My Top Films of the Year: Counting Down 2009

...this is for Alexis, we missed you so much!

A Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)

Happy New Year guys! Another year of cinema has come to an end and I am back again to show f my idiosyncratic, navel-gazing list about my journey to cinema this year.

This year’s list is filled with cinematic giants, a string of films foundational to cinema studies. This year has been an absorbing quest of uncovering the magnificence of cinema’s rich history. Through the saturation of these films, I have realized that not only cinema has a full language that blends time with space, but also that there are more than a thousand films to view for next year 2010, a considerable weight for a cinephile.

It is because thru these films that cinema viewing goes beyond stereotypical, that is, approaching the gates of film criticism and theory. Without this vision, I may have given up after watching Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini, 1974) on my laptop screen. For me, criticism has laid a backbone for a more critical viewing of cinema’s history, but it is theory that has made everything clear what the screen projects. It has been a tough decision for me especially in choosing for my top ten spots.

Meanwhile, I present to you my top twenty five spots for this year’s top favorites:

1 | Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

[my short take]
[Criterion, Bordwell's take]

2 | tied Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)
[my take on La Grande Illusion]

3 | Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)


4 | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau, 1928)


5 | The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)


6 | It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)


7 | Children of Paradise (Marcel Carne, 1945)


8 | tied Casablanca (Michael Curtis, 1942)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

[my take on Casablanca]

9 | The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1952)


10 | Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1967)


11 | Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

[theses on Godard]

12 | Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)

[my screen shots on Ugetsu]

13 | Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertoz, 1928)

[my take on Dziga Vertov]

14 | Last Laugh (F. W. Murnau, 1923)


15 | Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)


16 | The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)


17 | tied Chunking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
Happy Together (Wong Kaw-wai, 1997)


18 | Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)


19 | Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski, 1961)


20 | The Earrings of Madame de… (Max Ophuls, 1953)


21 | Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961)


22 | Bande a Part (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)


[my take]

23 | Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2005)


24 | A Man and A Woman (Claude Lelouch, 1966)

[my take on Un Homme et Une Femme]

25 | Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1985)


Choosing Tokyo Story by Yasujiro Ozu for my number one spot has the same reason quite a bit of last year, a deep personal attachment with the film. Twenty minutes before the ending when the old grandmother died, I felt a strain in my heart, agony. And it is when my grandfather’s death and burial, which I have never witnessed, came back to me. When Keizo, the son of the grandmother, arrived late, I poured tears and tears and tears, and for four years now filled with guilt and melancholy, I finally sensed a closure to my grandfather’s death. A rare feeling indeed from a film with such a simple story. My last year’s choice gave the same effect on me, a fulfilling sense of joy, pleasure and pain. A reminder of the vastness of human emotions and the long-chained memory of one’s own.

I also prepared other tops.

--------------------------------------

My Top Five Filipino Films
for this year:

1 | Now Showing (Raya Martin, 2005)


2 | Kinatay (Brilante Mendoza, 2009)


3 | Bontoc Eulogy (Fuentes, 1995)


4 | Engkwentro (Pepe Diokno, 2009)

5 | Independencia (Raya Martin, 2009)

--------------------------------------------

My Top 10 Films of the DECADE:

1 | Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)


2 | Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2005)


3 | Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)


4 | Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)


5 | 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2008)


6 | Elephant (Gus Van-Sant, 2004)

7 | The Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)



8 | Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)



9 | Russian Ark (Sukurov, 2002)


10 | Still Life (Jia-Zhake, 2005)



I hope you get to see all of them and I can’t wait ‘till next year.

The essays will follow next year.


Ciao!
****

VIVA LA VIDA

Abbas Kiarostami's Trees and Crows

---------------------------
VIVA LA VIDA
a poem by Adrian Mendizabal

As it stands, half-naked
it burnt the kiln, soar.
Through the alleys, it moves,
Through the grass and trees.

This is the wind.
It is swift, mighty, bold.
Strong and corageous
And, softly, it unfolds
Under the skin.


For this is the skin that
Connects all things, and
In the fullness of the
Moon, breaks the shadows
Lurking in our feets.

For this is the foot that connects
Us, yours and mine, in one
Solitude of time, forever
In motion, up and down,
Step, as it steps beyond borders.

For this is a border, when one
Eye blinks, it shatters
Both the wind and feet of
Our friendship. And it marks
Us wherever we go.

For we went, we travel
In places, we go, we, you and I
Clustered both hands and feet
Towards the sea we go.

For the sea is there.
It is the heavy north sea,
A breaking dawn, the swift,
Moves in a daunting pace.

