus) 23
1984 (Michael Radford) 14
Les Capricieux (Michel Deville) 19
Threads (Mick Jackson) 19
Tasio (Montxo Armendáriz) 8
الهائمون [El-haimoune] [Les Baliseurs du désert] [Wanderers of the Desert] (Nacer Khemir) 24
The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan) 5
¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto! [What Have I Done to Deserve This?] (Pedro Almodóvar) 20
Voyage d'une main [Voyage of a Hand] (Raúl Ruiz) 13
Split Enz: Message to My Girl (Ray Argall & Noel Crombie) 14
Racing with the Moon (Richard Benjamin) 16
La Diagonale du fou [Dangerous Moves] (Richard Dembo) 10
Cloak & Dagger (Richard Franklin) 18
The Times of Harvey Milk (Rob Epstein) 6
Places in the Heart (Robert Benton) 12
Splash (Ron Howard) 6
ঘরে বাইরে [Ghare Baire] [The Home and the World] (Satyajit Ray) 11
さらば箱舟 [Saraba hakobune] [Farewell to the Ark] (Shūji Terayama) 15
მონანიება [Monanieba] [Repentance] (Tengiz Abuladze) 20
Wundkanal (Thomas Harlan) 21
Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse [The Image of Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press] (Ulrike Ottinger) 5
Falling in Love (Ulu Grosbard) 19
Vigil (Vincent Ward) 24
Un amour de Swann [Swann in Love] (Volker Schlöndorff) 5
Scherzo infernal (Walerian Borowczyk) 9
Flashpoint (William Tannen) 16
ときめきに死す [Tokimeki ni shisu] [Deaths in Tokimeki] (Yoshimitsu Morita) 1
Canicule [Dog Day] (Yves Boisset) 21
Art of Noise: Close (to the Edit) (Zbigniew Rybczyński) 12
Chuck Mangione: Diana D (Zbigniew Rybczyński) 18

13 lists submitted

Thanks swo! Apologies to whoever voted for Splash, I removed it at the last second. Anyways, here's my boring list

1. Manoel on the Island of Marvels
2. Broadway Danny Rose
3. Boy Meets Girl
4. Repo Man
5. Blood Simple
6. Starman
7. Stop Making Sense
8. Stranger Than Paradise
9. Wheels on Meals
10. Paris, Texas

18. Cloak & Dagger
21. Heartbreakers

I’m pretty sure it was me

And thanks swo!

Thanks swo. By the way, the numerous also rans I had, thanks fellow Bostonian, show how much posting pays off. I hope for ‘85 to see everyone else also posting too much.

My even more boring list:

1. The Terminator
2. Paris, Texas
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street
4. Starman
5. Broadway Danny Rose
6. Beverly Hills Cop
7. Blood Simple
8. Once Upon a Time in America
9. Stranger Than Paradise
10. Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind
11. Boy Meets Girl

We're halfway through these yearly mini-lists, heading into the stronger half of the decade imo. Personally, I feel the need to spend more time on the 80-84 period, to bone up for the final decade list.

Oh I’m so annoyed. Part way through Kinds of Kindness I remember that it is 1st July and I forgot to submit my ballot…

Heimat got zero nods?

If you submit a ballot now, I can publish an alternative set of results that factor in your list

Thanks. Submitted. But my ballot won’t be all that influential!

