Films – My Top 10 of the 21st century so far:

1.    Histoire de Marie et Julien  (Jacques Rivette)

2.    Parasite  (Bong Joon-ho)

3.    The Pianist  (Roman Polański)

4.    Eastern Promises  (David Cronenberg)

5.    Volver  (Pedro Almodóvar)

6.    Inside Man  (Spike Lee)

7.    The Florida Project  (Sean Baker)

8.    Cidade de Deus a/k/a "City of God" (Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund)

9.    Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood  (Quentin Tarantino)

10.  Mulholland Drive  (David Lynch)

Comments:

First of all:  one reason for all this is to encourage recommendations for things I should know about.

I don't like these lists:  I'm not a professional critic.  I can't possibly know about everything.  It's quite possible that in 5 years I'll encounter some truly fantastic film that was made 10 years ago in Mexico or Iran or Mali or India or Korea or Turkey or Russia or Israel that I haven't heard about yet.  I've never seen anything by Ang Lee, nor Paweł Pawlikowski, nor enough Claire Denis.  Et alia.

Another issue is that the arbitrary chronological cutoff never sits right with me.  I considered films made starting 2000.  But case in point:  Claude Chabrol's La Cérémonie was released just 5 years earlier, and would easily land in my top 5 (Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert and Jacqueline Bisset in a film better than all but the best Hitchcock).

And rankings are a pain in the butt, and only approximate, and/or usually of value only at the moment they're written.

And of course there's the problem that arguably, many of the directors cited above have made better films in the course of their career.  But let's not open that Pandora's Box of debate, either.

Here are some quick, off-the-top-of-head comments on each of the above:

1.  People find Rivette "slow-moving", but I wonder whether they sit through Wagner operas or Mahler symphonies or Miles Davis's "Lonely Fire" or the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "People in Sorrow" and make the same complaint.  In any case, this film is both a love story and a ghost story, with a scam/blackmail subplot thrown in.  Rivette touches on many of the same themes as in his earlier works (e.g. Celine and Julie Go Boating) but in a far more refined form here.  The resulting story takes place both in our world and in some alternate reality where we co-exist and interact with spirits.  He achieves a minor miracle by balancing the two.

2.  The class struggle continues!

3.  After the last time I watched this, I got hold of a copy of Władysław Szpilman's memoir.  Yes, there are some minor differences between the book and the movie, but it would be pedantic to list them and criticize the film on that basis.  In other words, yes, in the end I have to say it is indeed a faithful adaptation of an account of one of the most horrific episodes in modern history.  In interviews, Polański has told of how, when he was studying at the renowned film school in Łódź, there were various factions among the students – e.g. those who modeled themselves on the neorealists, the Soviets, etc. – and that Polański was part of the "Welles group".  In The Pianist, the influence of Orson Welles is evident, and when you pick up on the Wellesian touches the film becomes even better.

4.  Any movie that makes the Russians look this bad is o.k. by me.  And besides, Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen are brilliant.  The bathhouse scene (which is on YouTube) is an instant classic.

Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars came very close to making my Top 10.

If he ever wants to make a movie based on this article:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n10/clair-wills/architectures-of-containment

I will gladly write the screenplay.

5.  Some claim that Almodóvar's best days are behind him; but in his defense, it's hard to imagine him, or anyone else, making another movie with such impeccable comic timing as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.  However, in Volver he assembles a company comprising most of the best actresses he's ever worked with – each and every one of them is terrific, and this is arguably Penelope Cruz's finest performance.

6.  J'adore Jean-Pierre Melville, and any time I watch any of his best heist films (yet again), I never fail to be astounded at the technical perfection. So I'm always on the lookout for a contemporary film that can come close quality-wise, attempting to attain the level of a great film noir while taking modern technology into account (i.e. security and surveillance). The script is ingenious, and special mention should be made of Jodie Foster's performance as an utterly odious cunt.  (Did you really think I'd put Ocean's Eleven on this list;-?)  The most atypical of all of Spike Lee's movies, proving he really does have range.

7.  Having The Florida Project in my Top 10 helps me assuage my guilty conscience for not citing anything by Ken Loach and the Dardenne brothers.  The problem – especially when using hand-held cameras, non-professional actors, and other documentary-type techniques in films about serious social problems – is that this results in "small" films rather than "big" films.  (But this too points back to a problem inherent in the "Top 10" form, because one normally expects "big" films.  When you're listing a Top 100, you can include plenty of "small" films.)  But The Florida Project avoids this problem.  And in its social realism The Florida Project gets pretty damn close to the aforementioned directors – with the added irony in the story's taking place within walking distance of Disney World, a form of Utopia on earth.

8.  I've seen this film only once.  It's so intense that I need a long break till my next go at it.  Maybe it should be rated higher, especially taking into account how the film was made (e.g. within at least two actual favelas, and with only one of the actors having had previous professional experience).  Maybe it uses too much of the hyperactive camera work that's common in action/suspense/crime movies these days.  Maybe I just dig that wacky Brazilian dialect of Portuguese. 

9. At one point in Robert Altman's The Player, the character Griffin Mill (played by Tim Robbins) states what is needed to make a movie marketable: "suspense; laughter; violence; hope, heart; nudity, sex; a happy ending." Tarantino's latest hits nearly all the buttons. I can only wonder what Roman Polanski thinks of this film, since it basically rewrites his life. 

10.  I have major problems with David Lynch.  I could go on for pages, but I'll just say that there's an extremely high bullshit quotient in his work.  First of all, I'd like him more if there were any evidence or manifestation of America, any historical or cultural development, that took place between 1962 and 1980.  Next, his nightmare-images are contrived (the furry creature out back by the dumpster; the presenter at "Club Silencio"; the Cowboy), and his would-be comic scenes are unfunny (dribbling the perfect espresso onto the napkin).  However, on the other hand:  there's the successful conjuration of surrealism and a dreamlike alternate reality (which traces back to literary Symbolism and earlier), the accompanying atmosphere including music soundtrack, the takes on both the film industry and classic movie genres, and his having discovered Naomi Watts.  So I had to include Mulholland Drive, but because of all of Lynch's aforementioned idiosyncrasies, I can't put it at the top.  That place is reserved for the aesthetically exquisite surrealism of Histoire de Marie et Julien.

Special Dishonorable Mention:

Wes Anderson:  represents the infantalization of America.  He makes storybook tales for millennials who hope that they'll never have to grow up, and for people of older generations who think the same way.  (Further examples:  40-year-olds who spend entire weekends playing Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft or any of the others; anyone who attends a furry convention, or even looks at photos of one.)  Watching a Wes Anderson movie is like eating a pound of jelly beans at one sitting.  If this is what great filmmaking is supposed to be these days, then you can easily understand why we have Republican members of Congress with all the integrity and maturity of seven-year-olds in second grade ("Nuh-uh!  I never said that – in fact I said just the opposite." "He hit me first!" "My dog ate my homework.").

---John Wojtowicz

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