For there are paces,
Slow and fast, the ode of life
And you smile, peacefully
Your eyes are full of colors.

For there are colors in the
Wind, in the feet and in
The sand rocked by the sea.
And forever, it illuminates
From the sky.

For there is the sky. Infinite.
And the sea,
The foot of our lives,
Together, you and I,
And we remain at peace,
Lifting our voices, exclaiming:
"VIVA LA VIDA!"

---- December 18, 2009
---------------------------

A Merry Christmas to all of my friends and family.

On Being Invited at Film-Philosophy III Conference

... and not going...



The invitation came via Facebook (here). And to actually see such an invitation to an international conference on film is enchanting and, of course, acutely complimentary. Film-Philosophy is perhaps one of the best finds in the internet that interlaces both film and philosophy. I read many of their essays and I love them all. But an international event such as this one is impossible in my case. July 2010 is the second month for my last academic year in my Engineering degree program and perhaps the busiest month before Midterms. Coming to England is great if someone will fund me with everything, from accommodations to transportation to shopping. and more importantly, I don't have a passport. But i would dream to be in England and walking on the cobble stones of London. I would if I could. But no!

Anyways, a few more days before the holidays. Busy, busy, busy!

Ciao!

***

ROBIN WOOD. 1931-2009

...a film critic we adore...

Modern film criticism would be impossible without Robin Wood. A brilliant writer of cinema, a scholar of Hitchcock, and a revolutionary film critic of the 60s. If there is a religion called Film Criticism, and if this religion is founded by passion, he was one of the gods many modern critics praises. And the other gods would be Andre Bazin and Andrew Sarris. One thing in common with these virtuoso film critics is the Auteur and the establishment of Auteur Theory per se. We cannot ignore Robin Wood's monumental book Hitchcock's Films (1964), for when one reads "Hitchcock as auteur" on a film journal or a film book, this was always referenced as a footnote or part of an end note. As Bordwell wraps it:

"... Hitchcock’s Films (1965), Howard Hawks (1968), and Ingmar Bergman (1969), ... [and] monographs on Penn (1970) and Ray’s Apu Trilogy (1971) ... showed, in incisive detail, what most auteur criticism simply proclaimed: great directors expressed their personal vision of life in and through cinema. Wood showed, scene by scene and sometimes shot by shot, that movies harbored layers of feeling and implication in their finest grain of detail. Without fanfare he introduced “close reading” to film criticism... he took cinema as seriously as did critics of art or music or literature." (here)

I sat on my chair reading Girish's blog shocket in disbelief, a total loss with a compounding feeling of despair. I sighed, and like most of my reaction to famous film people who passed away, I said to myself: "Life goes on!"

News Release of Wood's death
Wood's CineACTION!
Girish Shambu on Wood
David Bordwell's
Biography At Cinemonkey

Ciao!

***

Up, up, up for Vacation!

...and everything goes with the bag...

design by Dodo Dayao

Tioseco-Bohinc film series on Dec. 20, at Fullybooked, U-View

So here we are, facing another split in time and space. In a couple of hours, i will be traveling by bus through the great, big peninsula of Bicol to return home. In many ways, i feel feebly aware of my sight for Christmas. It's gonna be busy, but unlike other Christmases, this one will be filled mostly with strict DVD screenings all day long and essay writing all night long. I am beating my strict deadline for this season for the many, many, many more films, to watch and the many, many more write-ups to pen down. But no pressure!

I even asked my father if he could arrange a night on a beach resort with him and my mom just for relaxation and fun.

But let us look at my bag first:

(1) FILM BOOKS!

I have been thinking about how many film book am I gonna bring for the two week Christmas Vacation? I listed some twenty something books composed of film scripts and Bordwell-inspired writings on films. I cannot think more of bringing 'em all, but this will compose 20-kgs in addition to my 40 kg package, which is crazy. So i shorten the list and the final five are:

(top to bottom): (1) Rules of the Game Script, (2) my journal (not a film book),
(3) Poetics of Cinema (2008) by Bordwell, (4) Research Paper Writing (not a film book),
(5) Film Art (always on my bag since last year), (6) Film Studies: Critical Approaches.

I have to let go of other good stuffs, i hate to mention them... Makes my eyes teary.



(2) Brokeback Mountain Screenplay!!!

I have it!

I love Mark for giving me a copy of this wonderful screenplay for Christmas. I don't have time for book hunting around Manila, but Mark always has. I think he got this up at SM Megamall about a month ago, I remembered him mentioning it on some of our talks. I love that I have it finally...

Thanks Mark!


Ciao guys! See you in 48 hours!

****