ALTERNATIVE RESULTS

01. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders) 219/10(7)/1(x2)
02. Blood Simple (Joel & Ethan Coen) 152/8(4)/3
03. Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen) 149/7(6)/1
04. Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme) 120/6(2)/2
05. Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch) 119/7(2)/1
06. The Terminator (James Cameron) 103/6(2)/1
07. 風の谷のナウシカ [Kaze no tani no naushika] [Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind] (Hayao Miyazaki) 99/6(1)/4
08. Amadeus (Miloš Forman) 98/5(3)/3
09. Choose Me (Alan Rudolph) 87/5(2)/4(x2)
10. Body Double (Brian De Palma) 84/5(3)/3(x2)
11. Les Nuits de la pleine lune [Full Moon in Paris] (Éric Rohmer) 83/5(1)/2
12. Love Streams (John Cassavetes) 81/4(2)/1
13. Gremlins (Joe Dante) 80/5(1)/5
14. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone) 79/6(1)/1
15. Manoël dans l'île des merveilles [Les Destins de Manoël] [Manuel on the Island of Marvels] (Raúl Ruiz) 71/3(3)/1(x2)
16. Vengeance Is Mine (Michael Roemer) 67/4(2)/3
17. This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner) 65/4(2)/3(x2)
18. Angyali üdvözlet [The Annunciation] (András Jeles) 63/3(2)/1
19. Boy Meets Girl (Leos Carax) 62/4(1)/3
20. 黃土地 [Huang tu di] [Yellow Earth] (Chen Kaige) 59/4/7
21. A Soldier's Story (Norman Jewison) 58/4(1)/4
22. Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest) 56/4(1)/2
23. The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé) 54/3(1)/2
24. Starman (John Carpenter) 49/3(1)/4
(tie) 快餐車 [Kuai can che] [Wheels on Meals] (Sammo Hung) 49/3/7
26. Enrico IV [Henry IV] (Marco Bellocchio) 48/3/7(x2)
27. Repo Man (Alex Cox) 46/3(1)/4
28. Un dimanche à la campagne [A Sunday in the Country] (Bertrand Tavernier) 45/2(1)/1
(tie) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (W.D. Richter) 45/3(1)/4
(tie) Efter repetitionen [After the Rehearsal] (Ingmar Bergman) 45/3(1)/4
31. American Dreams (Lost and Found) (James Benning) 42/2(1)/1
32. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg) 41/4(1)/3
33. Secret Honor (Robert Altman) 40/2(1)/5
34. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman) 39/2(1)/3
(tie) Moscow on the Hudson (Paul Mazursky) 39/3/8
36. 冬冬的假期 [Dong dong de jia qi] [A Summer at Grandpa's] (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 38/2/6
(tie) Napló gyermekeimnek [Diary for My Children] (Márta Mészáros) 38/3/9
38. Klassenverhältnisse [Class Relations] (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet) 36/2/6
39. 28 Up (Michael Apted) 33/2/9
40. A Passage to India (David Lean) 31/3/9
41. A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven) 30/2(1)/3
42. Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis) 29/2/7
43. 上海之夜 [Shang hai zhi yen] [Shanghai Blues] (Tsui Hark) 28/3/6
44. Carmen (Francesco Rosi) 27/2(1)/3
(tie) Threads (Mick Jackson) 27/2/6
(tie) The Hit (Stephen Frears) 27/2/10
47. Kaos (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani) 26/2(1)/3
(tie) The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer (Stephen & Timothy Quay) 26/2/8
49. 逆噴射家族 [Gyaku-funsha kazoku] [The Crazy Family] (Gakuryū Ishii) 25/2(1)/5
(tie) Meantime (Mike Leigh) 25/3/10

ALSO-RANS

Comfort and Joy (Bill Forsyth) 24/2/6
Daliás idők [Heroic Times] (József Gémes) 24/2/7
L'amour par terre [Love on the Ground] (Jacques Rivette) 24/2/9
Streets of Fire (Walter Hill) 23/2/12
アントニー・ガウディー [Antonio Gaudí] (Hiroshi Teshigahara) 21/2/7
Country (Richard Pearce) 21/2/14
Top Secret! (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams & Jerry Zucker) 20/3/8
The Pope of Greenwich Village (Stuart Rosenberg) 20/2/13
Under the Volcano (John Huston) 20/2/15
Streetwise (Martin Bell) 19/2/11
L'Amour à mort [Love Unto Death] (Alain Resnais) 19/2/14
Swing Shift (Jonathan Demme) 19/2/15
Dune (David Lynch) 19/3/18
The Brother from Another Planet (John Sayles) 18/2/11
The Cotton Club (Francis Ford Coppola) 15/2/12
Cal (Pat O'Connor) 14/2/15
お葬式 [Osōshiki] [The Funeral] (Jūzō Itami) 12/2/16
Songwriter (Alan Rudolph) 11/2/16
The Bostonians (James Ivory) 11/2/20
Harry & Son (Paul Newman) 10/2/18

ORPHANS

Fear City (Abel Ferrara) 17
Birdy (Alan Parker) 8
Alphabet City (Amos Poe) 2
La Femme publique [The Public Woman] (Andrzej Żuławski) 13
Tricheurs (Barbet Schroeder) 23
Őszi almanach [Almanac of Fall] (Béla Tarr) 14
Notre histoire [Our Story] (Bertrand Blier) 18
Bless Their Little Hearts (Billy Woodberry) 13
Heartbreakers (Bobby Roth) 21
All of Me (Carl Reiner) 20
Abwärts [Out of Order] (Carl Schenkel) 13
The Jewel in the Crown (Christopher Morahan & Jim O'Brien) 25
Les Ripoux [My New Partner] (Claude Zidi) 15
Bao giờ cho đến tháng mười [When the Tenth Month Comes] (Đặng Nhật Minh) 1
Heimat – Eine Chronik in elf Teilen (Edgar Reitz) 10
Cabra Marcado para Morrer [Man Marked for Death, 20 Years Later] (Eduardo Coutinho) 7
Варљиво лето '68 [Varljivo leto šezdeset osam] [The Elusive Summer of '68] (Goran Paskaljević) 14
Ciske de Rat [Ciske the Rat] (Guido Pieters) 12
A & B in Ontario (Hollis Frampton & Joyce Wieland) 16
Hrafninn flýgur [When the Raven Flies] (Hrafn Gunnlaugsson) 22
Paradise (Ishu Patel) 18
PiRâMidas 1972-1984 (Ivan Ladislav Galeta) 11
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Jack Hofsiss) 9
Success Is the Best Revenge (Jerzy Skolimowski) 10
Slavnosti sněženek [The Snowdrop Festival] (Jiří Menzel) 14
Sixteen Candles (John Hughes) 23
One Woman Waiting (Josephine Massarella) 9
Játszani kell [Lily in Love] (Károly Makk) 15
The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (Ken Burns) 15
伽倻子のために [Kayako no tame ni] [For Kayako] (Kōhei Oguri) 3
Rok spokojnego słońca [A Year of the Quiet Sun] (Krzysztof Zanussi) 24
Forbrydelsens element [The Element of Crime] (Lars von Trier) 16
五郎八卦棍 [Wu lang ba gua gun] [The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter] (Lau Kar-leung) 18
Barres (Luc Moullet) 15
Cuore [Heart] (Luigi Comencini) 24
A Private Function (Malcolm Mowbray) 20
Los santos inocentes [The Holy Innocents] (Mario Camus) 23
1984 (Michael Radford) 14
Les Capricieux (Michel Deville) 19
Tasio (Montxo Armendáriz) 8
الهائمون [El-haimoune] [Les Baliseurs du désert] [Wanderers of the Desert] (Nacer Khemir) 24
The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan) 5
¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto! [What Have I Done to Deserve This?] (Pedro Almodóvar) 20
Voyage d'une main [Voyage of a Hand] (Raúl Ruiz) 13
Split Enz: Message to My Girl (Ray Argall & Noel Crombie) 14
Racing with the Moon (Richard Benjamin) 16
La Diagonale du fou [Dangerous Moves] (Richard Dembo) 10
Cloak & Dagger (Richard Franklin) 18
The Times of Harvey Milk (Rob Epstein) 6
Places in the Heart (Robert Benton) 12
Splash (Ron Howard) 6
ঘরে বাইরে [Ghare Baire] [The Home and the World] (Satyajit Ray) 11
さらば箱舟 [Saraba hakobune] [Farewell to the Ark] (Shūji Terayama) 15
მონანიება [Monanieba] [Repentance] (Tengiz Abuladze) 20
Wundkanal (Thomas Harlan) 21
Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse [The Image of Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press] (Ulrike Ottinger) 5
Falling in Love (Ulu Grosbard) 19
Vigil (Vincent Ward) 24
Un amour de Swann [Swann in Love] (Volker Schlöndorff) 5
Scherzo infernal (Walerian Borowczyk) 9
Flashpoint (William Tannen) 16
ときめきに死す [Tokimeki ni shisu] [Deaths in Tokimeki] (Yoshimitsu Morita) 1
Canicule [Dog Day] (Yves Boisset) 21
Art of Noise: Close (to the Edit) (Zbigniew Rybczyński) 12
Chuck Mangione: Diana D (Zbigniew Rybczyński) 18

14 lists submitted

Les dites cariatides (Agnès Varda)
This is a minor commissioned work by Varda about the so-called caryatids in Paris. It’s rather slight and certainly less profound than Resnais’ short about statues but I enjoyed it a lot nevertheless. I had no idea that this was a thing but after seeing this short (12 minutes) I have noticed about 20 or so caryatids in Copenhagen as well. I particularly like the one below where we see both a female and a male (atlantid) version (my photo, Frederiksberg, Copenhagen):

I assume these are common throughout most of Europe, and I have also noticed caryatids when watching movies. There were some impressive ones in Flatliners (1990) – shot on location at a Chicago museum! But I have also seen them in French movies.

It’s a minor work by Varda but I appreciate how she’s taught me something about architecture I wasn’t aware of.

La Femme publique is Zulawski operating without restraint, and it's at times exhausting, (always?) loud, and inspiring. I loved the opening bit, which makes no contextual sense but operates like a wonderfully surreal short film starting in media res. I loved the first naked dance - the later ones felt repetitive and bland, but the first works wonders as an expression of unfiltered, vulnerable dance caught on film. I really didn't care for the ways this went off the rails with the blending of art and life, the political subplot, etc., but there's some wonderful camerawork throughout, including in some thriller components in the final act's big car chase. I'm not sure how I feel about the film as a cohesive whole, but the individual elements that were successful were so exhilarating that I wound up respecting the film's go-for-broke method. I'd love to hear a more academic analysis from someone who feels they 'understand' this on another level.